Unmask the secret life of billionaires in the betting industry

The village of Kihingo, in Kitisuru's upscale Nairobi area, is a step back from the pristine view that suddenly appears after a lonely walk on Peponi Road where horses sometimes compete for space with vehicles. Its rustic yet modern houses with brown facades give the residence a modern and clbadic look that defines the quintessence of luxurious living.

Among those who call this area, where rents start from 500,000 shillings a month and sell from 150 million shillings, are a governor and wealthy businessmen.

Every morning, a famous renter of the estate sets out again in a black Range Rover Overfinch with custom registration plates and a black pursuit car.

The two cars that stand out easily on the Waiyaki Way wind up to the Chancellery building on Valley Road, home of sports giant SportPesa.

If betting can be described as a way to enrich players' perceptions, then SportPesa President and CEO Ronald Karauri is the poster of this wealth.

While the other directors of betting companies in the billions of dollars sector prefer to remain solitary, Mr. Karauri, who has gone from SportPesa an unknown entity to the huge monster he is today, leaves his flamboyance to the sight of all.

His social media pages are photo albums of a man living a flamboyant life which the majority of the betting community can only dream of. After all, the son of former Tigania MP Mathew Adams Karauri, who does not play randomly but who once said playing poker once a month, made big bets in his life that all fruit.

"I'm actually a college dropout. This is the only flaw in my resume. Everyone knows that I have not finished the campus, but you know that in life, it's sometimes that it takes you as long as you're successful, "he said in an interview with K24 TV in December 2017.

Mr. Karauri left a clbad of engineers at the University of Nairobi to try his luck at Kenya Airways and was a pilot for 11 years. Before resigning, he tried his luck in the entertainment industry and belonged to the famous Skyluxx Lounge Westlands. He then sold land that he had bought for 2 million Shillans at 25 million shillings to buy shares of SportPesa that had just started.

It was in 2014 and cellphone bets were still unexplored territory. Aside from casinos, the only widely accepted form of gambling was the Kenya Charity Sweepstake where people bought raffle tickets in the hope of getting the corresponding numbers. Friday, the British newspaper The Guardian Sportpesa achieved a turnover of 100 billion shillings last year, a figure that the company denied vehemently.

"Nobody even thought that it could go anywhere. I remember asking guys. "Do you have some money to invest in this business?" They would say to me, "Boss, what is it?" You talk about gambling. It can not work, "said Karauri Business Daily in a past interview

Yet this is one of the speakers of the evening SportPesa, launched on February 1, 2014, which gave the Sunday Nation the government is now trying to curb its rise into coveted entrails of a giant industry.

"It is very unusual for a politician to maintain old friendships. But I appreciate my friendship with Gero, Genata and all the team. I am very proud that Gero, one of my best friends, is the engine of this team, "said Bulgarian politician Slavcho Slavi Binev at the launch of SportPesa in 2014.

Mr. Binev was referring to Gerasim Nikolov, Global Managing Director of SportPesa and 21% shareholder. Mr. Binev himself appeared in a 2005 WikiLeaks cable described by former US ambbadador to Bulgaria, James Pardew, at the head of an organized criminal enterprise called MIG Group.

"The group's commercial interests also include construction and tourism; it operates a travel agency as part of its Cool Place entertainment complex. The criminal activities of the group include prostitution, drug trafficking and stolen vehicle traffic, "said the cable.

In contrast, Nikolov moved to Kenya shortly before 2000 and launched the famous Toto 6/49, which is a replica of a similar lottery in Bulgaria. Toto 6/49, which was managed by First Lotto Limited, was allowed to challenge the Kenya Charity Sweepstake monopoly on the basis of its support for the physically disabled and the destitute.

The company ended its business on February 28, 2011 after claiming it had missed game tickets without ever distributing its jackpot of 20 million shillings.

Mr. Nikolov then worked for three years before joining with 10 other shareholders to create SportPesa, which currently has problems with the state and 27 other companies.

Like Mr Nikolov, who came to Kenya for other companies before joining the gambling industry, Italian Leandro Giovando came to Kenya to join his parent, Nico Giovando. Nico Giovando was born in Nyeri in 1954 and, although living in Europe, founded Almanara Luxury Resort on his return to Kenya.

Located just five minutes from the Diani airstrip, the hotel is an ideal place to stay for the very wealthy, business magnates, international celebrities and politicians.

In July 2010, the famous Real Madrid coach, Jose Mourinho, spent three weeks in this establishment with his family. After winning the 2013 elections, President-elect Uhuru Kenyatta and his deputy William Ruto spent a few days on the site.

In 2017, Betin, who operated in different countries of Africa under GoldBet Group, which relied on other European markets, longed for the success of SportPesa after seeing it expand in England. and even having sponsored Hull City in 2016. Goldbet is badociated with Domenico Geovando and Leandro Giovando will create Gamcode, which currently operates under the name of Betin.

Returning to the battle of operators to regain their licenses, High Court Judge Weldon Korir refused Thursday to reconsider the cancellation of the license Betpawa.

"I do not find it fair and appropriate to make interim orders, to let the parties file and serve their answers for the case to be heard on July 26," Judge Korir said.

Betpawa, through the intermediary of its parent company Nanovas International, sued the Paris Licensing and Licensing Control Board (BCLB) under an emergency certificate asking to be authorized to continue its activities unhindered.

Nanovas is majority-owned by Nikolai Barnwell. Like Nikolov from Sportpesa, he came to Kenya on a different mission but ended up in the betting industry.

Barnwell's private seed fund, 88 mph, made it famous in 2011 by providing much-needed funding for the future of ICT. In 2011, 88 million shillings invested 50 million shillings in seven new enterprises in Kenya, followed by an investment of 100 million shillings the following year.

In 2015, the company that even wished to eventually buy Ghafla, a popular blog at the time, said that it was moving away from start-up investments, Mr. Barnwell focusing more on his other love, Betpawa.

On Thursday, the Financial Reporting Center (FRC) and the Criminal Investigations Directorate (DCI) opened investigations into the bank accounts of 27 betting companies whose licenses are currently suspended in order to establish whether these accounts are being used. to launder money.

This is after the BCLB has written to FRC asking them to check their bank accounts.

Banks began Tuesday morning to freeze accounts believed to contain billions of shillings as a result of an order from the Central Bank of Kenya (CBK) Monday night.

Among the issues currently under consideration is whether a high-paying politician is among the shareholders of one of the large companies suspended through a registered business in a tax haven and used to launder money. money stolen from public coffers.

"We have established that three politicians are heavily involved in the betting industry through proxies and in companies suspended on suspicion of money laundering, but this will be on time," said an Interior Ministry official.

In an industry almost entirely run by foreigners, its inhabitants are mainly wealthy businessmen who help foreign investors to establish the political and commercial relations necessary to navigate the troubled waters of Kenya.

This dance between politics and the betting industry occurs occasionally, as was the case last weekend when President Uhuru Kenyatta admitted that the government needed to collect its fair share of taxes, even though some of those who are punished are his friends.

"Some companies have accumulated taxes, but we managed to push them to pay and we will continue to do so. The betting companies are our friends, but we must agree that the government must get its legitimate share for the construction of cultural centers and other developments, "said Kenyatta at the wedding of Kirinyaga's governor, Anne Kamotho, with Kamotho Waiganjo's lawyer.

"Businesses should put an end to threats of legal action. The government must get its share to fund activities beneficial to this country, "he said.

It is still difficult to determine who runs the very lucrative betting industry, as the few Kenyans who work there are very lonely. Betin, Betpawa, Premier Bet and Dafabet belong, for example, to 100% foreigners. Elite Bet, which is operated by Seal Capital Partners Limited, is 100% owned by the digital company Oxygen Eight East Africa Limited.

Oxygen8 is headquartered in Birmingham, UK, but also has offices in London, Australia, Canada, the Caribbean, Ireland, Kenya, South Africa, the United States, Singapore, and Singapore. Uganda.

The British Keith Shane Leahy and Kenyan Brian Waluchio are the directors of Seal Capital, while Jared Omari Lituga of LJA Associates is Corporate Secretary.

Last year, Mr. Waluchio was prevented from traveling out of Kenya because of a tax dispute between Oxygen Eight, of which he is the chief data officer, and the Kenya Revenue Authority (KRA).

Oxygen Eight was charged with evading tax by depositing money owed to KRA into a sham account whose name resembled that of the tax collector.

But before his troubles began, Mr. Waluchio was a man riding high and strong thanks to Lotto, a lottery claiming to allocate 100 million shillings to one person per month. Under the banner "You win, Kenya wins," Lotto said he had raised more than 180 million shillings for the country's good causes.

The Lotto Foundation was one of the biggest sponsors of the Kenya team at the Rio Olympics. This also greatly contributed to the Kenyan team at the Commonwealth Games in Samoa.

Last year, the company even donated gym equipment to the presidential security team at an event attended by former Inspector General Joseph Boinnet.

It is such proximity to the power of the betting industry that it is hard to think what the end of the government crackdown on industry would be.

Political players in the betting industry include Kiprono Kittony, Paul Ndung'u and Asenath Wacera.

Mr. Kittony, son of the former president of Maendeleo ya Wanawake, Zipporah Kittony, and shareholder of Radio Africa Group. Mr. Kittony and Patrick Quarco, another shareholder of Radio Africa Group, own 30% of Betway Kenya through their company Quadco.

Ms. Wacera, a shareholder of SportPesa, is a widow of former Nairobi Mayor Dick Wathika.

Mr. Wathika was mayor of Nairobi between 2004 and 2010. It is during this period that a number of private lotteries have mushroomed to compete with the Kenya Charity Sweepstake like Toto 6/49, ShindaSmart 6969, in which Ms. Wacera held a 10% interest and a stake in Playwin. The promotion of Je Ukipata that collapsed in 2007.

But among the three close collaborators of President Kenyatta, it is Mr. Ndung'u who is the most solitary but also the most influential.

The businessman who seldom gives interviews is the chairman of the fundraising committee that planned the 10 million shillings dinner to raise funds for Jubilee in the 2017 elections.

Among the technical committee members who organized the event that raised $ 1 billion in less than an hour, include the organization and the director of equipment Wanderjoy, Maina Wandere, who has interests in Rafikibet, another betting company.