South African Sports Betting

South Africans are just as fond of placing bets on their favorite sports events as people from other parts of the world. Fortunately, South African sports betting is a legalized and regulated industry, as a result of which the country has several licensed bookies that accept wagers on not only sports such as cricket, soccer, rugby, and others, but also horse racing. The horse racing and the sports betting industries in South Africa are inter-related, enabling punters to place bets on horse racing events as well as other sports events with the same bookie. South African punters can choose from more than 400 betting shops and 300 sportsbooks to place bets on any sports event under the sun.

SA sports betting is 100 percent legalized and regulated although betting on poker and casino games is illegal. Technically speaking, South Africans can be said to be legally using an online gaming site if they use it only to bet on horses and sports events, not on casino or poker games.

South African has 9 provinces, and each province has its own regulatory board for racing and sports betting. Bookies ought to first get a license from one of these regulatory boards before offering sports betting services to South African citizens. Depending on the betting laws of each province, bettors might or might not have to pay taxes on their winnings.

For an in-depth look at bookmaker licensing in SA, click here

South Africans are fond of betting on almost any sport under the sun, although they tend to favor national teams such as Bafana Bafana and Springboks. They are also fond of prominent sports events such as the Currie Cup, Super Rugby, ABSA Premiership, and others. Punters from South Africa are also known to wager on American football events such as NBA, MLB, NFL, NHL, and others.

While visiting a land-based bookie and placing bets on one’s favorite sports or horse racing event is an unbeatable experience, the advantages of online sports betting over land-based bookmakers are many.

In the first place, online sportsbooks allow punters to place bets from the comforts of home. Some of them also offer facilities such as live in-play betting, mobile betting, phone betting, and live video streaming, which land-based bookies do not. In spite of the strict online gambling laws, land-based bookies are more strictly regulated than online bookmakers. Land-based bookies, for instance, have to worry about paying taxes, the amount of which depends from one South African province to the other. Online bookmakers, on the contrary, enjoy more freedom, which puts them in a position to offer better sports betting products to their customers.