Sports betting online can make watching sports on TV even more exciting. The thrill of watching your team win, knowing that you’re going to win big too, can be incredible. And when you start to make accumulator bets, the excitement can be even greater. But when you’re looking for the best online UK site for sports betting, it can be hard to know where to start.
There are so many different sites, all with their own offers and reward systems, it can all get very confusing. Fortunately, here at Best Deal Casinos we offer a wide range of knowledge and expertise about all kinds of online sports betting sites, including reviews and ratings. This makes it easier for you to find the best site for your needs.
Sports Betting: the basics
We recommend that you research the top rated sites through our website, and choose one that covers your chosen sport or live event on their front page, as they will be likely to offer up-to-date odds and attractive bonuses. If you want to place an accumulator, it’s important to find the bookmaker that will offer the best odds for that sport, as these odds will make quite a difference to your winning total. Whether you’re looking for a rugby betting specialist, a football betting site, or a general online sports betting site, you’ll find all the facts and figures you need to know right here. And if there’s anything you can’t find, you can try our easy-to-use search bar or contact us for direct help. We’re here to make sports betting as convenient and fun for you as possible, and you can access all of the most popular UK sports betting sites from right here. The only thing we can’t do is guarantee you a win every time!
Sports betting online has become incredibly popular in the UK and the US, so the majority of the major casino sites such as Sky Bet and 888 have developed a sports betting system for their customers. There are also quite a few sites which specialise in sports betting online, for certain sports. This can a really competitive area, where the big names such as Ladbrokes and Paddy Power compete with smaller bookmakers such as Boyle Sports, with a variety of offers and incentives. This is great news for you, the customer, as you can get a really great deal. But you have to know how to find the right bookmaker for you, and that’s where we come in.
Here at Best Deal Casinos, we’ve put together a brief guide to getting started in online sports betting in the UK:
- Step 1: The first thing you should do is choose a sport. The options are huge: you can place a bet on practically any sport from football to tennis and boxing to golf. Once you know which sport you’re going to bet on, you need to choose an event to place your bet on.
Every site will have its own system of determining the odds for every sport, so you’ll probably have to shop around to find the best odds for your sport. You can do that by checking out the links on our site, which will take you to the best rated betting sites in the UK.
- Step 2: You can read the reviews on each site to help you decide which one is best for you. Also look at the different offers available and decide if you'd prefer to receive a free bet, or to have your stake matched by the bookmakers. Every site will offer its own combination of rewards to incentivise you to join them. Remember, there is no guarantee of winning any bet, so you must be prepared to lose your stake on any site.
- Step 3: Once you've chosen a site and registered your details with them, you can place a bet on your chosen event, hopefully with fantastic odds. Then you just have to watch the sport and hope that you've placed your bet on the winner!
- Step 4: After you've collected your winnings (hopefully!) we would love it if you’d come back to our site to let us know your experience of the betting site by writing a review. Your experiences can help other members of our community find their perfect betting site too.
What do the odds mean?
Online sports betting in the UK tends to involve fractional odds. You can think of these in a simple way: the first number in the fraction shows the winnings you’ll get compared to your initial bet, the second number. For example, if you place a bet where the odds are 5/1 and it comes in, you'll win five times as much as your stake, plus the original stake. If you bet £10 at 5/1 odds your winnings will total £60 – this is £50 profit plus £10 stake.
If you’re betting on sites outside the UK, such as Australian or Canadian sites, there's a chance they'll use decimal odds. These show the total amount you will win as a decimal, including your original stake. For example, if you place a winning bet of £10 at 6.0 odds you'll get £60 back. This equates to fractional odds of 5/1 as described above. The online sports betting site should include an automatic winnings calculator, so you don’t need to worry about working these odds out in your head. All you need to know is: the higher the odds, the more you can win. But the higher the odds, the less likely the bookmaker thinks it will be a winning bet, so they’re more confident that they won’t have to pay out that amount.
You can often choose which form of odds to show on your chosen site, so you can switch between fractional and decimal odds, depending on which one makes more sense to you. The site will show the potential winnings on your online betting slip, and they'll pay your winnings automatically into your account, so you don't need to worry about performing detailed calculations.
The odds generally indicate the level of risk in placing a bet on a certain outcome. This means that if you place a bet at higher odds, you’re backing the outsider, and there’s more chance of you losing your stake. In most sports, the favourite will usually win – that’s the one with the lowest odds. But there are some events where it pays to back the outsider because the outcome is much less predicated. The Grand National is a perfect example of this, and outsiders of up to 100/1 have been known to win the race – bagging huge winnings for people who have backed them.
Offers and incentives
There are a multitude of potential free sports betting offers out there, some more appealing than others. It can be a minefield navigating all the different sites, so we’ve put together a clear table showing the most up-to-date offers and rewards from all the big bookmaker sites. For example, PaddyPower usually offer three free bets to get you started, while 888 Sport will normally treble your odds on your first bet, meaning you can walk away with much higher wins than on other sites. These introductory offers tend to come with strict terms and conditions, though, and are usually for new free sports betting customers only. Make sure you read the small print when you sign up to a new site, so you don’t miss out on a potential offer or free bet. Most major betting sites will have their terms and conditions clearly on display, but for others you'll have to look more carefully.
Most betting sites will have a rule about withdrawing your winnings, but not the free stake provided as an introductory bonus. This should be clearly indicated in the terms and conditions, and helps to ensure that people don’t try to take advantage of the free stake without actually placing any bets. Also, there are some sites which will only offer you a bonus after you have wagered a certain amount online, or after placing a set number of bets.
To save you having to trawl through all the different betting sites yourself, we’ll keep our list of current incentives bang up-to-date. All you have to do is check our site regularly for details of what all the top betting sites are currently offering. If there are special codes you need to access deals or matched bets on certain betting sites, you’ll find those here, too. We also regularly review our information and use customer feedback to ensure that you get the best possible deals at any time.
Top rated sports betting sites
We only link to reputable online betting sites, which provide a great service for our customers. If a particular site doesn't match your expectations, or if you have a bad experience, let us know by reviewing the bookmaker on our site. That way, the rest of the community here can benefit from each other’s experiences and everyone is more likely to have a better time online. If, for any reason, one of the sports betting sites is inaccessible, or if the links don’t work, let us know and we’ll fix it straight away. We take great care to keep our list of the best online sports betting sites up to date, and you can be assured that the top five are bound to be top quality and highly reputable in their field. Obviously, different sites will have their own specialities and you might have to do some research to find the betting site that provides the best odds for your particular sport, but it is likely that you’ll find that site within the top five on our list.
Accumulators
One way of increasing your winnings is by placing bets on several games at once, in what’s known as an accumulator bet. Most sports betting sites in the UK will let you do this, especially for football matches or horse races. It can take a lot more skill to win these bets than it does for single bets, which is why the odds tend to be a lot higher, and the winnings significantly larger. If you know the sport well, and can predict results on a regular basis, it can be worth placing an accumulator bet at one of the top rated betting sites, by clicking through the links on this page.
A typical example of an accumulator bet is the Premier League accumulator available on Betfair and other online betting sites, which allows you to select any number of football matches and set your own bet on each result. The odds accumulate so the total winnings can be multiplied several times if you bet on all matches correctly. Of course, it can be difficult to predict every game, and if one of the results doesn't go your way then you lose your entire bet. Thankfully, some betting sites will offer you the chance to “cash out” early and take your winnings after a fewer number of games. This way, you win less than you might have done, but you reduce your risk of losing everything.
Certain sites, such as Paddy Power and Bet 365, will allow you to place bets while the game is being played, in a live sports betting format, such as predicting who the next goal scorer will be, or the final outcome of a tennis match. You've probably seen the adverts on TV for half-time predictions, and these can add an element of urgency into the live sports betting arena, as you’re placing bets on live sporting events that are already under way.
Whichever sport you follow, and whichever team you support, by browsing this site and reading the reviews posted by other members of the community, you’re bound to find the sports betting site that is the perfect match for your needs. If we can help you make your decision by providing any more information or figures, let us know and we’ll update the site. Our vibrant community of sports betting enthusiasts is what makes this website such a success, and we aim to make this the most useful guide to sports betting online that we possibly can.