Halkbet Sports Review

Halkbet Sports Summary

Halkbet Features

• Great selection of bonuses
• Superb for live betting
• Wide choice of deposit methods

Design & Layout

The site’s homepage sets the tone with some nice-looking in-house ads. ‘Classy’ may be taking it a step too far but it certainly aims for that and it’s heading in the right direction. Two big, colourful rotating ads head the page, which highlight their bonuses and promotions and leave you in no doubt over what’s coming. And beneath these ads are nine one-click, ‘play now’ buttons that transport you directly to your chosen destination. Simple but effective.

The betting site has a familiar look for those who use sites supported by the Total Gaming Solutions software – many of them aimed at the Turkish market – but compared to the norm this is a sports betting page that differs slightly. Usually, there are three columns – left and right sidebars separated by a chunky main body – but Halkbet sports defaults to four. And it works. The extra space is cleverly utilised with, generally, the lead betting line appearing on the left half of the main body, with additional bets for that same event or match appearing line-by-line on the right. Cleverly, the ‘extra’ column can also be used as a standalone space, and so can be used for an independent feature if required.

The left sidebar does however follow bookmaker convention and there you find a long list of Halkbet’s sports, eSports and entertainment themes. In order to accommodate the four-column design, and also probably, because it looks good, the list defaults to the form of icons – i.e. ⚽ for football, ???? for basketball and so on – with a single click transforming the column to the traditional form.

At the time of the review, there were over 50 different sports and entertainment themes listed – we’ll come onto them in more detail later – with each one, thanks to a pull-down menu, listing competitions and events on a country-by-country basis. A single click on any line then drills down further and fills the left half of the main body with a wide range of betting lines. It flows smoothly and is neat, precise and intuitive. All you can ask.

The page’s main body is essentially just a smart way of getting across twice the info to the punter. Generally, there’s nothing new on display – what you see would otherwise have been tucked away out of sight at the foot of the page – but a clever move by the software developers means loads of additional betting options are there right in front of the bettor. As mentioned above, the right column has also been configured so it can ‘stand-alone’ and can be used to offer an array of odds for a future event – such as the ‘ante-post’ odds for the World Cup – and the flexibility of this space is further demonstrated by clicking on the Dashboard, Live Multiview and Live Calendar tabs, each of which offer a different configuration.

The right sidebar traditionally offers a combination of betting slip and in-house adverts, and on that score, Halkbet sports don’t disappoint. Their betting slip, which also offers the punter the choice of a Quick bet, comes with a cool ‘system calculator’, which lets the bettor calculate how much they could win. It’s a small feature but a useful one, and they also allow the punter to decide if they wish to default to automatically accepting price changes. The ads below the betting slip are standard – links to the site’s bonuses and promotions.

A common feature in all Total Gaming Solutions sports betting sites is a brilliant live betting service and Halkbet sports is no exception. Again, clever use is made of the page’s main body – it’s used in this instance as a single entity. For any given live event it displays all the stats you need to make your bet – standard stuff – but where it excels is with its ‘match tracker’: a smart graphic on the right side of the screen that allows the punter to follow the progress of the match (and the ball in the case of football) in real time. It’s very good. There is, however, no live stream facility.

As per the norm, Halkbet sports do offer bettors the chance to have the odds presented in their preferred format: decimal, fractional, American, Hong Kong, Malay and Indonesian.

One final point to make on the design and layout – an important one – is that the format described is the site’s default, known as Classic, but in addition, there are Modern and Asian formats available. For most bettors, Classic will be the one to use.

Sports Markets & Odds

With over 50 sports and entertainment themes available, Halkbet sports covers the full spectrum of betting markets and, while it’s a cliché, they really do offer something for everyone. Football is by far their biggest sport with (at the time of the review) leagues from nearly 50 countries featured. These range from the obvious ones – Spain, Germany, Italy, England etc – to smaller footballing nations like Indonesia, Moldova and Rwanda. Such is their extensive soccer coverage, whatever time of day or night you like to bet, there will always be live football matches to bet on.

Their range of sports is good too and goes from the big betting sports, like basketball, baseball and golf all the way through to smaller ones like Gaelic football, hurling and netball. Just for the record, there is no coverage of horse racing or greyhounds.

However, they do cater for those who enjoy betting on E-Sports. There are plenty of options available – Dota 2, League of Legends, Counter-Strike: GO, Overwatch and Call of Duty among them. Typically, there are also some fun, politics and entertainment bets.

In terms of offering value, Halkbet sports falls very much into the ‘hmmm’ category. With the industry standard being generally recognised as odds compiled between 105% and 106%, their average of 110.5 (at the time of the review), which left us disappointed. Nothing really to add.

Bonuses

Yet, while Halkbet’s odds may be less than generous, they certainly make up for it with their array of bonuses and promotions. These are generous and there are plenty of them. For starters, there are a couple of cracking welcome bonuses, which one you choose depending on how frequently and for how long you intend to bet.

First up there is a 100% First Deposit Bonus where the bonus amount is equal to the first deposit amount, up to €1000. For this bonus, the punter needs to wager 10 times over 14 days. For example, if the punter makes a deposit of €400, they will receive an €800 total bonus amount. (The minimum amount of deposit to receive the bonus is 10Responsible GamblingEUR).

Better still is their whopping 300% First Deposit Bonus where the bonus amount equal to the first deposit amount, up to €2000. This time the bettor needs to wager 39 times during a 30-day period. This time, for example, if a deposit of €500 is made the punter will receive €2000. (Again, the minimum amount of deposit to receive the bonus is 10 EUR).

But it doesn’t stop there – far from it. Halkbet offer plenty of other promotions that simply have to be explored before placing your bets. At the time of the review, they were offering bonuses for birthdays, cash-outs, ‘mirrored score’, and ‘boring game’ amongst others. Fill your boots!

Responsible Gambling

While there is nothing on the front face of the site to suggest it, Halkbet take their responsible gambling duties seriously. At the foot of the site – near their ‘About Us’ info – they dedicate a page of text to that very subject. In fact, they devote over 1,000 words to it, making it doubly odd that there is no recognition of this elsewhere on the site. It’s good stuff and encourages bettors to be ‘self-responsible’ and also how to identify problematic behaviour at an early stage.

Customer Services

Halkbet offer their customers an excellent 24/7 live chat facility, which we tested and found to be very helpful indeed. It was swift, helpful and concise – all you can ask. Those who prefer a telephone helpline will be disappointed but generally, the service on offer is good and they do also offer an email helpline at info@halkbet.com.

Mobile & Tablet

Halkbet is a mobile-optimised site and if you prefer betting on the go – either on a smartphone or a tablet – you will find a good configuration that is basically a mini-version of the desktop site. It works nicely for both iOS and Android and offers a good betting experience in terms of navigation and responsiveness. There are no apps available but given that the mobile optimization works very well this is not a major problem.

Restricted Countries

Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Croatia, Cyprus, Egypt, Georgia, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Oman, Palestinian Territories, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and USA.

Withdrawals

Cash-out is an automated process on Halkbet and so in the normal scheme of things this is generally expected to be at the speedy end of the scale – withdrawals are generally processed within 24 hours.

Final Verdict

Despite some online negativity over payouts, we found nothing to concern us. In fact, it was a site we liked. Visually it works and, more importantly, the functionality is good and follows the well-worn path set by their software providers. In particular, their live betting service is a good one and their array of bonuses are positively mouth-watering. The one negative we found was their less than generous ‘value’ when compiling their odds but, overall, it’s a good site. Give it a look.