The National Lottery Regulatory Commission was established through the National Lottery Act, 2005. The Commission was primarily born out of the need to regulate the operations of lottery business in Nigeria, promote transparency and accountability in lottery industry while protecting the interests of players, stakeholders and the general public.

Though established in 2005, the National Lottery Regulatory Commission was scarcely known until 2009. It sat on a small space on the 5th floor, Block C, Phase II of the Federal Secretariat, Abuja.

Mr. Peter Igho (MFR), took up the mantle of leadership of the Commission in 2009 and his first assignment was to sensitize the public about lottery and its opportunities and benefits to the Nigerian economy. He also tackled the accommodation problem that the Commission faced. As Director General, Igho succeeded in both challenges as he enhanced the public view on lottery and moved the Commission to the 1st and 4th floors of the Merit House, Maitama Abuja. In 2013, Igho successfully moved the Commission into a two story building in Jabi District.

The next Director-General Mr. Adolphus Joe Ekpe (2014-2016) , a Nigerian Stock Exchange guru who was a principal officer responsible for the automation of the activities and workflow of the Nigerian Stock Exchange in Port-Harcourt. He replicated that achievement at the Commission with the take off of our Automation process which was set to ease transactions and increase revenue for the commission.

The Commission is now headed by the newly appointed Director General, Mr Lanre Gbajabiamila. A graduate of B.SC (Hons) degree in Marketing from California State University, USA and a certifiedin Unix Programmer from the prestigious ‘Seale Group’, Atlanta Georgia in 1999.

He started his career with Derivion/Metavante Corporation in 1997 as a Senior Analyst and also worked as Senior Consultant in several blue chip companies such as BearingPoint INC, Atlanta where he was a Senior Management Consultant.

Ever since his return to Nigeria he has been very active in the Nigerian gaming industry such as the National Sports Lottery (NSL) where he was the Senior IT Manager on Software Quality Assurance where he pioneered the Essnet Lottery Operating System (ELOS) which effectively managed 5 million lottery transactions weekly.