How We Rate Online Betting Sites at BettingGuide Ireland

Transparency and trust are at the heart of BettingGuide. We believe in keeping you informed about how we assess online betting sites to compile our lists. Our expert evaluations, based on 28 key factors, ensure a positive user experience for you.

Committed to providing accurate and up-to-date information, we understand the importance of reliable sources in the realm of online betting.

Written by Steven Hubbard
Verified by BettingGuide team
Last updated 15/5/2024

To ensure a comprehensive evaluation of online betting sites in Ireland, we've categorized our assessment process into six distinct sections, each addressing a crucial aspect of the betting experience:

  • Safety

  • Betting Offer

  • User Experience

  • Payment Methods

  • Customer Service

  • Promotions

Next, we are going to explain each of these sections in detail.

Safety

Security is the most important factor for a good gaming experience, and at BettingGuide, we take it seriously. When we make our assessments we look at the following:

  • License: We check that the betting site has the necessary authorization that guarantees that the rest of the security factors are met.
  • Transparency: The bookmaker must clearly display information about their license and general conditions on their website.
  • Encryption: We verify if the website uses TSL (formerly SSL: Secure Socket Layer) encryption technology to protect player data and financial transactions.
  • Privacy Policy: We carefully examine the bookie's privacy policy to understand their handling of personal information. We ensure that they do not share this information with unauthorized third parties.
  • Responsible gaming: We check the bookmaker's responsible gaming policies and the tools they make available to players to avoid harmful behaviour.
safety

Betting Offer

When it comes to online betting, having a wide range of options is crucial. We evaluate the betting offer of online betting sites in Ireland based on several factors. Here's what we look at:

  • The number of sports available to bet: A quality betting site will offer bets on a variety of sports, including popular ones like football, horse racing, and tennis, as well as less popular ones like darts, snooker, or cycling.
  • Number of odds available per event: This factor refers to the diversity of betting options that the platform offers for a specific event. A quality betting site will provide a wide range of odds and types of bets for each event. For instance, in the case of football betting: bets on the winner, number of goals, goal scorers, handicaps, and many more.
  • Generosity of odds: The term itself refers to the potential profit margin a betting site offers its users. Higher odds translate to greater potential winnings. Bettors often compare the odds across different platforms to ensure they get the highest possible return on their bet.
  • Free Bets Offers: Among the most enticing promotions offered by betting sites, free bet offers stand out as a crowd favourite. Typically they come in two forms: risk-free bonuses and deposit-linked or bet-linked free bets.
  • Special Features: The Cash Out feature allows bettors to close a bet before the event has concluded, securing profits or limiting losses. The Build Your Bet feature enables users to create personalized bets, selecting different markets within the same event to formulate a composite odd. We carefully assess the availability of these special features across various betting platforms.
betting-offer

User Experience:

A user-friendly betting platform should prioritize ease of use and intuitive navigation. We evaluate the following factors to ensure a smooth and effortless betting experience:

  • Web Design: The platform should have an intuitive and easy-to-navigate design, allowing users to quickly find games and sections on mobile and computer.
  • Mobile App: The availability of a mobile app is essential for on-the-go betting. We evaluate the betting app's compatibility with different operating systems, loading speed, and overall performance to ensure a seamless mobile betting experience.
  • Registration Process: Creating an account should be straightforward, requiring only the necessary information.
  • Verification: Identity verification processes should be transparent, secure, and efficient, with response times ranging from a few hours to a maximum of 5 days.
user-experience

Payment Methods

Depositing money into the website balance should be quick, easy, and secure. We check the following:

  • Diversity: We check if the casino offers a wide range of local Irish payment methods, including Visa, MasterCard, PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Astropay and more.
  • Limits: We review the minimum and maximum limits for deposits and withdrawals to ensure that the latter is proportional to the former (we negatively value if the withdrawal minimum is higher than the deposit minimum or if the withdrawal maximum is too low). We positively view the ability to set deposit limits in certain time periods to control your spending.
  • Speed: We evaluate the processing times for deposits and withdrawals, ensuring that they are reasonable and competitive.
  • Fees: We verify if there are fees associated with deposits or withdrawals with certain payment methods and how much they amount to.
payment-methods

Customer Support:

Nobody remembers it until they need it. We make sure to take it into account when evaluating websites. These are the factors we analyze:

  • Communication channels: We check that several contact channels are offered, such as live chat, email, and phone.
  • Accessibility: The channels should be easily accessible from any page of the website or app.
  • Language: We also check if the agents speak English.
  • Availability: A good online casino should offer support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, to ensure help for all players.
  • Quality of service: The support team should be professional and respectful, providing clear and precise answers. We negatively value those support services that try to pressure you to register, make deposits, or cancel withdrawals.
  • Help section: We check if there is a help section and FAQ section that allows users to resolve their own doubts. Of course, it is not enough for it to exist, but we evaluate whether it is really useful and the coverage it offers on each topic.
customer-support

Promotions

Promotions should be a source of joy, but poor terms and conditions can ruin the fun. Specifically, we focus on the following:

  • Types of promotions: We positively value betting sites that offer a good variety of promotions and do not limit themselves to just a welcome bonus. It is always good to have regular promotions for registered users, and we positively value the existence of a VIP program, especially if it is fun.
  • Clarity of terms and conditions: It is crucial that all the terms and conditions of the promotions are clearly stated and easy to understand.
  • Fairness of terms and conditions: Requirements such as rollover must be fair and achievable.
promotions

What else should you know?

These are the factors we check when making our reviews, but on occasion, we make specific lists in which we give more importance to a certain factor depending on the focus of the list. For example, on our esports betting page, we only include bookmakers that cover this sport and we focus especially on the specific aspects of esports betting for the factors mentioned above on this page.

We also regularly revise the reviews of all betting sites in Ireland and update them if necessary. Online betting is growing so fast internationally that betting sites come and disappear one after another. We are doing our best to keep our readers updated on what is going on in this ever-changing industry by publishing important news in our BettingGuide blog. So, feel free to come and have a look at our articles if you're interested in knowing more about the world of online gambling.

If you have any questions or concerns about how we rate online betting sites and reviews, feel free to contact us anytime.

To learn tips and strategies, you can also check betting guides in our academy.