Mr. Lanre Gbajabiamila, Director-General/CEO of The Presidency-National Lottery Regulatory Commission
Mr. Lanre Gbajabiamila began his education in a Mainland preparatory, primary school in Surulere, Lagos, Nigeria. He continued his secondary schooling at Igbobi College in Lagos and earned his diploma in 1982. In order to take the “A” level exams in 1984, he continued on to King Williams College on the Isle of Man. He earned a B.SC (Hons) in Marketing from California State University in 1997 and a certification in Unix programming from the esteemed “Seale Group” in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1999. Lanre began working with Derivion/Metavante Corporation in 1997 as a Senior Analyst. Also, he had senior consulting positions with a number of Fortune 500 organizations in the USA.
In 2004, he returned to Nigeria and entered the gaming business, starting from the gaming enterprise National Sports Lottery (NSL) as a Senior IT Manager of Software Quality Assurance. The Essnet Lottery Operating System (ELOS), among other initiatives Lanre, pioneered for NSL, successfully managed 5 million lottery transactions each week. He returned to the USA in 2006 to work as a Senior Management Consultant with Bearing Point INC. in Atlanta.
Due to his love of gaming, Lanre returned to Nigeria and accepted a position as General Manager/CEO of the Lagos State Lotteries Board (LSLB). Under his capable direction, the LSLB advanced Nigeria’s regulatory landscape for lotteries and allied gaming businesses. He oversaw the LSLB team’s efforts to control and maintain Lagos State’s lottery, sports betting, and online gaming sectors.
The gambling sector has expanded as a result of this sanitation, and Lagos State has generated income as a result, while impacting the socioeconomic advancement of Lagosians and State inhabitants.
Lanre has solidified his gaming industry success since being named Acting Director-General of the National Lottery Regulatory Commission in 2017 and subsequent confirmation as the Director-General/CEO; as a regulator, he helped create Nigeria’s vibrant and growing sports betting sector.
He participates as a panellist and speaker at a number of gaming events in Africa and Europe, such as ICE Totally Gaming, European iGaming Congress & Expo (EiG), iGaming Supershow, Amsterdam, World Regulatory Briefing (WrB), Sports Betting West Africa (SBWA), Betting & iGaming Africa Summit (BiG Africa), and World Gaming Executive Summit, in an effort to draw investment to the African gaming industry (WGES). In the international gaming industry, he is recognized as an enthusiastic regulator who takes a stakeholder-inclusive approach to gaming regulation.
He participates in local and international executive management, gaming, and regulatory training and conferences. He belongs to the Lagos Ikoyi Club and the Institute of Directors and serves as a non-executive director of Ginger Hotel Limited and Makklink Limited.
He is a devoted sports fan, who loves swimming, tennis, soccer, and traveling; an ardent Liverpool supporter, and he is married with Three (3) children.