All lottery activities including gaming on mobile telecoms’ platforms will now be regulated by the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC).
This is coming after the National Lottery Regulatory Commission (NLRC) signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the NCC on Monday, after a review of the existing document to accommodate new industry trends, streamlining the strategies needed to ensure the implementation of the MoU.
It was revised that the NCC would withdraw their approval whenever NLRC withdraws its permit from service providers for lottery, considering the fact that NCC gives approval only when permit has been obtained from NLRC.
Umar Garba Danbatta, executive vice chairman, NCC, said lotteries all over the world was electronically driven, and there was no better infrastructure that was amenable to the conduct of lotteries in Nigeria than the telecoms infrastructure.
“Bringing any additional service on the infrastructure adds additional burden to the networks. Therefore, the Commission is concerned that any additional service added to the networks could or may degrade quality of service.
“That is why the NCC has to be involved to ensure that telecom operators who will be participating in hosting the lottery services have the capacity to do so whereas the NLRC will ensure the credibility of the process by making sure that whatever prices promised those who will participate in the lotteries are given to them,” Danbatta said.
Lanre Gbajabiamila, acting director-general of the NLRC, said the NLRC needed to sign the MoU since the lottery and gaming industry was merged with the telecoms industry.
Gbajabiamila said, “Lotteries have been in retail shops, but now, it has advanced to telecommunications platforms whereby Value Added Services (VAS) providers and telecoms service providers use the telecommunications platforms to do lotteries and gaming, hence we needed to have this collaboration and MoU signed.”
With this new agreement, the telecoms regulator says it will ensure that proceeds of lotteries go to the price winners and some will go to charity. There will also be tax benefits to government as well as to NLRC and NCC.
