Online Sports Betting Trumps Facebook in Kenya

From a marketing perspective, the latest annual report on online search activity can best be described as a bombshell. Eventus International announced a rather stunning finding: sports betting searches on the Internet in Kenya were more prominent than Facebook searches and related social media platforms during 2018.

This has important implications for sports betting companies marketing their services to Kenyans. It proves that there are guaranteed advantages in the consumer market, and this invariably bodes well for successful results. Kenyan online searches overwhelmingly focused on sports-related content on popular search engine Google.

The facts indicate the following betting trends in Kenya:

• Lotteries 9%, dog racing 1%, horseracing 1%, casinos 4%, other sports 4%, poker 2%, football 79%,

The Internet statistics were compiled by Geopoll for 2018.

Takeaways From The Kenyan Sports Betting Statistics:

• 55% of the top 20 Google searches related to betting activity
• Sports betting contributes the most to advertising spend in the country
• The top-ranked searches include SportPesa, Kenya, Livescore, News, and Betpawa
• Sports betting sites Sportpesa,co.ke, Betin.co.ke, and Betpawa.co.ke rank among the frequented sites of 2018
• Kenyan Millennials are fans of sports betting and spend on average $50 more than other gamblers in SSA

Broader Implications of Kenyan Sports Betting Activity

East African sports betting operators have deep insights into the Kenyan market, and they have dominant status on major search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing, and Safari. That sports betting companies rank higher than Facebook is testament to the effective marketing strategies that are being employed online and off-line. Marketing will be front and centre with Eventus International and the upcoming Sports Betting East Africa (SBEA)+ 2019 conference on April 9 – 10 2019, in Kampala, Uganda.

Among others, the conference will tackle affiliate marketing activity related to Kenya's dominant position vis-a-vis sports betting. This naturally lends itself to mobile betting on Android and iOS devices. In 2019, sports betting operators in Kenya and across East Africa will look to maximise their dominant position in this lucrative market.