About Lekker Betting Sites
Lekker Betting Sites is a South African comparison site for betting sites and their apps. We look at the licensed bookmakers that take rand, we read their offers and their terms on their own pages, and we write down what a punter in Soweto, Durban or Polokwane will actually get when they sign up on a phone.
What the site covers
Every betting site we list holds a licence from one of the nine provincial licensing authorities that the National Gambling Board says regulate gambling in South Africa, and a betting site without one is not listed. From there we compare the things that change your week: the size and the real value of the welcome offer, how many ways you can pay in, how fast the money comes back out, whether there is an Android, iPhone or Huawei app, and how much mobile data the pages use on a phone.
We cover sports betting first, because betting is the mode of gambling these bookmakers are licensed for. We also cover the casino games, Aviator, Lucky Numbers and Betgames that they run under the same licences, and Betway’s app page, for example, says all its games are fixed-odds betting events.
The people behind it
The site is run by a small editorial team, and its pages carry the byline Editorial Team. We do not put a name and a smiling photo at the top of every page, because the facts on the page matter more than who typed them. Every review is written by someone who has opened the betting site on a phone, read its promotions page and checked its footer for the licence number. The Hollywoodbets review, the first on the site, was tested logged out on a phone in South Africa and took its licence details from the Hollywoodbets footer.
How we get our facts
- Licence details: read off the operator’s own footer or terms page, with the number and the issuing board.
- Welcome offers: read on the operator’s promotions page and its terms, with how many times you must bet it and the cap noted, on the date we checked.
- Payment methods: read on the operator’s banking page. Where a betting site shows its methods only after you log in, we say so rather than guess.
- App details: checked on the operator’s app page and its Apple App Store listing, with Huawei AppGallery details taken from what the operator’s app page says. Betway’s app page says real money gambling apps are not allowed in the Google Play Store, so Android users install its APK, and when we searched Google Play from South Africa for the Hollywoodbets review, only other Hollywoodbets apps came up, not the betting app.
Offers change often in this market. A figure on this site is the figure on the day we read it. The one inside the app on the day you sign up is the one that binds.
Betting law in South Africa, in short
Sports betting and horse racing with a licensed bookmaker are legal across the country under the National Gambling Act, 2004 (Act 7 of 2004), and the National Gambling Board’s FAQ says online betting is legal with a licensed South African bookmaker. The licences are provincial, most often from the Western Cape Gambling and Racing Board or the Mpumalanga Economic Regulator. The same bookmakers run casino games, crash games and lucky numbers as fixed-odds bets under those licences. You must be 18 or older to bet. On horse racing, Betway’s home page puts a 6% winnings tax on winning bets and refunds it through its Tax Scratch feature.
Get in touch
If an offer on this site has changed, a link is dead or a licence has moved, tell us through the contact page. We check the operator’s page again and correct ours. Read the rating method to see exactly how a betting site earns its score here.
Play it safe. Gambling is for over 18s and it can become addictive. The National Responsible Gambling Programme runs a free helpline on 0800 006 008, open 24 hours a day. Winners know when to stop. Our responsible gambling page has the tools and the signs.