Making sure that you choose the best sports betting sites is critical to ensuring you get the best odds and have the best experience when betting. There are hundreds of great offers that you can get your hands on and in this article, we’ll help you make sense of all these offers to get you started on your betting journey.
Simply select one of the bookmakers at the top of this page or read on to learn how to get started with choosing a betting site that’s relevant to you.
Sky Bet – great user-friendly interface
Bet365 – best in class in-play betting
Betfair – a variety of betting markets
There is a vast array of bookmakers available worldwide that you can use to place your bets. Each betting site has different positives and negatives as to why you may want to use one of the other. It’s important that you learn about what each bookmaker can offer you before you select the ones you want to use.
To start with, it’s important to choose a sports betting site that you can use in your current location. Some bookmakers that operate in the United Kingdom may not be available for US or African customers. This is due to varying betting laws in different countries, although you’ll be able to see which betting sites are best for your location based on our best betting sites by location page.
If you’re looking to bet on a specific sport or a selection of sports, then we’ll guide you to the best sports betting site for your needs here.
We’ll start by saying that if you intend on betting on a variety of sports, then we’d highly recommend that you go with one of the recommended bookmakers in the grid at the top of this page. These are the best all-round bookmakers and will allow you to bet on a huge variety of sports without specialising in one singular one.
If you’re more interested in finding a sports betting site that fits the needs of one particular sport that you’re interested in, then we can help here too. We’ve created specific sports betting site guides for you to get involved. These can be found by selecting the relevant sport from the list below.
Simply choose the one you’re interested in and follow our guide on how you can quickly get started on the best sports betting site for you.
With 195 countries around the world today it’s fair to say there’s a huge variation in betting laws. That’s why it makes it hard to recommend one best betting site for each country. However, we can make recommendations based on where you are located to help you get the best understanding of what you need to look our for and the laws in your country.
If you’re a UK resident, you’ll be aware that although there are many laws in place, they are all for the safety and support of the punter. All licenced betting sites are regulated and are required to support problem gamblers. For this reason, it’s easy for us to recommend a host of different betting sites in the UK as to compete they need to meet a high standard.
However, that doesn’t mean that they are all reliable. Some betting sites may have bad customer service lines, issues rewarding welcome bonuses or long withdrawal times. For that reason, we’d recommend UK customers head over to our bookmaker offers page and choose one of our partners that we work closely with.
For those of you who are located globally and looking for the best betting site to get you started then we can help you too. We know that Asia, Canada, the US, Australia and the rest of Europe have some of the biggest gambling markets and everyone has different needs and requirements. An example of this is using Decimal as opposed to fractional odds formats.
To see our international betting sites simply choose the country that you wish to bet in from the list below. You’ll then be taken through to our specialist nations betting sites guides where you can read about how to bet in your country and the bookmakers that are right for you.
When you are looking for a betting site you probably know what some of the most important things, you’re looking for are. This can make it far easier to find the betting site that is the best fit for you. Maybe you’re looking for great in-play betting? Or maybe you enjoy betting on Political outcomes? Maybe you’re interested in just finding the safest site to use?
Whatever you’re looking for there is a betting site for you. Below we’ve made some recommendations based on some of the different specific things a user might be looking for. Simply select something that interests you and we’ll take you to a page that will recommend our bet betting sites for this specific category and show you how it all works on the sites.
Although some sites may not be listed on these pages it doesn’t mean that they don’t also have these features we’ve just chosen sites that do them slightly better than the others.
If you’re ready to find the best online sportsbook based on your unique categorical need, click the appropriate link below:
Throughout history, betting has always been done in person or most recently though a licenced betting shop or vender. This has made betting accessible for millions of people across the world. However, times are beginning to change and with the emergence of the internet, smartphones and changing odds betting shops across the globe are beginning to close their doors and move their entire operations online.
Younger people may not have an issue with this as once they surpassed the legal betting age, they may start out by heading to an online betting site. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the older generation may be more inclined to stick to brick-and-mortar betting that they have been doing throughout their lives.
Let’s look at some of the obvious differences and benefits of online betting:
Convenience
It’s hard to argue that convenience is one of the biggest factors in the debate as it’s far easier to turn on a computer than to head out your front door. When choosing to bet in shop you have to get in your car, drive to the bookies, wait in line, place your bet, drive home, wait for the bet to end, drive back, wait in line again, cash your slip and finally drive home again. This can be hard to fit into your day especially if you’re having a few bets per week.
On the flip site betting online is a completely different story. You don’t have to leave your home no matter where you’re located. As long as you have an internet connection you can deposit funds, place your bets and withdraw winnings without even getting out of your chair. No need to make any plans to go to the betting shop and if you decide you want to place another bet or cash out early while you’re watching the game you can.
Overall all it’s just generally much quicker to place bets via betting sites. You can easily make 10 bets online in the time it might take you to place one in shop with all the travel and extra stresses.
Costs and profit
When you bet in a betting shop there are a lot more costs associated with it and that can very quickly and sharply eat into your bet profits. These costs include money for fuel to drive to the betting shop, any parking costs, tolls, a babysitter in some cases.
Although there seem like small costs, if you were to place a £20 bet on at evens (1/1) and you bet wins giving you £20 profit. You may spend £3 worth of petrol in order to just go and collect your winnings. This loss off profit can continue if there are any other costs on your journey.
This is a different story if your betting shop is in walking distance though as it is always advisable to get out and about and do some exercise but for most people, this may not be fees able. On the other hand, using online betting sites to place your bets is much more profitable in the long run as there are generally no small costs to stack up over time. This is apart from your internet and phone service but you’re more than likely going to be paying those anyway it’s unfair to count them.
Safety and security
Of course, with online betting, there are threats including the likes of fraud but this is generally quite rare if you use a reputable site and know what you’re doing. There are really more threats for betting in shops and it’s not something you may think about until it happens to you.
Thieves tend to congregate around places that they know vulnerable people are going to be carrying a lot of cash. Yes, you might have guessed it, a betting shop tends to be a hot sport for potential crime. As it’s all over the counter, you can be spotted being handed cash for winning bets by anyone else in the shop.
On a less malicious note, there is also the risk of losing your betting slip. Not a situation you want to find yourself in believe me! Imagine winning your bet and then on the way to cash your winnings you drop your betting slip along with your ability to claim any winnings you had your eyes already on. Nightmare.
When you use an online betting site neither of these factors is really applicable. As long as you keep your account passwords safe and strong, antivirus up to date and only bet with reputable sportsbooks you should be fine online. There is also no chance of misplacing your betting slip and getting that sinking feeling!
With so many betting sites available to sign up and bet on, how do you distinguish which one is right for you? By looking at the below list of key factors and assessing each one against the betting site you’re about to choose is the best way to ensure you have a positive experience with any betting sites you decide to bet on.
Mobile experience
Over the last few years the way people view the internet has changed. Smartphones have become far more prominent in our day to day lives as technology has advanced four-fold. This now means it’s easier to bet on sports on the move using apps designer for these betting sites which has streamlined the whole betting experience.
For this reason, if you intend on doing some mobile betting it’s critical that you find a sports betting site that has an easy-to-use app that still includes all the features you need access too. (See our Full guide on choosing the best betting app here)
Sign up process
The sign-up process can be a real headache on some betting sites. You can have to provide loads of data that you don’t feel comfortable with in order to prove your identity and age in some cases. Although this is 100% necessary some betting sites streamline this process so it’s extremely quick and painless.
Market variety
The variety of markets available may be a deal-breaker for those of you who like to experiment with different sports betting markets. Some websites may have a plethora of markets for some sports but not so many for others so it’s important to choose the right ones from the get-go.
We’d recommend heading the websites of some bookmakers and taking a look through the available markets before you decide to create your account. Alternatively, you can head to our specific sports betting sites pages to find out which bookmakers have the most available markets for each sport.
Bonus and offer
As you may have seen from the top of this page, different betting sites offer different welcome offers and bonuses. These can be a great way to get started as using free bets will give you the opportunity to try out a few different sports betting markets and any cash you win using them is yours to keep!
So how do you choose the right offer? Head over to our bookmaker offers page and look through all of the available offers we have from the top betting sites. You’ll see there are 3 main types of welcome bonuses:
(Read all offer T&Cs before betting in order to make sure you meet all requirements, or you may not receive your bonuses)
Payment Methods and banking
This is often an overlooked feature of betting sites but it’s important to consider which ways you’re allowed to deposit into your account. For example, you need to make sure your preferred payment method is accepted. In addition to this it’s worth looking into the withdrawal times and rules of some betting sites so there are no hidden caveats once you start winning some bets.
For users in the United Kingdom, betting sites will not allow you to use Credit Cards to deposit funds as a new law was recently brought in for this.
Industry Reputation
It is difficult to judge a bookmaker due to its industry reputation due to a lot of online reviews that will tell you different things. All bookmakers will have a mix of happy and unhappy customers and it’s usually the unhappy ones that take to leaving negative reviews online.
Our recommendation is to look at our bookmaker offers page and choose one from there as we are familiar with all of our partners and we can answer any issues you have with them directly via our Twitter page @oddschanger.
Licencing
All of the betting sites that we feature on our website are 100% fully licenced and trusted. This means choosing an offer from our website will help to protect you from any fraudulent activity that you may find from smaller unlicensed bookmakers.
If you do decide to go down that route though you can check if a bookmaker has a licence by visiting your countries licensor. For the UK this can be checked on the Gambling Commission website.
Odds and pricing
With so many betting sites available to place your bet on there is a lot of competition to get your business. One way they do this is by providing great offers and bonuses, the other is by offering competitive odds.
This is the main reason why you might want to open an account on a few different betting sites. You may find that you get a better price for the same bet on a different betting site so it’s worth comparing the odds for your bets.
For all of our tips on the website we automatically compare the odds for you so that you can see which betting site is offering the best price for all of our tips so you don’t have to guess. (Head over to our Football tips page now to see this in action!)
User experience
The user experience is one of the most important factors for choosing the best betting site. It should play a vital role in helping you decided. The user experience of course refers to how easy and rewarding the betting site is to operate and the many features it houses.
Once you’ve decided on a sports betting site or a couple of sites that you want to use for betting then it’s time to start betting. If you’re looking for some advice on betting, then we can help you by providing tips for our 7 specialist sports.
Our team uses data to put together betting tips that you can use on your new betting sites for free. Simply head over to our free tips pages or read all about specific events in our predictions section.
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