Blockchain Project Aims to Reform Traditional Lottery in Nigeria

On Dec. 13, Quanta Plc., owner of Quanta Technology Limited, a blockchain lottery operator, announced it had signed contracts to acquire a stake in International Lottery and Gaming Limited.

As Quanta reports, this is "The world's first deal to reform traditional lottery." The companies say that Quanta's blockchain-based lottery technology will help increase the transparency and fairness of Nigeria's gaming market.

Quanta claims to be "The world's first fully licensed blockchain lottery." The company started operations in 2015, and in 2017, received a license from the Isle of Man's Gambling Supervision Commission.

The entire lottery process can be made visible to network participants.

On the national level, about 100 lottery licenses have been issued by Nigerian gaming authority, and at least one federal state of Nigeria approved 40 more licences, according to a PwC report issued in 2017.

Even a centralized register of lottery operators is not made public.

The science behind the Nigerian lottery feverThere is a scientific explanation for Nigeria's lottery craze.

According to a study made by Maria João Kaiseler and Horácio C. Faustino of Lisbon Technical University, there's a reversed-U dependence between lotteries' popularity and GDP per capita.

Simply speaking, the lottery sales grow expansively until the country reaches a gross domestic product of $49,308 per capita in 2004 dollars, and then start to decline.

According to this research, there are two proven hypotheses: Christians play more than other religious groups and African countries spend more money on lottery products than others.