How We Rate and Evaluate Online Bookmakers in Nigeria

At Afrik-Foot, we believe that every bettor deserves a licensed and secure bookmaker that is easy to use. Our team is committed to providing thorough and unbiased bookmaker reviews, ensuring you have access to trustworthy sites in Nigeria.

All our recommendations are tested and verified by expert journalists who deposit, place bets, and withdraw funds to assess real user experience. This means you can bet with confidence and security.

Evaluation Process and Key Criteria for Nigerian Bookmakers

Our evaluation process is structured, transparent, and based on real testing. Our team assesses each bookmaker based on essential criteria like security, payment methods, odds, market coverage, bonuses, and customer support.

To ensure accuracy, each bookmaker is rated on a 1-10 scale for each factor:

10 – Excellent performance, exceeding industry standards.
7-9 – Strong performance, reliable for bettors.
4-6 – Acceptable but with areas for improvement.
1-3 – Poor performance, not recommended.

The first factor we assess is whether a bookmaker is licensed and regulated. We verify if they hold a valid Nigerian state license and are approved by the National Lottery Regulatory Commission (NLRC).

Beyond licensing, we also check:

  • License number visibility on the bookmaker’s site.
  • NLRC’s list of approved gaming operators to confirm legitimacy.
  • Data protection measures to ensure your personal and financial details are secure.

Only fully licensed and secure bookmakers receive a top rating in this category.

A seamless deposit and withdrawal process is essential for bettors. We verify whether bookmakers support popular betting payment methods in Nigeria, including:

  • Bank transfers
  • Debit/credit cards (Visa, Mastercard)
  • Mobile money services (OPay, PalmPay)
  • USSD payments

We also assess transaction speed and hidden charges. Bookmakers with fast withdrawals and no unnecessary fees receive higher ratings, while those with delays or unclear policies are rated lower.

Odds directly impact your potential winnings, the higher the odds, the bigger your payouts. Our team compares odds across different bookmakers to identify the most competitive odds.

We also assess market coverage, including:

  • Popular leagues (NPFL, Premier League, La Liga, UEFA Champions League).
  • Niche sports (esports, table tennis, MMA).
  • Betting types (match winner, over/under, handicaps etc.)

Bookmakers with high odds and a diverse betting market receive top ratings.

Most Nigerian bettors place bets via mobile, so we evaluate how well bookmakers perform on smartphones and tablets. We test:

  • Mobile site design & navigation – Is it easy to use?
  • Loading speed – Does the site run smoothly?
  • App availability – Is there a dedicated Android/iOS app?

A bookmaker that offers a seamless mobile experience ranks higher in our ratings.

Our experts review how regularly bookmakers offer different promotions such as free bets, cashback offers, odds boosts, and loyalty programs. We access them in terms of their value, wagering requirements, frequency, and terms and conditions to ensure we recommend bookmakers with consistent bonuses and promotions to you.

Apart from examining the bonuses, we also check the terms and conditions of the welcome bonuses offered by these bookmakers to see if they are easy to meet. We give a high rating to bookmakers with easy wagering requirements and a lower rating to the ones with complex requirements.

People can encounter challenges while placing bets or have questions concerning failed withdrawals or other things. That’s why it is important for bookmakers to not only have a customer care team but to have a team that is knowledgeable and friendly as well. We analyse how quickly bookmakers respond to queries and how helpful they are.

We also check if they offer multiple support channels like live chat, email, phone support, and social media. Additionally, we ensure we give a higher rating to bookmakers with 24/7 customer support which can help players at any time of the day.

We prioritise responsible betting and believe that sports betting should never come at the expense of your finances. To keep betting fun and safe, we expect bookmakers to have strong responsible gambling tools in place to prevent players from addiction.

For example, we tend to prefer bookmakers that offer features like deposit limits, self-exclusion, net-loss limit, and time-out. These tools help  you manage your betting habits to avoid continuously losing money and getting into debts.

We also check how easy it is to delete your account if you’re becoming addicted to gambling. For bookmakers with complex account deletion processes, we give them a low rating.

We have been in service of African football fans like you for over 15 years, and we are committed to providing you with factual information, whether it is by promoting top bookmakers that are better for players or advising you against the ones that are unsafe and do not prioritise responsible gaming for players.

Our reviews are unbiased and rooted in strict editorial standards. We refuse any form of payment that might compromise our integrity or influence our ratings. If a bookmaker fails to meet our standards, we’ll call them out without any hesitation. Read our full editorial policy here.

When we recommend a bookmaker, it’s because they’ve passed our tests in security, payment speed, odds, user experience, promotions, customer support, and responsible gambling measures.