There is nothing that screams get-rich-overnight like seeing a pauper waving a giant dummy cheque having won a mega jackpot.
The smile that usually accompanies that cheque goes a long way in sealing the fate of the doubters and remaining pessimists.
With the cost of living sky-rocketing and the rate of employment literary going over the roof, chasing money has become a tell-tale that every Kenyan wants to partake of.
At the centre of this madness are the youth, who form the majority of the population, desperate to make easy money. Then someone announces on the radio that with only Ksh.100 you can make Ksh.100million overnight.
Who wouldn’t take such a chance?
You take that first bet and true to their word, you win a Sh.1,000 and you are hooked. The next thing you realize is that you cannot get off the computer or your smartphone looking for the next game that you can bet on.
Little do you know that your goose has been cooked and placed on the table. You find yourself chasing the promised money, you spend Ksh.100, spend another Sh.200, then another Sh.500, and another Sh.1,000.
Just as you are about to give up, you win Sh.500, so you tell yourself that you are simply unlucky. Not unless you are dug out of that hole, you don’t realize that you have been donating all your money to betting companies.
Before long, you are calling your brother or sister to loan you at least Sh.500 to place another bet. The funny thing is that your friends cannot help you, not because they don’t want to, but because they are in the same hole as you.
There are more than 10 betting companies in Kenya. If every company has at least 1 million subscribers, this is to say that a quarter of the Kenyan population has taken up gambling as a way of life. I personally term this statistic as dangerous for the Kenyan future.
If this population is chasing ghost money online, of which the largest population are the young people, then this is to say that the same population is not engaged actively in creating a sustainable economic growth.
No wonder the price of unga is virtually unbearable, because the people who should be working are now caught up in this fantasy of becoming millionaires overnight.
The worst part of all this is that the media has been used to fuel this vice and credit it. Everyday there thousands of images created from the media into the people’s eyes of how easily one can become rich overnight.
The stories have been exaggerated to the point of making Kenyans lose their sanity when all the headlines read “A 28yr OLD WINS 200 MILLION MEGAJACKPOT”. To that point, all betting companies get an additional 500,000 new subscribers.
Gambling has been part of the world system almost since the creation of the world.
In the earlier days of our existence on the planet earth, human beings usually desire to know future, so they result into divination. Some others had to use lot or dice to decide which is wrong or right.
The bible has some traces of how people used lot to divide properties, i.e., the soldiers who used lot to decide who will go with Jesus` clothes.
Either dice or lot, there was never certainty.
As human race advanced, gambling too got advanced.
Now to 21 century.
Gambling has grown up in wing. Now every single day, millions of shillings are wasted and gained through gambling.
So many people who will read this are gamblers, especially football gambling.
I have 5 reasons why I hate football and one of those reasons is because football makes gambling more popular.
Football has become the most popular hobby of man (did I call it hubby). There are many online portals which are specialized on football bet.
Our question is, can you become rich through gambling?
The answer is… 95% of gamblers will never be rich through gambling… And 85% of gamblers have lost more than they have gained from gabling.
The first time I was exposed to gambling was when I was around 13/14. I continued in the act and grew in addiction.
At a point in time when my father gave me some pocket money when i was in high school, I gambled with it and nearly lost all the money during my first week of the term.
I have also managed a gambling business alongside with my cousin, then I saw who actually is making money through gambling… the owner of the game (or online portal) you use to place bet.
Take for instance, there is game called Snocker (commonly known as Pool) when I was a boy. I will be in charge as people come and played. Along the line some of them will place a bet.
Let`s say they are betting with Ksh.100 each, I may charge Ksh.20 as my own commission.
Both of them are gambling so they cannot tell who can win, but I was not gambling. I would always get my own interest… 20%
So think about what usually happens.
Mr. A wins the first game, Mr. B wins the second and third game. Mr. A wins the fourth game. On and on like that. A will win, B will win.
At the end of the day if they had play 20 games, they might have won 13/7. Though Mr. A would be happy of winning more bets than his opponent, they are still coming back tomorrow. When they came the next day, it might be the time of Mr. B to score 15/5.
A may win today and B win tomorrow, the only person who doesn`t lose is the owner of the game or the portal.
That is why gamblers cannot be rich through gambling. If you win today you will lose tomorrow.
The primary motivator of gambling is called Mr. Covetousness. When people think there could be a way to make money without work, that`s covetousness.
In fact, I recently read a comment on Facebook from someone who claimed that gambling is good because gambling is just like acquiring shares of a company.
Is that true?
Lie.
Acquiring a company`s share is like partnering with that company to do business. Everybody in Kenya can acquire shares and make money because we are doing business.
Gambling is not business. It`s a kind of “collect from K and give to M stuff”. Someone must lose in gambling for another person to gain. This is not so in the case of acquiring share.
When I replied to that man on Facebook, I went to the spiritual aspect of this deadly, addictive habit, but I will not want to do that here.
The summary of it all is, you cannot become a millionaire through gambling. If you have been gambling before, you understand what I am saying… you will lose one day and win another.
Some internet “gurus” are out there promising that they can teach you how to make millions through football betting. If it were real, they would never have told you their “secret”. Instead they would have used their own money to make the millions they are claiming of.
How should I round off this?
Ok, let me preach to you.
Never go into gambling. If you are already a gambler, repent. The surest way to make money is to be a business owner.
