Kericho Farmer Wins Ksh26.9 Million SportPesa Midweek Jackpot

Richard Kimutai Ngetich goes to the tea fields every morning. He has done it for 22 years, picking leaves on the slopes of the Kericho highlands that produce some of the world's finest tea. On Wednesday morning, he picked up his phone instead — and discovered that the Ksh50 stake he placed on the SportPesa Midweek Jackpot the previous Sunday had turned his life completely upside down.

All 13 predictions correct. Prize: Ksh26,987,606.

"I thought I was reading wrongly. I called my wife, and she also thought I was confused," Ngetich told Kenya News Agency from his home in Kapkatet, Kericho. "I have been doing this for maybe three years but never like this. Never this."

SportPesa confirmed the winner on Thursday, saying Ngetich had submitted his predictions using the company's mobile app and had correctly called results from matches across the English Premier League, La Liga and Serie A — a combination that requires not just luck but genuine football knowledge. Ngetich, it emerges, is a devoted Liverpool fan who tracks European football nightly on a modest satellite dish he installed four years ago.

The win comes at a meaningful moment for the Ngetich family. Like many smallholder tea farmers in Kericho, Richard has faced falling KTDA payouts over the past two years as global tea prices have softened and the government's payment system for smallholder farmers has been slow. "We have been struggling. Now we can breathe," he said.

His plans for the money are grounded and practical: pay off a family land dispute, build a permanent home, fund his three children's secondary education and invest the remainder in a small business. SportPesa says it is dispatching a financial planning advisor to Kericho to support the winner in managing his new wealth — a service the company introduced after previous big winners faced exploitation by unscrupulous relatives and advisors.