How a review gets counted
Every rule is published, because a category nobody can check is worth nothing. A review is counted toward a topic if its title or text matches the pattern below. It can match several, and most do, so the percentages on a bookmaker's page do not add up to 100 and are not meant to.
| Topic | Why it is on the list | Matches |
|---|---|---|
| Getting money out | The single thing a punter most needs to know and the thing no comparison site can test. | withdraw|payout|pay out|paid out|cash ?out|not received|no money|money back|refund |
| FICA and account verification | South African bookmakers must verify identity by law, and it is where accounts get stuck. | fica|verif|rica|document|id copy|proof of address|kyc|selfie |
| Accounts suspended or closed | An account frozen with a balance in it is the worst outcome on this list. | suspend|blocked|locked|frozen|closed my account|account clos|banned|restrict |
| Bonus and promotion terms | This site prices welcome offers, so it should also count how often they cause trouble. | bonus|promo|free bet|wager(ing)? requirement|rollover|voucher |
| Getting hold of support | Every other problem here is survivable if somebody answers. | support|customer (care|service)|no (one|body) (respond|repl|answer)|ignor|call cent|help ?desk|email |
| App or site not working | A bet you cannot place is a bet you cannot win. | app |website|site (is )?(down|slow)|crash|glitch|error|log ?in|cannot access|loading |
| Bets voided or settled wrongly | A disputed settlement is the complaint a regulator most wants to see the record of. | void|cancel(l)?ed my bet|settle|wrong odds|bet was removed|resulted|incorrect(ly)? (paid|settl) |
What we do not do with it
We store no review text and no reviewer names. Not in the repository, not on the site, not anywhere. The words belong to the people who wrote them and to the platform that hosts them, and the names are personal information we have no reason to hold. What is kept is counts: how many reviews, how many stars, how many mention withdrawals.
It does not touch the ranking. The order bookmakers appear in on this site is licence evidence, regulator coverage, offer value and product, and it is proved commercially neutral on every build. Folding a sentiment score into it would make the ranking impossible to audit and easy to game. The formula is published and this is not part of it.
We do not publish a record too small to mean anything. Below 15 reviews there is nothing here. One bookmaker on the platform has three reviews and an average of zero out of five; publishing that beside a licensed business's name on the strength of three strangers would be indefensible.
The limits, stated plainly
- This is not a customer satisfaction survey. People who write on a complaints platform are self-selected: somebody whose withdrawal landed on time almost never writes about it. Every rating here is lower than the truth, for every bookmaker, by an unknown amount.
- Bookmaker size is not controlled for. Hollywoodbets has far more customers than most of this list, so it will collect more complaints at the same rate of trouble. Compare the topics and the reply rate before comparing the raw counts.
- Keyword matching is crude on purpose. It cannot tell "the withdrawal was instant" from "the withdrawal never came". It measures what people are talking about, not whether they are happy. The rating column is what carries sentiment.
- A missing bookmaker means missing data. 10bet, ZAR Bets, Playabets, ApexBets, TopBet, Betbus, Sunbet, Lucky Fish, Gbets, YesPlay, Lottoland South Africa, SportPesa, Bettabets, BetOlimp, Swifty Sports, King Bets, Jabula Bets, Betboom, Sportland have no published record we could find with enough reviews to count. That is a gap in the evidence and says nothing at all about them.