BetShop Bookmaker Review

BetShop Summary

BetShop Features

• Functional design and layout
• Thousands of football markets
• Brilliant live betting facility

Basic but Does the Job

Although BetShop bookmaker’s home page is adorned with colour and imagery, once you arrive at the sports betting pages the fancy graphics have long gone. It not eye-catching and they certainly haven’t attempted to match some of their more ‘exotic’ rivals with an in-your-face colour over-load, but if it’s basic functionality you’re after it works. A low score for artistic impression matters not one jot for many punters.

The ‘betting’ section – aka the bookmaker – is set out in the traditional three-column layout, one that will be familiar to all punters, and there is a useful search bar that makes navigating around the website nice and simple. It’s very much in the ‘does the job’ category.

Bonuses? Promotions?

This won’t take long because there are literally no sign-up bonuses or promotions visible anywhere to be seen. For an established site, this is more than a little disappointing, not least because the main incentive to attract new users is indeed the welcome bonus. We found it a little odd.

For new sites, we often give them the benefit of the doubt on the basis there will likely be some juicy bonuses and promotions further down the line. Unfortunately that ship has sailed for BetShop bookmaker and there’s no obvious reason why they don’t offer their punters at least something. Nothing more to add.

The variety and depth of the soccer bets on offer is also impressive. Most games have in excess of 300 markets

Good Selection of Sports – Plenty of Depth

If there was a league table of bookies based on the number of sports they offer to their punters, BetShop bookmaker would be mid-table. They have refrained from going for broke, like some of their competitors by including every single sport known to man, but they have instead picked out most of the big sports and some other good betting sports. They have arrived at a workable number of 21, plus an extra one for television related bets.

The only notable omission from that list is golf, which we found a little odd to say the least – especially given its prominence in the field of sports betting – but there is plenty of good stuff on offer.

Soccer is, as per, their big sport and at the time of this review they were offering a staggering 259,000 markets. Basketball was a distant second but still has nearly 16,000 markets, which is impressive, whichever way you look at it.

Their soccer coverage is – as you would expect with that volume of markets – worldwide, and by covering the sport from 57 countries almost every crevice of world soccer is accessible to punters – from Algeria to Wales and almost everywhere in between. They also go big on international tournaments and, in addition to the major competitions like the World Cup and European Championships, cover most international friendlies.

But it’s not just about the number of countries and matches covered – the variety and depth of bets on offer is also impressive. Most games have in excess of 300 markets available within 20 categories (which they describe as ‘market groups’).

Basketball, as mentioned above, is their second biggest sport and each match tends to come with over 130 markets. By comparison, their American Football coverage is extremely limited with most NFL games available with no more than four markets priced up for each. For example, at the time of this review an upcoming game between the Dallas Cowboys and the Washington Redskins had just the 1X2 and over/under betting available.

For live betting, they offer the customer something really quite good. While their match tracker is only generally available for the more prominent leagues and competitions, when it is available it is very good indeed. We tested it out and followed a full English Championship game and it worked perfectly – odds being updated constantly, good coverage of game itself, and a good selection of markets. Well worth a look.

In terms of odds, BetShop bookmaker is generally there or thereabouts and, in fairness, goes some of the way to compensate for the lack of bonuses and promotions. We tested, in terms of the percentage to which they compile their odds, some soccer, basketball and NFL bets.

Basically, a bet compiled to 100% would over the bookmaker a zero-profit margin and so the closer to 100% the odds the tighter their margin and better the bet for the punter. Within the betting industry, odds compiled between 105% and 106% are generally considered average, and so for Betshop’s soccer and basketball bets to be compiled to 106% is just about on the money. For the NFL bets they were slightly less generous and compiled to 108%.

Betting on the Go Is Good with Betshop

BetShop bookmaker caters nicely for bettors who love to bet on the move. There are no iOS or Android apps available but what they have created a is very good mobile configuration. It can, of course, be accessed on a mobile browser on smartphone, tablet or phablet – using Google Chrome, Safari or Internet Explorer. It looks good and functions nicely.

Depositing? Withdrawing? – They’ve Some Limits

BetShop offer their customers the chance to use the following methods:

Deposit Methods:

Payout Methods:

Options Aplenty but Not for UK and US Punters

The site defaults to English but also translates nicely to Greek, Italian, German, French, Russian, Romanian, Turkish, Albanian, Croatian and Serbian. The currency used is either Sterling (£), Euro or US Dollars.

There are quite a few restricted territories but there is what they term ‘absolute restriction’ for punters from United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Spain, France and Italy.

Safe and Secure, but Poor Customer Services

We found no problems with BetShop bookmaker in respect of safety and security, and there was nothing during our review to ring any alarm bells. An online search also revealed no problems.

But we were disappointed with the service we received from their customer services team. A couple of questions we logged on their Live Chat facility remain unanswered, which we found very disappointing, although the email helpline (service@betshop.com) did eventually respond. They report to be available from 10:00-20:30, although we saw little evidence of this.

A plus point however is that they do recognise the importance of responsible gambling and dedicate a page to it at the foot of the page.

Our Verdict

We found good and bad in our review, the good mainly pertaining to the number of markets and depth of bets – especially for soccer and basketball – which are very well covered. They also have some very good live betting, and, in fairness, the site scores well in terms of its functionality and design.

We were particularly disappointed with the responses (or lack of) we received from their customer services team, and don’t even get us started on the lack of bonuses and promotions.

For a better experience, join one of our most recommended bookmakers.