Best Football Betting Sites

Football betting is hugely popular in the UK with hundreds of bookmakers offering odds. But what are the best football betting sites, and which ones are safe?

We’ll explore topics such as security, competitive odds and how to identify a good football offer.

Read on to discover all you need to know about the best football betting sites and apps.

bet365 Soccer – Top Football Betting Site

There’s a good chance you’ve heard of bet365 as they are the biggest sportsbook in the UK market. Football is one of their main sports with hundreds of events priced up every day, and their market depth is unmatched.

Where bet365 stand out above other football sites, however, is with their dedicated promotions. Along with a generous welcome offer you’ll find a range of football offers bonuses on site too. These are unique to them for the most part, at the time of writing there are four football offers which is excellent.

On top of great promotions, bet365 offers almost every feature we can think of. From a highly versatile bet builder, cash out, edit bet, to live streaming. They truly offer an excellent football betting experience.

Betfair Football Betting

Having tested out dozens of football betting sites, we can say that Betfair is one of the best. You’ll find competitive odds on the sportsbook which is packed with excellent features and daily price boost offers.

Betfair also has the biggest betting exchange. This is where players can bet against each other by either backing or outcome or laying it. It provides a different way to place football bets and while it might seem complicated at first, it’s easy to understand when you try a few times.

They also provide a wide range of football streams. You will have access to a range of top European leagues including Serie A, La Liga and the German Bundesliga. Other leagues from across the world such as MLS can also be found.

Of course, there is also a generous welcome offer. New players can take advantage of this when they join, and if you’re looking for a top football betting site then Betfair comes recommended.

Football Betting at 888Sport

As one of the most recognisable online betting brands, it’s no surprise that 888Sport rank amongst our top betting sites for football. New players can enjoy £30 in free bets plus a £10 casino bonus from only a £10 deposit. Of course, there are restrictions on this but the terms are amongst some of the fairest in the industry.

What we really like about 888Sport is that their platform is completely in-house meaning that you won’t have the same football betting experience on any other site. On top of that, they provide some of the most competitive odds across the big football competitions such as the Premier League and Champions League. They also provide an excellent market depth.

The live betting experience is top class. Odds regularly change and bets are taken quickly. They offer in-play betting on some football leagues every day which is more than many other bookies can’t match. We also liked that live streaming was possible.

Paddy Power and Football Betting

For players looking for an outstanding football betting app experience, we would recommend Paddy Power. The app is available to download on both Android and iOS and has one of the best user interfaces we’ve come across. Navigation is easy with your betslip easy to find and promotions clearly shown.

#Whatoddspaddy is a key feature of their football betting offering. Players can request specific bets which bookmakers’ price up for them. These then become markets on-site for any other player to back. It means that you might only find that particular football bet at Paddy Power, which is a great extra.

Cash out, bet builder and live streaming are also available for football bets on Paddy Power. We found everything easy to find on-site, and competitive odds. Overall it’s an excellent football betting site.

William Hill – A Top Quality Football Betting Site

Of course, William Hill had to make it to our top picks for football betting sites. It is a traditional bookmaker that has long served UK players with shops on the high street, and its online offering doesn’t disappoint.

Players can enjoy a wide range of football markets including first goalscorers, number of cards, penalty to be scored and hundreds more. The odds are highly competitive and often the best odds can be found here.

In terms of features there is cash out, partial cash out, #YourOdds, live streaming and bet builder. All of these enhance the football betting experience and we found that they were all easy to access and use.

Offers are also plenty at William Hill, especially for football punters. Daily price boosts and accumulator bonuses await existing players while those new to the site can also take advantage of the most generous on the market.

How Do We Rate Football Betting Sites?

At legit, we take an in-depth look at all of our key criteria to ensure that our high standards are met. We test every single site we review and place bets with real money to have a true player experience to share with you.

We provide unbiased reviews by highlighting great features, and where a site can improve, so you’ll always get a balanced opinion.

Best Football Betting Sites by Category

Safest Football Betting Sites

We value security as our highest priority for safe football betting sites. There are several things that you can look out for if you are looking at a site not featured on legit.org:

If a site meets these conditions, then chances are that it is legit. This is especially true for the United Kingdom Gambling Commission (UKGC) licence. All of our top football betting sites are fully licenced to operate legally in the UK. Getting a licence, and maintaining it is no easy feat.

Companies have to jump through many hoops to ensure that high standards of safety, transparency and fairness are met. So, if you see the UKGC symbol, you are in good hands.

SSL encryptions are important for keeping your data safe. You’ll know if a site has this as it will have an ‘s’ after htttp. There will often be a padlock in the URL bar too. There are different levels of encryptions and in our reviews, we highlight what each site holds

Responsible Gambling

There’s a chance you’ve been seeing more and more about responsible gambling lately on football betting sites. This is because it is hugely important for both players and betting sites.

As per the terms of their licence, companies need to have measures in place. These are:

• Deposit limits
• Loss limits
• Self-exclusion options

All sites will display these. In saying that, there are no rules on further measures. However, many of the best football betting sites will go above and beyond. They will include budget calculators, links to helplines and LeoVegas even go as far as offering to pay for therapy sessions.

You can usually tell quite a lot about a site on where and how they display their responsible gambling tools. It’s a good indicator of a safe site.

Best Football Betting Offers

New customer offers undoubtedly offer the best value to players, but there are plenty of other promotions related to football specifically.

If you want to find out more about bonuses in general, check out our main page for the best betting offers.

To give you an idea of what you can expect in terms of football promotions, we’ve compiled a list of the top offers:

• Free Bet/Bet credits: This is where a bookmaker allows you a set stake for free. Bear in mind that you won’t get your stake back with these.
• Football Acca Insurance: If one leg of an accumulator bet lets you down, you can get your stake back as a free bet. This is always be capped at a set amount.
• Acca Bonus: Enhanced winnings on an accumulator bet
• Bet and get: Place a bet to receive a free bet. This will often be, place a pre-match bet to get an in-play bet
• Risk-free bet: A bookie will return your stake either in bonus or cash if your bet loses
• Price boost: Enhanced odds on a set market

Competitive Odds

To ensure that you are getting value when betting on football, you’ll want to be sure that the site you’re on offers competitive odds. Generally, because football betting is such a big betting market odds will be similar with most legit online bookmakers. In saying that, some bookies do offer better odds than others.

With this example, you can see that bet365 and William Hill are offering the best value in the 1X2 market. Although they are not the top price on every outcome, the prices are similar across the bookmakers.

Bear in mind that one occasion of high odds doesn’t mean that the site is competitive in other markets, so it’s worth doing a quick comparison on the bet you’re looking to place.

In UK bookmakers you’ll likely see odds in the fractional format, sometimes known as UK odds (2/1). It’s also possible to change these to decimal such as 3.0 if you’re not comfortable with fractions.

If you’re new to betting on football, then you need to know what these mean to avoid disappointment.

Bookmakers use complex algorithms to define which side will be favourites in the betting. It is based on expected goals, the previous form, which team is at home and many other factors.

Odds will stay steady in the build-up to a game, but factors such as player omissions can affect these. This is especially true when the game kicks off. Once the game starts, anything can happen, and live betting odds will fluctuate often.

You can guarantee that you get the odds you see by betting on them before they change. But do consider that they could get bigger too.

Football Betting Market Depth

Comparing market depth on the top football betting sites to others is one way to see how good they are. Some sites, such as William Hill provide 400+ markets on premium football, such as the Premier League.

This applies to most games in the Premier League and big European ties too. Having a wide range of choices is excellent as it gives the player more choice of what bet they want to play.

When we look at the market depth, we also look at how competitive the odds are on those. Some sites may offer hundreds of markets but be very tight with their odds. This is always disappointing, but we will highlight in all of our betting site reviews, which sites provide the best overall odds.

How to Bet On Football

• 
  Sign-up With A Safe Football Betting Site

  We recommend choosing one of our top football betting sites as we have fully vetted those. If you do want to join a different site, use our handy criteria checklist.

• 
  Check The Welcome Bonus

  It’s important to know the rules of a bonus if you want to claim it. So, check these before you proceed with the next step. The key terms should clearly tell you what requirements you need to meet to get an offer. If in doubt, check the full terms or contact customer support.

• 
  Deposit

  Pick your preferred method and make a deposit. If you want to claim a bonus, then check you are meeting the qualifying criteria by meeting the minimum deposit amount, and using an eligible method.

• 
  Find a Match You Want to Bet on

  Navigating to the game should be easy. If you are having difficulty most football betting sites also have a search function you can use. Once you have a selection or selections in mind, add them to your betslip. The odds will clearly show in the betslip.

• 
  Add a Stake and Bet

  If you’re happy with your selections in your betslip, the final step is to include how much you would like to stake and press bet! That’s it. Before you press bet, some football betting sites will also show your potential winnings.

Types of Football Bets

When you visit a football betting site you might see +400 (or any number) beside the main betting odds. This is an indication of how many betting opportunities there are for that game.

While this might seem very high, some of them will be for the same market. By this, we mean markets such as the first goalscorer where you will see dozens of players priced up.

It’s a good idea to get to grips with the basics of football betting before you get started, so we’ll run through the most common markets and provide a rating of how easy the market is to understand. We’ll rate them easy, medium and hard.

1X2 Betting

This is the most straightforward bet there is in football. You are betting on the outcome of the game after the final whistle goes on for 90 minutes.

• 1 = home team win
• X = draw
• 2 = away team win

This is always the case across all bookies. If it’s an international tournament, team 1 will be whoever is mentioned first in the official fixtures ie England vs Sweden, England would be 1.

The 1X2 markets tend to be very competitive and it is the most popular bet with both experienced players and new bettors.

Legit rating: Easy

Half-time/ Full-time

This bet is similar to a 1X2 apart from that you are predicting the outcome at both 45 minutes and 90 minutes within the same bet. To win the bet, you need to guess both correctly.

Because it is slightly harder in that you need two outcomes, the odds will be higher than with 1X2. It’s for a more seasoned bettor as your bet could be lost at half-time.

Legit rating: Medium

Double Chance

With a double chance you are betting two 1X2 outcomes as opposed to one, hence the name double chance.

So, your options are:

Of course, the odds will be much shorter than the 1X2 market as you’re giving yourself a 2/3 chance of winning.

It’s an easy-to-understand bet which is best used on a team with high odds that you think might sneak a result.

Legit rating: Medium

Over/Under Goals

This bet type is set out as a 50/50, however, you will still have plenty of options. You are predicting if there will be more or less than a set number of goals. The most common sets are over/under 1.5, 2.5, 3.5. These cover the score lines that happen the most. These markets are only won or lost as of course, 0.5 of a goal cannot be scored.

It’s as easy as that. The odds are short in comparison with other markets but bear in mind there are only two options you’re betting on.

Legit rating: Easy

Both Teams to Score

You will often see this as abbreviated to BTTS on most bookmakers in the UK. And as the name suggests, you are betting on both teams in one match scoring.

It will usually be presented in a ‘yes’, ‘no’ fashion so you shouldn’t have any difficulty placing this bet.

As the odds can be short on this market, it is often used by football bettors in accumulator bets. This makes the betting a bit more interesting by increasing the odds. Of course, you would then need all your predictions in the accumulator to be correct, so there is a higher risk as well.

Legit rating: Easy

First goalscorer

As you might guess, you are picking who you think will score the first goal in a match for this bet. Most players in the squad will be priced up, even those who are not starting the game, so do have a check before placing these bets.

Any player’s goal can be scored on the pitch and in most situations, including free kicks and penalties. If, however, an OG is scored this will not count but your bet will continue.

Legit rating: Medium

Outright Football Betting Markets

The best football betting sites will promote outright markets. These include:

• League winner
• Top 4 finish
• Top 6 finish
• Highest goal scorer (of a tournament or league)

The main difference is that these will be long-term bets which you will need to wait to settle. You can place an outright bet at any time, but you tend to get better odds at the beginning of a tournament or league as the form is not yet known.

Football Apps

In assessing the best football betting sites, we also examine their betting app. Apps are becoming more common with bookies in the UK with most now offering one.

Betting on the go can be an excellent experience, as long as the app is well-designed. Since mobile betting has been growing in popularity, it’s good to see that bookmakers follow this trend and update old apps.

The app should be available to download for free, and we also like additional security features such as a 2-step log-in, or Face ID. The best football betting sites will offer these as standard.

Bets should be easy to place, and promotions should be easy to find.

Live Football Betting

For a football betting site to be considered great, a good live betting experience is needed.

Live betting on football is different from placing bets pre-match for many reasons. It is offered on fewer games than pre-match. The reason for this is that the odds constantly need to be monitored and not all bookies have enough traders on hand to cope.

As odds change often, markets can be suspended. For example, this would happen with a dangerous free-kick, penalty kick, or even a corner. So, if you want to get a bet on you tend to have to move quickly.

The good news for football fans is that many matches are covered as it is the biggest betting sport.

So, what can you bet on? Well, this is where it gets interesting. The possibilities almost seem endless. But the most common are:

1. The first team to score
2. Goal to be scored in the next 10 minutes
3. Next team to score
4. Home team to score X number of goals
5. Over/Under yellow cards

This is not an exhaustive list by any means, but it gives you an idea of what markets will likely be available.

Live Streaming

Many players like to watch their bet unfold by tuning in to see a match they have a bet on live. While many bookmakers do offer live streams, these tend not to be on UK football. Because streaming rights are so expensive and exclusive, bookmakers are priced out of showing these matches.

There have been cases where FA Cup ties have been made available for punters in the UK. But these are rare.

Top European football leagues, however, do not fall under the same rules. The list of our best football betting sites provide streams for:

• La Liga
• Ligue 1
• German Bundesliga
• Serie A

And much more. You can also tune into some Europa League and Champions League ties (when British sides aren’t taking part)

To watch the streams, you’ll need to have a verified account that is either funded or has a bet placed within the previous 24 hours. This is standard with all bookies.

Using Cash Out in Football Betting

Live betting is also very much connected to cash out. It’s a feature that betting sites are now expected to offer, and if it’s not available it would be a clear omission.

Cash out varies amongst different sports, but arguably football is the sport on which it is used most often. Being able to cash out a bet while a game is underway, allows players to secure a return before the bet concludes.

We particularly like to use cash out for accumulator bets if, for example, three legs have come in as winners and one is yet to be played. Bear in mind that you don’t get great value by cashing out as bookmakers will add a certain edge.

The best betting sites can offer up to 3 versions of cash out:

Each of these is slightly different, and not all bookmakers offer all three versions.

Bet Builder for Football Betting

This is a relatively new feature introduced for football betting. It offers players a new way to bet on individual games. You have the power to build your own accumulator within a single match from a range of markets. Previous to this feature, it was only possible to pick one bet per match, so it opens up new betting opportunities.

Markets include:

• First goalscorer
• Number of cards
• 1X2
• Total corners

Most bookmakers offer it now, and it usually applies to almost every match. Furthermore, some sites provide dedicated offers for bet builders, such as money back if one selection lets you down.

If you’re wondering if you can use cash out on a bet builder, then you’ll be pleased to know that you can. In saying that, bear in mind that cash out isn’t available on every match, and this also applies to bet builders. If cash out is available, you will see it in your cash out option.

How to Build a Bet

Request a bet

Experienced football bettors may have a bet they want to place that is not available on site. In this case, they can sometimes request a bet. This can be done via social media normally, or through customer support.

Good examples of these are Paddy Power and their #WhatoddsPaddy hashtag, and William Hill’s #Yourodds. These were introduced before bet builders were options so they have decreased slightly in popularity.

The great thing about these bets is that you can request anything at all. However, just because you request odds doesn’t mean the bookie will price them up for you.

If you’re new to football betting, you will see a list of what markets other players have requested, and you can even bet on those. That is a better place to start than requesting your own bet as you can’t be sure of the value.

How to Win a Football Bet

We’re often asked this question, and as with all forms of betting nothing is guaranteed. We suggest that before you have bet, do your homework. There are few key factors you should consider.

Payment Methods

A good football betting site should provide trusted depositing options. We like to see e-wallets such as PayPal as they provide extra layers of security.

The most popular methods are; Debit cards, PayPal, Apple Pay, Trustly, Skrill, Neteller, and Paysafecard. You’ll find these options on most legit bookies.

It is also possible to make bank transfers, but these tend to be timely and sometimes incur charges from your bank.

When depositing, you should also consider withdrawing. In line with anti-money laundering laws, bookies require players to withdraw to the same method they use to deposit. Withdrawal times can vary a lot between what method you chose, and what bookmaker you are using.

Withdrawals to PayPal tend to be instant, while debit card withdrawals take an average of 3-5 working days to hit your account. In saying that, the likes of Paddy Power now promote instant withdrawal times to debit cards. This is excellent and something we hope more bookmakers will pick up in the future.

Customer Service and Football Betting

Reliable customer support is essential when picking a football betting site. We like to see a live chat function, ideally around the clock. This gives players the chance to reach out with any queries they might have while betting.

Our top football sites all provide live chat, and we’ve tested them out on multiple occasions. The support agents tend to be highly knowledgeable and our queries have been answered efficiently.

Top 7 Tips for Betting on Football

Conclusion

The best football betting sites are packed with features, top markets and competitive odds. And the great news for players is that they have excellent options. As a result, players can get value when betting on football.

As always, we recommend that you pick a site that is safe to play on. These will be licenced in the UK, have security measures in place and provide trusted payment options.