Bet365 is the Internet, telephone and mobile betting division of "bet365 Group Limited", one of UK's leading betting and gaming groups. The group has held an UK license from 1974, has over 700 employees and takes more than 400 000 bets each week. The Group is founded and owned by Peter Coates, currently owner of Stoke City Football Club, who is listed as 25th richest person in British football. In July 2005 Coates sold his 59 licensed bet365 Street Stores to Coral Eurobet. Bet365 has focused entirely on internet gambling since then.
COMPANY INFO
Bet365 are one of the world's leading online gambling groups with over 1.5 million customers in 140 different countries (providing online gambling since 1999). Except the sportsbook, the company operates an online casino and a poker room, along with custom lottery games (all accessible at Bet365.com through a one-wallet system). The company is owned and managed by Coates family. Bet365 Group is the UK's 32nd largest private company. Category evaluation: Excellent
>>> sub-category: REGULATION
Bet365 operates under a permit issued under the UK Betting Gaming and Lotteries Act 1963. Their Sports Betting is licensed and regulated by the UK Gambling Commission. Casino, Games and Poker operations are licensed and regulated by the government of Gibraltar. Postal address: Hillside, Festival Way, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffs., England, ST1 5SH. E-mail: customerservices @ bet365 . com. Bet365 bookmaker does not accept clients from USA, due to legal reasons. Category evaluation: Excellent
ODDS
Odds offered by Bet365 are amongst the highest of the respective markets usually. Bet365 operates on low margins, varying from 2 to 10 % on different markets and events. These percentages are quite fair and favourable to punters, compared with most of the competitors' margins. Don't be surprised to see bet365's odds leading any market on your odds comparison tool, it's an usual view in last 2 years especially (since company focused entirely on online gambling). The book is a must-have for any serious arbitrage bettor. Only downside here is rapid odds movement but this has become something usual for the whole betting industry in last years. It has to be noted though, bet365's odds for most smaller and not so well known markets usually last longer than average. Odds are released quite early (5-6 days before the event for the bigger markets and 3-4 days for smaller ones), you won't find many other books with earlier odds on offer. Category evaluation: Very good
>>> sub-category: SOCCER
Bet365's soccer odds are definitely above the average market odds. The margin for the bigger markets is around 4-5 % and 7-8 % for less known leagues (1X2 betting). Bet365 has made really good impression on their customers in last 2 years, operating on very low margin (2-5 %) for asian style markets (asian handicaps spreads and totals). In this area they are just one step behind industry-leading giant Pinnacle. Quite unique bet265's feature is offering additional asian handicap odds for every big league match. There are matches with more than 10 manually adjusted asian handicaps on offer! Many special bets are offered for UK matches (corners, goalscorers, cleen sheets, penalties and cards given, etc.). Category evaluation: Very good
>>> sub-category: US SPORTS
Bet365's American sports odds are average for the industry, mostly 1.9/1.9 style. You have to look elsewhere if you bet on US sports mainly, this area just isn't their strongest one. Still there are nice opportunities for buying/selling spread points and different special bets (winning margin, etc.), which aren't offered by the vast majority of online bookmakers. Category evaluation: Very good
OFFER
Bet365 offers a large variety of sports, ranging from mainstream categories such as Soccer, Tennis and Golf, to regional interests such as Cricket and Bowls. Sports offer include: american football, australian rules, baseball, basketball, boxing/ufc, cricket, cycling, darts, futsal, gaelic sports, golf, greyhounds, horse racing, ice hockey, motor sports, rugby league, rugby union, snooker, soccer, tennis (court and table), volleyball, winter sports and other sports (badminton, bandy, floorball, handball, pelota, poker, trotting). There is one additional 'Special' category, where you can bet on politics and different awards competitions. Category evaluation: Good
>>> sub-category: SOCCER
Soccer list on offer includes: all major International competitions, all major European leagues (UK - covering almost all the levels of English and Scottish football, Spain, Italy, Germany and France - all covered down to the lowest level divisions), Netherlands and Belgium, Scandinavia, Central Europe, Russia, almost all Balcan leagues, major North and South American leagues, Japan. Some matches from Middle East, Asia and Africa are offered too, but not on regular basis. Still bet365's soccer offer is admirably vast and versatile. Category evaluation: Excellent
>>> sub-category: US SPORTS
All major US sports are covered: american football, basketball (NBA and college basketball), baseball (MLB), ice hockey (NHL). Category evaluation: Excellent
>>> sub-category: LIVE BETTING
Bet365's live-betting console offers very good features to the customers. More and more events are covered for live-betting in the last years, including soccer, tennis, snooker, ice hockey, horse racing, etc. There are quite many betting options for these, including final result, asian handicap in-play, goal totals, next goal, corner, etc. Only a few other bookies offer more live events tham bet365. Live streaming is available for many events (Italy Serie A, tennis matches) so customers are able to watch them directly on their PC's. Category evaluation: Average
>>> sub-category: CASINO, POKER & GAMES
Customers have two options for accessing bet365's casino and games: downloading and installing the casino client (stand-alone application) or playing directly in their browsers. All major categories of casino games are offered: card and table games, video slots and video poker, progressives, keno, etc. Bet365's poker client offers Texas Hold'em (Fixed, Pot and No Limit), Omaha and Stud poker. You can play at cash ring tables, sit'n'go tables and many tournaments (including freerolls). It's easy to find more than enough opponents for every preffered game and limit, action is running 24 hours per day. Poker and casino games can be played only for fun too, with 'play' money. Category evaluation: Excellent
BETTING PROCEDURE
As mentined above users have all-time access to the betting menu. Major markets are easily accessible but for smaller ones users have to pass some additional sub-menus. All betting options for a single event can be revealed with a single button, which is very useful. Your betting slip is always visible in the right. Very rich list of combination bet types and systems are available in case of multiple selections in the slip. Overall betting procedure is quite fast, reliable and secure. Unexperienced users may have some troubles though and will need some time to adjust to the diversity of the site. Category evaluation: Very good
