Stars: 4.9
Website: www.worldsportsbetting.co.za
Established: 2002
Location: Johannesburg, South Africa
License: Gauteng Gambling Board
Min/Max 1st deposit: R50/R10 000
Deposit Options: In Rand (ZAR) only online or by telephone through Visa, MasterCard and Amex credit cards, by EFT via I-Pay, FNB, Nedbank, Standard Bank and Absa or through SID and Ott Vouchers
Software: Proprietary
Pros:
- Top Sign-up Bonus in RSA
- Extensive betting options
- Mobile friendly
- A wide range of payment options
- 24/7 customer service
Cons:
- Transactions in Rand only
MAIN REVIEW:
World Sports Betting (WBC) was founded by Warren Tannous in 2002 and has since become a leader in the business of sportsbook marketing, both in South Africa and throughout the African continent.
Offering national, continental and international sports betting including live in-play betting, lotto and Powerball as well as global horse racing betting, it has grown into a global online and retail operation with some 15 betting shops in Gauteng, the Western Cape and Kwa-Zulu Natal with an existing complement of well over a 100 staff members ranging from directors, junior and senior traders, IT Engineers, Junior and Senior Administrators, Branch Managers and Retail Cashiers.
WBC launched its online platform in 2009 when the clarity and speed of its website, its-easy-to use interface, its large variety of markets available (both in pre-match and in-play betting) quickly brought it to the fore among online South African bookmakers – and especially after it introduced WSB Mobi .
Its website is not a particularly attractive one when compared with other South African competitors like SunBet.
It’s a little staid, a little old-fashioned and perhaps too busy, but it is straight-forward, informative and gets the job done, starting with a banner that tells you about the World’s most important up-coming sporting events, how you can fund your betting activities, what bonuses and marketing benefits are available and even “how you can FICA”.
The banner also boasts “Bet with Best – and here’s why it can make this claim with confidence.
Sports betting list
When you open the WSB home page it shouldn’t take you more than a few seconds to note that its sports list is one of the longest in the South African betting community.
Apart from its standout menu of international horse races and all the usual suspects like football, rugby, cricket, tennis, golf, boxing, the American specialist sports, NFL Football, baseball, basketball and ice hockey, Aussie rules, motorsports, darts and volleyball etc, it also offers some rarer betting opportunities in sports like ski-jumping, surfing, biathlon, water-polo, table tennis and pasapello.
But that’s not all. WSB’s range of betting markets within those sports is also huge. They claim to offer each month betting opportunities in more than 250,000 pre-match markets and in a minimum of 200,000 live in-play events.
They also have 500 Lotto draws – and this is going some by any standards.
It further helps elevate their status that, along with the internet, you can also place your bets and or deposits by telephone or in person at one of their retail outlets.
Bonuses and Promotions:
At the time of writing, no South African online sportsbook was able to match WSB’s whopping signup offer which, in their own words on their front page banner says you can get a “100% match of your 1st deposit up to R10,000” – yes, that’s right, R10,000!
And it’s not the only deposit bonus they offer either.
They also have them on a monthly basis such as the one they were advertising at the time of this review.
On all deposits for the month of July, they promised a “20% match in free bets up to R30,000.”
Do be careful with the amount of that first deposit, though. There are no free dinners, even on the most generous sportsbook sites.
You are going to have to place bets worth 5 times the free bets bonus voucher you get when you make the deposit. (e.g. If your deposit is R100, the value of your 100% matching bonus voucher in free bets will be R100.
Times it by five and R500 is the sum of bets you’ll need to place before you can make any withdrawals.
Go all the way and deposit R10 000 and you’ll need to spend R50 000 in free bets before you can make your first withdrawal.
As far as promotions go, there is more, much more. Their promotional menu is as good as you’ll get anywhere on the continent of Africa.
They change it from time to time, but here are a few examples of some of their promotional offers at the time this review was written.
Super Rugby and Premier League football – if your selection scores the first try or gets the first goal, your winnings are doubled.
Formula 1 Racing: If the driver you back to win comes second, you get your stake back.
Drawn-match refund: You get a refund on all losing bets if the game ends in a draw.
Pay with I-Pay and you get a free spin and the chance to get back the full amount of your latest deposit.
Spot a mistake on the site and you get an R100 free betting voucher.
Blogs, results, stats live scores:
Another huge feature that makes WSB stand out from the crowd is their excellent sports blog section which, apart from its informative betting previews and news on anything of any real importance, carries thousands of results, competition logs and a wide range of valuable and not so valuable statistics.
One them, for example, tells which sports get the most clicks on the site and yes, you are right, it is football and rugby followed by tennis, motorsport and – you’ll never guess this one – darts!
To a greater degree than most of their competitors, WSB seems to be keenly aware of the importance of keeping their customers clued up on what is happening out there in the world of sport and sports betting.
And the fact that they have also added a streaming section of Esports matches to their site is just another indication of this.
Their onus on offering up-to-the-minute sports information is obvious from the moment your eyes fall on their home page banner and note that it features more bright and picturesque adds for World sport’s bigger events of the moment than it does for even its bonus features.
One small criticism; until you’ve established exactly where it is on their home page, the praiseworthy blog section, despite being highlighted by some brightly-coloured buttons, is a little too low down and hidden away to be easily noticed by newcomers to the site.
Transactions:
WSB, at the time of writing, operated globally but traded only in the South African Rand (ZAR).
It did, however, have wider payment options than many of its national competitors, some of these being via Visa, MasterCard and Amex credit cards, via EFT to I-Pay, FNB, Nedbank, Standard Bank and ABSA or through SID and Ott Vouchers.
And to ensure that your personal details and the millions of transaction they make every year are safe and secure, they use Thawte Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology.
Customer support
WSB is one of the very few online sportsbooks in Africa able to offer 24/7 support. Betway SA is the other.
They keep their Tele-Bet and Support Centre open for 24 hours on all 365 days of the year to ensure that “our clients can always speak to one of our representatives, place a bet, make a deposit, query their account or request results at any time, day or night.”
Summing up
World Sports Betting generally does so much right and in such a big way that is difficult to find any fault with it.
One or two customer quibbles, mostly about customer service, have been noted but it is nothing new. No matter how good or how bad they are, no operator in this industry seems to get by without someone complaining – mainly after getting on a losing streak.
Along with the best sign-up bonus in South Africa, it has onee of the very best play-lists of sports markets, a customer service that offers live chat and accepts telephone bets, an excellent blogging section packed with informative betting previews, results and logs and a user interface that might not be as elegant or as spectacular as some others, but runs as smoothly and effectively on mobile devices as it does on PCs and laptops and in general makes using it a pleasurable experience, especially when you win.
In the circumstances, we have no hesitation in fully endorsing WBS and giving it a review high of 4.9 out of five stars.