Stars: 4.6 out of 5
Website: https://www.hollywoodbets.net
Established: 2006
Head office: Umhlanga, Kwa-Zulu Natal
Licenses: Western Cape Gambling & Racing Board and the Gauteng Gambling Board
Min/Max deposit: None
Deposit Options: In SA Rands only via MasterCard and Visa credit/cheque cards or by EFT via IPay, FNB, Nedbank, Standard Bank or Absa
Software: Powered by SYX
Pros:
- Tried and tested interface
- Excellent FAQ
- Fair and trustworthy
- Customer Service is 24/7
Cons:
- No sign-up bonus
- Mobile service limited
MAIN REVIEW
Hollywood Bets began in 1986 as a humble Durban-based publishing company called Winning Form which published and distributed horse racing cards.
In 2006 the company “took the leap” and joined the online gambling community when it establishing its WWW.hollywoodbets.net website.
In 2009 it added its Hollywood Bets mobi site, all the while constantly expanding its country-wide net of retail betting shops.
Now, today, Hollywood Sportsbook has become one of the giants of South African horse-racing and sports betting with more than 80 shops spread over the six South African provinces, a phone-in betting service and online betting via its web and mobile sites.
The betting shops have been praised for the bar service and great ‘Bunny Chows’ they offer their customers, but it’s the group’s online sportsbook we’ll be looking at in this review
At a first glance, its website comes across as dated and a bit amateurish in comparison with some of its brighter and more eye-catching South African rivals and it really doesn’t do a great good job of instantly selling itself.
Its sports list initially doesn’t seem to compare too favourably either with the best, but as someone most famously once said, you should never judge a book by its cover and when you get into the nitty, gritty of it all, the Hollywood Sportsbook has many positives.
Familiarity breeds happy punters
It’s not for nothing that it is one of the biggest and most popular online betting operations in Africa.
One faithful user who works in the computer industry, probably echoed the feelings of the vast majority of its punters when he told me he enjoys using its ‘old fashioned’ website for the very reason that it has been around for a long time, he has become ‘familiar and comfortable’ with it, knows where to find everything and is happy with the way it performs
He’s not so happy, though, with its mobile platform for, like this reviewer, he feels it has limitations and can’t do everything the website does. ‘
In a continent where mobiles far exceed laptops and PCs, Hollywood Bets might find that it is in their best interests to upgrade their mobile software and at least get it on a par with their website interface.
Sports Betting
As we’ve said, the Hollywood Bet’s sports menu is not as long as some of its rivals, but starting with international horse racing which sparked its early beginnings and continues to be one of its major features, its betting list includes all of the international sports that really matter – and seems to have enough betting markets to keep its many punters coming back.
The sports in question are football, both forms of Rugby, cricket, tennis, golf, boxing, cycling, the major American sports of NFL Football, baseball, basketball and ice hockey, Aussie Rules, motorsports, volleyball and even darts and snooker.
You can also make live-in-play bets on most of the sports they feature or, if you prefer, play numbers games with the huge range of worldwide lottos they are able to make available to you.
FAQ and Customer Service
Hollywood Bets offers a 24/7 service that includes live chat via phone and WhatsApp, telephone betting and email messaging and has an FAQ (frequently asked questions) service that is second to none.
Especially valuable to first-time sportsbook gamblers, its FAQ covers almost everything you’ll want to know from how to register, how to get started, how to pay your first deposit, what kind of bets you can make, how you do it and then finally, after you have won a big bet, which is the quickest way to withdraw your winnings.
A minor criticism; Hollywood Bets seems to have too many operators who specialize in just one aspect of their help service.
They don’t seem to be clued up enough about the business as a whole and because of it, too many phone-line transfers (“Let me put you through to someone who knows the answer”) and even cut calls can result from it – and that is an irritation you can do without.
For example; we had to speak to three different operators and were cut off once before we were finally advised – in a polite and friendly manner, I might add – that there is no minimum or maxim deposit.
Sports Blog:
Hollywood Bets has a blogging section that, like the curate’s egg, is both good and bad.
In between splashes of marketing and promotional adverts, it carried some good preview material on the bigger events, but unlike World Sports Betting, it had no logs or stats which can be of great importance to punters wanting to make informed bets.
And it wasn’t good for the Hollywood Bets’ image that some of its material was way out of date.
That was certainly the case when this review was being written.
For example, its US PGA Tour preview was for the CIMB Classic that had already been played in Kuala Lumpur nine months previously and its European Tour preview was for the Nedbank Golf Challenge which had taken place no more than a month after the Cimb Classic.
Promotions and Bonuses
Hollywood Bets do have bonus offers. You will receive R100 when you FICA your betting account and R50 for every friend you refer to the site, but a big downside of its promotional activity is that they do not offer any sign-up bonus as most of their rivals do.
Otherwise, they were very much on a par with South African sportsbook promotional standards, some of their promotions in-mid 2018 being:
- The chance to win all your groceries for a year – playing their Lucky Numbers game.
- The chance to drive away in a brand new VW Polo Trendline by purchasing a Holly Top-up Voucher to the value of R50. Three consolation prizes worth R10 000 were also part of this promotion.
- There was also a chance that you could win a share of R200 000 by placing horse-racing bets of more than R10. Every bet would automatically be entered into the draw.
- Finally, you could win back your stake up to ten times if you went out on the last leg of a soccer multiples bet.
Transactions:
The Hollywood Playbook trade only in the South African Rand (ZAR) and you can make your transactions via MasterCard and Visa credit and cheque cards, and by EFT payments via I-Pay, FNB, Nedbank, Standard Bank and ABSA.
Credit card payments are instant, EFTs take a little longer but thanks to Thawte SSL and Virtual secure card payment technology, you don’t have to worry about the safety of your money or your personal details.
And what’s more, the Hollywood Sportsbook payment team seems to be on the ball for most of the time. If you make a withdrawal before 10 am, there is a good chance that you will find it in your bank account by the day’s end.
Summing Up:
The Hollywood Bets online sportsbook does not have the most elegant or attracting user interface.
It does not have a sports menu as long or as diverse as some of its major competitors and it does not offer attractive sign-up bonuses as so many of them do.
It is, nevertheless, one of the biggest and most popular online sportsbooks in South Africa.
This may be due in part to the customer trust it has managed to build up in the 12 years it has been in operation for being honest and fair, understanding the betting needs of its customer and offering competitive betting in markets that are attractive.
But as the man said, this may also be because, as one of the earliest online sports books to be launched in South Africa, its user-interface familiarity has created a comfort level for its patrons that keep them coming back – and bringing friends and family with them.