Inside the Chinese-led gambling epidemic in rural Ghana

When the machines arrived last winter, the villagers were mesmerized. In Zamashegu, a farming community of 1,000 people in northern Ghana, they may as well have come from outer space — four electric slot machines installed in two roadside shacks, chirping and clattering, bathing the packed-dirt walls in a pale, kaleidoscopic glow. Their lure was magnetic. Soon, villagers stopped farming, leaving their yam and cassava fields fallow. Children stayed home from school. Instead, they’d queue up at the slots and play all day, until their pockets were empty or the village ran out of change altogether.

About twice a week, a Chinese man would arrive in a pickup truck. He would unlock the machines, hand some cash to the shacks’ owners and drive off — carrying about $100 in coins and, many villagers came to understand, their community’s hope for the future. Chinese slot machines began appearing throughout rural Ghana early last year. And though the scope of the phenomenon remains unclear, interviews with dozens of villagers and officials in the country’s Northern Region — an area about the size of West Virginia, home to 2.5 million people — suggested that the machines have proliferated widely and precipitated an epidemic of gambling addiction that the government has been unable, or unwilling, to quell. The Northern Region is particularly vulnerable. About half its population lives below the poverty line. Many villages have no access to clean water. Child malnutrition is rampant. Yet the machines are everywhere, though mostly hidden from view: in a pharmacy; in an electronics store; tucked away in a dusty lot, flanked by small children. At first, Ubor Dawuni Wumbe didn’t even notice the machines. Wumbe, the chief of Bunbong, a village of 2,500 people at the heart of the region, lives and governs — overseeing village projects, settling villagers’ disputes — in a brilliant white hut complex, insulated from the chaos of village life. But one day, “I noticed there was always a car that was parked here,” he said, gesturing to a dusty patch just outside the complex. Its driver was Ghanaian; its passenger looked Chinese. In mid-2016, the Ghanaian government completed a major highway through the Northern Region, cutting travel time from Bunbong to Yendi District — a commercial center about 18 miles away — from several hours to about 30 minutes. “I think all of a sudden, [the Chinese] realized there was access,” Wumbe said. “That this was virgin territory, where they could ply on ignorance, or human emotion, to get rich quick.” Soon he began seeing slot machines across the village; he counted 30, spread across 15 convenience stores, cafes and homes. They were strikingly crude: plywood boxes, each about the size of a mini refrigerator, sealed with a rusty padlock and outfitted with a coin slot, a metal tray and a flimsy plastic facade. They were emblazoned with famous figures — Super Mario, soccer player Lionel Messi — the faces sun-bleached and streaked with dirt. Minimum bets were 5 to 10 cents. They were wildly popular. “You’d go there and it was packed,” he said. “People weren’t going to their farms anymore. People began to think that this was a way of earning income. They’d play all day, hoping they would win. But you never could beat the machine.” Wumbe confronted the Chinese agents — by this point, he said, there were several — and demanded they remove the machines. The agents complied. Later, they returned offering a bribe of six soccer balls, imploring him to change his judgment. Wumbe refused. “We knew there were going to be a lot of problems in the near future,” he said. “You know it’s going to bring drugs, prostitution, robbery.” Continue Reading : Inside the Chinese-led gambling epidemic in rural Ghana New Story ; This September Linujil Festival in Northern Ghana