What makes a great betting site? Here’s our five-point checklist

We’ve all been there; You’re looking for the perfect betting site so that you can centralize all of your sports betting into one place. But what exactly should you be looking for when picking the ultimate sports betting site – well – apart from Betting.com, of course? Fear not! We are here to help you along the way…

Betting site - Top sports betting site

As with any website, your navigation through a betting site in particular is especially crucial. Are the sub-menus and tabs easy to find, whilst also being slick enough for you to pick out your bets quickly? You’re a busy guy, and time can be of the essence, so a responsive betting site is a great time-saving device in a world where speed is key.

I’ve got a simple litmus test to help you work out whether a betting site is the slick enough for you - It’s the Big Brother Test. We all know where to find the nice and easy Win-Draw-Loss football options on a betting site, but how long does it take you to find the more obscure markets, like Big Brother? Maybe you fancy a bet on the next winner of the Eurovision Song Contest? This is slightly tongue-in-cheek, but you get the idea.

With sports betting being the ultra-competitive world it is, you’re sure to be partial to a small financial sweetener to reel you in, right? Check out our extensive list of welcome bonus offers from some of our favourite betting sites...

Most betting sites tend to tempt you in with welcome bonuses, usually to the tune of matched deposits or no-deposit bonuses, which are all well and good, but what about once you’re a seasoned member of the betting site? Spend a month or so on a betting site and see how many offers of free money hit your email inbox, whilst comparing with a few other betting sites. That will give you a good idea of how you are valued as a player on the betting site by the brand itself.

If there is a big sporting event coming up, you would be well within your rights to expect some sort of offer. Perhaps a free matched in-play bet if you place a wager before the event starts? Maybe even a free £2 bet on the Grand National, or on the top goal-scorer at the World Cup? While I mention it, Timo Werner at 18/1 with 10Bet looks a great shout for that.

These little added extras go a long way to keeping a player happy on a betting site, so don’t just ignore their emails and direct messages on your account, they reveal a lot more than you think.

Betting site - Find the bet here

Another key performance indicator in regards to how you are valued on a sports betting site is in the customer support offering. How many contact options do you have? In an ideal world you want the Golden Three. They are:

• Email support on a betting site is the bare minimum.
• A telephone hotline is essential for quick resolution to any problems or queries
• The holy grail on a sports betting site’s customer support section is a live-chat function. For those of you who don’t like to speak over the phone, this is your safe-haven, and also gives you the freedom to sort things out whilst you are doing other things.

If a betting site is missing one – or indeed two- of these customer support options then something is up. As we said earlier on, speed is key, so if you need a problem eradicating in order to place wagers on a betting site, then waiting on an email reply indicates that you are probably in the wrong place.

Moving away from the betting site itself for just one moment, as we take a look at betting on the go.

Does the betting site even have an app? That’s probably a good place to start! It’s an indicator of how progressive the bookmaker is as a whole, and gives you a good idea of the betting site’s position amongst the rest of the market. A clean, slick app is a clear sign of a betting site that means business.

Now, I can forgive the lack of an app, as long as there is a mobile-responsive version of the betting site’s desktop counterpart. Mobile browsing obviously isn’t the ideal, but a couple of things to take a look at when checking out the mobile betting site are:

• The response time when switching between different sports menus.
• When you are putting together an accumulator on the mobile betting site, how long does it take for your selections to appear on the betting slip? Any sort of lag is likely to frustrate in the long-term, so keep that in mind when you are having a look around.

Betting site - We deliver proper bets

We all love having lots of choices at our disposal, and this is no different on a sports betting site.

How many sports are covered on the betting site? Some bookies like to specialise on one particular sport, but we’re looking for the betting sites that offer a huge selection. From football to handball, and from tennis to E-sports, it is great to have an array of different shaped balls to wager on.

Taking the microscope over to the football section for a moment will give you a clear indication of how seriously the betting site takes things. Can you bet on the result after five minutes of the match? Does the betting site allow you to create custom bets? Can you bet on a goal between the 61st and 75th minutes of the game? These questions – and their answers – will go a long way to telling you where a betting site ranks in their overall market offering.

Once you have made the call on the perfect betting site for you, make sure you follow the six psychological golden rules of betting.