The federal government has started moves aimed at putting an end to the activities of illegal lottery operators, which leave losses amounting to more than one trillion Naira annually.
To this end, the federal government through the National Lottery Regulatory Commission (NLRC) is to police unauthorized online games.
National Lottery Regulatory Commission is also considering on one hand to enlist the help of the Central bank of Nigeria (CBN) to monitor the payment settlement services to unauthorized lottery operations; and the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) on another to ban illegal lottery and gambling activities on GSM networks.
It will be recalled that Mr Bello Maigari, acting executive secretary, National Lottery Trust Fund (NLTF) has last week raised alarm over the activities of illegal lottery operators.
Maigari, said that there were many lottery operators in the country without licence, adding that this has resulted to leakages in terms of what they were supposed to remit to the trust fund.
“Nigerian government is losing more than one trillion Naira every year because of illegal operators. There are a lot of illegal operators in the industry and these are part of the reasons why there are leakages.
“Some are conducting this business without being regulated and there are chances that such proceeds will be channelled towards crime, fraud, and of course, money laundering.
“We also have so many operators that are not performing for reasons best known to them; they have decided not to be moribund.
“And we learnt that some of them lease such licences to third parties to operate and through that there is huge leakage and government is losing revenue, particularly in the last 10 years,’’ he said.
Maigari stated that NLTF was collaborating with the NLRC to develop a strong and robust enforcement strategy to curb leakages and enhance remittances.
He added that the strategy would be an automated form of collecting proceeds from operators.
He explained that the national lottery Act 2005 stated that lottery operators were required to pay NLTF 20 per cent of their proceeds in the first five years of their operation.
“The national lottery Act 2005 section 24, sub section 3 requires an operator to pay to the trust fund at the end of every lottery a percentage of 20 per cent for the first five years of operation.
“Then subsequently 25 per cent, then after 10 years 27.5 per cent, this is the way it is structured.
“We are to use these proceeds to promote good causes for Nigerians in health, sports, water and sanitation and other social services that will impact the social well being of Nigerians.
“But our only challenge is that funds are not coming in as expected,’’ he said.