How to bet on football: a beginner's guide for Nigerian punters

Online football betting in Nigeria takes five steps from sign-up to a placed slip. The details here follow SportyBet’s and Bet9ja’s own help pages.

1. RegisterSign-up on SportyBet is free: tap Register at the top right and fill in your details. You must be 18 or older.
2. Deposit nairaBet9ja’s help centre lists OPay and PalmPay transfers, bank USSD codes, Paystack and Flutterwave among its deposit routes.
3. Pick a match and a marketTap the odds next to the outcome you want, such as 1 for a home win, and it drops onto the betslip.
4. Set the stakeSportyBet takes from ₦10 to ₦40,000,000 per ticket, with up to 50 selections on one slip.
5. Place and confirmTap Place Bet, then Confirm. A message tells you whether the bet went through.

On SportyBet, open and settled bets sit under Me, in Sports Bet History. To cash in, tap Withdraw under Me and enter the amount; SportyBet sends winnings to your bank account and charges no withdrawal fee.

A first deposit can also unlock a welcome offer. Licences, bonuses and payout times are compared in our ranking of the best betting sites in Nigeria, and rollover rules in our guide to betting sites in Nigeria with welcome bonus offers.

Beginners can build a first slip from five football markets, and SportyBet and Bet9ja both list all of them.

A ₦1,000 single on Kano Pillars at 2.10 returns ₦2,100 if they win, because the return is stake times odds.

Singles on one market you understand keep the maths simple while you learn. The full list of slip words, from 1UP to void, is in our glossary of betting terms.

A booking code loads a ready-made slip into your betslip, so you can place a bet built on another phone, by a friend or at a betting shop.

On SportyBet, open Load Code from the menu and type the code; the selections appear on your betslip. On Bet9ja, you create a code while logged out through Book a Bet, and a known code goes into the Booking code box, followed by Load.

Bet9ja’s help page warns that odds can move between booking and payment, and the bet is placed at the odds that are correct when you pay.

Codes passed around on Telegram or WhatsApp carry that price risk plus legs you have not chosen yourself. Read every selection on the loaded slip before you stake on it.

Decimal odds show the full return for each ₦1 staked, with the stake included. ₦500 at 3.00 returns ₦1,500, a profit of ₦1,000.

An acca multiplies the odds of every leg. Three legs at 1.85, 1.60 and 2.10 give total odds of about 6.22, and a single losing leg loses the whole slip.

When an acca match is called off and not completed within 48 hours of the planned kick-off, SportyBet voids that leg at odds of 1.00 and pays the rest.

Before the first bet, decide on a weekly amount you can afford to lose, and keep every football stake inside it.