By 2018, Sportpesa was raking in billions of shillings. In just four years, the startup had figured out the Kenyan market. By this time, other betting companies were mushrooming all over Kenya, playing catch up. There was money to be made, the market was open, too liberal without restrictions, legal or otherwise. The Bulgarians were at the center of it all. They became extremely wealthy and they were celebrities in some social circles. They were the Mr Money bags, and they attracted so...

Cosmas Korir was not the only big winner of jackpots in Kenya. His Sh208 million win in 2018 was also not the biggest. Before him, there had been Samuel Abisai, who pocketed Sh221 million. But the luckiest jackpot winner in Kenya's betting history is Gordon Ogada. Mr Ogada, a Kibera resident then, won a Sh230 million jackpot in 2018 after he correctly predicted the outcome of 17 matches. To date there are six mega jackpot winners in the history of Sportpesa who were lucky winners of between...

How does it feel to win Sh208 million? Can you imagine it? What do you do first? Do you change your lifestyle immediately? Do you let the money stay in the bank for a day, a week, or a month? What would you do? Is this even real? To over six million gamblers at the height of the betting craze in Kenya, winning the Jackpot was the most important show. This is where the big monies are, it is the dream land for betting. The question on winners and especially big money winners is a dicy one,...

How does it feel to win Sh208 million? Can you imagine it? What do you do first? Do you change your lifestyle immediately? Do you let the money stay in the bank for a day, a week, or a month? What would you do? Is this even real?

Love or hate them, Sportpesa’s rise into a giant betting company did not just happen by chance. The company got almost everything right. It had deep pocketed investors and very talented founders. Then it acquired friends in the right places, from inside parliament to where it matters in the judiciary. It also launched when the Kenyan market was ready for the betting craze, and it was rewarded handsomely for its pain. It also had an efficient betting platform that paid promptly, winning...

Hundreds of lottery ticket sellers for Kenya Charity Sweepstake woke up one morning to find that their kiosks, their source of livelihoods, had been demolished by the Nairobi City Council, on the directions of then-mayor Wathika. Wathika had set the grounds for the Bulgarians who would later join hands to set up Sportpesa. If SportPesa were a puppet, Nikolov would be its master; the man behind the velvety curtains, the unseen hand pulling the strings, directing the orchestra. He was not the...

From the beginning, the makings of the mega betting company, Sportpesa, had all the hallmarks of an idea put together by friends and or acquaintances who benefited from each other. Their relationship was important in opening doors in Kenya’s government for the betting experiment to take off. At the center of it all was former Nairobi Mayor Dick Wathika, a political operative par-excellence, he had contacts everywhere in government, without him there is no Sportpesa, no licensing and, no...

By the end of 2018, about 6 million Kenyans were betting on the Sportpesa platform everyday and an average of Sh600 million a day. The company enjoyed explosive growth from its relatively humble beginnings of over 1 billion in 2014-- when the company was set up to Sh150 billion turnover in 2018, just before the government pulled the plug on the company over a tax dispute and security concerns about some of its owners. Sportpesa was Kenya’s most successful betting company, Kenya’s betting...

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