The Confederation of African Football (CAF) has made great strides in improving Africa's football scene. With the CAF Champions League, it's a solid opportunity for African sports betting to grow, thanks to the tournament's popularity. Not only that, but the CAF Champions League has a very passionate fanbase, high engagement and a long running duration, which helps to support betting opportunities. The tournament also has strong cultural significance across a number of different countries, which helps to promote national pride, a side effect of this is increased betting. As such, it's a solid tournament for promoting betting and other online gambling activities. Let's have a look in more depth.
What is driving sportbook growth?
With a passionate fanbase in place, especially when it comes to football, it's no surprise to find that sports betting in Zimbabwe is on the rise. Football is a major cultural sport in Africa as a whole, and the CAF Champions League is the most prestigious club competition on the continent. This means that whenever it's on, there's increased fan engagement and more betting on the outcome of different games. Importantly, the 2025/26 season marks one of the biggest CAF tournaments with over 60 clubs from different African countries taking part. Many of the teams come from top countries such as Pyramids FC from Egypt, Morocco, Nigeria, South Africa and Tunisia. On top of this, there is a lengthy format with group stages, qualifying and play-offs to enjoy.
The tournament is a long one. It spans ten months which means there's a lot of games to watch, all of which offers betting opportunities. With consistent betting available, fans can maintain their interest level, watching and betting on games almost continuously. As mentioned, all of this contributes to high levels of engagement as fans are emotionally invested in who wins the different games. Participation via betting helps fans feel closer to the team and more involved in the various outcomes. The tournament attracts tens of millions of viewers, which means that there's a huge pool to attract to online betting.
All of this leads to increased revenue for the different betting platforms. More viewers and players taking part during the tournament itself means there is an increase in the volume of betting. This has boosted the revenue for sports betting platforms operating within Africa as a whole, The timing of this tournament also means that both experienced bettors and newcomers to the betting scene join in and participate. Of course, the betting hits its peak when it comes to the semi-final and final, but there's a lot of activity throughout the months before this.
Sports betting platforms dive in
As sports betting is still very new in Africa, there's currently not much in the way of competition. This means that there is little to no competition right now. Sports betting sites are easily able to get a foothold into the market, ensuring that they can engage and retain customers early through lucrative bonuses and promotions. This can engender some strong loyalty among their customer base, ensuring that they stick around long term even when other betting platforms arrive on the scene. On top of this, with no one else in the market, betting sites are able to capitalise on the new market, offering easier content and creating localised content right from the outset. This means that all sports betting sites are immediately tailored and adapted to the specific region.
With the CAF Champions League as a focal point, it makes sense for sports betting sites to use this as the hook to get players to sign up. Many other sportsbooks are still focusing on European football leagues, or the NBA rather then African-centric options. With localisation coupled with tapping into the emotional aspect. All of this can be transferred to mobile apps and betting sites as well. This means that players are given easy access to all the betting options no matter where they are.
What this all means is that there's a really great opportunity for sports betting to expand on the continent. Sports betting sites simply need to use the right advertising and leverage to get players interested and staying at their site. The rest is already in place.