Helping You Find the Top Betting Sites in the UK

Last updated: August 20, 2018 by Leon Marshal

Welcome to best betting sites UK, your one stop shop for the greatest offers, impartial site reviews and betting app test drives. The teams here are dedicated to providing you with all the information you need to make an informed and educated choice when selecting a bookmaker that is right for you. Whether it’s Premier League football betting you are after or perhaps you’ve had a top tip on the nags, we can help you bash the bookies and get real value for your money.

Best Betting Offers Online

Of all the relevant criteria that we’ve considered, bonus offers are one of the most important ones. To be honest, nothing perks up your day like a nice promotion that gives you some extra cash to play with. And it’s not all about the bonus amount, some companies reward ongoing loyalty by giving you a small amount each week to encourage you to continue to use their site. There are so many and various offers that this homepage will be oozing paragraphs if we describe them all. That’s why our team hand picked and assessed the most valuable for each of the most common bonus offers.

Markets Offered

Some bookmaker’s are to use a cricketing term “good all-rounders”, were as others specialise in one or two markets. Picking a bookmaker who offers the best odds for the markets you intend to bet on can have a real positive impact on your bankroll. In the next section we have a look at two of the most popular markets, football and horse racing and as you will see, not all bookmakers are the same!

Before we compare the different prices, there is one bookmaker whose great welcome offer can ensure you get the best odds available at any online sports betting site! This bookie is of course 888sport with their £30 welcome offer. The question is, do you go for a shorter odds event and play it safe or really bash the bookies with a rank outsider?

Football

To help you pick the right operator for your chosen market we have done comprehensive research on our 7 operators, we chose 4 football matches at random and checked the odds for home win on the 7 companies. To give a fair reflection we chose 2 Premier League games, 1 Championship game and a League 1 game.

Variance between the best and the lowest odds for football
	League	.	.	.	.	.	.	.
	Premier League 1	5/3	5/3	17/20	8/13	8/11	18/25	63/100
	Premier League 2	100/30	3/1	4/11	3/1	3/1	7/5	12/5
	Championship	7/5	7/5	21/20	6/4	7/5	7/5	7/5
	League 1	11/8	11/8	9/5	6/4	6/4	6/4	29/20

We then looked at the variance between the best odds and the lowest odds.

Have you ever seen an advertisement on TV for something like beer and the price seems ridiculously low? You then get into the car, go to the supermarket and pick up your “bargain beer”, you also do a weekly shop and when you get home you realise that you have spent £10 more than you normally do! On closer inspection you realise that although the beer was cheap, other items pushed the price up and this bargain ended up costing you money. Ideally, you would buy this cheap beer and then go to your normal supermarket to purchase the rest of your goods.

This analogy works as well with the betting market, shopping around and having more than one account can ensure you get the best value. We found that some companies offer nearly 14% better odds than their rivals, we also discovered that Premier League games are used to entice punters in with larger variances between the best odds and the worst (13.94% and 6.13% on our 2 sample games) than Championship (4.16% variance) and League 1 (5.04% variance).

So based on our research, we of course recommend that you don’t just rely on one company – this also gives you a chance to take advantage of some great new player bonuses (for example Coral are offering bet £5 get £20 free bet to new customers here.) If you are betting on a “top” game then ensure you look at any special ‘price boosts’ on offer. Finally, check back often as the market does fluctuate quite a bit.

Conclusions of our small sample would lead us to recommend Betvictor and William Hill for Premier League betting.

Horse Racing

With horse racing it is not as easy to compare the markets much in advance due to many sites just showing “SP” or Starting Price. The starting price is based on the odds being offered ‘on-course’ or in other words at the actual race meeting. The way the SP’s are decided can vary but usually a panel decides the starting price by observations of the changes in prices at the racecourse. The main idea of a starting price is to determine winnings where fixed odds have not been taken (or offered) when the bet was made.

However, all sites listed here offer ‘Best Odds Guaranteed’ or ‘BOG’ if you prefer in which if the starting price changes and goes higher than the odds you took then the bookmaker will pay out the higher price. As with all offers we strongly recommend you check the sites terms and conditions as there may be conditions attached.

Variance between the best odds and the lowest Horse Racing odds.
	Race #	.	.	.	.	.	.	.
	Race 1	26 / 1	34 / 1	40 / 1	26 / 1	26 / 1	26 / 1	34 / 1
	Race 2	19 / 1	15 / 1	19/ 1	19 / 1	19 / 1	15 / 1	19 / 1
	Race 3	15 / 1	21 / 1	19/ 1	21 / 1	17 / 1	17 / 1	21 / 1
	Race 4	34 / 1	34 / 1	26 / 1	29 / 1	26 / 1	34 / 1	26 / 1

For the horse racing comparison, we chose 4 races just before the ‘off’ and compared the starting odds for a random participant at our featured bookmakers. We then compared all the different prices on offer and just as we did in our football comparison, we were then able to compare on a like for like basis.

As with the football there can be huge differences between the bookmaker offering the best odds and the bookmaker offering the worst. In our small sample in race 1 there was a variance of 30.76% between the best (Ladbrokes and BetVictor) and the worst (Paddy Power, William Hill and Coral). The second race had a variance of 26.66% with 4 bookmakers offering the highest odds (William Hill, Coral and BetVictor) and the lowest (Ladbrokes and Paddy Power). Race 3 showed a huge difference of 40% between Ladbrokes and BetVictor compared to Coral which came out with the worst odds. The last sample we did showed a 30.76% difference between the best (Ladbrokes, Paddy Power and Coral) and the worst (William Hill and BetVictor).

Again, what this data shows is that shopping around is vital for achieving the best odds for your money, even for the same race it is often a smart choice to use 2 different companies. Differences of 25% and above are not uncommon.

Mobile Betting

Do you remember the time when mobile phones were used only to call people and send texts? It wasn’t actually that long ago! Still, in that short period of time, the technology has made a gigantic leap. Nowadays, the mobiles with buttons are all but gone and virtually every device on the market supports an Internet connection and a touch screen. Over time the services of traditional betting shops and online bookmakers made the transition into mobile applications. They give you fast and easy access to all your favourite markets and can be run on almost any modern mobile device.

Every serious betting site supports a mobile version and today betting apps are more a necessity than a luxury. In fact, all the sites that we recommend support Android and iOS devices as well as Windows Phone and Blackberry. Using the BetVictor app, you will have the same great experience as using the full blown web site, however, BetVictor have cleverly optimised the number of touches needed to make a bet. This ensures that no matter where you are, you’ll never miss out on placing a bet! We have thoroughly tested this operator and the rest of the available mobile-friendly betting sites and we posted the results in our mobile App betting section which will give you the low down on betting whilst on the move. You can read our round up by going here.

Live Betting and Streaming

Live (or In-Play, as some call it) is the fastest growing market in the betting world. It’s cooler than a snowman in winter with shades on. If your bookmaker doesn’t offer you a great selection of live markets, then you need to consider your choice of bookie. We can forgive many imperfections in a particular sports book, but the lack of live betting is something we simply would miss too much…. What’s the big deal about it? There is nothing more exciting than watching a game live, knowing something is about to happen and then putting your money where your mouth is by having a bet.

Thanks to Live betting we can choose to back football teams, horses, curling players… whatever…. it makes the game more interactive and seeing what’s going on is the cherry on the top. When saying ‘see’ we should mention video streams are a crucial feature on a site, strongly related to the the Live betting itself. The top bookmakers have the resource required to provide video streams from the events you can bet on. In most cases all you need in order to watch the stream is: positive balance on your account or a bet (even a minor one) placed on the particular event. Anyway, if we have to keep it short: we don’t rank well betting sites that don’t provide A) rich Live markets and B) Video streams (or audio commentary at very least).

The Good and the Bad Side of Betting

We like to think that everyone we deal with has our interests at heart and all companies exist to make our life easier but the sad truth is not everyone is our best mate and money and greed can be a huge incentive to a rogue betting site. So what would a dodgy online bookie look like?

Next off, how about fairness of our games? Well maybe we can tinker with the software a bit to really boost our profit margin, I mean, who’s going to check….? When a customer asks us if our games have been tested to be fair then we can always get ‘Dangerous Dave’ to knock us up a quick certificate in Microsoft Word that looks pretty official – fake a nice “Government of Barbados” stamp on it and no-one will be any the wiser. If someone actually wins anything (unlikely but mistakes happen) then we have a plan for that too, we hide in the terms and conditions a clause that states we will only pay out on the 32nd of Julember… that will get them, however if pushed too far we will limit payout to something so small (say £50 per month) that eventually they give up. Well when I say £50, I mean £50 minus of course the currency conversion fee of 20%, local taxes (also called a beer fund) of 30% , administration fee of 30%, Bank charges 10% – in fact, we could actually make it so they owe US money, wouldn’t that be fun?

But of course, we are not like that. In fact we are always looking for the best sites around. This is why we not only take on the old guard, such as the big classic bookmakers, but also have a dedicated section for new betting sites.

Do You Really Want a Situation like This? There Is a Better Way.

Any man’s primal instincts are connected with security. On a higher level, we constantly pursue soundness in our everyday life, career and family. It’s fair to say that we need stability in absolutely every aspect of our lives, sports betting included. After all, you play with your own real money, therefore any possible complication should be completely out of the picture. If you take closer look into this Gambling Commission report, you will see that over the past three years, sports books were monitored twice as much, as any other gambling sector.

As from December 2014 a change in the way that companies that offer services to UK was introduced, whereas previously companies could be licensed and regulated in a different country (such as Malta and Guernsey), the change in 2014 meant that all sports books that served UK customers had to be licensed by the UK Gambling Commission. This change has been good news for the customer as it ensures all companies are regulated by the same regulatory body, therefore ensuring consistency.

Transparent regulations mean that when you win, you will actually be paid. Beside that, the privacy of your personal data is fully guaranteed. Isn’t that what we all want at the end of the day?

If you scroll down to the footer of any betting site, you will see which testing agencies provided certificates for it and what other services are used. We’ve prepared a reliable guideline that will show what you should look for at a bookmaker.

In other words, fair and transparent regulations mean that when you win, you will actually be paid. Beside that, the privacy of your personal data is fully guaranteed. Isn’t that what we all want at the end of the day?

If you scroll down to the footer of any betting site, you will see which testing agencies provided certificates for it and what other services are used. We’ve prepared a reliable guideline that will show what you should look for at a bookmaker.

IBAS stands short for Independent Betting Adjudication Service. Just like the name suggests, these guys sort out betting-related disputes. Their verdict may not always satisfy you, but you will be sure that it’s the right one.

ESSA (or European Sports Security Association) is an organisation, the mission and values of which are built around Sports Betting Integrity. Their goal is to deter anyone who has even remote thoughts of match-fixing and other shady business.

GambleAware is a people-oriented authority, which is focused on helping bettors make better decisions. No, they are not tipsters at all. Exactly the opposite, by running charities, similar to Responsible Gambling Trust they help gambling addicts and other people who show worrying signs.

It is inevitable to mention money transactions when talking about betting sites security. There are various ways to complete your deposits/withdrawals at online bookmakers and it’s really important to pick a reliable one. Unlike back in the days, when betting on sports was only associated with splashing the cash at the retail shop (and eventually getting more back). In general, types of transactions can be sorted in three groups. Here is a brief overview of each one:

Bank cards – Surely the fastest and easiest way. Unsurprisingly, VISA and Mastercard lead the way, but there are betting operators that will also accept your Laser, Solo, Maestro or Delta cards. No additional registration is required, just fill in your credit/debit card details and you are done. The most notable minus is that withdrawals usually take a bit longer to be completed.

E-wallets – Our personal advice is that you use some of the best e-wallets. Just like using a credit or debit card, your deposits will be instant. The main things that give this tools edge over them are the notably faster withdrawals and improved security. We believe that PayPal is the best option for you, but you will also get exquisite service if you side with Skrill (Moneybookers) or Neteller.

Pre-paid method – It is completely normal for someone to not want to share their personal info with a bookmaker. Pre-paid vouchers are the perfect solution for that kind of punters. Ukash is the most popular of those methods and virtually every top UK betting site supports it. The main drawback is that you will not be able to withdraw your winnings by using it and you will need to provide an alternative method to withdraw. If you join Ladbrokes and apply for the full ‘odds on’ card then you are able to collect your winnings from any branch of Ladbrokes. You will need of course identification and the ‘odds on’ must be a full account, not just the one for use in the shops.

Q and As

Online betting on sports is a huge niche that has many big and small elements. This FAQ section covers the ones that couldn’t fit anywhere so far on our homepage.