How We Rate Gambling Apps

Every gambling app on this site, from our app reviews to our guide to the best gambling apps in South Africa, is judged on the same five things. The licence is checked first, then the welcome offer, which phones the app works on, how you get money in and out of your account, and the games you get besides sport. This page sets out what we look at under each one, how the result shows in a review and what does not count.

The licence comes first

• Is there a provincial bookmaker licence, and is the number published where a reader can find it? The National Gambling Board says a licensed online operator shows its licensing information on the home page of its site, so that is where we read it, and our guide prints every number with the company and the board behind it.
• Which board issued it. South Africa has no national bookmaker licence, so the province matters: the board that issued the licence is the one that takes your complaint if the operator does not settle it.
• A licence number we cannot find is reported as missing. If an operator names its regulator without printing the number, the review says exactly that rather than filling the gap.

Welcome offer conditions

• The cash figure as the operator advertises it, read off its own promotions page.
• What you have to do to get it. A R20,000 match needs a R20,000 deposit, and we say so rather than letting the headline stand alone.
• The conditions. Time limits, minimum odds, how many times the money has to be bet through, and any cap on what you keep.

Whether it runs on your phone

• Android, iPhone and Huawei separately. An app on one phone does not mean an app on the other two, so each is checked on its own.
• How you install it. Betway and Supabets both say on their download pages that real money gambling apps are not on the Google Play Store, so on Android the file comes from the operator’s own site, as it does for the Betway app. On iPhone the app usually comes from the App Store, and on a Huawei phone from AppGallery or the operator’s mobile site.
• What it costs in data. When an operator lists light data use among its app features, as Betway and Supabets both do, or calls its app data-free, the guide and the review say so. Ask your network what data-free covers on your bundle before you count on it.

Getting money in and out

• The ways you can pay in, including ways to pay with cash if you do not bank online, such as OTT vouchers and the Shoprite and Checkers Money Market counter at Betway, or the vouchers Supabets sells in its own branches.
• The ways you can take money out, including cash at an ATM without a card, such as Betway’s Absa CashSend payout, which you collect at any Absa ATM with a PIN and Betway’s access code.
• Verification. Which documents the operator asks for and how you send them, so your first withdrawal is not held up waiting for them.

What the app gives you beyond sport

• Aviator and the other crash games, and which ones each app carries.
• Lucky Numbers, and how deep the draw list goes.
• Slots, live dealer games and BetGames, offered as fixed-odds betting games under the bookmaker licence, as Betway’s own footer says of all its games.

How the result shows in a review

Our reviews do not give a score out of ten or a star rating. Each one works through the five checks in its own sections, then sums the app up in its fast facts with a Best for line and an Our take line, as the LottoStar app review does.

Each review then lists what the app does well and where it falls short, with at least one real flaw, such as LottoStar paying out only on weekday mornings, and closes on a verdict that tells you who should pick the app and who should look at another one.

What does not count

• Payment from an operator. Only our own team decides where an app sits in a table or a ranking, and no operator can pay to be listed or to be placed higher, as our affiliate disclosure explains.
• Figures from other comparison sites. We take offers, licence numbers, payment methods and download routes from the operator itself, so a figure that only appears on a rival site never makes it onto ours.
• Anything we could not read at source. If we could not confirm it on the operator’s own pages, it counts neither for nor against an app.

How we rate FAQ

Do you rate apps that hold no South African licence?

No. The licence is checked first, and an app without a provincial bookmaker licence is left off the site whatever it offers, because the National Gambling Board says online betting is only legal with a bookmaker licensed by a provincial gambling board.

Do you check the apps on a phone?

Yes. Operator pages are read on a phone over a South African connection, because that is how you will use the app.

How often are the reviews updated?

Welcome offers are re-checked regularly against each operator’s promotions page, and the table of welcome offers in our guide shows the date they were last read. When a reader reports a change, we check it on the operator’s own pages before we update the review, as our editorial policy sets out. Tell us through our contact page if something has changed.

Whichever app you choose, set your limits on the first day. Our responsible gambling page lists the tools operators offer and free help in South Africa. Betting is for adults aged 18 and over, and the National Responsible Gambling Programme answers free on 0800 006 008, 24 hours a day.