JACKPOTS - THE BIGGEST SCANDAL IN KENYA

Kenya is probably the only country in the world where the government watches over its citizens being scammed in broad daylight. Just google the term "jackpots" and you will find out that all the search results you get are either of jackpots being offered by Kenyan betting companies like Betika etc. or tipsters selling jackpot predictions to, you guessed it, Kenyans.

Why is this so? Why does Kenya dominate the internet space on the terms related to jackpots?

Well, it turns out, no other country in the world have so many people betting on jackpots.

There is no other country globally that has many betting companies offering jackpots as those in Kenya.

In a country with so much poverty and backwardness, its hard to believe we dominate any industry at all. As wise men said, where there is smoke, there is fire.

Fellow citizens, there is a scandal of monstrous proportions that's happening in Kenya. Millions of us poor Kenyans are losing money to evil betting companies in the name of jackpots. The jackpots in Kenya should not exist at all. They are rigged and are designed with impunity, disregarding all lottery laws, economic law on pricing and with a gleeful disdain for mathematics.

That is why you wont find such jackpots in the other countries whose leaders have the fear of God.

1 KENYA SHILLING FOR THE SPORTPESA MEGA JACKPOT

If our leaders cared at all for us citizens, the Sportpesa mega jackpot which currently costs Ksh. 99, should be reduced to Ksh. 1 or the matches reduced to 14, not the current 17. One shilling would be the lawful amount for a jackpot worth 200 million and has 17 matches. This figure was reached at using high level economic mathematics and laws, as observed in the other countries all around the world.

THE JACKPOTS SCAM

You are probably thinking what could be wrong with Kenyan jackpots given the amount of publicity the Jackpot winners enjoy, but hold your horses. I have to let you know 3 preliminary facts before I go in hard:

1. Nobody is talking about this scandal at any level because probably nobody thinks a scandal exists in the Jackpots offerings.

2. This scam is perpetrated daily right under our noses and it involves billions of shillings weekly.

3. Every betting company in Kenya that offers jackpots is participating in this scam.

THE SCANDAL REVEALED

We have done a study of all jackpot offerings in Kenya and we found out that jackpots in this country are nothing more than a means to rob Kenyans off their hard-earned money. Not because most people have to lose for one to or 2 to win big but because they are priced too expensively. Kenyans who try their hand in betting on Jackpots basically throw their money away. It proved futile in our search for a single jackpot offering in Kenya that offers value to the customers.

I might have lost you there since we all know jackpots is a matter of luck. Yes, I agree. Ideally only one person can win a jackpot. We are on the same page on that, but then, how do you know if the Ksh. 100 you used on the Sportpesa jackpot was the right amount to pay given the chances of winning it are very minimal?

How do you know the right number of matches that should be in a jackpot if the jackpot amount is Ksh. 5 million and it costs Ksh. 100? These are difficult questions to answer for a common Kenyan. I am a jobless actuarial Scientist who scraps a living from selling tips, that's why I know.

If you didn’t know, actuarial Scientists tackle the hard mathematical problems involving chance, loss, probabilities and combinations. That is why they work in industries that deal with risky investment portfolios such as ( and mainly insurance companies). So there you got it, I have the credentials to point out a scam in an industry where the main factor that runs it is chance.

REVELATION: ALL KENYAN JACKPOTS ARE GROSSLY OVERPRICED

Calling it “overpriced” is an understatement of great magnitude. Maybe before yu ge bored, here is a spoiler alert:

The beloved Betika Grand jackpot that is worth 100 million shillings and costs Ksh. 99 is greatly overpriced. The fair price for this jackpot is less than Ksh. 1. Yes, you got me right, Ksh. 1 for the Betika Grand jackpot. If they priced it at Ksh. 2, they will still make a huge profit from it, only almost fairly this time.

Above is a table of the most popular jackpots in Kenya, their poster amount, the bonus values, the current costs, the number of matches, probability of winning and the real amount they should charge.

"The companies do not have to necessarily have to decrease the price. There are 2 other options of making the jackpots fair. They can choose to lower the number of matches one is supposed to predict correctly in order to win, or they can increase the winning amount. For a company like Sportpesa, the winning amount would have to be over 1 billion shillings for it to be economically and mathematically fair."

As the table shows above, the difference between the amount charged for the jackpots and the fair price of the jackpots is almost as much as the full amount. In layman's language, betting companies are robbing us money. They are the robin hoods of our nation and nobody in government or opposition is talking about it.

In the next section I will argue my case and state the facts mathematically. But that is after I have given you a simple example right here.

ANATOMY OF A JACKPOT SCAM: (MOZZARTBET EXAMPLE)

The newly launched Mozzartbet Grand jackpot is worth a constant 200 million shillings. For one to win it he/she has to predict A WHOLE 20 games correctly. Each game has 3 possible outcomes. If you had enough time and resources to bet on all possible outcomes of this jackpot then you will have to bet exactly 3,486,784,401 times. That is about 3 and half billion times thereby spending:

3,486,784,401 X Ksh. 100 = Ksh, 348,678,440,100

Therefore you will spend over Ksh, 348 billion shillings to win a mere Ksh. 200 million. Does that sound right to you?

Well, it gets worse. Since there are 3,486,784,401 possible combinations, the probability of winning it is:

1/ 3486784401 = 0.000000029%

Meaning if 1 million Kenyans bet on the jackpot using a different combination, the probability of at least one of them winning the jackpot is:

0.000000029%

0.000000029X1,000,000 = 0.029%.

This means it would take 1 billion Kenyans to bet on the jackpot for the probability of anyone winning the jackpot to be a meagre 29%, which is about the right probability of at least one person winning a jackpot on any given weekend. The problem is, we do not have 1 billion Kenyans, we are 50 million Kenyans the vast majority of whom do not engage in betting.

Forgive me for the above demonstration that is laden with assumptions. Remember, the basis of our findings is the fact that its only in Kenya that such huge jackpots are so expensive. There are pricing mechanisms and rules that govern how much a lottery or a jackpot should cost.

There are also mathematical and economic formulas for determining the fair price of a jackpot or lottery. They are on the internet for everyone to see.

These formulas are based on a concept called “EXPECTED VALUE”. This value is important such that neither the betting company(or government in case of Lotto) nor the consumer is having unfair advantage or disadvantage.

It is for this purpose that the “EXPECTED VALUE” of any Jackpot or Lottery should be “0”. Please take note. I did not say 1 or 2 or 100. The expected value, when it is zero for a given jackpot, then the jackpot is fair enough.

It means the customer has gotten value for the money and the betting company will still make profits. Due to the administrative costs such as paying workers, the expected value can be expected to be a little negative, like -1% or at most -5%.

THE BIG SCANDAL – ROBIN HOOD REVEALED

The big scandal in Kenyan jackpots is that the expected value of most jackpots IS UP TO -97%. Please note that is “negative 97%”. Negative.

While jackpots in other countries have expected values of -5% at most, our jackpots are a complete opposite. The Sportybet jackpot one of the fairest jackpot in Kenya with an expected value of (-40%). Sounds god to you? Me neither. (-40%) is just as bad as (-97%) which is the expected value of the Sportpesa Jackpot.

Before I go deep into how these expected values are calculated let me pause here for a second and ask a few question?

1. Do we really have a functioning government as Kenyans?

2. Does the government really know that this is happening?

3. Are there government officials e.g. BCLB who regulate the pricing and structure of jackpots?

4. Is someone sleeping on the job or is someone being paid to look the other side?

5. Am I the only one being so much hurt by this blatant thuggery by betting firms?

6. Finally, is there anybody else willing to help in boycotting Kenyan jackpots until something is done?

HOW TO CALCULATE EXPECTED VALUE OF ANY JACKPOT

FAIR PRICING OF JACKPOTS

· Let C0 be the main jackpot amount

· Let B1 be the amount won for losing 2 games

· Let B2 be the bonus amount won for losing 3 games

· Let B3 be the bonus amount won for losing 3 games

Expected value of this jackpot is

E=PC(0) x C0 + PB(1) x B1 + PB(2) x B2 + PB(3) x B3

WHERE:

PC(0)=Probability of winning the main jackpot amount

PB(1)=Probability of winning the jackpot for one lost game

PB(2)=Probability of winning the bonus for 2 last games

PB(3)=Probability of winning the bonus for 3 lost games

Now let the number of games in a jackpot be `g’

Let the possible outcomes in a game be `x’

Therefore, the possible outcomes in the full jackpot is

=xg

So, probability outcomes in the full jackpot

=1/xg

Its Expected value=[1/xg X Co]

Probability of losing only one game

=[(1/xg(-1))X(1-1/x)]

Expected value for losing only one game

=[(1/xg-1)(1-1/x)]XB1

Probability of winning bonus for losing 2 games

=(1/xg-2)(1-1/x)2

Expected value of winning bonus for losing 2 games

=[(1/xg-2)(1-1/x)2]XB2

Probability of winning bonus for losing 3 games

=(1/xg-3)(1-1/x)3

Expected value of winning bonus for losing 3 games

=[(1/xg-3)(1-1/x)3]XB3

Expected value of full jackpot and all bonuses

=[1/xgXCo]+[(1/xg-1)(1-1/x)XB1]+[(1/xg-2)(1-1/x)2XB2]+[(1/xg-3)(1-1/x)3XB3]

• If for any jackpot the answer for the above equation > 0 then the jackpot is fair.

• Otherwise it is unfairly priced.

• 
  

DOES THE GOVERNMENT REALLY KNOW WHATS HAPPENING?

I am not really sure if the government is aware of this scandal? The real question is, would the government care if they knew?

Betting companies are known to be run my the mafia. The government lived through the Sportpesa tax scandal, the Amaya Gaming Goup scandal, and many more. The government knows how Mcheza was found red handed without enough money to pay jackpot winners. There is even a time when government officials pointed out Sportpesa jackpots as being fake. The government knows many things, but that does not mean they know about this scandal.

But would they care if they knew? I guess they would. I will send a few government officials an email with a link to this article. What happens after that is up to them.

CONCLUSION

I wonder how the government expects to pull its citizens out of the hole of poverty while we keep digging. Talking as one of the millions of jobless youth you have literally thrown money at betting companies, I am saying that this is a cry for help.

Edwin Wanjawa, a sociology lecturer at Pwani University noted that betting is game of the poor in Kenya and happens mostly to release the tensions of hard life lest we slide into total misery. He also noted that lotteries, especially, are an elusive icon of hope. Hope of material success even to the youth at the edge of a cliff.

So my question to the authorities in Kenya is, why would you let our only icon of hope as a nation, be the altar of deceit and hopelessness?

REFERENCES

The mathematics of lottery: Odds, Combinations and Systems

The Mathematics of Lottery (C. Barboianu) | PDF - Scribd

Lotteries: Finding Expected Values of Games of Chance

Maximizing the Expected Value of a Lottery Ticket