The National Lottery Regulatory Commission (NLRC) has said that sports betting is legal and regulated in the country.

The Director-General of the commission, Mr Adolphus Ekpe, stated this when he featured on the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Forum in Abuja on Thursday.

Ekpe, however, said that sports betting would become gambling if it was not properly regulated.

“Sport betting is an aspect of lottery. If you listen to what I read about the act here, it says the results of a sports event.

“Now, when there is a prize based on an outcome of a sports event and somebody is running a scheme on that, telling you that if you do this – based on this result – if you can predict this right, you stand a chance of winning, the person has used sports to come up with a lottery scheme.

“So, it is a legitimate scheme.

“But the point there is, when you do not regulate sports scheme in a transparent way that is where the gambling aspect comes in.

“When you regulate it in a transparent way, you now know that whatever the person is betting on some amount is coming to government.

“Now, when the person wins, the person is entitled to what the person wins.

“We now decided to set up a framework to regulate sports bet and that is why we have what we call rules guiding sports lottery in Nigeria which we have developed.

“We have given notice to all those who have been carrying out these activities that please come and regularise and subject yourself to regulations, so that you will do it in a transparent way and be accountable to the country.

“That is what we are working on now. We have identified them, some of them have even applied.’’