On August 4, 2025, Boniface ‘Bonnie’ Kamau received a life-changing call from Sportpesa’s CEO, Mr. Ronald Karauri.
The gist of the call was that Kamau had won the Sportpesa Jackpot of sh 424,660,618 – the largest payout in the company’s history.
This was after correctly predicting the outcome of 17 different matches earlier in the month.
According to Perplexity AI, the probability of correctly predicting 17 football matches is approximately 1 in 131,072. Kamau won the jackpot after laying a sh 500 stake.
Sportpesa CEO Ronald Karauri confirmed that Kamau would receive the entire jackpot amount, following a government decision to remove the 20% tax previously imposed on such winnings.
Background and Future Plans
Before winning the jackpot, Kamau worked as a manager at Nuclear Investments, the OLKalou branch. His job involved ticketing, accounting, and banking for the transport company.
However, the father of 3 revealed that he has since decided to quit his job after winning the jackpot and has no intentions of going back.
“Job ni kama imeisha. Hio imeenda hivo. Hio ni kama imeenda,” he said during a celebratory ceremony at JW Marriot Hotel.
Despite his sudden stroke of fortune, Kamau is a seasoned gambler. In the ceremony, he revealed that he has been betting for the last 10 years, with his biggest win being sh 171 000.
However, from his interviews, Kamau revealed that he has no clear plans on what to do with the money.
Predictably, he said that he has received massive advice from numerous sources on how to spend the windfall.
However, the plan that seems to appeal to him best is his mother’s advice of taking a vacation and relaxing his mind before he decides what to do with the money.
He also plans to drill a borehole back in his rural home in Nakuru, where he said that the lack of water is a serious problem.
Scale of the prize money
Kamau’s jackpot payout of sh 424,660,618 is greater than the equivalent amount allocated to upgrade health care facilities in Nairobi.
It is also enough to do a number of crazy things.
For instance, he can choose to host 3 BurnaBoy concerts and have some money left over, given that the last time the artist was in Kenya, he was paid a performance fee of sh 128 million.
The jackpot amount can also buy 60 brand new Isuzu NQR 33-seater buses, whose average price is sh 7.07 million. It can also buy 79 Toyota Hiace 14-seater matatus, whose average current price is sh 5.39M.
Or, if Kamau is feeling particularly vain, the amount can sponsor a mega digital Billboard in any prime location within Nairobi for 23.6 years.
If he is feeling philanthropic, he has enough capital to build 539 CBC classrooms, with the average cost of building a government CBC classroom being sh 788 000.
Finally, at Sh 125k–239.8k a pop, the jackpot buys approximately 3,397–1,771 iPhone 15 Pro Max units—enough to gift the entire VIP section at two mega-concerts and his matatu crews.