Owned by The Rank Group, and best known as the most successful high street casino chain in the UK, Grosvenor are a brand that most of the general British public will know.
Operating since 1970, Grosvenor’s brand presence is extremely strong, so in some ways they had a head start when launching their sportsbook in 2016.
Being so strongly associated with casino gaming though, sports bettors may have been initially put off their sportsbook, perhaps thinking it would be little more than a token addition to their headline product.
There is certainly no truth to that assertion today though, as Grosvenor’s sportsbook is big enough and impressive enough to rival some of the sports betting mainstays.
They have lots of sports markets and excellent depth too, an interface that strikes a perfect balance, and odds which might worry some of the more established sports betting brands.
Of course, for a ‘new’ bookie Grosvenor have a huge financial advantage since the operating company behind the scenes is so well run, and this allows them to market much more successfully for new customers, and to offer better value promotions too, which is a key consideration for anyone thinking of betting with them.
- Trusted Brand – Grosvenor are 50 years old, and are not going anywhere.
- Brick and Mortar Venues – Transfer funds to Grosvenor venues, where you can also watch live sport and bet in the bars.
- Competitive Odds – Grosvenor are well funded and can muscle in with good value prices and promotions.
Grosvenor Sports Betting Interface
I find Grosvenor Sport’s betting interface to be a perfect mix of the more complex, professional trader style betting sites, and those that take a more characterful approach.
It’s professional and detailed, but not so intricate that it feels like looking at a spreadsheet, yet it has the right amount of fun and colour too, without every feeling caricature or silly. This means it shouldn’t put off the more professionally minded bettor nor those that just want a bit of a laugh.
At the most basic level, the Grosvenor Sports interface is just so easy to look at.
With some bookies you can feel overwhelmed with a jam-packed interface that has so many changing numbers and markets crammed into it that your eyes struggle to focus. Here. The soft pastel blue background is much easier on the eye, and the markets have room to breathe, the odds are nice and big in a distinctive green that stands out from everything else, and the way the page is structured is helpful.
Grosvenor work with Kambi to provide this excellent sports betting platform, and it’s a partnership that works very well, with the Kambi style complimenting the Grosvenor brand.
A simple header menu provides quick links to around 12 popular areas of the site, including specific sports markets like football and horse racing, as well as daily promotions people will be logging on to use, and the live betting area.
A full sports A-Z list is available too of course, but this set up allows most people to get to where they want to go faster.
Speaking of speed, and the platform loads up in good time in my experience, and ok, going from one sport to another isn’t always smooth – you sometimes get information loading in chunks – but it happens very quickly, so it feels a little jagged but it won’t waste your time.
You can expand betting lines and close them to make scrolling and browsing easier, and most bet types are categorised in busy markets which serves to filter out things you aren’t interested in. Plus, useful icons indicate where stats/cash out/bet builders are an option, and if you click on the stats icon, you get a very informative screen of information pertaining to the event you are looking at. There’s also a natty switch to toggle between upcoming horse and greyhound races on the home screen. It’s very good.
You can also make a lot more bets than normal without opening each individual event. For example, if looking at the Premier League fixtures, you can toggle more than 15 bet types to display for all games, from match winner to Asian handicaps.
I really liked it on the whole.
Betting Markets, Odds, and Features
With more than 37 different sports to bet on, punters at Grosvenor will not be short of something to bet on.
To be honest this is true of most online bookies these days, although I would say that while Grosvenor do have some of the more niche markets available, like Water Polo and Surfing, they only really scratch the surface in these areas.
That’s fine, not many people bet on them anyway, but it’s not a niche punter’s paradise is all.
For everyone else though, the worldwide horse racing, football markets from 40 different countries and going 5 tiers deep in the UK, extensive esports betting availability and excellent depth in the likes of ice hockey, basketball, and American football, will offer more than enough to whet the appetite.
The way these are laid out is really easy to understand too, with the different leagues/competitions listed next to their associated country, so you can see which markets have the best depth and exactly what you can and can’t bet on without clicking to another screen.
In terms of betting features Grosvenor have lots of cashout availability, regular boost bundles which bump up the odds on specific bets, and the odd special too, although my favourite feature is the bet builder.
They have a good bet builder tool which is fun to use, using sliders and the like where possible, but there are also a lot of ‘Pre-Packs’, which are just bet builders that Grosvenor have put together for you, but they might give you some ideas you hadn’t considered.
Odds are displayed as fractions by default, but can be changed to American or the increasingly popular decimal formats from the Settings menu. You can also set up your preference for odds changes on the betslip and cashout display options from here.
When it comes to odds value, it looks very good indeed. Grosvenor Sports are clearly trying to attract punters with good initial odds backed by long running promotions, because on a Premier League game between Brighton and West Ham the margin on the W/D/W market was just 4.33%.
That’s not market leading but it’s better than some of the bigger names.
Promotions
What I like about Grosvenor Sports, is that their approach to promotions takes a lot of the work out of the punter’s hands.
What I mean by that, is that instead of having to claim specific promotions and jump through hoops to get bonuses or free bets credited, their suite of offers are mostly automatic.
So in the same way that Best Odds Guaranteed (which is available at Grosvenor by the way) just kicks in if it’s applicable without the punter having to opt in or do anything to trigger it, most of Grosvenor’s offers follow a similar path.
For example, in the past you might have got 10% of losses back on a specific sport, or cash back if your horse finishes second to the SP favourite. All sorts of offers like this have come and gone, adding lots of extra value but causing you no extra work.
Grosvenor have also got on board with the daily free games that many big bookies are running, and they have their own versions along with some interesting weekly free to play games too, especially around football, so there is lots to like here.
Deposits and Withdrawals
| Method | Min Deposit | Min Withdrawal | Fees | Withdrawal Time |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Debit Card | £5 | £5 | - | 1-3 Days |
| Apple Pay | £5 | n/a | - | n/a |
| PaySafeCard | £5 | N/A | - | N/A |
| Bank Wire | £5 | £10 | BACS | 1-3 Days |
I’m a vanilla guy when it comes to banking, so I only ever use my debit card, and in my own personal experience handling things this way is a doddle.
The money was transferred and my account balance was updated in about 5 seconds, so I usually just deposit whenever I want to make a bet rather than holding cash in the account, and it barely slows me down at all.
For people like me, Grosvenor Sports works perfectly, although those with more obscure payment methods might need to go elsewhere.
Those methods would have to be very obscure indeed though, since Grosvenor do offer Paysafecard and Applepay as you can see, so there is one method per payment category (ewallet / pre-paid voucher, pay by phone).
Withdrawal times are as quick as anywhere else and with minimums of a fiver in most cases, for both deposits and withdrawals, there really is very little to complain about.
Deposit protection levels reach the medium level, so they are better than legally required, and the payout limit across the book is capped at £250k. This is the only area where I would like more clarity (sport by sport win caps) and where things could be improved, but for the vast majority of bets placed it won’t ever be an issue.
Something to watch if staking large amounts or betting at bonkers odds though.
Live Betting Experience
During my time testing the site, it felt like there wasn’t as much live action available as elsewhere, although that could just have been about timing to be fair. I certainly wasn’t short of fixtures anyway.
That said, the live betting experience at Grosvenor is pretty good all things considered. It’s not shaking up the industry or anything like that, but everything is nicely laid out and easy to use, with the odd little enhancement here and there.
I particularly like the ability to bet on so many different markets without going into event view, as making multiple single bets on a number of different events is something I like to do, so I use this feature a lot and find it saves me loads of faffing.
If you do go into event view there is a decent graphic depicting the game with live updates and visuals, as well as some basic stats.
There is no live streaming apart from the horseracing and greyhound racing, but you could always head to one of their venues to watch the game if you wanted to – not an option many other online bookies can offer.
The only other bit of constructive criticism I could give here, is that the main header menu stays in place when looking at the live betting interface. This can make it seem as if it is also the live betting menu for jumping between different sports, and if you make that mistake you will accidentally navigate away from the live betting area – which would be annoying.
(I definitely didn’t make this mistake…)
If the live betting sport header menu was a little bigger or more prominent this would be easily fixed, but I’m nit-picking really.
Mobile App
As is so often the case nowadays, the mobile app and the mobile website are basically carbon copies of the main website, slightly restructured for a smaller screen.
If the interface looked good on the laptop it looks even better on mobile, with the phone’s glass screen making everything pop much more satisfyingly. It looks really silky.
You don’t lose any of the features after scaling down either, with the multiple betting options still available outside of event view, stats still available, and all the rest of it. Actually, the stats are a bit annoying via the app, as they open in a new screen and you can’t get back from them, but it’s not the end of the world to jump between windows.
The reduced screen width is solved using scrolling menu bars that are very responsive to the touch, as is the rest of the app to be fair, and I didn’t find speed to be an issue either – I was jumping between screens in a second or two and switching between bet type categories in a flash.
In truth, there’s little between most betting apps these days as the technology is good enough that even a more cheaply made app can function well, but I feel like Grosvenor have done a fine job with there’s nonetheless.
The only real issue I had, was that each time I loaded the app the main header got stuck in the middle of the screen, so that all of the information scrolled underneath it, like water under a bridge – you can see what I mean in this image.
It was easily rectified by navigating to the ‘Home’ screen, and it’s probably not something that will be a problem for long, but it’s a bug that needs fixing no less – and don’t blame my phone, it’s a good one!
About Grosvenor Sports
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As an online bookmaker, Grosvenor have only existed since 2016, a good 1o years after online sports betting really started to take off.
Since that time they have gone through a very successful website redesign in my humble opinion, completed a 2 year sponsorship deal with Fulham FC, and solidified their successful partnership with Kambi, who provide their online betting capabilities.
Their short life as a bookie has been slow and steady, as they nestled themselves in amongst the other long standing online bookie brands out there, rather than trying to go too big too soon and failing like so many others have attempted.
Before the sportsbook though, there was Grosvenor Casino, available as a download casino from around the end of 2006, and later as an instant play casino. This product did well pretty much from the start, thanks in no small part to the history associated with the brand.
The name Grosvenor Casinos had been gracing our high streets since way back in 1970, so every generation was familiar with it, and before then the company was known as County Clubs, so the history technically goes back even further.
These days, Grosvenor is part of The Rank Group, a parent company that also operates Mecca Bingo amongst other companies, employing upwards of 7,500 people.
Customer Support Experience
Although Grosvenor Sport offer a good number of different customer service options, it is, rather strangely, their online options that need the most work.
The good news is that you can contact a real-life human over the phone between 8am and 8pm 7 days a week, the bad news is that if you prefer to use the live chat function you have to go through one of those infuriating AI chat bots first.
You know, the little robot fella who can never actually help with anything because all he does is scan for keywords in your question then repeats information you can find for yourself in the FAQs.
This may just be a personal pet peeve of mine, but if you are as irrationally irritated as me by these things then beware.
I did get passed through to a human operator eventually, but it took 15 minutes to get connected, and it was 10am on a Tuesday morning, so you wouldn’t think the support team were inundated.
Infuriatingly, although I had waited for them for 15 minutes, when I didn’t reply after 4 minutes (as I wasn’t sat there staring at the chat window) the operator closed the chat. Absolutely maddening.
So I would say phone is the best option with Grosvenor, making them a good bookie for punters who prefer getting help in real time and in person (in person over the phone; you know what I mean).
Grosvenor Casino Venues
There is one very obvious yet unique aspect to betting with Grosvenor Sports – they also have a large portfolio of high street casinos which you can visit.
You might be wondering why this makes any difference to a sports bettor, but the ability to use the same pot of cash online and in the casinos is really useful for any punters who enjoy casino gaming as well.
Even if you don’t, it serves as a roundabout way of making your online funds withdrawable as cash since you could just transfer the money to your casino, buy chips, and cash them in.
On top of this, pretty much all Grosvenor casino venues show live sport at the bar, so although you can’t bet with Grosvenor over the counter, you can rock up, buy a drink, watch the game, and bet with them using the app or mobile site.
Apart from anything else, it makes the brand tangible, and some rewards span both verticals too, so it just gives you more choice.
Grosvenor have between 50 and 60 brick and mortar casinos up and down the country, so wherever you live there will be one at least semi local, and anyone who lives in or close to a big town or city will certainly be able to get to their nearest Grosvenor without much fuss.
For example, I have 5 casinos within 10 miles of me in various different directions. Some are bigger and more exciting than others, but that’s still a lot of options.
Using Grosvenor Online Casino
Given that Grosvenor are a huge casino chain it makes sense that they also run an online casino alongside their sportsbook.
It’s got loads to do, with plenty of promotions specifically aimed at casino players, and as a fun little extra feature you can actually play on roulette and blackjack tables in Grosvenor’s physical venues all around the country via their live casino.
Needless to say then, anyone who blends their betting between sports and casino is going to struggle to find a better option than Grosvenor.
Contacting Grosvenor Sports and License Information
- Name: Grosvenor Sports
- Registered Company Name: Rank Interactive (Gibraltar) Ltd
- UK licence ref/No: 57924
- URL: https://www.grosvenorcasinos.com/sport
- Live Chat: Available onsite
- E-Mail: [email protected]
- Phone: 0800 083 1990 (8am to 8pm, 7 days)
- Twitter: @GrosvenorSport
- Registered Company Address: Rank Group,
MAIDENHEAD, SL6 8BN, United Kingdom