About
What this site is for
First Deposit covers one thing: opening a betting account with a licensed South African bookmaker, getting verified, and making a first deposit without being misled about what the sign-up offer contains.
It is published by the First Deposit editorial desk. It is an independent publisher, not a bookmaker, and some of its operator links are commercial.
Why it was rebuilt
Until August 2026 this site was a casino review site: best online casino lists, RTP explainers, volatility guides, scores out of ten. In August 2026 we measured what South Africans actually search for in this market, and five of those six page topics had no measured search demand at all.
What did have demand, at roughly 1.26 million searches a month, was registration: how to open an account at a specific bookmaker, what verification needs, and what the sign-up offer really is. Almost nobody writes for it, because it sells nothing directly. It is also the point at which a wrong answer costs a reader money.
So the site was rebuilt around that question, the scores were deleted, and every offer figure that could not be traced to an operator's own page was removed.
What is here now
- 19 operator pages, each naming the legal entity, the provincial regulator and the licence numbers we could read, with the date each was read.
- 11 sign-up offers published with their wagering terms and their source. The rest show no figure, deliberately.
- Four pages on the offer and deposit questions that carry the most South African search volume.
- 15 commercial operator links, each marked as commercial where it appears.
The rule
A claim about an operator is either read from a source the operator controls, on a recorded date, or it is not published. Where evidence is missing the page says so, including on operators that pay us. An operator whose licence we cannot read gets no commercial link at all.
That rule is why several pages here have visible gaps in them. The gaps are the honest part. The full method is public.
Getting in touch
Corrections are read first. Other routes are here. If this is about gambling harm rather than about the site, the National Responsible Gambling Programme helpline is 0800 006 008, and the support page is here.