Gambling on hope: Almost every gambler in Kenya is a man
According to gambling addiction counsello, money is another ingredient that can be made scarce to keep betting at bay.
What you need to know:
- Mounting evidence shows gambling in Kenya is no longer leisure but a gendered crisis with devastating social consequences.
- Driven by economic strain and social pressure, men are increasingly turning to betting despite well-documented personal risks.
In the past few weeks, Nation Media Group has carried articles showing that gambling in Kenya has become a public concern. These articles further show that the majority of gamblers in the country are men. One of the articles specifically cited that in a queue of participants waiting to enter a particular betting house, 95 per cent were men.
The 2025 study, Reasons for Gambling amongst Men in Matasia Location, Ngong Sub-County, Kajiado County, Kenya by Susan Thami Njau and Maria Ntaragwe, notes that “gambling has become a significant social issue in Kenya, particularly among men in peri-urban areas.” It attributes this to “economic hardships and the proliferation of digital betting platforms”.
The main drivers of gambling were the desire for wealth (48.3 per cent) and financial pressures (25.5 per cent). Others established qualitatively were idleness and unemployment. Gambling becomes a source of hope that men can transform their situations overnight. It is thus more common among men in the low socioeconomic strata.
These findings resonate with the articles that men tend to take up gambling as a result of peer influence, belief that it is a route to quick riches, lack of alternative employment and alcohol exposure. The few women featured took it up more as an emotional reaction to adversity. An example cited started gambling as a stress reliever from not being promoted at work.
The consequences of gambling include mental addiction; disrupted sleeping patterns (staying up late or waking up at odd hours to catch up with betting activities); squandering of family and personal finances and other assets; slide into bankruptcy and poverty; broken marriages and families; psychosocial disorders requiring therapy; substance abuse; and engagement in crime.
Others are clandestine behaviour resulting in dishonesty to intimate partners, leading to loss of trust and feelings of betrayal; and co-dependency, where the non-gambling partner gets overly involved in trying to salvage the victim. This diverts the partner’s time, attention and resources. In essence then, the partner is a secondary victim of the problem.
Studies on the subject reveal certain gendered patterns. One, men start gambling earlier than women. Two, men’s propensity to gamble is related to higher risk-taking behaviour, based on norms of masculinity that glorify competition and success, compounded with the excitement associated with the practice. Winning neatly falls within this matrix and sustains men’s interest and eventual addiction. It also gives the psychological impression of being in control of their destiny. Third, women tend to advance to gambling addiction faster than men.
An April 2026 blog, Gender Differences in Gambling Addiction and Mental Health by Ilia Shulepov, highlights that while men prefer “strategic forms of gambling, such as sports betting and card games … women tend to prefer … chance-based activities like slot machines and bingo”. It shows that men are quite susceptible to gambling because of social pressure related to group behaviour.
This is quite evident in Kenya where friends watching televised football matches together is common. The social interaction converges gamblers and non-gamblers. The instant wins, often recycled into rounds of alcoholic drinks, influence the latter to try their luck, encouraged by the coaching from their friends. The cycle continues into addiction. The blog observes that normalisation of betting can delay recognition of its addictiveness. Moreover, addicted men eschew help because of the masculine norm of putting up a façade of strength and resilience.
Gender differences
A 2023 study, Gender Differences in the Propensity to Start Gambling by Alejandro Díaz, Jaume García and Levi Pérez, shows that in Spain, men started gambling earlier than women, but this is rapidly changing. It attributes men’s propensity to gambling to low risk averseness, over-confidence and readiness to spend larger amounts than women.
Predictive Factors for Gambling and Prevalence of Problematic Gambling Among Students in Selected Public Universities in Kenya by Mbiriri Michael, confirms that most (70 per cent) gambling students were of low socioeconomic status and male students were dominant among them. It concludes that gender is a predictive factor, alongside socioeconomic background, peer group influence and acute stress.
While gender dynamics of gambling are still under-researched, the few existing studies show that the practice has a male countenance. This suggests that initiatives to control the activity and its consequences must primarily focus on men. Studies show that unless they are doctrinaire, governments tend to be ambivalent about regulating this industry, because it is a source of tax revenue.
The same can be said of alcohol, which, in Kenya, is one major social destroyer of men. Given that the economic situation is worsening rather than improving, gambling will be difficult to address. The logical outlook then is a simple one: let us prepare for a lost generation of men ensnared by gambling and alcohol.
The writer is a lecturer in Gender and Development Studies at South Eastern Kenya University ([email protected]).
