Betfred
Founded on the back of a bet on England to win the 1966 World Cup, it is only fitting that Betfred sits as one of the Africa Cup of Nations betting sites in the UK.
Bottom line:
Betfred is ahead of the pack with its goal scorer promotions, which can be particularly valuable during one-sided qualifying fixtures.
Why we like Betfred:
Double Delight and Hat-Trick Heaven provide the potential for some big returns if you make the right pick. Customise your wager with their popular #PickYourPunt fixture or check out what others have put together. Daily Price Boosts are given a dedicated page, which will be stacked during the AFCON.
What Betfred offers you
- Double Delight and Hat-Trick Heaven: Back the first goalscorer and see their odds doubled if they score twice. Odds will be trebled if they hit a hat-trick.
- #PickYourPunt: You can contact Betfred to design your own wager combining various markets with #PickYourPunt. Other #PickYourPunt selections can be found on game-specific pages. They will be available for many qualifying matches and for the AFCON Finals.
- Daily Price Boosts: Look for the Daily Price Boosts section on the left-hand side of the website for higher odds on your World Cup games.
- Acca Insurance: Receive free bets on qualifying accumulators if you narrowly miss out.
bet365
Stoke-on-Trent’s bet365 is one of the most well-known names in the sports betting industry.
Bottom line:
A top quality bookmaker who provide great coverage of football as a whole, bet365 are one of the best AFCON betting sites in the UK. They offer competitive odds and you can avoid any dramatic comebacks ruining your wager with bet365’s early payout offer.
Why we like Bet365:
Your bet will be marked as a winner if your team takes a two-goal lead thanks to Bet365’s early payout. Their accumulator bonus can lead to some big returns, and they provide more outright markets during qualification than many of their rivals.
What Bet365 offers you
- Two-goal lead pays out: Back a team to win and your wager will be paid out if they take a two-goal lead. This also applies to legs of an accumulator.
- Acca bonus: Place a pre-match accumulator and you can receive bonuses of up to 70% on your winnings.
- Qualifying outrights: Bet365 offer specials markets, group winner betting and yes/no markets on the top two.
- Bet Boost: Throughout qualification and the tournament itself, there are Bet Boosts available for AFCON games.
SBK
SBK are fairly new to the scene and are making a big impression on sports betting in the UK with their extremely competitive odds. SBK is a mobile only sportsbook established by Smarkets in 2019, which unsurprisingly has a great app and a superb all-round mobile service. Football is one of their main areas and their Africa Cup of Nations betting will be of interest to UK punters.
Bottom line:
Competitive odds and great coverage of football, SBK is a great place to have a punt on the AFCON when on move.
Why we like SBK:
SBK’s superb app and mobile offering make it one of the best sites to use if you are having a wager on the way to the match. Along with their fantastic odds for football this makes SBK one of the UK’s best Africa Cup of Nations betting sites.
What SBK offers you
- Wonderful mobile experience/app: A contemporary and minimalist look, navigation is easy and user friendly. Using the app it is obvious that it was designed specifically for mobile phones, with everything fitting comfortably into a small screen. With less graphics and sound effects, it means that less powerful mobiles can also comfortably support the site. Perfect for AFCON punters to place and keep track of wagers on matchday.
- Attractive AFCON Odds: SBK have consistently competitive football odds and this rings true for their coverage of the Africa Cup of Nations.
- Great selection of submarkets: SBK have a fantastic amount of submarkets for major football matches, often over 100 per game.
Variety of payment methods: SBK offer punters a wide range of payment options with its range of debit card and e-wallets accepted in line with or better than many of its competitors.
Betway
Founded in 2006, Betway are one of the UK’s leading betting companies. They are one of the best football betting sites around. They are currently high profile within the sport, providing sponsorship for Premier League side West Ham United. They provide great AFCON coverage.
- Easily accessible AFCON statistics
- Excellent website design
- Promos which can be applied to CAN betting
Bottom line:
Betway provide superb stats, quality promos and good value odds to boost your AFCON betting experience.
Why we like Betway:
Betway provide excellent information and stats in the build up to each match at the AFCON, allowing you to make informed choices when betting. During matches statistics and other details are available to punters to aid the in-play betting process. Their odds are usually competitive and overall they are one of the best African Cup of Nations betting sites in Britain.
What Betway offers you
- Loads of AFCON info and stats: Loads of stats are available pre-match to help you with your picks, plus when betting in-play Betway provide you with all of the necessary info for making informed live bets.
- Great football bet builder: Betway has a Bet Builder, which is available for AFCON games, enabling you to create your own bet. Punters can make multiple selections from the most popular markets (goals, cards, corners, etc.) to make one bet. The sportsbook’s #BetYourWay allows you to make bet requests via Twitter using the aforementioned hashtag. Betway will price up your desired bet, which you should be able to access under the #BetYourWay tab on the selected event.
- Free Bet Club: Opt in to Betway’s Free Bet Club and you can earn £15 in free bets each week if you meet the qualifying criteria.
- Interesting Promotions: Betway regularly offer odds boosts and plus a great free to play competition “4 to score”.
BetUK
Founded as recently as 2020, BetUK has quickly become recognised among the best AFCON betting sites in the UK.
- Best Odds for EPL
- Best Odds for UCL
- Acca Club
- Competitive AFCON odds
- Informative in-play console
Bottom line:
Bet UK’s Acca Club is a great option if you are going to be placing accumulators on CAN fixtures.
Why we like BetUK:
Earn profit boosts and free bets through the Acca Club. Specials markets are easy to locate on the left of the website, which is loaded with wagers to ponder during the Africa Cup of Nations. Their in-play betting is reliable, and quickly updates while the action is taking place.
What BetUK offers you
- Acca rewards: BetUK’s Acca Club can be lucrative if you regularly place accumulators. Profit boosts and free bets are available if you qualify.
- Dedicated specials page: Find enhanced accas and other bets on BetUK’s specials page.
- Solid in-play offering: BetUK’s in-play system is one of the best in the business. Odds update quickly, the page loads smoothly, and there’s plenty of information to absorb.
- Information on game pages: Team form, win probabilities and head-to-head records are available on the game-specific pages to help inform your bets.
Check out the best betting sites in the UK and the best football bookies with Betting.com. Check out our tournament preview ahead of making your picks.
How our experts choose the best sites to bet on Africa Cup of Nations
Bettors will prioritise different things even when it comes down to the best Africa Cup of Nations betting sites. Some will want promotions. Others will be keen to go wherever has the highest standard odds. If accumulators are your thing, the acca promos are going to be enticing. The number of outrights available is also a factor to consider.
Chris Sampson: I feel that the top online Africa Cup of Nations betting sites will go all-out with their promotions during qualifying and in the build up to the tournament. I want to see team and player specials alongside free bets and boosted odds. I want outright betting on the tournament to be available well in advance.
Compare the best Africa Cup of Nations betting sites in the UK
With the significance of the World Cup, bookies make a huge effort to attract punters.. While that gives us a lot of choice, it can also be a little overwhelming as you try to pick a betting site to suit your needs. To get a clearer look at the leading candidates, here’s a quick comparison table:
| Site Name | Betting.com Rating | Best For | Full Review |
| Betfred | 4.8/5 | Goal scorer promos | Review |
| Bet365 | 4.7/5 | Early payouts | Review |
| SBK | 4.7/5 | High odds | Review |
| Betway | 4.6/5 | World Cup research | Review |
| BetUK | 4.5/5 | Acca rewards | Review |
How to choose the best site for you
At Betting.com, we have researched to find the positives and negatives associated with Africa Cup of Nations online betting sites. Settling on a bookmaker for a major event like this is a personal choice, however, so it is important that you set aside some time to weigh up the pros and cons of each bookmaker for yourself.
To help with that process, here are seven factors to consider:
- Focus on licenses: Safety is very important when betting. Licensed bookmakers are the only place to bet and be confident in your security.
- Compare welcome offers: Welcome offers are a good way to kick-start your time with a bookie. Check their terms and conditions to make sure their sign-up offer is appropriate for your betting habits.
- Look at CAN odds: First up, it is handy to see which markets are available on the Africa Cup of Nations. Then, it’s worth comparing their prices with other bookmakers.
- Check payment methods: All punters want deposits and withdrawals to be processed quickly and without hidden fees. See how many payment options are available.
- Research their reputation: Whether it’s scrolling through forums or searching for reviews, it’s helpful to see what other punters have thought of a bookmaker.
- Mobile experience: Download the bookmaker’s app to get a feel for the mobile experience. Check that the offers and features you can access on the website are available on your preferred mobile device.
- Trial registration: To really understand what it’s like to be a regular punter, you need to sign-up. First impressions matter, and the registration process can give you a clear idea of if this is the bookmaker for you.
Betting on the Africa Cup of Nations explained
The Africa Cup of Nations, also referred to as AFCON is sanctioned by the Confederation of African Football (CAF), and is the main men’s football competition for Africa. It was first held in 1957. Since 1968, it has been held every two years, switching to odd-numbered years in 2013 and returned back to even-numbered years in 2022.
Egypt is the most successful nation in the cup’s history, winning the tournament seven times. Three trophies have been awarded during the tournament’s history, with Ghana, and Cameroon winning the first two versions to keep after each of them won a tournament three times. The current trophy was first awarded in 2002. Egypt won an unprecedented three consecutive titles in 2006, 2008, and 2010. In 2013, the tournament format was switched to being held in odd-numbered years so as not to interfere with the FIFA World Cup.
Odds
AFCON odds are calculated on the probability of something happening. The odds of Senegal winning the AFCON, for example, are significantly shorter than the odds of Mali winning the AFCON. That’s because the probability of Senegal winning the AFCON is much higher. If Senegal won the AFCON after you placed a £10 bet on them to do so at 6/1, you would win £60. But if Mali won the AFCON after you placed a £10 bet on them to do so at 250/1, you would win £2,500.
The most attention is paid to Africa Cup of Nations odds during the chunks of qualifying matches and the summer of the tournament itself. Outright markets are available in advance at the AFCON betting sites, however. Obviously you can get odds on individual matches in the qualification stages and in the finals.
AFCON odds for individual games can sometimes be short, especially during the group stages, so one way of increasing them is through accumulator betting.
More commonly referred to as an ‘acca’, accumulator betting is when you bet on two or more CAN games but combine them into one bet. Because the odds are multiplied, you’ll win an enhanced amount if all the selections in your acca are correct.
Picks
Making picks for the AFCON takes a lot of thought and you must follow the action closely. Knockout football is notoriously unpredictable. There are always a few upsets in qualifying, and some matchups can appear to be very one-sided, which can make it tricky to find betting value.
Types of Africa Cup of Nations bets
The types of bets for the Africa Cup of Nations are the same that you will see on other international football tournaments. Seasoned football bettors will already have their preferred markets.
Total Goals
Bookies will set a line for the total goals in a match. The most common number is 2.5. Punters will then bet on the over or under – if you bet under 2.5, your bet wins if there is zero, one or two goals in the match.
Goal scorer markets
There are plenty of goal scorer markets for the World Cup. These include anytime goal scorer, last goal scorer and first goal scorer.
Group winner
The group winner market is available during qualifying and for the group stage of the main tournament. You can also bet on teams to finish in the top two.
Tournament winner
The most popular of the outright markets is betting on the tournament winner.
Africa Cup of Nations betting strategies
Building a betting strategy for international football can be tricky. The usual factors like form, head-to-head and team news all matter, but the long gaps between fixtures can leave you with a lot of uncertainty. It is useful to look into the statistics, and potentially consider how nations have fared at major tournaments in the past. Watch a lot of international football to understand it better and look at previous AFCONs and other international tournaments such as the World Cup and the Euros as a guide.
Get to know more about the Africa Cup of Nations to bet smarter
In the first tournament in 1957, there were only three participating nations: Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia. South Africa was originally scheduled to join, but was disqualified due to the apartheid policies of the government then in power. Since then, the tournament has expanded greatly, making it necessary to hold a qualifying tournament. The number of participants in the final tournament reached 16 in 1998 (16 teams were to compete in 1996, but Nigeria withdrew, reducing the field to 15, and the same happened with Togo’s withdrawal in 2010), and until 2017, the format had been unchanged, with the 16 teams being drawn into four groups of four teams each, with the top two teams of each group advancing to a “knock-out” stage. In 2017, the Africa Cup of Nations was moved from January to June and expanded from 16 to 24 teams.
As we’ve touched on a few times in this preview, the host of the African Cup of Nations tends to do particularly well.
No more so than in the early editions of the tournament, with the host reaching the final in each of the first five tournaments. Egypt reached three of those finals – winning twice – while Ghana emerged victorious from both of their final appearances in the 1960s. A four-year spell in the 1980s saw the north African trio of Egypt, Algeria and Morocco claim a victory apiece, before we had five separate winners of the tournament in the 1990s.
The turn of the century saw Cameroon win back-to-back Cup of Nations titles via penalty shootouts, before Egypt won three of the next four tournaments between 2004 and 2010.
The last decade or so of the tournament has seen one or two surprises, with Zambia stunning favourites Ivory Coast to win the 2010 trophy, while Burkina Faso defied the odds to reach the 2013 final.
2021 hosts Cameroon were the last winners of the tournament when it was hosted outside of north Africa, winning the 2017 edition in Gabon with a 2-1 victory over Egypt, before the Pharaohs claimed their seventh AFCON title just a couple of years later when they beat Senegal 1-0. Senegal are the tournament’s current champions, having beaten Egypt on penalties in the 2021 final.
Previous Africa Cup of Nations Winners
- 1957 (Sudan) – Sudan 1-2 Egypt
- 1959 (Egypt) – Egypt 4-0 Ethiopia
- 1962 (Ethiopia) – Ethiopia 4-2 Egypt
- 1963 (Ghana) – Ghana 3-0 Sudan
- 1965 (Tunisia) – Ghana 3-2 Tunisia
- 1968 (Ethiopia) – DR Congo 1-0 Ghana
- 1970 (Sudan) – Sudan 1-0 Ghana
- 1972 (Cameroon) – Congo 3-2 Mali
- 1974 (Egypt) – Zaire 2-0 Zambia
- 1976 (Ethiopia) – Morocco won the final group
- 1978 (Ghana) – Ghana 2-0 Uganda
- 1980 (Nigeria) – Nigeria 3-0 Algeria
- 1982 (Libya) – Ghana 1-1 Libya (Ghana won on penalties)
- 1984 (Ivory Coast) – Cameroon 3-1 Nigeria
- 1986 (Egypt) – Egypt 0-0 Cameroon (Egypt won on penalties)
- 1988 (Morocco) – Cameroon 1-0 Nigeria
- 1990 (Algeria) – Algeria 1-0 Nigeria
- 1992 (Senegal) – Ivory Coast 0-0 Ghana (Ivory Coast won on penalties)
- 1994 (Tunisia) – Nigeria 2-1 Zambia
- 1996 (South Africa) – South Africa 2-0 Tunisia
- 1998 (Burkina Faso) – Egypt 2-0 South Africa
- 2000 (Ghana & Nigeria) – Nigeria 2-2 Cameroon (Cameroon won on penalties)
- 2002 (Mali) – Senegal 0-0 Cameroon (Cameroon won on penalties)
- 2004 (Tunisia) – Tunisia 2-1 Morocco
- 2006 (Egypt) – Egypt 0-0 Ivory Coast (Egypt won on penalties)
- 2008 (Ghana) – Egypt 1-0 Cameroon
- 2010 (Angola) – Egypt 1-0 Ghana
- 2012 (Gabon & Equatorial Guinea) – Zambia 0-0 Ivory Coast (Zambia won on penalties)
- 2013 (South Africa) – Nigeria 1-0 Burkina Faso
- 2015 (Equatorial Guinea) – Ivory Coast 0-0 Ghana (Ivory Coast won on penalties)
- 2017 (Gabon) – Cameroon 2-1 Egypt
- 2019 (Egypt) – Algeria 1-0 Senegal
- 2021 (Cameroon) – Senegal 0-0 Egypt (Senegal won on penalties)
Who is the favourite to win the African Cup of Nations in 2024?
Senegal are currently favourites to retain their title.
Who is competing at the AFCON in 2024?
Group A. Côte d’Ivoire. Nigeria. Equatorial Guinea. Guinea Bissau.
Group B. Egypt. Ghana. Cape Verde. Mozambique.
Group C. Senegal. Cameroon. Guinea. Gambia.
Group D. Algeria. Burkina Faso. Mauritania. Angola.
Group E. Tunisia. Mali. South Africa. Namibia.
Group F. Morocco. DR Congo. Zambia. Tanzania.
What are the key dates to keep in mind?
The 2023 AFCON has been postponed from the Summer of 2023 until January/February 2024 due to weather conditions in the Ivory Coast. The tournament will run from Saturday 13 Jan 2024 until Sunday 11 Feb 2024.
CHeck out our preview of the final.
Check out the best betting sites in the UK and the best football bookies with Betting.com.
Check out our AFCON preview
