The excitement doesn’t end when the final whistle blows anymore. Whether it’s the IPL or the FIFA World Cup, millions of fans across Africa and Asia are now making every match even more engaging through sports betting.
Powered by smartphones, digital payments, and growing online platforms, betting has become a natural extension of the live sports experience.
As these tournaments attract record audiences, they’re also driving one of the fastest- growing trends in global sports entertainment.
Key Takeaways
- The growth of sports betting culture across Africa and Asia is being driven by marquee sporting events such as the IPL and FIFA World Cup.
- Cricket dominates betting in South Asia, while football remains the key driver of sports betting across African markets.
- Smartphones and mobile betting apps have led to a rapid growth in the popularity of sports betting in both regions.
- Live-in play betting is growing ever more popular, allowing fans to place bets as games unfold in real time.
No sporting event has done more to normalise the practice betting culture across Asia than the Indian Premier League.
The format is flawlessly designed for wagering — fast-paced, high-scoring, and packed with personal achievement moments that lend themselves to player props, over/under markets, and live in-play betting.
The IPL generates the highest cricket betting volumes of any competition globally, and its influence has spread well beyond India into markets like Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and the broader South Asian diaspora.
Analysts consistently find the cricket part as the fastest-growing betting category between 2025 and 2030, fuelled precisely by the rise of T20 leagues and their Mobile-first audience . The IPL’s 2026 edition — won by Royal Challengers Bengaluru for the for the second year running — drew record streaming numbers across the region, with mobile betting app downloads spiking throughout the playoff phase. For the generation of fans who grew up watching the IPL on a smartphone screen, placing a live bet on the next wicket or the Powerplay’s total is as natural as sharing the scorecard on WhatsApp.
In Africa, the dynamic is structurally similar but different in its sporting focus. Football is the engine.
A GeoPoll survey carried out in advance of the 2026 World Cup found that football followership across five major African markets ranged from 91 to 96 percent — higher than any other sport by a substantial margin. Active sports betting involvement in South Africa sits at 67 percent of adults aged 18 to 50, with Nigeria at 62 percent and Kenya leading the continent at 77 percent.
The World Cup has served as a turbocharger for this already-growing market. In Nigeria, where Bet9ja remains the most local founded operator after fifteen years in the market, sign-up rates and betting volumes surged during the group stage despite the Super Eagles’ absence from the tournament. Fans followed the African nations — Morocco, Côte d’Ivoire, South Africa — with the same intensity they would have given their national team, and the betting markets followed. Football, cricket, and the broader sports betting ecosystem are becoming more and more identical conversation across the continent.
What connects the IPL bettor in Mumbai and the World Cup Punters in Lagos is not just a love of sport — it is a smartphone.
Mobile betting now represents approximately 58 percent of global online sports betting market share, and in Africa and Asia, that figure is even higher.
In the MENA region, over 70 percent of by bets placed by smartphone, with Android devices accounting for 82 percent of the mobile betting market. In Sub-Saharan Africa, cheap data packages and growing e-wallets networks have lowered the barriers to entry dramatically, bringing first-time bettors into the market at a pace that regulators in several countries are scrambling to match.
This mobile-first infrastructure has also altered the character. of what bettors want. Live in-play betting — placing a wager mid-match as the action unfolds — is now the dominant and fastest growing bookmakers category globally. For IPL fans, that means betting on the next six or the fall of the next wicket. For World Cup fans, it means reacting to a red card or a penalty shootout in real time. The experience of watching and wagering have become inseparable, and the platform that understands that intersection — local operators like Bet9ja in Nigeria, Hollywoodbets in South Africa, and Dream Sports in India — are the ones growing fastest.
The convergence of Africa and Asia as the fastest growing sports in the world betting markets is not a short-term spike driven by two big tournaments.
It is a structural shift — rooted in demographics, smartphone penetration, and a sports culture that has always been enthusiastic, but only now finding the digital infrastructure to fully express that passion commercially.
The IPL and the World Cup have both shown, in their different ways, that when sport and the conditions are right, technology and the betting market that follows are enormous. And across Africa and Asia, those conditions are now firmly in place.
Ans: In India, an “online gambling ban” changes outcomes mainly by shifting operators to comply with state-level laws and by limiting player access to offshore or non-licensed services.
Ans: Cricket is the most popular sport in India, enjoyed across the country, but especially popular in the northern, western, and central regions.
Ans: In sports betting, the team that oddsmakers expect to win is deemed the favourite. As opposed to the expected loser, the underdog, the favourite winning is the most likely outcome based on the implied probabilities associated with the odds.
Ans: Gambling harms can take many forms, including financial difficulty. mental health problems. Relationship problems.
