Gambling licensing
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Nigeria increases its effort to fight corruption

By Szilaghi Editorial TeamPublished 2 min

This article was published in 2020. Laws, fees and market conditions may have changed since. For the current rules, see gambling license jurisdictions compared.

The NLRC and the CAC have united in a new partnership to improve standards, reduce corruption, and better regulate the lottery sector in Nigeria.

The Nigerian National Lottery Regulatory Commission (NLRC) and the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) have joined efforts to fight “unscrupulous companies” operating in its gambling industry.

Lanre Gbajabiamila, Director-General of NLRC declared that “This collaboration has been long overdue (…) Our mandate is to regulate lottery, sports betting and gaming activities in Nigeria. Our Commission can only do so much on its own because of the way the industry has grown and continues to grow”.

CAC CEO, Abubakar Garba, noted that the regulator had encountered issues in the past with lottery operators acting unlawfully. He also said that “We have had issues in the past with the registration of lottery companies, (…) This made us revisit the earlier requirement that approval in principle must be obtained from the NLRC before such registration. (…) But we have been mindful of the need to properly regulate these companies. Generally, as an agency, we have dispensed mostly with the approval in principle because of delay in the process. (…) Instead of asking for approval in principle, we will create a database for the NLRC. From the comfort of your office, you would be able to verify whether a company is registered with us as a lottery company”.

Alex Szilaghi

Reviewed by Alex Szilaghi

Founder of Szilaghi Consulting. More than twenty years in gambling licensing and corporate structuring across EU, UK, Canadian and offshore jurisdictions, based in Romania and working before ONJN on Class 1 and Class 2 files. We act as Romanian representative and local director for foreign ONJN licensees and file their monthly regulatory reports, so these guides reflect how the rules are applied in practice, not only how they read.

Last legal review . Updated 10 March 2020. General information, not legal advice.

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