mCHEZA

Wide selection of markets with football providing most events. MCHEZA isn’t just a sportsbook; it’s a casino, a virtual sports arena and a place you can wager on e-sports. It’s worth checking out even though they lack a cash out option and their maximum pay-out is the lowest in the land. It started as an SMS only betting site where we’d check the dailies for game codes. Golden days. s

mCHEZA at a glance

This Kenyan-owned bookie begun operations in late December 2015 after they were approved by the Betting Control and Licensing Board under license number 686. This was after they partnered with South Africa’s Intralot who would be their gaming provider for the next 10 years. The brand is operated by Acumen Communications limited. It is an open secret that former Citizen TV newscaster – Julie Gichuru –  is one of the directors with Peter Karimi being the CEO.

mCHEZA deposit options

Make deposits through the M-Pesa pay bill number 295525 with your phone number as the account number. Deposits are even faster with their online top up request form. Fill in how much you’d like to top up, confirm transaction by providing your M-Pesa pin and that’s it. M-cheza bears transaction charges and they’re therefore free to all Safaricom customers.

Withdraw options

Make withdrawal requests through their website and funds will be credited immediately. If you bet by SMS, send “cashout#amount” to 29888. If you would like to withdraw Kes 3,000 send cashout#3000

Payment methods conclusion

MCHEZA Paybill is now working and you can now deposit conveniently. Players that bet by SMS can request withdrawals by SMS too.

MCHEZA Customer service

You can keep in touch by phone, email, live chat on the website or by social media. I recommend reaching out to them on Facebook or Twitter as these channels have the fastest response times. 2 hours is the average respsone time on live chat but they got back in 4 minutes. Guess I’m lucky.

Their Facebook page was unavailable at the time of this review; looks like it was being red-designed too.

How MCHEZA operates in Kenya

When it began, MCHEZA’s website was just a storefront and you couldn’t place bets online. Game Codes were shared through print media and bet by SMS. It is nostalgic. A dynamic system was then put in place and we then had access to live odds, more markets and even faster betting. Tow jackpots were later introduced with the weekend jackpot coming first. A few people like Eng. John Buko became famous overnight after bagging this lumpsum: Kes 25M is a life changing windfall you know. MCHEZA was the second Kenyan sportsbook to introduce live betting after Betin. Since then, numerous small adjustments have been made like the introduction of a cashout option, lowering the minimum stake from Kes 100 to Kes 50 but switching to a dynamic system remains to be most noble one.

MCHEZA – the good

Cashout

At mCHEZA, you can cash out of running bet before the event is complete. Please note that this cashout option is only available on games that they have livebetting on. MCHEZA doesn’t have live betting on smaller (obscure) leagues.

Their app is faster than the website

Place bets faster through their app. It auto remembers your username/password combo and auto logins unlike in the website. All popular events are featured on the app’s welcome screen and you’ll see any big games being played in the e=next 3 days.

The Bad

Their livescore is buggy

Even though they have an embed livescore, it’s super buggy, updates aren’t on Realtime and it fails more time than it works, You’re better off relying on other Livescire providers. Soccer24 is my personal favourite as it has Flaschore’s layout and updates are automatic with no need of refreshing. There’s a results feature too but it only shows events played in the last two days. Isn’t that pointless? I want to know who won the 2015 premier League season and that’s obviously not in the two day filter you’ve restricted us to.

Did you know that Google has a “hidden” livescore. Try searching your favourite team while a match is in-play and you’ll see current scores and other notable highlights.

Verdict

I give mCHEZA a 4 and a half star. It’s a brand we trust and love but a few features could be improved.

Bottomline

I miss the weekly jackpot. It would start at Kes 1M every Monday and would rise with each passing day, unless won. It was a 7-game jackpot. Math says that there are 3^7 = 2187 possible jackpot combinations and winners were lucky.

The M-Cheza Platform

There’s an embed match tracker – for in play events – that lets you know how the game is progressing.

Game highlights are shown on the timeline too.

Live Betting tip: Notice that the away team had been awarded four corners by the 8^th minute and they scored in the 16^th minute. The side with the highest number of corners almost always scores first. A yellow card shows that the team is giving this game their all and they would rather play rough than concede a goal. Bookies have their eyes on such trends and this explains why the away team has a lower spread (odd) of scoring the second goal

There’s a system calculator too but I couldn’t figure out what it’s supposed to do.

Bonus and promotions

Up to 50% bonus on multibets

MCHEZA awards bonuses on winning multibets. They start at 10% bonus for 5 pick multis to 50% for 10+ games on a single slip. Each event must exceed 1.5 odds though.

Quality of odds

If mCHEZA were to toss a coin, the head and the tail would both have 1.85 odds

Their cut (vig) is quite high and you can get better offers with other bookies.

Betting Limits

Kes 1M is the maximum pay out and stake on bet slips. Kes 50 is the minimum. M-pesa charges Kes 5 for depositing Kes 50 while it’s just Kes 1 depositing Kes 49. Sportpesa had thought over this and set their min stake to Kes 49 so that customers incurred lower transaction charges. MCHEZA should implement this too.

Mobile options

There’s an app and “WAP” version of the site; essentially a lite site.

Questions and answers

Is mCHEZA working?

Yes. Deposits and withdrawals are running as usual. The jackpot has been put on hold and links to the mobile app have been removed from the homepage.

How do you reset mCHEZA password?

Click on forgot password and a new one will be delivered by SMS