How M-Pesa is helping lotteries in Africa?

M-Pesa is a mobile phone-based money transfer, financing and microfinancing service. It enables millions of people who have access to mobile phones, the service allows users to deposit money electronically into accounts linked with their cell phones.

M-Pesa is highly used in the East African regions like Kenya, Tanzania, etc. M-Pesa took online lottery by storm, over 17 million users including lottery players used the service by December 2011 in Kenya alone. M-Pesa helps lottery players to play cash-less, online from anywhere, anytime.

In Kenya it is the most popular form of making payments when playing lottery online. About 42% of Kenya’s GDP is transacted via M-Pesa that helped facilitate trade between lotteries and their players while improving business efficiency by December 2015.

Kenya based online lottery “Lotto” have a detailed instructions given on how to pay and play lottery once you are registered on M-Pesa:

1. Select M-PESA
2. Select Lipa na M-PESA
3. Select Pay Bill
4. Enter 777000 (Business Number)
5. Enter Account Number (if you have one, e.g. WEB)
6. Enter Amount 50 (KSh, minimum)
7. Enter your M-PESA Pin
8. Confirm your payment
9. Wait for the M-PESA confirmation SMS

Shortly after confirmation of the transfer, you will receive your ticket with your lucky numbers. Good luck! 

So how does it work for Lotto? Here’s what they have got to say “Kenya is both the world’s more developed mobile money payment market as well as the least developed lottery market on a per capita sales basis. Lotto will use the easiest and most convenient transaction platform for Kenyans, which is through their mobile devices. Lotto tickets will be purchased through the popular M-Pesa platform and through its online platform. The choice of platforms gives consumers the unique chance to decide whether they wish to select their own numbers, or to have their numbers randomly selected for them. Most games in Kenya don’t give this option to consumers.”

LocusPlay has assisted number of lotteries in Africa by integrating third party applications and helped generate more revenue through various channels. Our R&D team work tirelessly and keep up the support level to complete the integration. With LocusPlay, enjoy the fully operational lotteries within weeks, not months.