Kamari was the first ever project to launch on the ZBG Launchpad, and it kicked off a series of successful IEO launches. The Kamari project sold all of their 6,666,666 coins within 2 minutes and 10 seconds to over 2,726 participants, raising a total of $4 million. Since then, the project has been steadily trading at 6x its IEO price. All of this is an impressive feat for a very short amount of time. But what is Kamari, and what are the long-term goals of this under-the-radar project?
What Is Kamari?
Kamari is the Swahili word for gambling, which is very fitting considering that they plan to build an ecosystem for mobile gaming and payments to unite over 1 billion people across Africa. Kamari Coin, KAM, will be the utility cryptocurrency that allows this to occur.
The team plans to offer a better experience to traditional gaming and sports betting across Africa. Furthermore, they already have the ability to integrate with existing gaming infrastructure and lottery licensing, which is very hard to attain across the continent of Africa.
Similar to Mega Millions in the US and Euro Millions across Europe, Kamari plans to introduce pan-African lottery draws across multiple countries on the continent, in addition to making it easier to access sports betting books and online casinos.
Why Are They Focused Within Africa?
Africa presents a truly unique opportunity for the Kamari team, as Africa has been a widely overlooked market with regards to blockchain projects. And with a surge in investment in recent years, plenty of African nations are potential hotspots for new blockchain innovation and adoption.
First of all, Africa contains 6 of the 10 worlds fastest growing economies, according to data from the IMF.
Second, Africa already has the largest population in the world that are aged between 15-24 years old. This figure is set to double by 2045. Young people are more accepting and enthusiastic about new technology, and as part of the “digital native” generation, they will grow up using technology such as the internet and blockchain, including Kamari coin.
Furthermore, Africa also has an 80% penetration rate of mobile phone access, allowing these young users to access the internet and explore the digital world in real time.
Challenges of Gaming In Africa
The gambling industry in Africa is a very difficult industry to penetrate nation by nation, let alone uniting the entire continent on the same platform. This is due to a range of reasons, including different government regulations and constant exchange rate fluctuations.
Africa has a very high barrier to entry for lottery operations. However, Kamari has already managed to acquire a license to operate a lottery across 7 countries within Africa within their first year, with the goal to expand to 21 countries in 5 years.
The fluctuating exchange rates also make it currently impossible to maintain a fair lottery game across multiple African countries, as some users will benefit more than others due to the exchange rate changes. However, with a united cryptocurrency, this should allow for Kamari to maintain a fair lottery draw.
There is also an extreme lack of trust in current state lotteries. People find it difficult to trust that the lottery draw is fair and has not been manipulated. There is also an extreme lack of transparency within the online casinos in Africa, as players are still unsure if the online casino is operating a fair policy. Taking things one step further, as users signing up to online casinos are required to provide ID and bank details, there is a large amount of ID theft that deters new users from gaming in the online casino world.
The Solution
Kamari intends to build a legitimate, secure and decentralized gaming platform that is completely fair and transparent. Their platform will allow users to participate in widespread cross-border lotteries, as well as access to fair sports betting books and online casinos.
This will allow African users to have access to a larger betting market with a greater liquidity pool.
The fact that Kamari already has access to established gaming operators with existing lottery licenses will make the process of setting up the platform very fluid. Here is a list of all of the licenses Kamari has already acquired
Furthermore, Kamari also intends to develop an extensive distribution network of retail PoS (point-of-sale) and mobile PoS units across the continent. They aim to distribute over 100,000 units in year 1, which will continue to over 500,000 within 5 years.
The PoS will allow Kamari holders to make purchases at these terminals with their Kamari tokens. This will also help to develop an African cross-border payment infrastructure that is not subject to wildly fluctuating exchange rates.
Conclusion
Uniting 1 billion people behind one cryptocurrency will be an extremely difficult feat to achieve. However, developing an established gaming network that enables pan-African lotteries is a very achievable task, especially if combined with the fact that established lottery licences are already incorporated in some countries.
If Kamari is successful in reaching their goals, they will develop more than a gaming network — they will create an economic system that financially empower over 1 billion people across many African countries. If Kamari is successful, African citizens will have an opportunity to forgo wildly fluctuating exchange rates and own a proportion of their wealth in KAM token, which will be stabler and safer from inflation than certain local currencies.
