After losing Rwf300,000 ($320) on bad bets in just a few hours, James Kanimba a father of four was thinking of committing suicide.

The 46-year-old works as a sales attendant at Duterimbere Sacco in Kamonyi District. Kanimba took his salary for two months for a stake in a number of football games but lost bets consecutively.

“It was not easy for me to explain to the wife what I had used the money for and lied to her that he had given it to the friend who had a problem to resolve.

He said, adding, “There is no developmental thinking once you are addicted to betting.”

The week that followed, he took another Rwf150,000 from the co-operative society without informing his family, hoping to win that very night, but rather, he lost it all.

Prison

He had set his mind on committing suicide if he did not recover whatever he took, since he knew the police would swiftly catch him next day Mr Kanimba says he did not stand a chance of winning and he was arrested the next day and sacked from his job.”

It was not easy for my family to survive while in prison and after finding a job took me a whole year, my wife got tired of me and we divorced”.

Kanimba says he was a betting addict. He had gambled for over seven years, typically three times a day and more than that on weekends. “I could not have peace before betting on at least two games per day” he said.

But why betting?

Mr Kanimba told Rwanda Today that after seeing his friends win big money, he decided to join in, partly to enjoy himself and also to supplement his monthly income of Rwf150,000.

“With his two phones and sometimes a computer, he could do single, multiple, and live betting, all costing him around Rwf4,000 a day,” he said. It was a must to squander around Rwf100,000 per month in betting but most times, winning much less than what he invested.

But after leaving prison when everything in his family had fallen apart, he realized that going back to betting was just digging himself into more trouble. “You win and lose at the same rate and most probably lose more than you gain,” he said

Filbert Ndayambaje a betting attendant at FortbeGikondo says: “We realise good sales during the World Cup and English Premier League seasons. He said that last year’s EPL, they could make “sales of around Rwf6 million per day and that is for a small branch, but for busy places in town, sales can go to about Rwf10 million”.

On average, during league weekends they receive close to 5,000 bets with some betting as much as Rwf300,000. He noted that they have had cases where someone who placed their bet with Rwf1,000 on at least seven games and won Rwf2.5 million minus taxes.

“It is hard to advice someone who has had such a winning experience to quit betting. I have been an attendant at different betting companies for more than five years but I have never seen anyone wins four times consecutively without losing,” he told us.

What is surprising is that even if you win three times simultaneously, the time you lose, they take all that you have been wining in the past games. He advised people not to take betting as a fulltime job, but as a pursuit of leisure and that it should be indulged by those with money to burn and spare.