Through the partnership with Gibraltar-based gaming consultancy, ‘Crucial Compliance Limited’ within its initiative ’Safe Gambling Hackathon’, Rwanda Opportunities (RwandOpp) Organization and Adam Bradford Agency (ABA) hosted the Safe Gambling Hackathon in Kigali. This was a successful event that brought opportunities for individuals to pitch their strategies for safe gambling.

The event held on 31st January 2023 in Kigali, came after the recent suspension of new gambling licenses by the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MINICOM), further backed up by the Ministry of Sports to ensure continued compliance.

During the event, three entrepreneurs were given floor to pitch their innovations promoting safe gambling.

Kwizera Rulinda, board chair of the mental health journal Rwanda (MHJ), was second to present.

His project, Baho initiative, is a web and mobile application that provides psycho-social support to address gambling addiction through counselling as well as outsourcing to unemployed youth.

The president and representative of Joshua Creativity and Self-grown Solution Association (SGS), Josué Kwizera Uwimana (Fasasie), was the third to present his ’gambling addiction rescue in youth’ project.

“The goal is not to ban gambling because some people win and survive off this game. We want to produce awareness and reduce addiction,” he said.

Eric Uwitonze, the winner of the Safe Gambling Hackathon said that after gaining knowledge about Financial/Money Literacy, he now understands the reason people confuse assets and liabilities.

Uwitonze also aspires to create recreational centers with the help of governmental or non-governmental organizations concerned with gambling addiction.

The centers will be a space to learn about emotional intelligence, social change, and monetary literacy among others. He is ready to impact several people with gambling addiction issues and contribute to the development of Rwanda society especially youth who involve in gambling more.

The CEO of Crucial Compliance, Paul Foster, believed that investing in safe gambling could help protect people from entering the danger zone of gambling and still allow them entertainment.

One of the things that Crucial Compliance targets, is to make people more aware of that gambling is not a way of making money. It also seeks to contribute to the development of a more responsible and trustworthy industry by ensuring that people can gamble safely.

We thank partners and everyone for your participation and we can wait to welcome you to our next events!