Merrybet Nigeria - Overview & Rating
Founded in Lagos, Nigeria in 2013 by Opeoluwa Fashakin, Merrybet proclaims they are “Nigeria’s biggest, most successful, security conscious and innovative bookmaker”.
The bookmaker company is fully licensed by the Lagos State Lotteries Board. It provides a sports betting service as well as casino games.
Merrybet is unique in that while they don’t appear to have a standard web-based affiliate scheme, you can become a Merrybet agent and benefit from earnings of up to 40% of the stake per ticket amongst other benefits. The catch though is that you must have access to a shop of office space amongst other stipulations and presumably, you would need to be based in Nigeria to do this.
There is no specific list of territories that are restricted from betting with Merrybet. Their Terms and Conditions state that the bettor is responsible for ensuring they are complying with their own state’s laws regarding gaming prior to opening an account.
Design
The design of the Merrybet website is quite basic. The style of font used doesn’t really make the various categories such as Sports or Virtuals stand out, for example. Merrybet could do with using different size fonts to make the different parts of their sports betting standout as at the moment all font sizes are the same whether this is a football match advertised in the middle, the different sports down the side of the separate gaming categories.
Other categories such as the help section are also very hard to find.
Merrybet also has a mobile version of their site and this looks to be a lot easier to navigate and stands out more.
Services
Merrybet offers betting on an extensive range of sports such as Football, Tennis, Baseball, Darts and Boxing.
You can also bet on Virtual Tennis, Horse Racing, Greyhound Racing and Basketball.
In a unique offering, Merrybet also gives you a chance to bet in syndicates in their Colossus bet where you can bet on football matches. You can either create a brand-new one yourself or join an existing syndicate.
They also have over 130 slot and table games in their 1×2 Games section and lotto-type games such as Lucky Six and NSoft. You can play a lot of the 1×2 Games in demo mode without the need to register for an account so you can try these out before committing to opening an account.
In recent Turkey versus Netherlands World Cup Qualifying matches Merrybet were competitively priced, offering better odds than both Bet365 and Skybet on a Turkey win, better odds about a Netherlands win than Bet365, while matching Skybet’s odds. For the draw, they offered better odds than Skybet but Bet365 were the best of the three about the draw result.
The average margin for sports betting is 6%.
Live
Merrybet offer live betting on Football, Tennis and even Table Tennis. They also offer live streaming on Table Tennis and Football. However, Football streaming is restricted to leagues such as Italy’s Serie C rather than top-flight football.
A very nice feature of live betting for those who like to follow the progress of the match and look at stats is the “Multi Live” feature. By clicking the pin in the respective matches you are interested in you can select multiple matches across multiple sports to be shown on the screen at one time and you can also make your selections on the various betting markets offered.
The average margin for live betting is between 8.5-10.5%.
Freebies, Bonuses and Promotions
Merrybet, unfortunately, does not offer any welcome bonuses to new customers.
The only promotion visibly advertised on Merrybet’s website is the Punters League. This has been running from December 1, 2020, and goes up to May 31, 2021, and there are monthly, quarterly, and overall prizes. You simply need to win the most money from your bets than anyone else registered.
The overall prize is 2,000,000 Nigerian Naira (approximately £3,800), with a quarterly top prize of 500,000 Naira (approximately £950) and the monthly prize is 300,000 Naira (approximately £570). They also have prizes for second and third places for each time period.
Support service
You can contact Merrybet’s customer service team by live chat, email and over the phone. Their phone lines are open between 8 am-8 pm West Africa Standard Time. You can also send them a message via WhatsApp and they are available on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
When attempting to live chat an “away” message came up with the option to send a message instead. It appears that the live chat may also run between 8 am – 8 pm as they responded to the message the next morning.
Signup
You can sign up in Merrybet by clicking the “Register” button. While there is no exhaustive list of restricted countries, you can only register if you have a Nigerian bank account.
In the Terms and Conditions, it does not advise that you need to produce some identification to verify your account. However, if you win and want to withdraw 250,000 Naira (approximately £475) or more, you may be required to produce identification such as a National ID card, Drivers License, or International Passport.
The registration process looks straightforward as you are required to give your name, date of birth, email address and phone number, set up a username and password, give your address and bank account details and then press register.
Financial Information
Merrybet only accepts the Nigerian Naira in depositing money to bet with. You must also ensure that whatever you deposit you intend to bet with because you can’t withdraw your money back without staking it first.
You can only withdraw once a day and the maximum withdrawal is 500,000 Naira (approximately £950) at a time. The minimum withdrawal is 1,000 Naira (approximately £2).
The minimum bet is 50 Naira (approximately 10p), there is no strictly defined maximum bet, but the maximum payout for Merrybet is 10,000,000 Naira per betting slip (approximately £19,000).
Reliability, Integrity and Safety
The consensus on Merrybet is that they are trustworthy and reliable. There aren’t too many customer reviews but those that are visible are favourable towards Merrybet. Most of the reviews speak about the wide range of events Merrybet offer betting on. The one common criticism is the lack of a welcome bonus.
The site itself looks safe to use and is SSL encrypted.
What’s missing?
Merrybet ticks most of the boxes. They have a wide range of sporting markets to bet on, innovations such as being able to view multiple live events at once is a big draw for those who like to bet in running.
The Merrybet website could be modified slightly to promote each category that Merrybet offers. It also is not obvious where the casino games are, you have to click each category until you realise it is listed as 1×2 Games.
The live betting margin could be improved in order to attract more bettors as there is less value than with some other bookmakers.
The main thing missing is an attractive welcome offer. More so than ever bettors are drawn in by what they can get for free so the fact that nothing is offered is potentially hindering Merrybet from attracting more custom.
Merrybet.com operates only in English.
EnglishMerrybet offer sports betting and in-play betting options for its users. You can avail of the same services in mobile mode. Merrybet offers no apps.
Deposit
You can fund deposits via Paystack and bank transfer. There is no maximum and minimum limit for deposits. The processing takes up to 2 hours. There is no commission held by the bookmaker, though your payment methods may charge a fee.
Withdrawal
The withdrawal can be made via bank transfer. The minimum withdrawal sum is 1,000 NGN. The maximum limit is 100,000 NGN for a 24-hour transfer and 30,000 NGN for an instant transfer. The processing takes 24 hours, and instant for instant transfers. You can avail of the instant payout option by going to “Manage Pin Code” and setting a pin code. The bookmaker holds a 50 NGN commission only for instant payouts.
| Deposit | Withdrawal | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sum | Time | Commission | Sum | Time | Commission | |
|
from unlimited to unlimited | up to 2 h. | 0% [1] | - | - | - |
|
from unlimited to unlimited | up to 2 h. | 0% [1] | from 1,000 NGN to 100,000 NGN / 30,000 NGN | 24 h./ instant | 0% [2] |
Merrybet accepts only Nigerian naira.
Merrybet offers 3 standard options for contacting its support team: phone call, email and live chat. Live chat operates slowly.
as an arbitrator
Lower the maximums
You can learn about the feedback and opinion on sum withdrawals and betting in Merrybet in the “Feedback” and in the comment to the review. Learn here about the experience of Merrybet users. Share your experience with everyone.
You click register in the top right corner, fill out your personal information. You are asked to set up a username and password and provide your bank details, you then press the register button to confirm.
To Book-A-Bet you visit Merrybet.com and select your bet. On the betting slip, select Book-A-Bet and it will generate a code. Your code can be played at any Merrybet betting shop or online using the “load booking code or bet slip number” options
You can bet with Merrybet on the computer, mobile or inside one of their betting shops in Nigeria.
You can only cash out on Merrybet if your bet is eligible for cashout. Eligible bets will show the “Full Cashout” button on your bet slip. If you wish to cashout at the amount of money given before the end of your bet, click the “Full Cashout” button and you will be paid. You also have the option of taking a “Partial Cash Out”. For this you type how much money you want to take and then press “Partial Cash Out”, you will be paid your partial cash out, leaving whatever money is left to ride on until the end of the betting event.