Blask ranks Africa’s Top 20 gambling brands by Q2 2026 demand — a quarter where most of the continent softened while six smaller markets grew.
The market fell 8.4%. Aggregate Blask Index across the 42 African markets Blask tracks dropped from 1.28 billion to 1.17 billion. Tanzania, Uganda, Ghana, Nigeria, Mozambique and Angola all fell 14–23%.
Six markets bucked the trend: Zimbabwe (+34.4%), Namibia (+6.8%), Botswana (+6.3%), DR Congo (+6.1%), South Africa (+5.0%), and Sudan (+10.6%, on a base too small to matter). South Africa is the largest of these in absolute terms and the only one with a brand-level story attached, which is why it gets its own section below.
A note on comparability: both quarters here come from the same fresh pull, covering the 42 markets Blask tracks today. The Q1 2026 edition of this series cited 55 markets and used a different pull. Treat this piece as its own baseline, not a continuation of that one’s exact figures.
The Q2 2026 Top Gambling Brands
Blask summed each brand’s Blask Index across every African market where it recorded demand in Q2 2026 (April–June), then ranked the resulting totals.
What Blask Index measures: brand demand per country.
| Rank | Brand | Countries | Blask Index Q2 | Blask Index Q1 | QoQ |
| 1 | betPawa | 24 | 258,412,192 | 289,321,753 | –10.7% |
| 2 | Betway | 29 | 215,208,450 | 249,915,259 | –13.9% |
| 3 | SportyBet | 22 | 80,456,654 | 91,111,098 | –11.7% |
| 4 | Hollywoodbets | 6 | 75,602,949 | 68,495,495 | +10.4% |
| 5 | Betika | 16 | 36,054,344 | 46,949,204 | –23.2% |
| 6 | Premier Bet | 22 | 32,958,652 | 39,546,845 | –16.7% |
| 7 | Bet9ja | 9 | 29,510,303 | 39,222,044 | –24.8% |
| 8 | Elephant Bet | 5 | 25,688,950 | 29,606,557 | –13.2% |
| 9 | bet223 | 5 | 21,494,121 | 22,995,686 | –6.5% |
| 10 | NgeNge | 2 | 19,445,725 | 19,505,018 | –0.3% |
| 11 | BetKing | 5 | 16,475,616 | 16,554,416 | –0.5% |
| 12 | 1xBet | 42 | 16,380,587 | 19,309,787 | –15.2% |
| 13 | Lotto Star | 1 | 15,047,765 | 13,291,072 | +13.2% |
| 14 | SportPesa | 10 | 14,721,944 | 14,638,632 | +0.6% |
| 15 | GameMania | 1 | 14,437,663 | 11,126,168 | +29.8% |
| 16 | 888bet | 4 | 11,419,306 | 8,613,847 | +32.6% |
| 17 | Fortebet | 6 | 11,320,069 | 13,675,240 | –17.2% |
| 18 | Congo Bet | 2 | 10,804,227 | 14,604,047 | –26.0% |
| 19 | Winner Bet | 6 | 10,707,071 | 10,816,970 | –1.0% |
| 20 | YesPlay | 1 | 9,231,100 | 7,533,379 | +22.5% |
Both leaders fell, and the gap between them widened. betPawa and Betway are 51.2% of the Top 20 combined (473.6 million). betPawa fell 10.7%, Betway 13.9% — so betPawa’s lead grew from 15.8% in Q1 to 20.1% in Q2.
Same direction, different reasons. betPawa’s decline is broad: Tanzania (–15.3%), Uganda (–13.7%) and Cameroon (–14.9%) all down, with small offsets in DR Congo and Malawi. Betway’s is concentrated: Mozambique fell 38.1%, well past that market’s own 23.0% decline — genuine share loss, not just tracking the market down — while South Africa, its largest market, held near-flat (–2.4%).
SportyBet sits between them, down 11.7%. Nigeria and Ghana both fell; small gains in Kenya, South Africa and Cameroon were too thin to change the direction.
The Five that Grew Fastest
| Rank | Brand | Countries | Blask Index Q2 | QoQ |
| 16 | 888bet | 4 | 11,419,306 | +32.6% |
| 15 | GameMania | 1 | 14,437,663 | +29.8% |
| 20 | YesPlay | 1 | 9,231,100 | +22.5% |
| 13 | Lotto Star | 1 | 15,047,765 | +13.2% |
| 4 | Hollywoodbets | 6 | 75,602,949 | +10.4% |
Three of five are small and single-market. YesPlay, Lotto Star and GameMania are all under 16 million in Q2 — a double-digit swing here is a modest absolute gain, not a Hollywoodbets-scale move. Lotto Star and YesPlay track the South Africa pattern above; GameMania’s growth is one side of the mixed Kenya picture below, not separate from it.
888bet is the real outlier. It’s ~90% Mozambique, a market that fell 23.0% overall — yet 888bet grew there, from 7.6 million to 10.5 million. It gained share in a shrinking market. What drove that isn’t visible in this data.
The Five that Contracted
| Rank | Brand | Countries | Blask Index Q2 | QoQ |
| 18 | Congo Bet | 2 | 10,804,227 | –26.0% |
| 7 | Bet9ja | 9 | 29,510,303 | –24.8% |
| 5 | Betika | 16 | 36,054,344 | –23.2% |
| 17 | Fortebet | 6 | 11,320,069 | –17.2% |
| 6 | Premier Bet | 22 | 32,958,652 | –16.7% |
Three concentrated declines, no clear cause. Congo Bet is almost entirely Republic of Congo (–26.1%). Bet9ja lost ground within a shrinking Nigeria (–24.7% there vs. –14.1% market-wide). Fortebet is almost entirely Uganda (–17.5%). None has a documented external event behind it.
Premier Bet fell unevenly, not uniformly. Mali (–15.3%) and Angola (–16.7%) are similar; Malawi (–27.5%) fell nearly twice as fast — the standout, not part of an even spread.
Betika has regulatory context, not a clean explanation. Kenya’s index was flat overall (–1.0%), but its brands split three ways: Betika fell 21.0% in Kenya, GameMania grew 29.8%, SportPesa held flat (+0.6%, +7.2% in Kenya). Kenya went through a real reform window — a Finance Act 2025 tax overhaul (already a year old by Q2) and a new Gambling Regulatory Authority whose licensing only started at quarter’s end — but neither lines up cleanly enough to explain Betika’s specific drop. Background, not cause.
What Q2 2026 Tells us About the Year Ahead
Broad softening, no single cause. Most major markets fell together; betPawa and Betway both contracted while their gap widened; six smaller markets grew against the trend, Zimbabwe by far the most (+34.4%, driven by MWOS and PrideBet, both outside this Top 20). South Africa is the only growth market with brands attached to it. Outside that: 888bet gained share in a shrinking Mozambique, Kenya’s brands split three ways inside a flat market, and several of the sharpest declines (Congo Bet, Fortebet, Premier Bet) have no attached cause.
DR Congo is a second, quieter growth story (+6.1%). betPawa grew there (+4.3%); NgeNge and Winner Bet, both DR Congo–concentrated, were roughly flat rather than falling like almost everywhere else — consistent with a market stabilizing, not one brand’s story.
The list itself reshuffles. Odibets, MSport and Betclic are out this quarter; Lotto Star, Congo Bet and Winner Bet are back. That’s a property of ranking one quarter, not a verdict on any brand.
