IN SHORT: Bet9ja’s official Facebook page is verified by Meta and does not offer free bonuses. Users are urged to ignore pages trying to scam them in the name of the betting site.
“Are you an active bet9ja user? There’s an active promo bonus ment for over 30% of our active users, and of course it’s free …” reads a post by the Facebook account Sports bonus.
The 19 September 2023 post also calls on users to send a private message on Facebook to claim the bonus.
Bet9ja is an online betting platform licensed by Nigeria’s National Lottery Regulatory Commission. The platform allows users to fund their accounts and predict outcomes of matches with the hope of making money.
We found similar posts here, here, here, here, here and here.
But is the page and its bonuses legit? We looked into it.
Bet9ja bonuses
The page in question uses the logo of Bet9ja, perhaps in a bid to convince users of its legitimacy.
According to its page transparency section, it was created on 17 September 2023 and had no followers at the time of publication. This is strange because Bet9ja is one of the biggest betting sites in Nigeria and its social media account would be expected to have a large following.
We found the official Bet9ja Facebook page. It has more than 570,000 followers and carries the “blue tick” verification badge. It was created in November 2016.
The official page runs its own promotions where it selects the winners randomly from the comment section. These do often require the answer to a simple question to win, but they are not “free” like the ones offered by the suspicious page.
Unlike the bogus page, the official one does not ask users to send a private message to claim the bonuses.
In a reply to Africa Check on X (formerly Twitter), a representative of Bet9ja said the Facebook account “Sports bonus” was fake. Users are therefore warned to steer clear of it.
This is not the first time fraudsters have used the names of well-known betting platforms to trick unsuspecting users. Africa Check has debunked similar Facebook pages here and here.
Read our guide on how to spot online scams here.
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