Orlando Pirates ended a 14-year wait for the league title in May 2026, finishing a point clear of Mamelodi Sundowns. When the new season kicked off on 1 August, the bookmakers responded by installing Sundowns as favourites and pricing the champions second.
That tells you most of what you need to know about the 2026/27 Betway Premiership. Pirates have the trophy. Almost nobody expects them to keep it.
The bookmakers back Sundowns, not the champions
Prices released by HollywoodBets ahead of the campaign put Mamelodi Sundowns at 1.10 for the title, with Orlando Pirates at 1.40 and Kaizer Chiefs at 3.30. AmaZulu and Sekhukhune United sit far behind at 33.00, and every other club is longer still.
The reasoning is not hard to follow. Sundowns won the league in every season from 2017 to 2025, conceded only 21 goals last term while juggling continental football, and still finished within a point of the title. Their squad is valued at roughly €39.5 million, close to double the €24.35 million of Pirates, and accounts for more than a quarter of the entire division’s market value.
Those numbers explain the price, but they also create a problem for anyone betting on it. At 1.10, backing Sundowns returns ten cents on the rand, which leaves the welcome offer doing more work than the selection itself. That is where the promo code for hollywoodbets today in South Africa becomes relevant on a market this short, since it acts on the stake rather than on the odds.
Orlando Pirates carry a weight they have not felt in years
Abdeslam Ouaddou takes his side into a season with a very different psychological setup. Chasing a title and defending one are separate exercises, and the Buccaneers have not been in the second position for 14 years.
The squad that won it remains formidable. Goalkeeper Sipho Chaine kept 21 clean sheets in 30 appearances last season, the best record in the division by a distance. The team also put together a 14-match unbeaten run, recorded a 6-0 away win at TS Galaxy and a 5-0 home win over Golden Arrows. Their opening fixture against newly promoted Milford FC offered an early reminder of that firepower.
The complication is the calendar. Ouaddou must defend the league while competing in the CAF Champions League and three domestic cup competitions, a workload that has broken title defences before.
Mamelodi Sundowns have the squad and the motive
Losing the league by a single point after eight consecutive titles has left an obvious appetite for correction in Pretoria. The attacking options alone justify the short price, with Nuno Santos, Iqraam Rayners, Marcelo Allende and Tashreeq Matthews supported by Brayan León, who scored 15 goals in 26 appearances across all competitions after joining mid-season.
Defensively they were the meanest side in the country. Twenty-one goals conceded across the campaign, combined with a ten-match winning run, points to a team that lost the title through fine margins rather than any structural weakness.
Their start was pushed back after the fixture against Marumo Gallants was postponed. That leaves them chasing on matches in hand rather than on points, a distinction worth remembering when reading the early table, and one that tends to flatter Pirates and Chiefs in August.
Kaizer Chiefs are the value play at 3.30
No club in South Africa draws a following like Chiefs, and no club has frustrated it more consistently in recent years. Fernando Da Cruz arrives with a mandate to end that, and the early evidence was encouraging with an away win at newly promoted Kruger United in Mbombela on the opening weekend.
At 3.30 they represent the most interesting price on the board. A two-horse race between Sundowns and Pirates would leave nothing for punters, while a genuine three-way contest changes the entire market. Chiefs also carry Confederation Cup commitments alongside Durban City, which will test the depth Da Cruz has assembled.
AmaZulu and the outside contenders
Beyond the traditional big three, AmaZulu have been named among the clubs believed to have assembled a squad capable of challenging near the summit, alongside Sekhukhune United. Both are priced at 33.00, which reflects hope rather than expectation.
Stellenbosch FC remain the division’s most efficient operation relative to budget, regularly outperforming clubs with far greater resources. None of these sides will realistically win the league, but they will decide it by taking points off those who can.
Two scheduling factors that could settle it
The first is the absence of a mid-season continental break. AFCON falls after the domestic campaign this time, running from 19 June to 17 July 2027, so squads face an uninterrupted 30-matchday programme rather than the usual January disruption.
The second is cup congestion. The MTN8 runs from August to its 10 October final, the Carling Knockout concludes on 12 December, and the Nedbank Cup opens in the new year. Sundowns and Pirates handle those alongside CAF Champions League football, while Chiefs juggle the Confederation Cup. Squad depth, not first-choice quality, tends to decide South African title races, and that is precisely where Sundowns hold their clearest advantage.
The Soweto Derby remains the fixture that frames the season. Last term’s meeting drew 88,120 supporters to FNB Stadium, the highest crowd in the division. If Chiefs have genuinely closed the gap under Da Cruz, that is where it will show first.
