Welcome to Sports Betting Online

How to Choose the Best Sports Betting Sites

Our sportsbook reviews will provide all the information required to choose the right betting sites for you. Some of the most important things to consider when deciding where to bet include:

• Finding the best odds on a regular basis across a range of sports
• Picking the most secure betting sites to guarantee safety
• Using online bookmakers with regular bonus and reward offers
• Finding online betting sites with the best mobile betting apps
• Joining online bookmakers that offer services in your preferred language and currency

These are just some of the things we take into account when putting an online sportsbook through our rigorous review process.

Things to avoid, on the other hand, include brand new sites with no track record (don’t sign up without checking our review first) and sports betting sites which are not licensed to carry out business in your country. Also steer clear of online bookmakers that limit maximum bets – or worse still, charge fees for withdrawals.

Sports Betting Offers and Promotions

Sports betting online has seen a great deal of competition arise among bookmakers. The best online betting sites can now reach customers in every corner of the globe – which means every site has got to do more to stand out from the crowd and earn our business.

Online bookies now offer a whole host of bonuses and free bets to either entice new customers or persuade existing customers to carry on playing. There are some genuinely massive bonus offers out there, ready to be scooped up if you open an account and start betting with the sportsbook in question. We keep track of the latest promotions at all the top bookmakers and list them all for you on our free bets and bonus pages.

The promos don’t just stop there, as most decent betting sites continue to offer regular concessions like enhanced odds on horse racing, boosted accumulator odds, cashback offers, and much more.

Sports Betting Odds Explained

It’s the less glamorous side of sports betting online, but getting to grip with odds and probability will serve you extremely well in the long run. Shopping for odds by checking prices at various bookmakers means you’ll always get the best return on every winning bet. We recommend opening accounts with a selection of our top-rated online sports betting sites, so you’re ready to go when you find a good bet at good odds. You can read our guide to the overround and the importance of hunting for value in sports betting to get a clearer idea of how online bookmakers set their odds and make a profit. The simple rule of thumb is: take the best available odds for every bet you place. By doing this, you’ll increase your profits, and those extra little wins will add up over time to reduce the impact of any losing bets.

As for the way odds are displayed, that may depend entirely on where you are in the world. Odds listed in a fractional format are usually associated with the UK, while Europeans will be more familiar with decimal odds. US bettors will easily understand American odds, and Asian punters are more likely to be used to Malaysian odds, Honk Kong odds, or Indonesian odds. Thankfully, most online bookmakers give you the choice of how the odds are displayed on your account so you can stick with what works for you.

Understanding the Different Types of Sports Bets

Another advantage of sports betting online is that bookmakers can offer as many different bets as they can come up with. However, with over 100 betting markets on high-profile matches, it can be quite the minefield for punters to navigate. Here’s a breakdown of some of the most common bets you’ll come across, which cover the majority of sports.

Match result

The most popular type of bet is a simple wager on who will win the game or match. This usually relates to 90 minutes in a football match but may include overtime and/or penalties in other sports such as ice hockey or basketball. You might see this bet referred to as the “money line” in US sports.

Asian handicap

This bet removes the possibility of a draw and offers more balanced odds when one side or player is clearly superior to the other. One example would be a football match or basketball game where the inferior side is given a goals or points “head start”, which is added to the final score for the purpose of settling the bet. This means the bookies can offer close to even odds on both sides, even when they are completely mismatched. It’s more commonly known as the “spread” in US betting parlance.

Totals betting

This is another very common betting market which asks you to predict how many points or goals will be scored by both teams combined in a match. The betting market is often represented by an over/under ‘line’, such as over/under 2.5 goals – where you predict whether there will be more or less than 2.5 goals. An alternative totals market offers a range such as 0-1 goals, 2-3 goals, or 4+ goals, where you bet on how many goals will be scored in the match.

Both teams to score

Usually associated with football, but also used in several other sports, this is a simple two-way bet where you predict whether both teams will score in the match or not.

Result and both teams to score

A progression on the above bet, the result/both teams to score market adds the extra dimension of predicting the result as well. Odds can be very high in this market, but you must predict home, away or draw as well as whether or not both teams will find the net.

Draw no bet

This is an “insurance” bet where you can back a team to win the match, with the insurance of your stake being returned if the game ends in a draw.

Correct score

This is a simple bet to predict the final score of the match. Again, the odds will be generous due to the difficulty of predicting the exact score of the game.

First player to score

Pick a player to score the first goal, try, or point of the game. They must be the first player to score for either side. In football matches, some online bookmakers don’t include own goals and will refund your stake if the match ends 0-0.

First team to score

This is much the same as the above bet, but with this market, you only need to predict which team will score first in the match, regardless of which player hits the back of the net.

Corner betting

This is a bet that’s growing in popularity among football fans. It allows you to predict the number of corners in a game. Wagers include over/under, the team to get most corners, race to three, five or seven corners, the total number of corners, and corner handicaps.

Half/quarter betting

These markets allow you to bet on most of the above outcomes over the course of the first or second half only. In sports where games are divided into four periods, you’ll find similar markets for each quarter.

HT/FT betting

The half-time/full-time market compels you to predict the result at both half-time and full-time. For example, you could bet home/home, draw/home, away/home, or any other combination. You have to get both HT/FT results correct to win the bet.

Card betting

Bookmakers also offer odds on red and yellow cards for each game. If you think a particular fixture is likely to be a fiery one, this can be a very profitable bet. The most common market is total cards, where you predict how many cards or card points will be amassed during the match (with some bookmakers, a yellow card is allotted a value of 10 points and a red card 25 points). Other betting markets include over/under the number of cards, whether or not there will be a red card, and even wagers on particular players to receive a card.