adminH-Metro Reporter
OVER US$160 billion was spent by gamblers, around the globe, in a high-stakes battle to try and strike a fortune on the 2022 FIFA World Cup.
According to Forbes, US$2 billion of that money was spent by American punters.
Zimbabwean figures aren’t readily available, but there is no question that huge sums of money were spent on this industry which has captured the imagination of the local casual or dedicated gamblers.
The sports betting industry in this country has exploded with tens of thousands of Zimbabweans gambling either online or in hundreds of shops dotted around the nation.
Virtual games have also turned into a major attraction for the gamblers and the betting companies have come up with different promotional activities to try and woo their clients into chasing gold.
But, where there are promises of such quick fortune, which usually eludes the majority of the punters, there is also genuine risk.
And, in the local betting industry, there are now fears a cartel, made up of some corrupt IT employees of the betting companies and a network of their accomplices among the gamblers, are effectively rigging the systems for their own benefits.
This means that the majority of the gamblers, who are not part of this corrupt ring, are being abused to chase imaginary jackpots whose fate is always decided by this network.
A three-month long H-Metro investigation, after initial complaints were raised by some members of the public in August, has revealed a corrupt network of IT specialists, who work for the betting companies, and their agents.
It’s a grand scheme straight out of The Godfather movie:
Somehow, when the national virtual games jackpots, which at times climb to as much as US$7 000, reach a point where they are likely to be won, the network gets disabled from most of the betting shops, probably by IT specialists working for those betting companies, and is left running only at a particular shop.
The shop, with the running network, is then swarmed by the cartel of gamblers, who work in cahoots with these IT specialists, where they become virtually the only ones chasing the jackpot.
They gamble huge figures like US$500 for a virtual dogs race, but they have mastered the game so much they spread their risk to ensure that at the end of the race, they won’t lose anything, even in the worst case scenario.
The pursuit for them isn’t to win anything from the virtual dogs race but to get that one golden ticket which can win them the national jackpot of US$7 000.
Because of their huge outlay, where they are virtually losing nothing, the volume of their tickets means that, even if one or two betting shops elsewhere are open, where others will be trying their luck, those genuine punters have absolutely no chance of winning the jackpot.
On Monday, in particular, the national jackpot, at one betting company, climbed to over US$7 000 and, at the right time, many genuine punters found themselves locked out of the system as the network suddenly disappeared.
When it reappeared, the jackpot had been won, which means there was clear collusion, between those who were controlling the network and those who won the jackpot given they were given the best possible chance to get it as they were the few ones playing.
One ‘lucky’ punter has won FOUR national jackpots in the last few months and while it’s possible to do that, the story is what makes everything quite interesting.
The punter’s amazing winning streak has come at four different shops and one of them even came from a shop he had visited outside Harare.
“It’s a complex situation, but they have found a way to master the game and unfortunately it’s the majority of the punters who are being taken for a ride in all this,” said a punter who chose not to be named.
“The sad thing is that the owners of these betting companies are not looking even aware of these shenanigans because it doesn’t reflect in their sales books and jackpots are not their concern.”
Mathew Masinge
Online Reporter