Betfred

Betfred UK Review (2024)

Betfred bookmakers were originally founded way back in 1967 by brothers Peter and Fred Done who set up high street betting shops in Manchester, UK. These days, they have expanded to over 1,600 betting shops and launched an online betting site back in 2004.

Betfred has licenses to operate in the UK, but their online headquarters is based in Gibraltar.

Overall, Betfred is a well-trusted and highly-regarded brand in the UK, that provides good betting opportunities to UK punters and plenty of value.

Betfred’s online betting site, sportsbook, casino, and poker are all fully licensed by the Gambling Commission (UKGC), which means they are a safe, fair, and secure place to gamble online.

Betfred Sports Review

As you might expect from a leading UK high street bookmaker, Betfred’s online sportsbook is very good, providing plenty of choice in terms of sports, events, and betting markets to wager on.

If you enjoy betting on horse racing, in particular, Betfred is a ‘safe bet’, with more than 200 individual horses races featured on the site daily. Betfred also offers good value and some fun betting features to make things interesting, such as PickYourPunt and the wide-ranging live streams on offer.

Wide Range of Sports

Betfred offers around 30 sports to bet on, including horse racing, football, tennis, cricket, snooker, rugby, etc. This is comparable with most other online betting sites but slightly less than some others that offer more obscure sport and eSports, for instance.

Betfred’s online betting site makes it easy to get to the sport you want and place your bets, with a well-designed interface that only needs a couple of clicks. Once you have found the sport you want to bet on, you can click on it and be taken to a menu that lists all the available betting markets for that sport.

Live streaming is available for some sporting events, but only when you have placed a qualifying bet on the relevant race, game, or match.

Betting Markets & Odds

Betfred’s online sports betting site has a decent amount of betting markets for various sporting events. For instance, a typical Premier League football match will have 60 or more betting markets available before the match including correct score, first goalscorer, number of corners, number of cards, over/under goals scored, and many other betting options.

The overall payout on the site is approximately 93%, in other words, a 7% betting margin is retained by the bookmaker, which is in line with the industry average. The odds on offer at Betfred’s sportsbook are competitive with the other big UK betting sites.

At Betfred, punters are able to place ante-post bets before major sporting events and tournaments, including big horse races such as the grand national or the football world cup, as well as special bets such as player of the tournament in football or winning distance in horse racing.

As a special feature, Betfred set up a Twitter hashtag called #PickYourPunt, which allows you to go on Twitter and request odds on a sporting event or outcome that doesn’t appear on their sportsbook. This is a nice touch and actually has quite a high response rate, so it’s always worth trying it out if you can’t find the bet you want.

Live In-play Betting Feature

Betfred’s online sportsbook offers plenty of in-play betting opportunities, with more than 1,500 featured events weekly and plenty of dynamic live-betting markets. They offer live betting on sports including football, cricket, tennis, basketball, and more.

The Betfred in-play betting web page is highly responsive and easy to navigate, so you can place your bets as quickly as possible. All you need to do is click the In-play sports tab and select the bet you want to place from the available list.

Betting slips are displayed in the top corner of the page, so you can check on your bets easily as the events progress. In some cases, the betting slip also contains the option to cash out your bet during the event at lower odds, either to guarantee yourself some winnings or cut your losses. Look out for the “CO” symbol which tells you that cash out is available.

One of the most attractive features of Betfred’s sports betting site is the number of live streams available, with hundreds per week covering many horses and greyhound races, tennis, football and other sports. All you need to do to access the live streams is wager more than £1 on the event.

Bonuses and Promotions

Just like all the other online sports betting sites, Betfred offers a welcome bonus, as well as ongoing promotions which include free bets and special prizes.

The welcome bonus at the moment is £30 worth of free bets if you deposit and bet £10 on a bet with odds greater than evens (2.0), regardless of whether you place the bet through the website or mobile app. The good news is that there are no further wagering requirements, although you do need to give your mobile number and respond to an SMS to get credited with the £30 in free bets.

Betfred has lots of regular promotions throughout the year, especially in horse racing events. Here are some of the ongoing promotions and bonuses that Betfred run:

All Correct Bonus

Place a Yankee, Heinz, Canadian, Lucky 15, Lucky 31, or Lucky 63 on horse or greyhound racing, and if all of your picks are runners and win you’ll get a winnings to boost of up to 25%.

The prize structure is a follows:

• 10% winnings boost for an all-correct Lucky 15 or Yankee
• 20% winnings boost for an all-correct Lucky 31 or Canadian
• 25% winnings boost for an all-correct Lucky 63 or Heinz

One Winner Bonus

Another type of horse racing and greyhound racing bonus that is a continuous feature at Betfred is the One Winner Bonus. This applies to Lucky 15, 31, or 63 bets and you can win up to 5 times the odds value if all of your picks run and only one wins. 

The bonus is paid as follows:

• 5 times odds value if you correctly pick one winner on a Lucky 63 bet
• 4 times odds value if you correctly pick one winner on a Lucky 31 bet
• 3 times odds value if you correctly pick one winner on a Lucky 15 bet

Event-specific Bonuses

Betfred regularly runs promotions during big sporting events that are popular with UK audiences, such as the football FA Cup, Six Nations rugby tournament, The Ashes in cricket, or the snooker world championship. Typical promotions include free bets, boosted winnings or odds, and free prizes.

Betfred Sports Summary

Pros

• Good range of betting markets and competitive odds
• Plenty of live streaming and in-play betting with cash out feature
• Excellent bonuses and promotions

Cons

• A relatively low number of sports available - lack of esports
• Betting margins are only averagely priced

Betfred Casino Review

As well as their super-popular sportsbook, Betfred also hosts an online casino with all the fun casino games and slots you would expect. Overall, the Betfred casino has a lot to offer with decent bonuses and plenty of games to choose from.

Overall Range of Casino Games and Payout Percentages

Betfred Casino uses software from Playtech, one of the leading casino game software development companies out there. For this reason, you can rest assured that the games are high-quality, fair, and fun to play. All the main casino table games are available as well as more than 500 different slots games to choose from.

The overall Return to Player (RTP) percentage is 96.84% which is in line with industry averages. This means that for every £1 that you wager, you’ll get an average of 96.84p back, over a large sample of games (10,000+ wagers).

Casino Table Games

Betfred offers a complete range of casino table and card games including blackjack, roulette, baccarat, keno, poker, and plenty of special varieties to make things interesting. The specialities include themed roulette tables such as Age of the Gods, speed roulette, and exciting blackjack varieties such as Lucky Lucky Blackjack, Blackjack Switch, and Blackjack Surrender, etc. Betfred also has Casino Hold’em and 3-card Brag, as well as almost 50 varieties of online scratch cards to play. 

Slots

One of the main attractions of Betfred Casino is the wide range of slots. There are more than 500 varieties of slots games, which means you’ll never get bored. Plenty of familiar slots games are available such as Age of Gods, Rainbow Riches, Monopoly, Mega Moolah, and others.

If you fancy trying your luck at winning a big fortune, Betfred has a good range of progressive jackpot slots games on offer too, including some with jackpots in excess of £10 million! 

Live Dealer Casino Games

Betfred hosts dozens of live-dealer and live-croupier casino games in addition to the software-powered ones. Most live dealer games are available 24 hours a day and there are plenty of seats available, however, some varieties such as UK Roulette are only open at certain times. Live dealer European and French Roulette, as well as some other roulette varieties and blackjack run 24/7 on the site. 

Good Selection of Betting Limits

As you would expect from a big, industry-leading brand, Betfred caters for all types of gamblers - from high-rollers to recreational small-stakes players. Some slots can be played for as little as 5p per reel spin and roulette allows tiny wagers of just 1p on some tables. At the other end of the scale, some casino games can be played with table maximum bets of £100,000. 

Promotions and Bonuses

Currently, Betfred has two welcome bonuses available and both can be claimed at the same time if you’re a new customer. The first is £5 free cash which you get when you deposit £5 and comes with no wagering requirements, so it’s a pretty good bonus.

The other welcome bonus is 100 free spins for depositing and wagering £10 on the site. You get 100 free spins worth £0.20 each, so a total of £20 to use on specific slots games, with no wagering requirements on any winnings.

Betfred also offers occasional reload bonuses for depositing more funds into your account, as well as other promotions throughout the year including free spins and bonus cash. They also run a loyalty reward program, where you can get 1 comp point for every £10 you spend in the casino. Comp points can be exchanged for prizes or cash in the reward store. 

Unique Features and Games

In addition to all the standard table games and slots that you would expect to find at a UK online casino, Betfred also offers some innovative and fun speciality games.

For instance, Double Bonus Spins Roulette gives you an exciting twist on a typical roulette game. By adding a yellow bonus well that is 50% bigger than all the other wells on the roulette wheel, you get a 50% higher chance of hitting the bonus than any other number on the wheel.

Landing on the bonus triggers an extra game in which all your bets are carried over onto a bonus wheel that has two sets of numbers on the wheel, giving you twice as much chance as winning. Plus, if you opted to place a special bet on hitting the yellow bonus on the first spin, you can get a multiplier of up to 1200x when it triggers the bonus spin.

In other words, you can win some seriously big prizes at Betfred’s speciality games.

The progressive jackpots are also very high on Betfred Casino, with some running into several millions of pounds at times.

Betfred Mobile App and Mobile Browser Site

As well as being able to access Betfred sportsbook and the online casino through a desktop or laptop browser, you can also access the site through a mobile browser such as Google Chrome or Safari, and the top-rated Betfred mobile betting apps for Android and iOS.

The mobile browser site offers exactly the same range of games and features as the desktop browser website, but in a different, more compact format. Some of the functionality changes slightly due to viewing the site on a smaller screen. The live streams display as a pop-up full-screen window on mobile for instance, compared to a separate window that can be resized on a desktop. Other than a few small things like that, the mobile site is just as good and user-friendly as the main website.

Please note the online casino is only available through the mobile browser web app and is not available as a standalone downloadable app. Betfred Sport mobile app only covers the sportsbook, not the casino.

• The Betfred Sport mobile betting app is available on Android from the Google Play Store where it has a rating of 4.0 stars out of 5.
• The Betfred Sport mobile betting app is available on iOS from the Apple Store where it has a rating of 3.5 stars out of 5.

Betfred Sports Mobile App 

The Betfred Sport mobile app is virtually identical on both Apple and Android devices and is well-designed, visually appealing, and easy to use.

You can sign up, verify your account, and deposit funds through the mobile app too, so there’s no need to visit the website if you don’t want to. You can also claim the welcome bonus within the app.

Range of betting options

To put it simply, the Betfred Sport mobile sports betting app allows you to place bets on any of the sports that are listed on their main website. In fact, all the betting features and functions are available through the app, but they are presented in a different ways to make it easier to navigate on a small touchscreen.

How to place a bet on the Betfred Sport mobile sports betting app

• Step 1 - Tap on the sport you want to wager on from the list of the main sports.
• Step 2 - Browse or search through the events listed on the page for the specific sport.
• Step 3 - Select the match, game, tournament, or event you want to bet on.
• Step 4 - You will be taken to the betting market where the odds are listed for different betting options.
• Step 5 - Select the bet and the odds you want to wager on.
• Step 6 - Type in or select the amount you would like to bet in GBP.
• Step 7 - Tap the place bet button and you will get a confirmation message.
• Step 8 - You can check the status of your bets at any time by tapping on the betting slip icon on the main dashboard.

Live streaming

You can watch all the live streams that are available through the main website as long as you have an account with Betfred and have wagered on that particular event, usually, you only need to bet £1.

Cash-out during in-play betting

The mobile app also allows you to take advantage of the cash-out feature, which means you can take your winnings at lower odds than you originally wagered on, before the completion of the event. In other words, you can lock in your winnings or cut your losses, depending on the situation.

Deposit & Withdrawal Methods at Betfred

Betfred has a decent range of payment and withdrawal methods.

Deposit and withdrawal options

The minimum deposit amount is £5.

• Debit cards - including Visa, Visa Electron, and Maestro
• Neteller
• PayPal
• Bank Transfer
• Skrill
• Paysafe
• In-store deposits at Betfred betting shops

Please note that credit cards are not accepted as a payment method in the UK or Northern Ireland due to gambling regulations.

Withdrawal times vary depending on the method used. In general, withdrawals are processed and received within 1 to 3 days.

The maximum withdrawal amount at Betfred is £20,000.

Customer Support at Betfred

The customer support at the Betfred sports betting site and online casino are very good, with 24/7 live chat support available, email support, and a free phone line for UK customers.

Any queries or disputes are resolved quickly and the service assistants are polite and friendly, as you would expect from a popular company with such a good reputation in the gambling industry.