Nigeria’s oldest betting brand wants your money. But should you still give it to them?

Merrybet has been around since 2013 and it’s one of the elder statesmen of the Nigerian betting scene. The brand is licensed by the Lagos State Lotteries Board and has physical betting shops scattered across Nigeria. That kind of real-world presence counts for something. You can walk in, talk to someone, and that’s more than most online-only operators can offer.

But the competition has gotten fierce since 2013. Bet9ja modernised. BetKing brought the best odds in the country. Sportybet built instant Opay payouts and a slick app. Merrybet? Still running a 2015 website with no welcome bonus, odds that leave money on the table and a casino that feels years behind the competition.

Licensing & Security

Merrybet holds a licence from the Lagos State Lotteries Board, and they’ve had it since 2013. That’s state-level regulation, covering betting operations in Lagos where the company is based. Merrybet Gold Limited is consistently listed as a licensed operator across Nigerian regulatory directories, and the physical shops give it a legitimacy floor that online-only operators can’t match.

Now for the part that concerns me. Merrybet also held a National Lottery Regulatory Commission licence, obtained in 2013 and renewed in 2019. That licence expired around 2024 and hasn’t been publicly renewed. The Supreme Court struck down the NLRC’s pan-Nigeria authority, and the new FSGRN framework requires all operators to re-licence from January 2026. So Merrybet is currently operating under state-level regulation during a national transition. They’re not unlicensed. But the picture is muddier than it used to be.

Score: 13/20

Reputation & Player Reviews

Merrybet was a solid reputation built up over the years, but the player feedback shows that it used to be more respected than it is right now. Old forum threads from 2017-2020 talk about a respectable, reliable and fast paying casino. Recent ones aren’t quite so endearing.

The complaints centre on withheld payouts and accounts getting deactivated after consistent winning and a lot of fund locking reports from 2025 onwards.  Is it a scam? No. It’s got too many years in the business and too many physical shops for that. But the trend in player sentiment is clearly heading the wrong direction.

Score: 25/40

General Terms

A couple of things in the terms caught my eye. First, you can only withdraw winnings, not deposited funds. If you put ₦10,000 in and change your mind, that money has to go through at least one bet before you can pull it back. Second, the T&Cs give Merrybet the right to void winnings if an audit reveals any violations, which is pretty broad language that hands them a lot of discretion.

Maximum payout is capped at ₦10 million per bet slip. Daily withdrawal limit is ₦500,000. Instant payouts only work between 8am and 9pm. None of this is unusual for Nigeria, but it’s worth knowing before you deposit.

Score: 13/20

Final Trust & Safety Score: 51/80

Welcome Bonus

There isn’t one. And that’s not a simplification. Merrybet does not offer a standing welcome bonus for new players.

They do occasionally release 24-hour promo codes with cashback or price boosts, so there might be something running when you sign up. But relying on that is like going to a restaurant hoping they’ll have a special. Maybe they will. Probably they won’t.

Score: 3/30

Ongoing Bonuses

The saving grace here is the 5% accumulator cashback. Place a 5+ selection acca with at least 1.50 odds on every leg, and if you lose by just one selection, you get 5% of your stake back within 24 hours. It’s not going to change your life, but losing a five-leg acca by one result stings, and getting something back softens the blow.

Then there’s the Punters League, which I actually quite like. It’s a six-month tournament where you rack up points from winning accumulators. Minimum ₦200 stake, at least three football selections, and you need 30 qualifying slips per month. The prizes are proper money: ₦2 million for first place, a million for second, half a million for third, plus weekly and monthly rewards on top.

The referral programme is genuinely aggressive: 50% of your referred friend’s losses for their first 60 days. If your mates like a bet, that could add up to real money.

Score: 14/30

VIP Program

Doesn’t exist. No tiers, no loyalty points, no escalating rewards. Bet9ja has one. BetKing has one. Sportybet has one. Merrybet has nothing. You could bet on this platform every day for five years and get the exact same treatment as someone who signed up this morning. That’s a problem.

Score: 2/20

Final Bonuses & Promotions Score: 19/80

Let’s get this out of the way: Merrybet is a sportsbook that happens to have a casino tab. The casino has roughly 50 slot titles from 1X2 Games, 28 scratch card games, some video poker, Keno, and JetX by SmartSoft Gaming. That’s the whole thing. No Pragmatic Play. No NetEnt. No Evolution. No blackjack. No bingo.

It’s not a big casino.

Slots

I played about a dozen and none of them stuck with me. Megaways Jack, Pots of Luck, titles you’ve never heard of. No Gates of Olympus, no Sweet Bonanza, no Hacksaw games, nothing with bonus buys or progressive jackpots. If you’ve played slots at Bet9ja, this will feel like stepping back in time.

Score: 7/20

Crash Games

JetX is genuinely the highlight of the casino section. It’s a crash game from SmartSoft Gaming, and crash games are absolutely massive in Nigeria right now., it’s just that other casinos are doing them better. It plays smoothly and the minimum bet is low. Aviator by Spribe isn’t available, which is a miss since that’s the one everyone talks about, but JetX scratches the same itch.

Score: 10/20

Sports Betting

This is the real product and honestly, it’s decent. 25+ sports with 1,500+ daily betting options and 150+ markets per Premier League match. Football dominates, as you’d expect in Nigeria, and they cover the NPFL which not every international bookmaker bothers with. Live betting works well with real-time odds, and both full and partial cash out are available.

eSports coverage includes CS2, League of Legends, Dota 2, and Overwatch. And the virtual sports are a genuine strength: football in four modes, basketball, tennis, horse racing, greyhounds, and more, all running in 3-minute cycles around the clock. Want action at 3am? Virtuals deliver.

But here’s the catch that eats into everything: the odds are below average. I compared Premier League match odds across Merrybet, Bet9ja, BetKing, and Sportybet for a full Saturday matchweek. Merrybet’s football payout percentages sit around 92-93% on major leagues, dropping to 89-91% on lower divisions. BetKing consistently had better prices. Over a year of regular betting, those margins cost you real money. There’s also no live streaming and no Asian handicaps, which are significant gaps if you take your sports betting seriously.

Score: 12/20

Final Game Selection Score: 29/60

Deposits

All Naira, all Nigerian infrastructure: Paystack, Interswitch Webpay, Quickteller, GTBank, GlobalPay, bank transfer, and ATM deposit. I deposited via Paystack and the money landed before I could switch tabs. Minimum is ₦50-100 depending on method. What’s missing is Opay, PalmPay, and mobile money. Sportybet has Opay with instant everything. Merrybet is still on traditional bank rails.

Score: 20/30

Withdrawals

Two options, and the difference between them is night and day. Bank withdrawal is free with a ₦1,000 minimum, and Merrybet says 24-48 hours. Mine took 72. That might have been because it was my first bank withdrawal triggering extra review, but it’s still longer than advertised.

Then there’s the instant withdrawal, and this is where Merrybet genuinely shines. ₦1 minimum, ₦50 fee, and it arrived in my account in 8 seconds flat. Not 8 minutes. Eight seconds. That’s the fastest payout I’ve tested at any Nigerian platform. The catch is it’s only available between 8am and 9pm WAT, and the maximum is ₦300,001. For small to medium wins, it’s brilliant.

And remember: you can only withdraw winnings, not deposited funds. Put in ₦10,000 and change your mind? That money has to go through a bet first.

Score: 18/30

Final Payment & Withdrawal Score: 38/60

Website Design and UI

I’m going to be blunt. The Merrybet website looks like it hasn’t been properly updated since about 2015. Light grey background, blue-to-teal gradient on the headers, Cairo font. It works. It loads. But it looks tired next to Bet9ja or BetKing, and finding the casino section from the homepage takes more clicks than it should.

More concerning than the aesthetics is the reliability. The site threw a 522 error during one of my testing sessions, and Merrybet posted a service disruption notice on X/Twitter in January 2026. Reports from December 2025 described extended downtime with user funds locked. That’s not a design issue. That’s an infrastructure issue.

Score: 9/20

Mobile App

Android APK available from the website. No iOS app at all. iPhone users get the mobile browser, which works but feels outdated. There’s a lite version for basic phones and SMS betting for zero-data situations, both genuinely smart for Nigeria where data isn’t cheap.

Score: 10/20

Customer Service

Live chat, email, phone, and WhatsApp. I tested chat three times and averaged about 4 minutes to connect. Agents gave straight answers and knew their stuff. WhatsApp took 12 minutes but it’s a smart channel for Nigeria. Hours are roughly 8am to 10pm WAT. Not 24/7. I tried at 11pm on a Saturday and got nothing.

Score: 16/30

Responsible Gambling

Deposit limits are available on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis through the account settings. Self-exclusion is an option for temporary or permanent account closure. Beyond that, there’s not much: no session timers, no reality checks, no loss alerts. The tools exist if you go looking, but Merrybet doesn’t push them the way it should.

Score: 15/30

Final User Experience Score: 50/100

Merrybet has been around since 2013 and that longevity counts for something. Physical shops across Nigeria. A sportsbook that covers enough ground. And an instant withdrawal feature that’s genuinely the best in the country.

But the problems are growing. Expired national licence. Service disruptions and fund-locking reports from late 2025. No welcome bonus. Below-average odds. A casino that barely qualifies as one. A website that looks like 2015. No iPhone app.

If you’re already on Merrybet and it works, there’s no urgent reason to leave. But choosing today? Bet9ja gives you a bonus and a real casino. BetKing gives you the best odds. Sportybet gives you a modern app. Any of those three will serve you better.

Final Overall Rating: 2.5/5