Bet365.com is one of the oldest and most trusted bookmakers in the business. Prior to coming online in March 2001, their company already boasted an impressive track-record owning 49 UK licensed betting shops. The first of these betting shops was established in 1974 by the Coates family who still owns Bet365 today. The idea for their online betting site came about in January 2000, when 22-year old Denise Coates seeking to take her father’s company global purchased the Bet365 domain name from eBay for £10,000. As the first high street bookmaker to embrace the internet,the site was an instant success. Today their website is available in 17 languages and 29 currencies. With over 5 million customers and 1,400 employees, they are the UK’s 7th largest private company.
Top reasons to choose Bet365.com as an online betting site are as follows (please note that Bulgarian and Italian players are excluded from playing at Bet365):
- Excellent European Football (Soccer) Odds – Bet365.com has odds on more football matches than any other online betting site. Whether you’re interested in betting domestic, European or International Soccer, including the English Premier League, Spanish La Liga, Italian Serie A, German Bundesliga or the UEFA Champions League, Bet365 has you covered with a plethora of odds on these leagues and dozens of others. Many punters find exceptional value at Bet365.com, particularly with long shots (odds 4.0 or greater), when comparing their offerings to those of other online bookmakers.
- Live Streams: Bet365 is one of only a few online betting sites offering punters the ability to watch games online. Right at Bet365.com you’ll find live stream coverage of Italian Serie A, UEFA Cup, Portuguese Superliga and the MLS from the USA. You’ll also find streams for cricket, tennis, snooker, squash, darts, handball, volleyball and a variety of basketball leagues including Australia’s National Basketball League (NBL), Lithuanian Basketball League, Philippine Basketball Association, German basketball and more.
- In-Play Betting: While Bet365.com is a traditional bookmaker and not an exchange, they still manage to offer a great deal of in-play betting opportunities.
- American Sports Coverage – Even though Bet365 hasn’t accepted bets from USA players since October 4, 2006, they still have a massive selection of odds on NFL, NCAAF, NBA, NCAAB, MLB and NHL. What’s most impressive is their selection of prop bets; Bet365 offers odd on more than 20 propositions for each and every game of the NFL season.
- Bonuses and Promotions – Bet365 is one of the few European bookmakers to offer generous sign-up bonuses and promotions. These are covered in great detail later in this Bet365 review.
- Fully Integrated Casino, Poker and Bingo Room: Bet365 clients can access the racebook, online casino, poker and bingo rooms, and a virtual wagering arcade, using the same log-in and balance as their sports betting account. Impressively, each of these additional products carries unique welcome offers, making it possible to get multiple Bet365 sign-up bonuses.
- Banking Options & Player Trust: Bet365 is one of the most trusted brands in the sports betting business. Keep in mind many online gambling sites are located on, and/or licensed by, Indian Reservations, or Caribbean Islands, and are not legally accessible. Bet365.com on the other is headquartered in the United Kingdom where they’ve been licensed since 1974. After more than 3-decades in the business, Bet365 has never missed a payout. At Bet365 deposits and withdrawals are quick and easy. The methods available include: credit card, Neteller, Moneybookers, PayPal, Click2Pay, Ukash, Paysafecard, EntroPay, wire Transfer, Fast Bank Transfer and cheque.
As you’ll learn later in this review, when it comes to betting Bet365 has it all. Whether you’re looking to bet football, cricket, American sports, International basketball, horse racing or any other sport they have you covered with more odds and better promotions than any other site.
Bet365 Bonus and Promotion Offers
Bet365.com offers a generous sign up bonuses; this is quite rare for a European bookmaker. After opening an account, Bet365 emails a code. To claim: make an initial deposit and then from the “members” section click the link titled “Enter Offer Code”.
For bonus in other currencies refer to the promotions page of the Bet365 website, where bonuses are offered for a total of 26 different account currencies.
In addition to a generous sign-bonus bonus, Bet365 will give you $50 for each friend referred to their website. To increase chances of conversion, Bet365 will also give your friends an added $50 bonus when they open an account using your referral code. This is only one small glimpse of the promotions available at Bet365, some others are as follows:
Euro Football (Soccer) Accumulators
Winning pre-match accumulator bets with three or more selections from major top domestic leagues in Europe, along with the group and knockout stages of Champions League are awarded an extra bonus. The bonus depends on the number of teams selected: 5% for trebles and 7.5% for 4-fold are the starting levels, and it progresses on up to 90% for 13-fold and 100% for 14-fold accumulators. This promo is a great way to get better odds on European football wagering.
Bore Draw Money Back Promo
For ALL football (soccer) games where the final score is a nil-nil (0-0) tie, all pre-match correct score, half-time/full-time and scorecast wagers are refunded. This is quite a generous promo as these bets would be graded losses at any other online Bookmaker.
First Scorer Promo
At Bet365 all bets made on first goalscorer receive additional chances. If the player you back fails to score first, yet scores any other time in in 90 minutes play, Bet365 will give you the win, paying 1/3 odds. This is quite incredible because your bet goes from what would be a loss at all other online bookmakers to a win at Bet365.
100% Initial Mobile Bonus
From now and until June 30, 2011, Bet365 is offering players a 100% match (up to $100, or currency equivalent) on their first sports bet made via mobile phone. After making your first mobile wager at odds 1.5 or greater on a two-way market, head to the members area, click offers and then “view offers available” to request the Mobile Offer Code. The code will be sent to your email and can then be entered in the same section. After receiving your bonus, your first mobile bet stake plus bonus amount must be rolled over three times prior to withdrawal.
American Sports Parlay Bonus
Bet365 offers incredible odds on NFL, NCAAF, NBA, NCAAB, and MLB when taking advantage of their accumulator bonus. Two team parlays receive a 5% bonus, three teams 7.5%, four teams 10%, and then progressing on up 5% more for each additional team added, up to a 50% bonus for 12 teams. I’ll cover how to take advantage of this later in this Bet365 review.
Best Horse and Greyhound Odds Guaranteed
Bet365 guarantees the best odds on horses and greyhounds racing. No matter if you’re betting board prices, Bet365 early prices, singles, multiples or showcast bets if the SP is larger than the odds you wagered at, you’ll receive the SP. For example if you wager 4/1 early price and your selection wins at 5/1, you’ll get paid 5/1.
Price Promise
Every week, there are a plethora of races broadcast on ITV or ITV4, and in addition to their Best Odds Guaranteed, Bet365 constantly update their prices to ensure you get the best price on every horse running. This offers applies to every bet placed from 10am on race day, and only includes those races broadcast live on ITV or ITV4 unless otherwise stated.
Free Horse Bets
In addition to their guaranteed best odds on horse races, Bet365 also offers a generous promotion whee if you back any single winner at 4/1 or more on any race televised live on ITV or ITV4, then you get a risk free bet to the same stake (up to £50 or currency equivalent) on the next race broadcast live by ITV Racing. This offer applies to the FIRST single bet placed by a customer on each live ITV or ITV4 race. What’s more, is that if your risk free bet also wins at 4/1 or more, then it’s same again…and again! If you keep backing winners, then Bet365 will keep giving you risk free bets.
Feature Race Offer
Similar to the offer above, if you back any single winner at 4/1 or more on a Bet365 Feature Race and you can have a risk free bet to the same stake (up to £50 or currency equivalent) on the next Bet365 Feature Race. This offer applies to the FIRST single bet placed by a customer on each Bet365 Feature Race. The snowball effect is in operation with this offer too, so if you keep backing 4/1 or more winners, then you’ll keep received risk free bets from Bet365.
Free Greyhound Bets
Bet365 offers a promotion similar to the horse racing promo we mentioned above for greyhounds. This promo is available for all greyhound races televised live on Sky Sports. If the first bet you place at 2/1 odds or greater wins you’ll receive an equal sized bet (up to £100 per race, total £500 per day) for the very next race. If your free bet again wins at 2/1 odds or greater you’ll receive another, ongoing until you either lose a bet or reach the £500 daily cap.
For a list of other promotions offered refer to their website at www.bet365.com.
Bet365 Wagering Options
At Bet365 the wagering options are many. In addition to football (soccer), cricket, and America’s NFL, NCAAF, NBA, NCAAB, MLB and NHL, Bet365 offers wagering on dozens of other sports including boxing, UFC, cycling, darts, Gaelic sports, golf, motor sports, rugby, snooker, tennis, volleyball, winter sports, badminton, bandy, floorball, handball, squash, table tennis, trotting, water polo and more.
To give an idea of just how wide their coverage is, looking at football (soccer), at the time of this review odds are posted for every league in the UK including FA Cup, Barclays Premier League, Carling Cup, Npower, England Blue Square, Scotland Premier League, Scotland Division 1, 2 & 3, CIS Insurance Cup, Wales Premier League, Southern League Premier, Northern Premier League, etc. There are also odds for UEFA competitions, the AFC Asian Cup, major and regional leagues in Italy, Spain, Germany, Holland, Portugal, Cyprus, Turkey and Belgium, as well as leagues and competitions in North and South America. The wagering options for each includes two-way markets, Asian handicaps, correct score, first goalscorer, total corners, time of first goal and much more.
At Bet365 you’ll also find the guaranteed best odds in the industry on horse and greyhound races.
No matter if you prefer markets as small as Philippine Basketball Association matches, or as major as UEFA EURO 2012, Bet365 has you covered, offering more odds on more sports than any other online betting site, period!. With that said, I’ll now conclude this Bet365 review with some +EV betting tips.
Bet365 Betting Tips from a Pro
If you’re a football better, and by football I mean what American’s refer to as soccer, the biggest tip I can give you is to make sure you understand the value of the Bet365 Bore Draw Promotion when you’re shopping football betting odds. As a reminder at Bet365 when any game ends in a nil-nil (0-0) tie all pre-match correct score, half-time/full-time and scorecast wagers are refunded. In an article titled “Bet365 offers the best football betting odds” I showed an example where 1.83 odds at Bet365 was far better than 1.917 odds at Pinnacle, and it wasn’t even close. I encourage you to read that article in order to equip yourself with the simple math required to calculate the value of the bore draw promotion.
American Sports Parlay Bonus (Accumulators)
To get better than standard 1.91 odds (-110 American) on coin flips involving American sports (such as basketball and American football point spreads) take advantage of Bet365.com accumulator bonuses. I won’t share the tedious math but their parlay odds for 1.91 selections when the bonus is factored are as follows:
- 2 Teams (with 5.00% bonus) pays 2.77200 to 1 = 1.929 odds per team (-107.6 American)
- 3 Teams (with 7.50% bonus) pays 6.40700 to 1 = 1.950 odds per team (-105.3 American)
- 4 Teams (with 10.0% bonus) pays 13.5080 to 1 = 1.953 odds per team (-105.1 American)
- 5 Teams (with 15.0% bonus) pays 28.0140 to 1 = 1.962 odds per team (-104.0 American)
- 6 Teams (with 20.0% bonus) pays 56.8920 to 1 = 1.967 odds per team (-103.4 American)
- 7 Teams (with 25.0% bonus) pays 114.275 to 1 = 1.971 odds per team (-103.0 American)
*The info above is for illustration purposes. To get these odds on your 1.91 selections you’ll need to include at least one team that is offered at odds other than 1.91; refer to the promotions page of Bet365.com for full details.
Personally I find the 3-team parlay the best choice. Using this option the vig (the bookmaker’s advantage) is cut nearly in half, while the variance isn’t largely increased.
Comparing Bet365 with Pinnacle
Having an account at both Pinny and Bet365 is a smart way to gamble. Once you have both accounts, look for situations where Bet365 has better odds than Pinnacle and blind bet them every time. Considering Pinnacle is a low-margin sportsbook with the highest betting limits on the net, they can’t afford to make mistakes. Bet365 on the other hand takes many recreational bets and carries lower limits; they can afford to post off-market odds for matches involving a popular team. Please note the vice-versa does not apply, you’re simply looking for any spots where Bet365 has better odds than Pinnacle and not bothering the times the opposite is true.
While I could go on and on with Bet365 betting tips much of what I would discuss is covered in other strategy articles of our site. I’m sure if you read these articles (especially the one on the ** Bore Draw Promotion ** you’ll find plenty of opportunities to beat Bet365 for a profit. We wish you the best of luck betting at Bet365.com.
