Sports betting for the money, and the fun
It is 2p.m., on a working day, but a host of smartly dressed, possibly working class young men, already hang about the surroundings of Casino Simba. They are not here to dabble at the slot machines, rather, to take a different gamble altogether - place their bets on football games happening later in the day, or in the days to come.
Casino Simba, located at Garden City, is not a lone trader in the sports betting business; there are at least five other known betting houses, but Casino Simba and Sports Betting Africa (SBA) are two of the more popular ones.
While the city’s betting middle-class shows a strong preference for Casino Simba, SBA caters to a completely different group- comprised mostly of the lot that does blue-collar jobs – so you will be sure to find a clientele dominated by taxi drivers, touts and boda boda riders at SBA’s main branch, located at Mukwano Arcade.
How it works
Situated at a vantage point inside Casino Simba, I watch as bettors walk in, one or two at a time. Many of them are young men, probably in their mid-twenties.
There are hardly any women bettors around. Most bettors head straight to the counter of the sports betting section and pick up coupons placed in one corner. On these, they will write the games they are staking money on. Some games are just a few hours away, some later in the night, some a day or two away. At 2p.m., they are in good time; a bet is valid for as long as it is placed five minutes before a game kicks off.
To select the games, punters rely on sheets that are accessible at various tables. These sheets carry the fixtures, kick-off times and a detail that most bettors pay considerable attention to: the odds.
Odds refer to the returns a betting house offers for a given selection, which can be a home win (win for the host team), a draw, or away win (win for the visiting team) – for football games. Other sports available for betting on, such as basketball carry only two options; home win or away win. Casino Simba offers cricket fixtures as well, while SBA recently added Formula One racing to its options.
It is these odds that are multiplied by the amount a punter stakes. The least one can invest at SBA is Shs300.
Most punters that invest minimal sums usually combine several games (one can stake on up to ten games depending on their choice of betting house), and when they take this route, the odds for all games selected are multiplied to make a new odd, which is in turn multiplied by the punter’s stake. Coupons are submitted and entered at the betting terminals and the waiting begins.
Winning and losing
With receipt(s) in hand, pocket or wallet, punters move on to the next and most unnerving stage- watching the games one punted on. Punters watch as their tens of thousands are multiplied ten-fold by a team in England, Spain or Japan, or, as their dreams of making millions unravel, thanks to another team’s failure in Italy’s top division.
While most punters will fill at least two coupons with different fixtures, ostensibly to hedge their bets, sometimes the temptation to add a particular team – thought of as a safe bet – on both, or all coupons is overwhelming.
Safe bets (results most likely to turn out as predicted), however, do disappoint sometimes, and with betting, almost doesn’t count. Any prediction that doesn’t materialise means forfeiture of one’s stake. Some punters, however, have been lucky.
One invested Shs2,000 and reaped Shs300,000, earning the honour of having their ticket displayed at the counter as the best punter one Wednesday. A veteran European bettor who won Shs14m after staking Shs500,000 is indeed the inspiration for many a punter at Casino Simba.
Two prominent sports journalists have also won more than Shs5m. Another man, James Nyikirize, won Shs2.5m. Even then, tales of failure abound.
Bettors that staked tens, sometimes hundreds of thousands, even millions of shillings, have fallen short – with varying reactions: some immediately plot a comeback, others laugh it off, although one man memorably burst into tears after Liverpool beat Inter Milan in a Champions’ League game- his Shs500,000 stake gone.
Another punter, so sure that Portsmouth FC in England would continue a run of draws, staked Shs1.4 m on a stalemate in the club’s next game. That weekend, Portsmouth managed worse; they lost. And so did the man.
Even then, he is not alone, even if few will admit to losing, for fear of becoming a laughing stock.
A new-found passion?
Most punters, despite losing money, keep on betting in the hope that tomorrow presents better fortunes.
Others return because they have seen their friends win.
Yet others, having only borrowed what they staked, return hoping to recoup this money. But for some, it has become a habit. Eddie Chicco, a sports photojournalist, says nothing interests him as much betting.
“I have done so many things but they never equated betting. Even when you lose the money you have to bet more because you think you are going to win tomorrow, and even though you lose, you can borrow more money to bet another day.
“You see, with sports betting, you know exactly how much you are going to win, unlike the other gambling [slot] machines where you just throw in your money.
“Sports betting also induces you to think more and more; it is a game for the brain,” he says of his newfound love.
And the brainwork isn’t just Chicco doing calculations of proceeds, actual or projected. Like many seasoned bettors, it means devoting time to internet searches for league tables, team news and past records of outcomes for selected fixtures.
Managing the risk
With the topsy-turvy nature of sports betting, punters have conjured ways to enhance their chances of success.
Peter Ssentamu, a student at Makerere University, however says that people have got different perspectives about betting.
“Some people for example choose to come on specific days like Saturday while others will come every day but at the end of the day it’s all gambling, chances of losing are very high,” he says.
From the way it is going, it looks like it will take a while before the excitement around this kind of gambling settles.
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