Last Thursday, a sports bar around the Mekanisa area was packed with goers glued to a 60-inch screen TV. The loud noise of a bar was uncharacteristically absent, but the sudden roars from the crowd were either in reaction to the game played or appealing to change the channel. Morocco played Canada, scoring two goals against one; Belgium and Croatia had a goalless draw.

Yared Solomon, a tall taxi driver, was clutching his betting ticket, seated in the crowd inside Jambo 5 bar. He was to win 2,000 Br with a combination of four matches but paid 300 Br to place the bets. Occasionally, he shrieked at the bartender, “change it to the Morocco game.” One of his bets was riding on Morocco’s win. As the match dragged on, he repeatedly checked out the other match’s result simultaneously; it was not looking good for him.

Yared had only gotten two matches correct when the night’s games ended. Poof! His hopes of winning 2,000 Br went up in smoke, though he was not too distraught.

“You can’t win all of them,” he told Fortune.

The tone in his voice was an echo of reassurance to himself.

The World Cup games ongoing in Qatar have produced a fair share of surprises.

Expected favourites with previous records - Argentina and France,  lost to lower-ranked opponents, while Spain, Portugal, Brazil, Germany and Belgium were all eliminated after defeats that astounded their fans. The unpredictable games have stirred the most excitement in Addis Abeba as fans swing thin stacks of papers mistakenly appearing to solve a complex maths problem. Such scenes have become common in the capital’s streets.

However, closer observation would reveal that they merely pick winners on sports betting tickets.

Yared spends close to 1,000 Br a month on Habesha Betting, a pioneer in the domestic betting industry. The World Cup has him spending a little more than usual, but he claims he must win one or two monthly bets to recover his losses. The last time he won a bet was a year ago, 12,000 Br. He perceives his sports betting as a form of entertainment, not a harmful influence on his life.

The sports betting industry is worth about 100 billion dollars globally. The World Cup kicked off on November 20 and has millions watching for entertainment; not few have a vested financial interest in the outcomes, however.

Following a series of directives loosening the legal noose over the past decade, sports betting has shifted into a new gear in Ethiopia.

The national Premier League is now called BetKing Ethiopian Premier League for sponsorship reasons after Multichoice Group acquired exclusive broadcasting rights two years ago. While it is “lighthearted” entertainment for most, the jury is out on whether it is a net positive. The betting culture is entrenching with the growth of sports betting companies in number and the resources they are mobilising. Despite official ogle to tighten the regulatory noose and curtail the rapid expansion, psychiatrists warn that the rise in the size of wagerers fuels addiction leading to social ills.

Daniel is a 23-year-old with no regular income. He is a “hustler” doing “anything and everything” to make ends meet. He prefers placing his bets on dog races rather than soccer games.

Most betting houses display bingo raffles and dog racing games, six greyhounds running after an electronically propelled sock, during the day. Daniel bets an average of 1,000 Br daily.

“I was bleeding dry,” said Daniel, referring to his losses during the World Cup.

He meets up with his friends at the betting houses around the Gotera condominium. Betting houses in these areas serve close to 40 people daily with a monthly rent of close to 20,000 Br. The regulars seem to prefer betting on the simple games for as low as 20 Br, with payouts as much as 600 Br. The cashier at Daniel’s usual betting spot sounded sarcastic.

“Many of our regulars are dog racing enthusiasts,” he told Fortune.

Daniel is constantly chasing to recover his previous day’s losses from an array of betting options, starting with picking a winner, guessing ranking placements or combining the two. As with all gambling, the more specific the guess, the higher the potential wins. What Daniel makes as an informal dealer is spent on bets here. He hit the last jackpot two months ago when he won 8,000 Br. However, he conceded that he losses money in the long term.

Not the betting companies, which all need permits from the National Lottery Administration (NLA) to operate. The Administration collects 15pc royalty fees from 55 licensed betting organisations, boosting revenues for the 60-year-old federal enterprise, which netted close to a billion Birr last year. In the first quarter of the current business year, the Administration collected close to 72 million Br in royalty fees, an average of more than a million Birr from each betting company.

According to Tewodros Neway, head of communications, the Administration is serious about imposing penalty fees, provided that the royalty fee is not handed within 15 days. Betting firms are subject to paying double their royalty as a penalty fee and face revocation of licences if they fail to pay in two months. Random inspections by agents from Administration subject them to a one million Br penalty if found letting players under 18 years of age bet.

A law passed a year and a half ago compels betting companies to surrender 20pc of their net income to support sporting clubs, federations, or community organisations. The law also put the license fee to half a million Birr, from 400 Br before. The exponential rise in license fees did little to deter more from entering the business. No less than 15 new companies have joined the fray, hoping to taste a glimpse of this ever-expanding gambling frenzy sweeping the cities.

Golden Betting is one of the companies that went into business this year, run by Abdulkerim Abdulsemed. His company developed an odds-making platform and uniquely markets itself with betting odds different from others. But he was taken aback by escalating running costs. The prohibition of digital payments shocked this new business entrant who claims a market monopoly by the veterans forcing him to move cautiously.