How We Score Betting Sites
Every licensed South African bookmaker we cover is rated 1–5 on five criteria: welcome bonus & promos, deposits & voucher support, withdrawal speed, app & site experience, and sports markets & games depth. Scores are relative to the other licensed SA operators we cover, not to international betting sites, and are set before any commercial conversation with the operator.
The Five Criteria
Each review's scoreboard breaks a bookmaker down into these five rows. Here's what each one actually measures and where the number comes from.
| Criterion | What we look at | Primary source |
|---|---|---|
| Welcome bonus & promos | Headline offer size, but weighted more by the wagering requirement, minimum odds, and time limit buried in the full terms — a big headline number with harsh terms scores lower than a modest one that's actually achievable. | Operator's own T&Cs page, read in full, not the promo banner. |
| Deposits & voucher support | How many of the common SA payment methods (EFT, cards, vouchers like 1Voucher/OTT/Blu, cash deposit networks, eWallets) are supported, and whether deposits reflect instantly. | Operator's payments/help page, cross-checked against our own payments pages. |
| Withdrawal speed | The operator's own stated processing time for each method, and how that lines up with patterns in publicly reported user complaints (repeated complaints about a specific method or delay pull this score down even if the stated time looks fine on paper). | Operator's stated terms plus publicly reported user experience — see the caveat below. |
| App & site experience | Data usage on mobile, app store rating and review volume, and whether core tasks (deposit, bet slip, cash out, withdraw) are straightforward without a support ticket. | App store listings, operator's own site/app, our apps guide. |
| Sports markets & games depth | Breadth of sports and leagues covered, in-play/live betting availability, and range of casino or numbers-style games where the operator offers them. | Operator's own site, checked directly. |
How the Overall Score Is Set
The overall rating shown at the top of each review is not a strict mathematical average of the five row scores above. It's an editorial judgement that also weighs licence standing, how long the operator has held it, and whether we found any pattern of unresolved complaints during research. We show every row score openly so you can see exactly what fed into it, rather than take the headline number on trust.
We deliberately don't publish a fixed weighting formula (e.g. "bonus is worth 30%"), because in practice the criterion that matters most differs by operator: a withdrawal-speed problem is a bigger deal for a bookmaker most people fund with a voucher than a minor gap in games depth. We'd rather be transparent that judgement is involved than publish a formula precise-looking enough to imply a false level of mechanical accuracy.
What We Verify Directly vs. What We Don't
Verified directly: every operator's provincial gambling licence, checked against the issuing board (Western Cape, Mpumalanga, KZN, and others), with the licence number published on the review so you can check it yourself. Bonus terms and conditions, read in full rather than summarised from the promo page. Supported payment methods, checked against the operator's own site.
Not verified by first-hand play: our editorial team is based outside South Africa and cannot open a FICA-verified betting account, so we do not place bets or time our own withdrawals. Withdrawal-speed and support-quality scores are built from the operator's stated terms and publicly reported user experience, never presented as something we personally timed. Several operators (Hollywoodbets, Betway, Playa Bets among them) are also geo-fenced from outside South Africa, which is part of why this line exists. Full context on this trade-off is on the About page.
Re-Review Cadence
Bonus terms and other operator-stated facts are re-checked monthly against the operator's own published terms and conditions, since these are the numbers most likely to change without notice. Licence status is re-checked when we add or substantially update a review. Each review page carries its own visible last-updated date, so you can see how current a specific score is rather than assume it for the whole site.
Money and Independence
We may earn a referral commission when you open an account through some links on this site. Scores and rankings are set from the criteria on this page before any commercial conversation with an operator, and a change in commission rate never moves a score. Full disclosure, including why we list licensed operators only, is on the About page.
Corrections
If you find something on a review that's out of date or wrong, we want to know. Email info@dilgomedia.com and we'll check it against the primary source and correct it.