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Stake.com was declared illegal across Lagos and 24 other Nigerian states last week in a coordinated notice from the Lagos State Lotteries and Gaming Authority and the Federation of State Gaming Regulators of Nigeria.
Among those states is Abia, home to Enyimba International FC, Nigeria’s most decorated side and nine‑time NPFL champions. Since 2023, Enyimba has carried Stake’s logo as part of a sponsorship deal, but the ruling now places that partnership under direct scrutiny.
Despite the enforcement notice, the club’s shirts still display Stake branding, and its social media continues to reference the deal. Regulators have now confirmed directly to iGamingToday that the sponsorship itself is under active consideration as part of their enforcement position.
A three-year-old partnership now under a regulatory spotlight
Enyimba’s shirt sponsorship with Stake.com, signed in August 2023 under the leadership of club chairman and FIFA ambassador Kanu Nwankwo, is now facing direct scrutiny from regulators.
The deal was one of the most high‑profile gambling sponsorships in Nigerian football, placing Stake’s branding across Enyimba’s jerseys, stadium signage, ticketing, and hospitality. It also positioned the Aba‑based club alongside global names like Everton FC and UFC champion Israel Adesanya in Stake’s international sports portfolio.
That agreement remains active, but authorities are now openly questioning whether it falls within the scope of their recent enforcement notice.
A spokesperson for the Federal Stakeholders Group on Responsible Gaming (FSGRN), with an official from the Lagos State Lotteries and Gaming Authority copied on the response, confirmed that the sponsorship is directly relevant to ongoing action against Stake.com.
“Where an unlicensed gaming operator’s brand is prominently displayed on the jersey of a Nigerian football club, such exposure may constitute advertising or promotion of the operator and may therefore raise concerns regarding the facilitation of its unlicensed gaming activities,” the spokesperson said.
The statement further clarified that enforcement “is not limited to the operator itself” and may extend to “advertising platforms, influencers and other persons or entities found to be facilitating Stake.com’s unlawful operations.”
Regulators added that they are “aware of the concern raised regarding the Enyimba FC sponsorship” and “will consider the nature of the arrangement and the extent to which it promotes or facilitates Stake.com’s gaming operations in determining any appropriate regulatory action.”
Enyimba has not responded to requests for comment.
But Stake was not always unlicensed…
Before assuming Enyimba knowingly tied itself to a rogue brand, regulators themselves have confirmed that Stake once held a valid licence in Nigeria.
Oyo State’s Gaming Board, which is part of the wider FSGRN group, said Stake had been licensed there before the permit lapsed. The board explained it had urged the operator to renew, but when that did not happen, it joined the broader enforcement push.
That timeline suggests Enyimba’s 2023 sponsorship was likely signed with a compliant operator, raising the unresolved question of whether Stake’s current unlicensed status stems from failing to move from Nigeria’s old federal licensing system to the state‑by‑state framework introduced after the Supreme Court’s November 2024 ruling.
Where does Enyimba go from here?
iGamingToday put FSGRN’s statement to two Nigerian lawyers for their independent legal reading of what it means for Enyimba.
Moyinoluwa Israel, a gaming lawyer with WYS Solicitors, cautioned against reading FSGRN’s language as a settled conclusion. “The language is deliberately conditional and does not amount to a finding that Enyimba has breached the law,” she said. “The regulator is reserving its position while it considers the specific facts and the nature of the sponsorship.”
On the earlier Oyo license, she cautioned against reading too much into it for Enyimba specifically: “What matters more is whether Stake was properly licensed in the relevant jurisdiction at the time the sponsorship and related promotional activities were taking place.”
Ademide Adun, a special adviser to the NLRC DG, offered a sharper distinction for how Enyimba could defend the timing of the deal: “The stronger argument for Enyimba should be – our relationship was entered into when Stake had an established regulatory presence in Nigeria, and the club did not knowingly contract with an entity that had been declared unlawful. As opposed to saying, Stake was licensed somewhere, therefore the sponsorship was lawful everywhere. That position would be much harder to defend.”
Both lawyers stopped short of linking Stake’s current unlicensed status directly to the transition from federal to state licensing after the 2024 ruling. Israel pointed out that regulators’ claim that Stake ignored ten compliance notices over two years “should be distinguished from any conclusion about Stake’s reasons for remaining unlicensed” without further evidence. Adun added that if those notices are confirmed, “this will appear to be broader than a simple administrative failure to regularize, and may suggest something more entrenched.”
The wider problem: gambling promotion in Nigeria runs largely outside licensed channels
Enyimba’s sponsorship deal is only one visible piece of a much larger story. Across Nigeria, a significant share of gambling promotion does not flow through licensed operators’ official campaigns.
Instead, it comes from betting tipsters on platforms like X, Telegram, and Instagram. Many of these influencers have audiences in the millions and partner with both licensed and unlicensed operators, pushing betting picks and promotions straight into their followers’ feeds.
iGamingToday recently reported on research that tracked thousands of bets promoted by Nigeria’s biggest tipster accounts. The study found that copying their selections exactly would have lost money for the average follower. Despite this, the tipster economy continues to grow with little oversight beyond general advertising law.
Regulators face a structural challenge: even if one channel is shut down, demand for betting content quickly shifts to another, like influencer marketing, which operates outside the reach of gaming authorities.
None of this happens in isolation too. It all sits within a continental picture where unlicensed gambling outclasses the regulated market. A recent report from Gaming Compliance International estimated Africa’s online gambling market generated $23 billion in gross gaming revenue in 2025.
Only $5.2 billion, 23%, came through licensed operators. The remaining $17.8 billion went to unlicensed platforms, costing governments about $3.55 billion in lost tax revenue. The number of unregulated operators targeting African consumers grew from 3,644 in 2024 to 4,129 in 2025.
West Africa accounted for $10.3 billion of that total, the largest regional share. Nigeria, while still heavily exposed, posted the lowest proportion of unregulated activity in the region at 56%, compared to a West African average of 69% and a continental average of 77%. Even so, more than half of Nigeria’s online gambling activity remains outside the licensed system.
That is the context for the Stake enforcement notice. It is not just a single crackdown but part of a wider market where unlicensed operators still reach millions of people and dominate revenue streams.
So what happens next?
Both lawyers agreed that the regulator’s statement is more than cautious wording. As Israel explained, the authority “has now expressly identified this particular sponsorship” in a way that “moves the issue beyond a general warning to payment providers, advertisers and other facilitators.”
Adun went further, calling the situation “not an insignificant risk for the club” and suggesting Enyimba should already be reviewing, and potentially suspending, the Nigerian-facing elements of the deal as a precaution. She stressed this would be “a risk‑management response, not necessarily an admission that the club has committed an offence.”
What happens next depends on three things. First, whether FSGRN and LSLGA follow through on the regulatory action they say they are considering. Second, whether Stake decides to renew its licence under Nigeria’s new state‑by‑state system instead of continuing to ignore compliance notices. And third, whether Enyimba takes the kind of precautionary step Adun described or continues to remain silent.
For now, one of Nigeria’s most storied football clubs is still wearing the logo of an operator its own regulators have not only called illegal, but have now confirmed they are actively watching the club over.
