Online gambling in South Africa and the laws surrounding the legality of betting online can lead to some confusion. Before we take a closer look at how to find free bets in South Africa, first we need to find out more about the online betting situation in the country.
The 1996 National Gambling Act allowed the legalisation and regulation of gambling in South Africa. The National Gambling Board was created to regulate the industry, but it included only land-based betting activities. The nine provinces in South Africa were granted powers to begin offering physical licensed sports and casino gambling in the country.
The relaxation of the laws surrounding gambling in South Africa continued in 2004 with the National Gambling Act but again, this did not cover online gambling.
However, despite the laws providing new opportunities for land-based sportsbooks and casinos, the same could not be said for online gambling in South Africa. In 2008, there was an amendment announced to make all forms of online gambling legal in South Africa, but it was never enacted and that was unwelcome news for online casinos.
To further complicate matters, courts ruled it was illegal for online casinos based outside South Africa to offer their services to people living in the country.
Fortunately for those who enjoy sports betting, the law does not apply to online sportsbooks, and it is legal for people residing in South Africa to bet on sport online. Only licensed operators who are regulated by the National Gambling Board and local provinces can legally provide online sports betting in South Africa.
So, when it comes to finding free bets in South Africa, the search can easily be narrowed down by the fact it must be with a licensed South African bookmaker. You will find plenty of websites dedicated to bringing you information about the best online betting sites in South Africa and there are many from which to choose.
If your main interest is finding the best free bets in South Africa, you should pay a visit to as many of the legal online sportsbooks in the country and see which of them are offering free bets.
The legal online sportsbooks in South Africa offering free bets will change over time. So, simply because a betting website is not offering a free bet today, does not mean they will not in the future, and you should not disregard them completely.
For example, at the time of writing, you are unlikely to find many free bets without deposit at a South African betting site but there are some available at the likes of Marshalls World of Sport. If there is no free bet without a deposit at your favourite South African sportsbook, that does not mean one will not become available next month or sometime next year.
With that in mind, it can sometimes pay off to use an online sports betting review website or mobile application. These are designed to bring you the best and latest sports betting offers in South Africa. As their main job is to highlight the promotions being offered by legal sportsbooks in South Africa, you are sure to find free bet bonuses, some of which will be exclusive.
If you have looked online for sportsbooks in South Africa and created an account at one of your choices, you will have noticed the opportunity to add a promotional code. These are often created by sports betting review websites and if you use the code, you will be granted an exclusive free bet bonus that is not available elsewhere.
The most common form of free bet bonus in South Africa is the welcome bonus. South African betting offers tend to be based on free bets of between R20 and R2000 equal to your first deposit.
For example, at the time of writing at Gbets, you can use a promotional code to claim R1000 and at World Sports Betting, this goes up to R10,000, which is incredible and all because you have found a free bet code online. You can conduct a simple search online to find the best promo codes for free bets at South African bookmakers.
It is worth noting that free bets in South Africa are often based on the first deposit. That means you will have to claim the free bet when making your first deposit at the bookmaker, because if you do not do it then, you may miss out completely. South African sportsbooks will run additional promotions for current customers, but they are rarely free bets, these tend to be reserved for new members only.
So, the best way to find free bets in South Africa is to browse the legal sportsbooks in the country yourself and pick the best free bets you can find or use a sportsbook review website and grab a promotional code.