Bet 365

Bet365.com is an online gambling site that offers a large selection of sports betting markets. Bet365 allows you to place bets on games before they start, or while they are in play, and has betting opportunities 24 hours a day.

The Bet365 web site is a simple, no frills design, letting you get down to betting straight away, and with no irritating animations or pop-ups to get in your way. The site is available in a wide range of languages, reflecting the global nature of the business.

In between sports games, you can find entertainment in the Bet365 casino, the poker room, and the online games room.    There are more than 80 games in the casino, including common favourites such as roulette, blackjack, and slot machines, as well as some other card and table games, and a popular live dealer section with Blackjack, Sic Bo, Baccarat, and Roulette available in the Live Dealer section.

With the exception of the Live Dealer area, most games have both money play, and free play options.

The main focus of the site, however, is not these games, but the sports betting section. There is a huge lists of sports available for bettors to consider, including everything from football to volleyball, handball, trotting, speedway, and horse racing is listed. Essentially, if your cable sports channel shows the sport, you can probably bet on it at Bet365.   The specials section has a list of non-sporting related events, including everything from political events to the winner of the next X-Factor competition.

If you just want to know what is in play right now, to place a quick bet, and get the results soon, then you can go to the 'live and in play' section, which shows sporting events currently taking place, the bets available, and the odds they are offering. You can choose from decimal or fractional display for the odds, and see possible bets at a glance.

The live streaming option shows current sporting events as they happen, so if your favourite sports TV provider is not showing a match, it is worth logging in to Bet365 to see if you can watch it there.

Bet365 have a mobile offering, allowing you to place bets quickly and easily while on the move. They currently have a special offer where new customers who deposit money and place a bet will get another 'free' bet of the same stake (up to £25). There is also another offer where you can claim a 'Weekend Free Bet Basket' – after claiming your first free bet, you must place another five bets to qualify for this offer.

The rules for the Bet365 new customer offers are a little more restrictive than some offers made by other betting sites, however in general the site is quite good, with the minimum unit stake being set at a reasonable £0.10 GBP, or $0.20 USD. Multiple bets, or accumulators, are quite easy to create using the coupon feature, and there are lots of options for both depositing and withdrawing funds.

European customers may need to know their IBAN number to take advantage of the bank transfer facility – so if you plan to use the site, have a bank statement handy.

Bet365 aim to promote responsible gambling, and offer a self exclusion or opt-out scheme for people who wish to permanently close their accounts.   You can se the exclusion to last for between 6 months and 5 years, and during that time Bet365 will make reasonable attempts to ensure you cannot re-open your account. Their web site offers advice on how to keep control of your spending, and measures you can take to stick to a budget while enjoying their sports betting facilities.

There are lots of sports betting companies out there, Bet365 has a lot going for it in terms of ease of use and variety of betting offers available. If you like to bet on games in play, however, it is a very good option. For standard bets, however, it is always best to check several bookmakers to find the best odds you can.