- Arinze Arum, Executive Secretary/CEO of the Enugu State Gaming and Lottery Commission, tells operators, investors and regulators at EGC2026 that Enugu now verifies licensed gaming platforms in real time online – as Nigeria’s gambling market, estimated at between $3.6 billion and $5.6 trillion naira in annual value, grapples with fragmented state-level regulation.
Nigeria’s gaming regulators and operators converged in Enugu today for the opening of the Enugu Gaming Conference (EGC) 2026, where the head of the state’s gaming regulator used his opening remarks to draw a hard line around state-level authority over gambling, while announcing what he described as a first-of-its-kind, real-time verification infrastructure for licensed operators.
Prince Arinze Arum, executive secretary/CEO of the Enugu State Gaming and Lottery Commission and the conference’s originating convener, told delegates that the Commission has completed and deployed a public verification system that allows any party, anywhere in the world, to confirm online, in real time, whether an operator holds a valid Enugu State gaming licence.
According to Arum, the repository carries licensed-operator records, licence categories and validity periods, approved operator domains, regulatory contact information, enforcement actions and a list of blacklisted operators.
The Regulatory Fight: States vs. “Harmonisation”
Arum used a significant part of his remarks to push back on what he called a resurfacing instinct toward centralised control of gaming regulation, now packaged, in his words, as “harmonisation” talk directed at operators who deal with states directly.
He argued the matter of constitutional authority is settled: gaming sits on Nigeria’s State Control List by design, and the Supreme Court has already ruled on the question of which tier of government regulates it, a judgment he said was final and ought to be treated as such.
That framing places the Enugu Commission, and by extension other state gaming boards, in continued tension with efforts at national-level gaming regulation a fault line that has run through Nigeria’s betting industry for several years and one that Arum signalled the industry has “a lot of ground to cover” on over the conference’s two days, alongside licensing standards, player protection, technology and investment.
He credited Enugu State Governor Peter Ndubisi Mbah with giving the Commission room to regulate “without interference, without second-guessing, without the kind of political cowardice” he said has weakened regulatory bodies elsewhere, and framed the verification portal as proof that a state regulator can move faster than any national body while still meeting global standards.
A market Regulators Are Racing to Keep Pace with
Arum’s remarks land against a Nigerian gambling market that multiple industry estimates put among the largest in Africa, though estimates vary widely depending on methodology and what is measured.
Statista-sourced figures cited by industry trackers put Nigerian sports betting revenue at roughly $590 million in 2025, while broader gambling-market estimates, spanning betting, casino and lottery, have been put as high as $3.6 billion for the same year, with some local-currency estimates citing figures approaching ₦5.6 trillion.
Separate market research puts the wider Nigerian gambling market at approximately $794 million in 2025, projected to grow at a 6.0% compound annual rate through 2032, an indication of how unsettled market-sizing remains even among analysts.
What is less disputed is the scale of participation and the shift to mobile: industry estimates cited in recent Nigerian trade coverage put the number of active bettors at between 60 million and 65 million, with close to 90% of wagers placed via mobile devices.
Regulatory scrutiny has intensified alongside that growth, with a draft Central Gaming Bill and moves by states such as Lagos toward tighter anti-money-laundering oversight reported in 2026 as operators face both licensing and compliance pressure.
Against that backdrop, Arum’s central claim, that a state licence should carry equal standing to a licence from any other regulator, anywhere, is as much a market-confidence pitch to investors and international platforms as it is a constitutional argument.
A verifiable, queryable licensing database, if independently confirmed to function as described, would address a recurring investor complaint in Nigeria’s gaming sector: the difficulty of confirming an operator’s regulatory standing across a patchwork of state and federal bodies.
EGC: A Confidence Built on a Single Conviction
Earlier, Ejiofor Agada, Planning Committee Lead for EGC2026, delivered the formal welcome address, tracing the conference’s growth from what he called a modest gathering of believers into an event that now draws operators, regulators, investors, technologists and product builders from across the industry.
Agada said the conference deliberately invites international experts to strengthen the exchange of ideas, but stressed that Nigeria remains its primary and unapologetic focus.
Agada described EGC as the brainchild of Arum, whose vision for a Nigeria-focused gaming platform, he said, has helped position Enugu State, under the Enugu State Gaming and Lottery Commission and Governor Mbah’s administration, as a reference point for gaming regulation nationally.
He set delegates an agenda for the two-day event centred on licensing standards, player protection, technology and investment, and closed with a pointed reminder that planning for EGC2027 begins the moment this year’s conference ends.
