As Nigeria’s sports betting industry expands under tighter regulatory scrutiny, a new front is emerging in the competition among technology firms: using artificial intelligence not just to generate predictions but to demonstrate greater transparency and promote responsible gambling.

The shift comes as the country’s betting market, estimated by industry analysts to be worth more than $3.6 billion in 2026 with about 60 million active bettors, continues to attract millions of users while drawing increasing attention from regulators over consumer protection. Since the Supreme Court’s 2024 judgment ending the Federal Government’s exclusive control of gaming licences, several states have introduced measures such as stricter age verification, deposit limits and self-exclusion tools aimed at reducing gambling-related harm.

Against that backdrop, Nigerian startup BetriqAI says it is building AI-powered features that explain the confidence behind sports predictions and identify behavioural patterns associated with excessive gambling.

Speaking with The Guardian, the company’s founder, Nicholas Adesina, argued that Nigeria’s sports prediction ecosystem remains largely informal, with many bettors relying on tips circulated through social media, messaging groups and self-styled prediction experts whose claims are rarely subject to scrutiny.

According to him, the platform assigns confidence scores to predictions in an attempt to help users understand the probability behind each recommendation instead of relying solely on betting tips.

“Our models generate confidence-scored predictions, so users don’t just see a tip; they see how much conviction the data supports and why,” he said.

Adesina also disclosed that the company’s next software update is expected to include tools designed to detect patterns associated with problematic gambling and encourage users to moderate their betting activity.

The development reflects a broader conversation within Nigeria’s betting technology ecosystem, where operators are increasingly expected to balance innovation with stronger consumer protection. While AI has become a prominent feature in prediction platforms, questions remain over whether such technologies can genuinely reduce gambling-related risks or simply make betting products more sophisticated.

Beyond gaming, Adesina argues that Africa’s AI ambitions will depend more on investments in data infrastructure, computing capacity and locally developed products than on the availability of talent alone. He also cited policy uncertainty, limited infrastructure and fragmented regional markets as persistent obstacles confronting technology startups.

“Founders can build around almost any rule except a rule that changes without warning,” he said, referring to the regulatory uncertainty that has shaped Nigeria’s gaming industry since licensing responsibilities shifted from the Federal Government to state authorities.

For now, the debate underscores the growing intersection between artificial intelligence, consumer protection and one of Nigeria’s fastest-growing digital industries.