Sportspesa goes global!

The Kenyan betting company is
aware of the exponential rise of
mobile gambling across east
Africa’s largest economy.
Kenya.- SportPesa, the mobile betting
platform has announced a three-year
“multimillion pound” sponsorship deal with
UK football club Hull City. According to Hull
City it was “the most lucrative” deal in the
club’s 112-year history. On his part, Ronald
Karauri, SportPesa chief executive, said the
investment in the EPL club was “a big
milestone” for SportPesa as it represented
the “scaling of a Kenyan brand into the
global market.”
“The SportPesa platform will now be
available in the United Kingdom and later in
the year present in several African
countries,” expressed Karauri. “One year
from now, we will have presence in at least
four continents.”
Reelforge, a Nairobi advertising analytics
firm, estimated that SportPesa was the
20th-biggest advertiser in Kenya last year,
after more than tripling its spend since 2014.
Online gambling has also greatly boosted
revenues for mobile phone companies.
Kenya’s dominant telecoms group,
Safaricom, reported 10.6 percent growth in
messaging revenue in the 12 months to
March, with betting considered a big
contributing factor. SportPesa is now
amongst Safaricom’s biggest messaging
customers.
SportPesa already sponsors the Kenyan
football league, which is now called the
SportPesa Premier League as well as two of
the top teams. In addition, the mobile
betting company announced last week, it
closed a five-year deal to sponsor the
Kenyan Rugby Union.