Sportsbet Bookie Review

For marketing purposes, the betting agency Sportsbet claims to be the largest corporate bookmaker in Australia. The accuracy of that claim is irrelevant; however, as size does not matter so much as does performance. On that score, Sportsbet is much more than merely adequate and they have a large clientele to their credit. Sportsbet new members Join Here

Sportsbet had its start in Darwin, Northern Territory in 1993 and can legitimately claim to be Australia’s first licensed bookmaker. Again, priority does not equate to quality, but for what it is worth, there it is. It grew over the course of years, particularly in 2005, when telephone betting and online wagering was developing to something along the lines of what we see today.

The Irish bookmaker Paddy power bought a majority stake in 2009 and completed the acquisition a few years later.

Online wagering across Australia has grown to such an extent that as of 2015, Sportsbet has a stake in every conceivable competitive market in the country. Along with racing and sports, they also offer odds on such diverse markets as the exchange rate for the euro versus the U.S. dollar at the end of the year, many different markets involving political elections, who will win music awards or motion picture accolades.

We will concentrate on racing and sports, but here are some details pertaining to the entire Sportsbet operation, along with some observations on the website wagering platforms.

Sportsbet Properties

As for funding an account and collecting winnings, Sportsbet will accept funds remitted via credit and debit cards, Skrill, PayPal, POLi, BPay, bank wire transfer and personal cheque. Various deposit methods will require different waiting times before punters are cleared to wager, but if this is an overriding concern, consult with Sportsbet to determine the precise wait times. This is one area where Sportsbet’s online and telephone customer service capabilities shine.

With regard to odds, Sportsbet fell in the middle of the range compared to seven other online bookmakers for a randomly selected round 19 AFL game. The worst odds for a win bet were 2.12 and the best 2.20. Sportsbet was at 2.15. This less than scientific sampling should be taken for what it is worth, since odds continually fluctuate. This criterion certainly has some bearing, but unless you plan to have a lot on, the spread in odds betwixt the bookmakers will not produce a truly significant impact.

Sportsbet’s margin in slightly above average, but again, the difference is measured in small decimal increments, so to rule them out over this would be unduly harsh.

Accounts can be established for a paltry $5 and Sportsbet will permit online wagers for as little as $0.01. If you choose to phone your wager in, you will need to accumulate $50 over any number of wagers. They do not offer credit betting.

Racing

Thoroughbred punters, and by that we mean punters who like to have a punt on thoroughbreds, not horses that place wagers, will enjoy a landing page that shows all available racing markets. A click on blue icon of a galloping horse will start off with a tab showing Today’s races, which can then be sorted by track, with time remaining until the jump, along with a yellow circle icon labeled BL to indicate a market that is eligible for live betting. A blue circle with an “F” label indicates races where fixed odds are offered.

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Next to the top icon for viewing horse races are icons for dogs, trotters, international, Asian and American races. A slick feature of these icons is that they can be reordered by dragging, so if you move greyhounds to the first position on the left, those markets appear at the top of the page.

We like that sort of thing. Just below those icons are three more that provide links to live streaming, another which provides an explanation of abbreviations used for the various markets, and one for viewing results of completed races.

Racing types offered by Sportsbet include almost a dozen options, including Top Tote Plus that pays dividends above the TABs or the Starting Price, whichever is better. Exotics are easily arranged, as are flexibet and multi bet options.

We like the racing pages of Sportsbet for having many different ways to complete any given task. We also like the dividend calculator on the bet slip, mainly because we dislike mathematics so much. At first, we had to squint a bit to read the black text on the white background in a white border, but as soon as we held down the control key and tapped the + sign, it became much more comfortable.

Sports

Clicking on the Sports icon at the top of the page alongside the Racing icon brings up a landing page that by default shows the sports with upcoming markets in the next six hours. That timeline can be adjusted. When we visited the page, there were seven sports with upcoming markets. Clicking on any of these drops down every available match starting within the default time frame, along with a link showing all the markets offered for each match.

If time is not a desirable factor, the left side of the page provides an alphabetical listing of all the sports Sportsbet carries. Clicking on Australian Rules shows the upcoming round. Each match offers 223 markets, so if you cannot manage to find an appealing wager, you are simply guilty of an extreme lack of motivation.

All the major league team sports are offered, along with such niche items as surfing and water polo. At this time, with about a month before the NFL gets underway, there were hundreds of gridiron markets open and that number will grow when things get going in earnest. There are also plenty of offerings for college and Canadian football. You can even bet on NFL preseason games if you’ve taken complete leave of your senses.

Next to the Sports icon at the top of the page are tabs for Bet Live, Mobile Wagering and Specials. We reviewed Sportsbet’s mobile offering separately, so here we will just say that this option is attractive from any perspective.

In summation, we have a high opinion of Sportsbet’s online service. They put forth a fair amount of effort to keep the website functional and easy to use. There are no dormant account fees, which combined with the low minimums, would seem to indicate suitability for those just starting out.

More experienced punters may chafe a bit over case-by-case limitations to which Sportsbet occasionally resorts, but they are not the only Australian bookmaker to engage in this tactic, so we choose to overlook it, because if you really know what you are about, plans can be designed appropriately.