There are many aspects to placing a successful wager other than simply predicting the winner. Whether you place the occasional punt to enhance a sporting event or bet systematically everyday, we all know we can’t win them all. Therefore adding maximum value to your bets and choosing the right wager is often just as important.
Punters can get more back when betting on sports by finding the best odds, utilising temporary and long term retention offers, using coupons and finding the right sites with the right markets, limits and features to suit what you want to bet on and the way you want to bet. Taking some easy, sensible steps can help to maximise any winnings when you do win.
Successful betting is also about finding the right wagers to get the most out of your predictions. Often there are various markets and betting lines available that can add a lot of extra value compared to standard win singles. In this guide, you will find everything you need to know about how to bet on sports online.
How to Place a Bet Online
Betting online in the is one of the easiest things to do so long as you are over 18 years old (in the UK), you are placing bets for yourself using your own money, and you are doing so from a place where gambling is legal. If you are betting in the UK, you should also only bet with licensed bookmakers
The first thing to do if you don’t already have a betting account is to sign up to one. If you are not sure which one to go for have a look at our recommended betting sites – we only list well run reputable operators that we trust and use ourselves, so all have been thoroughly checked. You will recognise a lot of the betting companies recommended on this site, and this is because quite frankly the most well known names tend to be best overall due to their wealth of experience and resources.
Signing up takes literally minutes; all you need is your name, an email address and a residential address. Choose a username and password, and make sure these are secure, because although online bookies have similarly secure banking processes as banks, your funds could be at risk if you share your information.
Once signed up you will need to get verified, then select a payment method and deposit money into your account, and you can then bet straight away. Note that unlike purchasing goods online, you cannot use someone else’s money to fund your account. Any payment source must be registered in your name or joint names.
The most common payment method is by debit card, but it is also possible to fund an account through almost any legitimate payment method, even Bitcoin can be used at a very small number of bookies. With most of our listed bookmakers you can even bet in cash, either by depositing and withdrawing to your online wallet through a betting shop or by using cash based voucher systems such as PaySafeCard. If you want a better way to keep track of your transactions you could also try a digital wallet system such as PayPal, Neteller or Skrill.
Once you have a funded account, simply find the bet you would like to place and add it to your bet slip (usually on the right hand side of the screen). Select the type of bet you want to place, such as a single bet, multiple bet, full cover bet (e.g. Lucky 15), forecast, etc., for more see our guide to bet types. Select your stake per line – and remember if this is a multiple line bet that your unit stake will be multiplied by the number of lines to get the final stake value. Finally click ‘place bet’ or ‘bet now’ and your done.
Now you can choose to sit back and watch the action on the live betting dashboard or streaming service, or even think about cashing out your bet early if you think it’s the right call.
Verification
I mentioned verifying your account just now, and it’s worth going over this briefly as some people are surprised to be asked for documentation.
In accordance with regulations set out by the UK Gambling Commission, all online gambling operators must verify that the people signing up to their sites are who they say they are, and are of legal age to gamble. It’s just like being asked to show ID at a pub, but with it being online, you need to send images of your identification.
Most of the time, if you deposit using a bank card that is registered to the same address you gave when registering then verification checks are done automatically (a process known as a soft credit check, which does not impact your credit score in any way). Even if you are verified this way however, you may still be asked to provide further documents to prevent fraud. Remember, this is a legal requirement and stipulated in the operators licence, so there is nothing untoward going on – in fact, the bookie can be heavily fined for not going through this process thoroughly.
A general piece of advice is to get the verification documents ready before you start the sign up process, and never give false information. Most disputes with betting sites refusing to pay out are due to accounts not being adequately verified, so save yourself the bother.
It’s just a case of taking a snap of your drivers license, passport and/or utility bill, and these days this can all be done via a process built into the site’s infrastructure, so there’s no emailing back and forth or anything like that.
When to Place a Bet
This is one of the most important considerations in order to get the best from your wagers.
Odds prices are set based on opinion and trend, and this means if you place your bet at just the right time then you can really add a lot of value to a bet.
This is especially true on more uncertain markets and during in play betting.
Odds are set by traders who base their prices on a few major variables:
- Previous Form – How your selection has performed in the past or how often the event you are predicting has occurred. This is a very statistics based approach in general.
- The Market – Similar to financial markets, a betting market is based on opinion and confidence just as much as anything else. Traders look at other traders to benchmark themselves. This means if you think the market is over or under valuing a bet then you can really make a good return if the line does come in.
- The Size of the Book – Traders are not stupid, if a lot of money is wagered on an individual line or selection then the odds price will drop as a result. Although the betting industry is highly competitive they do share information on who is betting on what in order that they can spot fraud, but also so they don’t get taken to the cleaners by punters.
- Knowledge – Knowing the market is critical in both setting an odds price and placing a bet. In some senses you are pitting predictions based on your knowledge and instincts against the bookmakers. This is one reason why we find betting so exciting in the first place – it’s competitive.
- Balancing a Book – Bookies need to balance their books as often as possible to ensure they make a profit. If a trader is therefore over-exposed on a certain line you will often find better than market odds for the opposite result, as the trader attempts to balance risk. Having a scan around different sites can often prove rewarding for this reason.
- Profit vs Incentivising Custom – Betting companies will very often run markets or prices at cost, or even at a loss, to attract punters. Odds prices can therefore be deliberately altered to be less profitable if it suits the aims of the bookie. Having a few accounts open with various bookies can therefore be a sensible strategy, allowing you to bet with the one offering the best odds for a given selection.
There is no formula for when to place a bet. Sometimes it is good to get an ante-post bet in early before the money pours in and the market moves. Sometimes it is better to wait almost until the last minute or bet in play to get your best price. This mainly depends on whether you think the odds will get shorter (less valuable) or lengthen (become more valuable) in the run up to the event. Betting is, after all, a guessing game primarily, and the main factor in deciding the best time to bet is instinct.
I’ll give an example of where bet timing can be rewarding. In many football matches where you have a strong favourite, it is often not worthwhile taking the bet before the match. The line will generally be odds-on and therefore you will need to put more money on as your stake than you can win. Very often however, a top team will concede an early goal but still come back to win the game. If you place a live bet when a team is losing, you can get a hugely improved price than you would have before the game.
Place the Bet you Want to Place
Think of the bet you want to put on before you visit your bookmaker or betting site. If you don’t do this you can often end up placing wagers that sound good at the time but can actually be poor value. It’s just the same as going to a supermarket without a pre-defined list, you end up with all sorts of things in the trolley you don’t need.
If you want to place an outright bet then place an outright, if you want to place an accumulator then do that, and so on. Quite often bookmakers will have enhanced lines or linked offers to entice customers to bet on what they want. For example, you want to bet on Arsenal to beat Man United so you go to your bookie who have an offer for Arsenal to win and both teams to score. Now this is not the bet you intended to place, if you now place the bet and Arsenal win 2-0 then you are going to end up kicking yourself.
There is nothing wrong with spontaneous betting if you think it make sense, just so long as you don’t override your original bet idea. Betting offers are a great way to add value to your bets, but you should only utilise them if they match your betting intentions. This is one reason why it helps to have a portfolio of betting sites, this way you can shop around each week to find the bookie that has the offer to match your intended wager.
Keep Track of Your Betting Online
It sounds obvious but actually keeping track of how much you wager is one of the best ways to enjoy betting. This is something that is far easier to do online than on the high street as there is a digital record of everything you do.
Below are some tips to help manage your account without too much work:
- Digital Wallet – By using a separate digital eWallet account for depositing and withdrawing it is easy to see any winnings and losses. Many digital payment methods are accepted by bookies and there are rarely any fees anymore. You may however be excluded from taking a welcome offer if you deposit using an ewallet, if this is the case use another method to get the introductory deal and then switch to an E-Wallet to keep track of your long term deposits and withdrawals after that.
- Bet History – Every bookmaker listed on this site will give you a full betting history of settled and unsettled bets. This allows you to see bet amounts and frequency, it also helps you spot trends to see if any of your bet types are particularly successful winners or regular losers. With many sites you can also download your history as an spread sheet in just one click, for all the excel lovers out there.
- Set Limits – Simply setting a weekly or monthly deposit or betting limit is one of the best ways to ensure you do not get carried away. Setting your own personal withdrawal limit is also a good idea; say for example you withdraw anything you’ve won over £50. This means you have money in your account when you want to place a bet but that you also don’t wager away all of your winnings.
- Cross Product – It is so common for a customer to win on sports, for example, and then go and lose it all on roulette in the casino section. By all means play across products with gambling sites if you enjoy it, but perhaps set different budgets for different sections. With some sites you can even restrict yourself from certain sections, which is worth considering.
How to Get the Most Value from Your Bets
Get The Best Odds Prices and Winnings
It sounds obvious to say again, but it is amazing how many punters bet with the same bookie all of the time and never shop around of the best odds and payouts.
It is so easy to sign up to online betting sites that it is worth having a good few accounts available so that you can quickly compare odds and take the best prices as they become available.
If you have a lot of bookies in your portfolio it may be quicker to visit an odds comparison website, although not all bookies are on them. The fact you can also claim free bets and bonuses with all the sites we list it is certainly another incentive to sign up to a few, even if you don’t regularly use them.
If you wager high stakes or bet on long odds it may be also worth checking payout limits for the markets you want to bet on in advance. Some operators, such as William Hill, have top payouts of over £1 million or more, where as others, such as All British Sports, cap this at around £50k. For some markets, especially obscure sports and novelty bets, these payout caps can dip as low as £1,000 so it is certainly worth checking, especially if you’re chucking £20 on a 100/1 shot.
We list all minimum and maximum payouts in our comprehensive online bookmaker reviews.
Use Introductory Free Bets and Bonuses
When used correctly, and the key word there is correctly, free bets and bonuses really an add value to your bets.
By signing up and claiming a bonus, or free bet, you are increasing your opportunity to win while at the same time adding another betting site to your portfolio, allowing you to shop around for the best regular odds and bonuses later on. Introductory offers are principally designed to let you try out the site and their products, but they are also seriously valuable. A list of current welcome deals as well as associated terms and conditions can be found on our introductory free bets page.
In general, bonuses are better than free bets because you can split bonus cash into several bets and the cash is returned with the winnings. Bonus cash and winnings often need to be rolled over, i.e. bet several times over, usually at minimum odds, before being withdrawn. A four times rollover of a £50 bonus would require £200 worth of bets to be made before the bonus can be withdrawn, for example. Most bonuses have at least a 30 day expiry however, so you can take your time.
Free bets have the advantage that you can get an immediate payout even if the stake is not returned, although you have to wager the whole free token in one go and you cannot split it up. Most free bet winnings do not have rollover requirements but it is again worth checking. Free bets also expire quickly with most available for 7 days, but some are only available for as little as 24 hours.
New Customer Enhanced Odds Promotions
To attract new customers, some of the best bookies run special new customer enhanced odds offers for major events. These can very often be of much higher value than the usual welcome deal, and if you were thinking of betting on that event anyway you can sometimes get odds hundreds of times higher than normal.
These deals generally come with stake back as a free bet if you lose anyway, so in effect you can end up getting the standard sign up deal anyway if the bet loses.
A typical example could be 6/1 Arsenal to beat Stoke, the real odds being say 1/2. If you don’t already have an account with that betting site and you were going to bet on Arsenal anyway, then this is an excellent value opportunity. Always check the terms first though, some bookies occasionally give winnings in cash but most payouts (or at least extra winnings above normal odds) will be in free bets or bonuses.
Maximum stake limits also apply. These offers can be found for virtually every major sporting event and football game and when available are listed in the new customer enhanced odds offers section of our home page.
These are always short term and quite often are pulled before the event due to high demand so it is worth getting them early. On a typical weekend there are tons of these that we list.
Loyalty Points, Free Bets and Bonuses For Existing Customers
Not all bookies are equal and some reward loyalty far more than others. If you find a bookmaker that gives money back, free bets, points or bonuses for the sports and markets that you like to bet on then this can be a great way to add value.
Some bookies reward customer’s loyalty with points for betting activity, and these points can be exchanged for reload bonuses, free bets, prizes, merchandise and even cash. The days of VIP programs are all but over, but there still some old school loyalty schemes around.
Alternatively, other bookies provide punters with monthly reload bonuses. Many operators now also run free bet clubs to encourage regular customers to bet with them; for example, they might give punters a £5 free bet each weekend if they opt in and bet at least £25 at odds of evens or more throughout the week.
Many have now taken a different tack altogether, and instead of rewarding activity, simply offer daily free games or challenges that all customers can take part in. These things tend to come in cycles, but bookies will always find some way to offer ‘rewards’ for betting with them or logging in regularly.
This is just a snapshot too; bookies like BetVictor will give customers regular bonuses by email tailored to the markets you like to bet on, so it feels much more personalised. Take a look at our loyalty free bets and existing customer bonuses page to find the pick of the bunch.
Regular Promotions
Bookmakers run regular promotions to attract you to bet. In the same way a supermarket offers loss leading deals to get you through the door in the hope that you will buy more, betting companies do exactly the same with their promotions.
If you are clever and bet on the right deals that suit you and the bets you want to place, then this is one of the best ways to add regular value to your wagers. Remember the key lesson though;, don’t place a bet just because there is a promotion, instead, find a promotion that best suits the bet you want to place.
This way, you are taking their offers on your terms, not theirs.
If, for example, you like to place accumulator bets then you should be taking advantage of the extremely widespread accumulator offers. Acca Insurance gives you your stake back if one selection in your multiple fails to win, and over time this can add up. Accumulator Bonuses are even better as this gives you enhanced winnings, often tiered depending on the number of selections in your multiple. Very regular multiples bettors may find most value with acca free bet clubs.
Other popular promos include price boots. These temporarily increase odds for certain events or lines, money back scenarios (e.g. if there is a 0-0 draw), best odds guarantees, enhanced odds terms and more.
It’s not all about getting things for free either. Money back and insurance offers (such as faller insurance on racing) can help to mitigate loses, which overall can increase your winnings if used sensibly.
Promotional Restrictions
We’ve talked so far about how to add value to your bets but one sure way to eliminate value from your wagers is by not reading the terms or restrictions.
Always be aware of the following points, especially if betting using bonus cash or free bet tokens, but even when betting with real cash:
- Stake Limit – For popular promotional bets there is often a maximum limit (e.g. £25) and anything staked beyond this will be treated as a standard bet at regular odds/winnings.
- Payout Limit – Check in advance as some markets and sports have low limits, these can be easily hit if you have a long odds multiple or high stakes wagers.
- Rollover Requirements – When using free bets and bonuses, think about the number of rollovers required. We don’t list the pathetic bookies who have obscene rollovers on this site, but if you sign up with some of the more obscure bookies we don’t list you can find figures as large as 35x rollover. A bonus is not worth taking at that level (in sports betting) so always check. Even a £100 bonus with a 4x rollover will require £400 to be staked before the bonus and winnings are released so think in advance what size bonus you want to take. This doesn’t just affect sign up offers, regular money back promotions often return stakes as free bets or bonus cash that can have these restrictions.
- Minimum Odds – This is so often overlooked. Most promotions will have a minimum odds requirement. Generally these are not too high, 1/2 (1.50) for example, but still be aware as if your wager has shorter odds than this you will forfeit any deal entirely.
- Expiry Times – Free bets and bonuses expire, sometimes very quickly, so be aware how long you have to use it or you will lose it.
- Restricted Markets and Bet Types – Commonly offers are restricted from certain bet types, such as totepool, and even certain sports markets entirely, so check the terms. Free bet tokens are obviously one single bet so cannot be split up and used for full cover betting for example (although bonuses usually can be). Conversely, if you are awarded a free bet for a specific sport or event it must be wagered on that sport or event, and even on specific bet types in some circumstances.
Live Betting and Linked In Play Offers
Live betting is a modern phenomenon that was virtually impossible before the age of the internet. This allows you to bet by the ball, shot, throw, etc., almost by the second.
This can give punters four main advantages if used well:
- Bet Timing – Firstly live wagering allows you to wait until the right time to place a bet. Using the example mentioned earlier, if you think a team will win but is slow out of the blocks and may concede early, then waiting until they are 1-0 down will give you much higher odds for the win.
- Watching and Streaming – If you like to bet based on the action you see then in play is a better way to do it. For example, it is often more sensible to see how a team or contestant starts playing before deciding whether to place a bet. If you place a bet soon after the events starts you will get almost identical odds to the pre-event market anyway. With so many operators now providing live streaming, this gives even more opportunity to scope out your best chance to wager.
- Markets Available – Some markets are only available in play, and if you like to bet on individual actions, such as next team to score, next ball to be potted, next ball to be bowled, next wickets, etc., etc., then this is the way to go.
- Linked Pre-Event Deals – Many bookies give free bets in play if you place a qualifying bet before the game. For example, bet “£20 at odds of 1/2+ on Manchester City v Chelsea and get a £10 free bet in play”. These are very common from the biggest bookies such as Coral, and are available around most big events. Again a great way to add value to your bets. When available these are listed by sport on our betting offers page.
Cash Out
One of the most successful ideas to sweep through the world of online bookmaking in the modern age is cash out. This lets you cash your bet in before an event has ended, based on a live price offered by the bookie. Although this payout is always lower than the winnings you would receive if you allowed the bet to run, it does allow you to mitigate the risk of losing in some cases.
Cash Out is now widely available and provided for 100’s of markets on 100’s of sports. Combined with in play betting it allows you to see which way an event is going before deciding whether to cash out or wait until the end.
For example, Bolton are beating Burnley 2-1 and you’ve bet £10 on Bolton to win 2-1 at 10/1. Now if you wait until the end of the game and the score doesn’t change you will win £100. The clock is at 80 minutes, cash out is giving you a price of £70 winnings, and you’re looking at the game thinking there looks like there might be a late goal. If you cash out and there is a late goal then you’ve won money when you otherwise would have lost, and if the score remains the same then you have still won, you’ve just won a little less than you would have.
Cash Out is great fun and used sensibly can improve your winning ratio. Partial cash out provides a half-way house, allowing you to cash in a proportion of your stake and let the rest ride. Some operators even offer auto cash out, allowing you to set a threshold at which your bet will cash out (or partial cash out) without you even needing to be there at the time. As well as inventing cash out in the first place, in 2015 Betfair became the first bookie to provide live cash out on horse races – madness.
Beware however, cash out is a great tool but it isn’t free. If you cash out the bookie effectively takes an additional margin, this is the reason they offer the feature in the first place. So try to only use the function where you think your bet will lose if you don’t.
Request Your Own Bets / Boost Your Own Odds
Several online bookmakers now offer the ability to request your own bets. This is a fantastic way to put yourself in maximum control. If you have a prediction and you can’t find a market listed to match it you can simply ask the bookie to price it up for you.
Requesting odds is not a new thing as such, you have always been able to request prices from bookies, but what has changed is the speed of delivery. With online betting, and through social media, odds prices can be requested in minutes, and even for live in play wagers. In the old days you needed to write in and wait for them to get back to you.
Beware however, as the odds you receive will generally have higher margins than normal, especially if it is something obscure. You should use this function only if you really think you are on to a winner that no one else has though of.
A few of the biggest companies also now allow you to boost your own odds. This means you don’t need to settle for whatever the latest price boost is from a bookie, instead you can pick your own bets to enhance. This is usually restricted to one bet each day and will have a stake or winnings limit, but still, this is a superb way of enhancing winnings for the wagers you are most confident in.
Consider Other Bet Types
The vast majority of bets placed are outright single win bets, and these are just wagers with one line and one unit stake.
You can have a single bet on one selection to win, or multiple selections where all must come in for you to win. We know this second type as an accumulator – another very popular bet.
There are thousands of different single bets available that can be placed on their own or combined into multiples. If you are bored of betting on an outright result consider lines such as both teams to score, correct score, first goalscorer, scorecast, winning margin, half time results and many more. In our sports betting guides you can find all of the single bet type commonly available for each different sport.
It’s not just singles though, there are a plethora of bet types available, and in certain situations these can be both better value and more fun.
Online betting has made a range of bet types more accessible than ever. Often it is simply a lack of understanding of wager types that can prevent us from utilising them.
Most wagers are easy to understand, even if they do have names such as Yankee, Canadian, any-to-come and Lucky, it just takes a few minutes to read up on them.
Our guide to bet types will tell you in simple terms everything you need to know about all different bet types.
Accumulators and Multiples
Let’s go into a little more detail on these multiple alternative bet types.
It is possible to combine any independent events together into a single multiple bet, known as an accumulator. They can be as simple or as bonkers as you like; so should you wish to combine West Ham to win with Labour to win the next election into a single bet, then there is no stopping you.
Events must be independent though, e.g. you can’t bet on a team to win in the semi-final and to lift the trophy in a double, this is known as a related contingency. That just means that the outcome of one of the selections will impact the probability of another.
As long as bets are not directly related though, there should be no restriction on your combining them. That said, beware if you are using an offer, such as insurance, as you may be restricted on the sports and markets that apply.
Full Cover Betting
Full cover bets are easy to understand. They essentially give you full coverage of all the possible winning combinations from a given number of selections. These bets are a collection of single bets so you need to bet on multiple lines. There are two major types of full cover bets, with or without singles.
Two examples are shown here to give you an idea, but for more about these wagers see our full cover betting article.
A Yankee is a full cover bet with four selections; let’s say Djokovic to win the tennis, Spurs and Stoke to win in football, and Vettel to win an F1 race. This bet type has 11 separate lines consisting of one 4-fold single accumulator, four trebles and six doubles. These are all separate single bets packaged together. If you wanted to bet £1/line the bet would cost £11. In this scenario should only three of the four selections win you would still get paid out on one treble and three doubles.
A Lucky 15 is exactly the same as the Yankee but this is a full cover bet with singles. This means there are 4 extra win single bets here on top of the 11 multiple bets. Therefore there are 15 lines, hence the name, Lucky15. In this case if just one pick won you would get paid out on at least one line.
Full cover bets are useful as you only need one or two selections to win to guarantee a return. They are not however commonly included in promotions.
Conditional & Forecast
These bet types are most common in horse and greyhound racing but in theory can be placed on most sports. Again the concept is basically in the wording.
A forecast bet will forecast the outcome of say a horse race by predict which horse will finish first and second (straight forecast), or which two horses will win in any order (reverse forecast). Predicting the order of three places is often referred to as a tricast. This can quite easily be applied to the finishing order of the Premier League or Wimbledon too, or pretty much any event that has a ranking system. Read our article on forecast bets for more.
Conditional bets, often termed any-to-come, are simply linked single bets, one single is conditional on the outcome of another. This can therefore be applied to any two independent events, whatever the sport or event. These wagers can be placed on any number of selections, the most popular are described in our conditional bets article.
Handicap Betting
Handicap bets can come across as more complicated than they actually are, which scares some people off.
A handicap bet basically just applies an imaginary handicap to a selection in an event that has the effect of changing the likelihood of the scenario occurring, and so changing the odds price.
This bet type can be applied to most events with some sort of scoring system. For example, in football you can give a team a + or – goal advantage; Man United to win -2 goals 10/1 versus say 4/5 to win outright. The odds are better because Man Utd are starting with a -2 handicap, so they would need to win 3-0 (or 4-1 for example) for the bet to win.
These bets are great at evening out the odds in events where there is a strong favourite and an outsider. For more about handicap wagers and Asian handicaps and see our guide.
More Complicated Bets
For the adventurous there are all sorts of unique bet types.
Spread Betting for example allows you to bet on how much or higher or lower a prediction will be against a reference value. It is a betting system that has migrated from the finance industry but just like finance it comes with risk.
In spread betting your winnings and loses are not fixed and so winnings and loses are unknown at the time you stake. The bet rewards the accuracy of your prediction and punishes inaccuracy. Spread betting falls under different licencing and tax laws than fixed odds betting, so it is worth doing your homework before starting to spread bet, you can start by reading our spread betting article or our Spreadex review.
Other bets based on mathematical matrices and other systems are also possible but not widely provided by conventional bookies. An example in the Union Jack which is a matrix bet based on the flag of the United Kingdom. See our speciality betting section for more.
Betting Strategies and Systems
The first thing to say here is that there is no betting strategy or system that will work for everyone, and there are certainly no fail safe systems – after all, have you ever seen a poor bookie or casino? Saying that, depending on what sports and markets you like to punt on there are some wagers that can provide more value than others, and there are strategies to maximise winnings for when your predictions are correct.
We discuss different strategies suited to various sports and bet types in our betting guides section. One example would be both teams to score strategy; if you think a team will win but you also think they are liable to conceding in the process then this can be a great wager giving higher odds than the regular win single.
Systems on the whole will never work in the long run though, and we don’t advocate them. However you can read our guide to betting systems if you want to find out what a Martingale, Labouchere or a D’Alembart is or discover more about positive and negative progression.
Only Bet with a Reputable Licensed Betting Site
All of the online bookmakers listed on this site have a full UK gambling licence issued by the gambling commission.
They are also actively involved in promoting safer gambling for over 18’s only and are obliged to adhere to code of conduct especially in dealing with complaints and in terms of responsible gambling. All of our bookies also pay tax.
It is illegal to operate in the UK without a licence, but many shady sites exist that will happily take your money in spite of this. If you bet with these operators you will have no protection whatsoever under UK law.
This means if they decide to not pay you out or they disappear altogether, you will have little chance of getting your money back.
Always check that the bookmaker possesses a UK gambling licence first.
More How To Bet Guides
The following links provide more in-depth information on how to bet on specific markets, lines, promotions, etc:
- How to Bet on an Accumulator – You can bet on an accumulator with any site, so make sure you are getting the best offers and features right for you. Accumulator betting is a great example of risk management in betting, do you go after the big prize or more regular returns?
- How to Place a Totepool Bet – Totepool is a form of peer-peer pool betting used primarily for horse and greyhound racing. These bets can have monumental payouts over £1 million or more. Find out how to bet, bet types, offers and more.
- How to Bet Using Best Odds Guaranteed – A lot of betting sites offer best price guarantees for horse and greyhound racing. Discover where to find these offers, how to bet with best odds guaranteed, and common terms.
- How to Bet on a Lucky 15/31/63 and Other Full Cover Bets – Find out how to bet and win with Lucky 15’s and other full cover bets. This article includes common terms, advantages and disadvantages of these betting systems, and where to find full cover bet enhancements and bonuses.
- How to Bet Using a Price Boost – Price boosts or price rushes are simply short term enhanced odds offers on select lines. Commonly available from most bookmakers on all sports from horse racing to cricket on both singles and enhanced multiples. Find out how to bet using price boosts, the best ways to win and which betting sites have the best deals.
- How to Bet with Faller Insurance – During the National Hunt jump racing season many horses fall, are brought down or unseat their jockey’s. This article tells you where to find money back insurance and how to best bet and win with these deals.
Sport Specific How To Bet Guides
- Greyhound Racing
- Novelty & Specials
- Snooker
- Cricket
- Darts
- Formula 1
- Golf
- Rugby
- Tennis
- Horse Racing
- Football
- US Sports
- eSports
- Boxing & UFC
Clicking on the links above will take you to articles that list how to bet on different sports by type. This includes with bet types and strategies tailored to those markets.