SportPesa Review for Kenya: Mega Jackpot, Paybill, SMS and Score

What does SportPesa print about its licence?

The homepage names the regulator as the GRA and prints a licence number in the authority’s own format. The licence number in the facts table comes from the regulator itself: the GRA licensed operators list for the 2025/26 financial year shows Milestone Games Limited with betting licence BK 0001193 and status renewal.

The list sorts each company’s licences into columns: BK for sports betting, PG for gaming and PL for lottery. SportPesa’s row has a number only in the BK column, which fits a review that covers sports betting alone. The Gambling Regulatory Authority replaced the Betting Control and Licensing Board under the Gambling Control Act, 2025, and the old bclb.go.ke address now leads to the authority’s site, so the list is where any bettor can look the company up. SportPesa also deserves credit for printing its regulator on the page every visitor lands on.

The homepage did not name the company behind the betting licence in a form we could read; the company in the facts table is the one on the regulator’s list. Our guide to checking a GRA licence explains how to read the list and match a name to a brand.

How big is the SportPesa Mega Jackpot, and how does it pay?

A Mega Jackpot ticket covers 17 matches and costs KES 99, according to press reporting and a payments guide. Bonus tiers are reported for near misses: "13 and 16 correct reported".

The Star’s draw report describes the same structure: one ticket, one predicted result per match, and bonus payouts for tickets with one or more results wrong. The length of the ticket decides the odds. With three possible results per match, a ticket of that length has more than a hundred million combinations, and one entry covers a single one of them, so full winners can be years apart.

That is why the near-miss tiers are the part of the jackpot most players actually meet, if they win anything at all. The guide to jackpot bonuses explains how they are paid, and the jackpot comparison puts the Mega Jackpot beside Betika’s Grand Jackpot and Shabiki’s Power 17. SportPesa did not publish a draw schedule on a page we could read.

How do SportPesa deposits and withdrawals work?

Through Paybill 955100, which SportPesa prints on its own homepage, so the most important payment detail does not depend on a third party. The payments guide adds the minimums: KES 49 to deposit and KES 200 to withdraw, with payouts stated as arriving within minutes.

The deposit minimum is in line with the other ranked bookmakers, and excise duty of 5% is charged on it like on any amount deposited for betting. The withdrawal floor is the weaker number. A bettor who wins less than that floor has to leave the money in the account until the balance grows past it, and a balance sitting in a betting wallet is a standing invitation to one more bet. Betika’s floor, for comparison, is KES 50.

No maximum withdrawal, fees or Airtel Money route were stated. The M-Pesa betting sites comparison shows these rows for all ten.

Can you use SportPesa without a smartphone?

Partly. The payments guide lists SMS access as SMS to 79079, with commands in the form DEPOSIT#amount and WITHDRAW#amount. That works on any handset that can send a text.

The SMS route has a practical advantage beyond the handset. A deposit or withdrawal by text does not depend on a data bundle or on a website loading, which counts on a busy match day on a congested network. Keep the number saved under SportPesa’s name, so that a message from an unknown sender claiming to be SportPesa is easy to tell apart.

The rest of the mobile picture is blank. No USSD code, app or lite site was stated on a page we could read, and the facts table shows the app row as not stated. This is the oddest gap in the review, because SportPesa is one of the best-known brands in Kenyan betting, and an app may well exist. Until a page we can cite says so, it is not counted.

How does SportPesa score?

SportPesa scores 9.2 out of 10 and is ranked 4, rated on 3 of 5 criteria.

The jackpot criterion is rated on what was published: games, entry price and bonus tiers, all three inputs of the method. M-Pesa loses part of a mark on the withdrawal floor and a little on the deposit minimum. The mobile criterion is the soft one. It reaches full marks because SMS access is published and the two other inputs, app and lite site, have no data, so they are left out of the calculation rather than counted as zero. The breakdown table above shows it input by input.

Betika, Mozzart Bet and Shabiki stand at 9.2, 9.2 and 9.2. Equal scores are separated by the M-Pesa criterion and then alphabetically, as the method sets out.

What is the SportPesa multi-bet bonus worth?

Nobody outside SportPesa can say from its published pages. The homepage advertises a multi-bet bonus, but the terms were not stated where we could read them: no maximum amount, no minimum odds per selection, no number of legs, no expiry. The facts table records it exactly as found: Multi-bet bonus advertised on the homepage, terms not stated.

A multibet bonus usually tops up the winnings of an accumulator, and the conditions decide whether it is worth anything to you. Read them inside your account before you build a slip around the bonus. Because no terms were published, the bonus criterion is not rated, and our betting bonuses page treats it the same way.

Who is SportPesa a good fit for?

A bettor who wants the licence, the regulator and the Paybill on the bookmaker’s own homepage, and who plays the long weekend jackpot, will find SportPesa the most self-documented of the ten. Someone who withdraws small amounts often, or who needs a USSD code on a basic phone, should read the Betika review first.

Other products: The GRA licensed operators list shows only a betting licence for Milestone Games Limited. SportPesa's homepage also prints a separate casino licence, GRAK/2026/PG056841, held by Standard Global East Africa Limited; casino games are not covered or scored here.