HARARE – Sports betting has always been a controversial hobby or some may call it a habit.
The act of placing bets itself hails from the most ancient of times, casting lots as it was called in Biblical times. But whatever name it was called in whatever language or culture, the basis of betting is always the same: you are playing the odds of some event coming to pass in your favour.
Zimbabweans are not foreign by any means to the subject of gambling, and trying one’s luck with numbers or betting. We have had the Pink lotto that was extremely popular in its heyday, as well as Africalotto that is still running today.
Borrowdale Race Course has been a key feature in the social life of almost every person that has lived in or visited Harare at some point. And at the race course is arguably the birthplace of the more recent and modern betting practices. Sports betting is by far now the biggest and most lucrative betting class the world over, as the football phenomenon swept the globe over the past 10 to 20 years.
So what is all this sports betting about, how do people make money from it, and what does it all mean?
Sports betting is hedged on the concept of you (the punter) placing a bet, with you own funds (your stake) with a bookmaker (a legally licensed operator that is allowed to offer gambling and gaming services). Your bet is premised on the concept that the odds of you guessing the outcome of a match for example are predefined. As a simple example, lets us say Arsenal is set to play Manchester United in the English Premier League. The bookmaker may offer odds on this match, those odds may be that the probability of Arsenal winning the match are 2 to 1. This means that for each dollar you “stake” if Arsenal wins the match, you would be paid 2x the initial money you staked in the bet.
If you placed a bet for $20 on such a match and Arsenal did in fact win, you would walk out with a cool $40.
But we have all heard of the tales of players winning absolutely fantastic amounts at the betting halls, and with online betting firms, having stake very small amounts…so what will be happening here?
Well as previously alluded, it all about the odds of something coming to pass. So for example, if you place a single combined bet, that brings say 20 separate matches onto a single bet, whereby the premise is that you must guess the correct outcome of all 20 matches correctly, the odds of you guessing this combination bet are very low. So low that a bookmaker will offer you fantastic odds against such a bet.
Guess the twenty matches correctly and a bookmaker may give odds of 90 000 to 1. So on such a bet for every dollar you stake, the bookmaker will payout x $90 000. This is how people win fantastic amounts from a $1 bet. These are what are called LONG shots, as they are rare and unlikely to occur often, though they do happen from time to time.
Players are more likely to play bets with LESS “legs” or teams on one ticket. So as to increase the probability of getting the result correct, while keeping the potential profit attractive.
This is the premise of sports betting! In Zimbabwe there are a few legally licensed operators with whom you are able to place your bets, both by walking into a betting hall, as well as through their Online betting solutions.
The biggest operator by far is Africabet. With their large retail footprint that spans across all the major towns and cities in Zimbabwe, they boast over 55 retail outlets in and around Zimbabwe. Their online platform https://africabet.mobi is one of the best this writer has seen and rivals some of the top European betting sites in terms of its functionality and promotional offers.
Check out the site here, register and deposit using your Ecocash FCA account, and when you win get paid in USD. And take a look at all the registration bonus’s that are on offer amongst all the other promotions they have going on!
There are of course other operators in the market that are also offering similar services, like MWOS, and Superbets, who are the next biggest operators. MTC used to be the biggest operator in the market only a few years ago, but it would appear that they fell behind in terms of technology and innovation and were overtaken by events very quickly.
You may find MWOS online here with all their promotions and instructions.
Both Africabet and MWOS have Zero Rated their services on the Econet Network. While MWOS has done this for their raw website, Africabet has done so for their Android Application, which we found much faster than a regular website. This means even without data as long as your Online account is funded, you can place bets from any mobile device.
Source: Africabet Media
