Betting deposit charges in Nigeria 2026: who pays the ₦50 now
If you fund a betting account with ₦10,000 or more, ₦50 leaves your wallet as stamp duty. You pay it as the sender, and the bookie still receives the full amount. The press described this switch under the Nigeria Tax Act 2025 from 1 January 2026, with TheCable setting out the sender-pays rule.
Most guides still describe the old rule where the receiver paid. That rule no longer applies to you when you fund an account. I note the date here because a reader arriving later needs to know which version is current.
This example uses a round ₦10,000 sent to fund your account. ₦10,070 leaves your wallet, which is ₦10,000 credit plus the ₦50 duty and a ₦20 transfer fee. The ₦20 is Moniepoint’s fee as a fee tracker reports it, not a published schedule, so check your own app. I mean the round-send case here, where you cover the extra on top.
If you fit the send to your balance instead, less reaches the bookie because the extra still comes from you. Deposits below the threshold carry no duty at all. Salaries and self-transfers between your own accounts are also outside the duty.
Each qualifying transfer attracts the duty separately. Two separate funding moves are two separate events for duty purposes. I point this out because many pages still merge the old and new rules.
A draft page had the maths backwards and showed less arriving from a round send. The correct round-send position is full credit to the bookie with the extra leaving you. I keep the two cases apart here so you see which one you are doing.
Sending within OPay wallets is free, while sending to another bank costs ₦10. That figure comes from brands.ng in June 2026, which calls it its own compilation and tells you to check the app. I have not checked OPay’s schedule myself, so treat the app screen as final.
OPay, PalmPay and Moniepoint notified users directly before the change. TechCabal explained the reversal in December 2025, ahead of the January start. You now pay on funding, and you withdraw to your OPay wallet without duty taken on arrival.
I have not deposited, withdrawn or timed anything for this guide. The payout-time figures in circulation come from sites that did not say how they measured, so I do not repeat them as fact.
Funding below the threshold falls outside the duty, so the charge does not touch every deposit. Staying inside one wallet avoids the bank-send charge noted above. Check the duty line and the wallet fee on the confirmation screen before you confirm.