FG furious as illegal lottery operators pocket N1 trillion

Naira

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.