Each one of us desires to grow and be wealthy. While there are no definite ways to this end, we however know what not to do.

Every day there are thousands or probably millions of betting games going on around the world. In Kenya particularly, we have experience an upsurge of the betting and gaming competitions this decade. These enterprises are not limited any single sector but dominates all fields of our lives, from sports, to pure gambling, to casino gaming and surprisingly to religion. All these are a testimony to our innate desire to acquire the means and the control of wealth.

Could many Kenyans’ be living in utopia? Dreaming of making it big miraculously? How else can we explain the ever thriving industry of high risk – high return negligible gain probability trading? One of course does not need to carry an extensive market to learn how much Kenyans can go in this business of betting. The major question is, are Kenyans gullible or do they have a general affinity for free things?

That notwithstanding, we need to interrogate the main beneficiaries of this industry. With every bid a participant believes he can win the lot and the lure escalates into more bids. The promoters of such games know the rules, “the more you bid the higher your chance of winning”, and so they say. As result, we have succeeded in elevating the millionaires to billionaire class while the wishful to-be millionaires loose the little they have. As George Clason alludes in his book, The richest man in Babylon,” Gold flees the man who would force it to impossible earnings or who follows the alluring advice of tricksters and schemers or who trusts it to his own inexperience and romantic desires in investment.”

Back to our previous question, do Kenyans love free and easy money? Of course who doesn’t! The qualification for such award however is skewed with managers of the schemes having an upper hand to the player. Let’s take game betting for instance, the participant has no influence on outcome and entirely relies on his trust and emotions on the team he places a bet on to win. On the other hand, the promoter has learnt the art of invoked emotions in gaming and as such the company is assured of a surplus on bids. Again the created Millionaires, sorry billionaires are not the bidders but the organizers. While as long as our affinity for easy money increases, the schemers (as Clason refers to them) will always flourish.

It’s also worth noting that the crave has not left any sector behind the common street trader with ‘pata-potea’ to multi-billion pyramid schemes, to churches, all preaching single gospel – quick money. All these have learnt to plant and cultivate on the fields of ignorance and harvest in the yields of Kenyans’ greed.