How Betway’s R900m PSL Bet Unlocked Record Growth?

Would this investment actually move the needle in terms of traffic and revenue? Now, with the 2025/26 Betway Premiership season concluded, the numbers are in, and Michel is looking like a genius!.

Perfect Season for Fans and Betway 

The 2025/26 Betway Premiership came down to the very last match of the season as Orlando Pirates ended a 14-year title drought on 23 May 2026, defeating Orbit College 2-0 at a sold-out Mbombela Stadium to clinch their fifth PSL-era title, edging out Mamelodi Sundowns by a single point in a hard-fought campaign, one of the tightest races in years. ^[1]

Credit: PSL Official Site – Screenshot captured by Chad Nagel on 31 May, 2026

For the Pirates, it completed a domestic treble that included the MTN8, the Carling Knockout Cup, and the league title in coach Abdeslam Ouaddou's first season in charge ^[2]. The 2025-2026 PSL season also saw over 88,000 fans turn out for the Soweto Derby between Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs. ^[3]

Betway couldn’t have asked for a more engaging season, as millions of soccer fans followed the league week in and week out to see if the Pirates could finally end the Sundowns’ dominance.

The Traffic Numbers

Before the sponsorship, Betway was already South Africa's leading online betting operator. But the scale of growth since the deal has been impressive. Betway's monthly website visits climbed from an estimated 21.9 million in June 2024, the month before the sponsorship was announced, to 46 million by December 2025 (110% over just 24 months). ^[4]

In the first quarter of 2026, Betway attracted 94 million visits. That figure represented close to one-quarter of all online betting traffic in South Africa during the quarter. Total visits across the country's online betting platforms reached 380 million in Q1 2026 alone, averaging 126 million per month, with mobile users accounting for the majority of activity.

To put the competitive context in perspective, Hollywoodbets, which did not hold a league naming-rights deal, grew monthly visits from 20.4 million to 24.5 million over the same two-year window, which is a modest 20% rise.

Revenue Also Exploded

The financial results published by Betway's parent company, Super Group, show just how lucrative the PSL sponsorship has been. South Africa generated R10.8 billion in revenue for Betway in 2024, up from R6.3 billion in 2023. ^[5]

Credit: Betway – Screenshot captured by Chad Nagel on 16 April, 2026

By Q1 2025, Africa and the Middle East had overtaken North America as Super Group's largest revenue region, with South Africa explicitly cited as the primary growth driver. Africa drew 39% of all group revenue in Q1 2025, up from 37% the prior year. ^[6] Super Group's CEO Neal Menashe was candid about the opportunity in Africa on the company's investor calls. He said if we grow revenue by 30 or 40%, we double the profits. ^[7]

Betway is benefiting from industry growth in ZA, as South Africa's total gross gambling revenue hit R74.5 billion in the 2024/25 financial year. ^[8] Sports betting accounted for R52 billion of that. 
Statistics South Africa reported that gambling and betting activities account for 1.6% of total household spending, placing them 12th on the 2025 Consumer Price Index basket, ranked just behind beer ^[9]. Betway operates in a sector that South Africans are spending on at the same rate as staple recreation.