Written By: Dean Carr | Fact Checked By: Sarah Lunness
The gambling industry has been growing at an impressive rate for some time, generating significant revenue year-on-year. All that revenue has captured the attention of ambitious entrepreneurial types and over the past few years, the number of new betting sites in the UK has increased dramatically. That is generally a good thing because more choice is always a net positive for the punter. However, not all new gambling sites are created equal. So how can you determine which ones are worthy of your business and which ones are not?
You could invest countless hours researching the more than 100 licensed online betting sites currently operating in the UK. Or you could spend a few minutes and read the following guide we put together on the best new betting sites. In this guide, we look at everything from Sign Up bonuses to payment methods to Live Streaming and more.
Best New Betting Sites Reviewed
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bet365
bet365 are lauded for their extensive Live Streaming and In-Play betting options, the quality of their mobile app and their generous Welcome Offer. They also offer an array of payment and withdrawal options, hundreds of football markets on any given day, outstanding odds and a range of existing customer promos. What more could someone sizing up the best new sites for betting want? How about an easy to use Cash Out feature, including Auto Cash Out, and a low, low minimum deposit amount? Still not enough? Okay, we'll raise you some of the best customer support in the industry.
William Hill
William Hill shows the best new betting sites how online gambling in the UK should be done. They provide a variety of ways to fund an account, offer thousands of quality markets on nearly 3 dozen sports, have one of the best Cash Out features of any UK bookmaker and provide a Welcome Bonus where you receive £30 in Free Bets for a £10 qualifying bet. William Hill also recently unveiled a new design for their desktop and mobile sites and their mobile app that makes for a much more streamlined and enjoyable experience.
Betfred
Betfred offers action on all major sports, several second-tier sports and a few niche sports including Gaelic Football and darts. They also have the distinction of having one of the best Welcome Offers currently out there whereby new customers can earn £40 in Free Bets for a £10 qualifying bet. Betfred also provides a nice variety of payment methods, has an easy to use Cash Out feature and some of the most competitive odds of the best new betting sites. As icing on the cake, their mobile app is one of the best you'll find, with intuitive navigation, an uncluttered interface and lightning-fast performance.
BetVictor
BetVictor isn't technically a brand new betting site but since founder and longtime owner Victor Chandler Jr stepped away from a leadership role several years ago the company has undergone some significant changes. Today, there is more of an emphasis on Live Streaming and Live In-Play Betting and the number of available sports has also expanded in recent years to include the likes of badminton, table tennis and volleyball. There has been a significant upgrade to the company’s Welcome Offer recently as well. Today, new customers can receive £40 in Free Bets for a first qualifying bet of only £10.
Betway
Betway have had an online presence for more than a decade but it's only in the past few years that they have hit their stride. Today they offer comprehensive coverage of more than 30 sports, including all the major and several minor sports. They have an excellent Cash Out feature, provide competitive odds and offer a plethora of Live Streaming options, including horse racing from across the UK and Ireland, as well as European football and tennis. With nearly 10,000 betting markets to choose from during any given week, punters will find a lot to like with Betway.
BetUK
BetUK is new to the UK online gambling space but its parent company - LeoVegas AB - is a well-established Swedish gaming business that spent years pursuing an aggressive growth strategy before launching BetUK in 2018. In 2022 LeoVegas, and by extension BetUK, was acquired by gambling and entertainment behemoth MGM Resorts International. Because of the formidable financial resources behind it BetUK has been able to make an immediate splash and is widely considered one of the best, if not the best of the new betting sites in the UK. Their focus on existing customer promos, competitive odds, Live Streaming and In-Play betting attracts scores of new converts every day.
Virgin Bet
Anyone who hasn’t been living under a rock for the past 30 years is aware of the Virgin brand. Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group dates back to 1970 and has its hand in just about everything from music to travel to wine and, starting in 2019, online gambling in the form of Virgin Bet. Virgin Bet immediately took its place among the best new UK sports betting sites with their competitive odds, incredible variety of betting markets, outstanding mobile app and effortless Cash Out feature. Their Welcome Offer could be better but that’s a minor quibble.
LiveScore Bet
Like Virgin Bet, LiveScore Bet was launched in 2019. But because they lacked the name recognition of Virgin Bet it took a while for the site to gain traction with punters. But gain traction they did and today they are recognized as one of the top new UK sports betting sites. LiveScore Bet earn their place on our list because of their outstanding Live In-Play betting feature that’s available across a wide variety of sports and which provides near real-time updating of In-Play odds. They also curry the favour of punters with a plethora of existing customer promos and loyalty rewards.
Mr.Play
The Mr. Play sportsbook launched in 2019 and made an immediate splash with their highly competitive odds, currently rated in the top 3 of all UK betting sites. You’ll find more than 30 sports to wager on at Mr. Play including both horse and greyhound racing, something of a rarity for new sites. You can partake of their full and partial Cash Out feature, boosted odds, Pulse Betting and even Player Prop bets whereby you wager on a particular player’s performance. Their Welcome Offer won’t set the world on fire but it's in keeping with other new betting sites.
Advantages of New Betting Sites
The main advantage of new sites is that they have the benefit of hindsight. They can learn from mistakes made by their predecessors and jump right out of the gate with a user-friendly, cutting-edge experience. Most of the latest betting sites provide:
- A state-of-the-art mobile app
- Thousands of betting markets each week
- Live Streaming and In-Play Betting
- Competitive odds
- A compelling Welcome Offer
- Plenty of existing customer promos
- None of the dead ends you’ll find with some older online sportsbooks
How We Rank The Best New Betting Sites
In order to determine which are the best new betting sites we consider each of the following factors.
Welcome Offers
Online bookmakers learned a long time ago that Welcome Offers work. When given a choice between opening an account with a betting site that is offering nothing up front and one that is prepared to match their first deposit, provide Free Bet credits or insure their first bet up to a given amount punters will take the latter every time. So any new betting site that hopes to draw punters away from their established rivals will need to offer something to whet the punter’s whistle.
With that in mind, we look at each new betting site and weigh their Welcome Offer against the competition. If there was no New Customer Offer the site didn’t make our list. If the Sign Up offer was pedestrian the site may have still warranted inclusion on our list but not at the very top.
Range of Betting Markets
Punters are in the practice of placing bets, and like everyone else they want a little variety in their life. The best new betting sites understand this and provide a wide range of betting markets to attract punters and keep them coming back. When assessing new sites we want to see hundreds of markets on the most popular sports along with speciality markets and markets associated with niche sports and less high-profile sports leagues and tournaments.
Competitive Odds
Online bookmakers, even new ones, are in the business of making a profit. They do this by adding a dynamic surcharge to every wager. This surcharge, commonly referred to as the “juice”, is baked into the odds on every market and is the price you pay for the privilege of placing a bet. As such, you'll never get “real odds” at an online sportsbook. What is important is that the bookmaker’s odds are as close to “real” as possible and that they're willing to reduce their cut on certain wagers from time to time in order to provide bigger payouts.
Payment Methods
The more payment methods a new betting site offers the better it's for the punter. Not everyone wants to fund their account using a debit card or bank transfer. They want to take advantage of other methods such as PayPal or Neteller or one of the many other e-wallets out there. Betting sites with PayPal are particularly desired by many online punters. With this in mind betting sites that severely limited customer payment and withdrawal methods didn't make our list of the best new betting sites.
Live Streaming
It was not that long ago that Live Streaming betting sites were considered a luxury. It was offered by only a handful of betting sites and because wireless broadband coverage was spotty only a few punters could take advantage of it. How times have changed. Today, any new betting site worthy of inclusion on our list must offer Live Streaming. No buts. When it comes to sports like horse racing being able to Live Stream a race is crucial as it also enables effective In-Play betting. Perhaps surprisingly several new horse racing betting sites offer Live Streaming to rival that of their much more experienced competitors.
Mobile Options
In 2008 there were about 1 billion PCs in the world and 0 smartphones. Today there are still about 1 billion PCs in regular use. What’s changed is that there are now an astonishing 5 billion+ smartphones. To say the world has gone mobile-crazy would be an understatement, and the best new betting sites must take that into account by offering both a reliable and easy-to-use mobile version of their website, as well as a state-of-the-art smartphone app. The list of bookmakers featured above come with some of the best betting apps in the UK. If a betting site did not offer a mobile app it didn't make our list of the best new betting sites.
Existing Customer Promotions
You’d think it would be obvious to anyone hoping to carve out a niche in the increasingly crowded UK online betting space that existing customer promos are vital for keeping customers from bolting to the competition. Surprisingly, some betting sites, even new UK sports betting sites, still come up short in the existing customer promo department. Those who ignored this type of reward system for loyal customers didn't make our list.
User Interface
Punters do not want to have to spend hours on end trying to figure out how to navigate a betting site or app. They want everything to be clear and intuitive. They want to go from the homepage to placing a bet in as few taps as possible. And they want relevant information to be logically arranged and presented in an easy-to-read manner. All of these are functions of the user interface, or UI. If we believed a bookmaker’s UI was unnecessarily cluttered or confusing that bookmaker did not make our list.
Best New Football Betting Sites
Football is the most popular sport on planet Earth and a huge part of the global culture. The English Premier League is the world’s most popular football league, followed closely by various European leagues including the Bundesliga, Serie A and La Liga. All of the new betting sites on our list offer extensive football coverage but BetUK and Betfred manage to separate themselves pretty convincingly from the competition. What makes these the best new football betting sites is the riot of available markets, their coverage of 1st tier leagues as well as 2nd and 3rd tier leagues throughout the world and their blanket coverage of major football events including the World Cup.
Best New Horse Racing Betting Sites
Few non-punters are aware of it but horse racing is second only to football in terms of the amount of betting money it attracts. Some online UK betting sites were built on horse racing (Paddy Power comes to mind), while others discovered later just how lucrative accepting horse racing action could be. Also, it's no exaggeration to say that horse racing was the primary driver of the Live Streaming movement that has now spread to other sports.
As for which of the new sites are also among the best new horse racing betting sites Mr. Play and LiveScore Bet stand out. They did not wait around to see if punters would demand horse racing coverage, they both hit the ground running by offering extensive horse racing action and Live Streaming of horse racing right out of the gate. Both also offer Best Odds Guaranteed, non-runner no bet options, extra places and acca insurance to help protect the adventurous punter.
New Betting Apps
All of the best new sites that appear in this guide offer state-of-the-art mobile apps to facilitate the user experience. All of these new betting apps can be downloaded either from Google Play, the App Store or from the bookmaker's own desktop or mobile website. Installing these apps usually takes less than a minute and you will find they offer all the features available on the bookmaker’s standard website. There may even be app-only promos and specials you will not find on the website. Some of the best betting apps for football are new betting sites.
Betting Sites Offers & Bonuses
The best new betting sites take their cue from what has long worked for established betting sites. And why not? There is no compelling reason to try and reinvent the wheel in this case. Instead, the best new sites tend to lean on the following tried-and-true Offers & Bonuses.
Free Bets
Both well-established betting sites and the best new betting websites make ample use of free bets offers as a method of attracting and keeping customers. Although they are usually associated with a Welcome Offer they are sometimes used in conjunction with existing customer promos as well. It is important to note that Free Bets are not cash. That is, you are not at liberty to withdraw the Free Bet amount from your account. They are, instead, site credits to be used only within the confines of the site. Should a wager made with a Free Bet credit pay off the bet credit amount cannot be withdrawn as part of your winnings.
Enhanced Odds
Enhanced odds are typically offered on specific markets in relation to a high-profile event, although it is not unheard of for bookmakers to offer enhanced odds on everyday events to reward customer loyalty and activity. The bookmaker tilts the odds a bit more in the punter’s favour so that if their bet comes in the payoff will be larger than it would normally be.
Deposit Bonus
The Deposit Bonus is not as common as it once was as it's been superseded by the popularity of the Bet X Get Y type of New Customer Offer. Nonetheless, some of the brand-new betting sites will still trot it out in the hopes of attracting punters. With the Deposit Bonus, the online bookmaker agrees to match a portion of your initial deposit up to a predetermined amount. In some cases, they will match, say, 50% of your initial deposit up to a maximum of £100. So if you deposit £100 they're credit your account with an additional £50 in site credits (importantly, NOT cash). On the other hand, if you deposit £500 they will credit your account with an additional £100 since that is the upper limit of the offer.
Bet and Get
The Bet and Get - more commonly referred to as “Bet X Get Y” - is maybe the most common type of Welcome Offer currently in use on UK betting sites. The Bet and Get usually applies to the first wager made by a new customer on one of the new sports betting sites. For example: LiveScore Bet currently has a Bet £10 Get £20 in Free Bets New Customer Offer. Simply put if you place a qualifying bet of at least £10 you will get £20 in Free Bets credited to your account once your bet has been settled.
Matched Deposit Bonus
Even rarer these days than the Deposit Bonus the Matched Deposit Bonus. The Matched Deposit Bonus is exactly what it says it is. The bookmaker will match your initial deposit pound for pound up to a set amount. You are more likely to find the Matched Deposit Bonus on casino websites than online sportsbooks. But the offer does crop up from time to time on both established and some of the newest betting sites.
What to do if you have a gambling problem
We understand that gambling can be fun, but it is important to gamble responsibly. If you are struggling with a gambling problem, please don't hesitate to ask for help. There are people who can help you get on the road to recovery.
Here are some resources that can help you:
- National Gambling Helpline: 0808 8020 133
- GamCare: https://www.gamcare.org.uk/
- GambleAware: https://www.gambleaware.org/
FAQs
What are the Best New Betting Sites?
All of the betting sites that are featured in this guide have earned a place on our list of the "best new betting sites." We suggest that, if you haven't already, you take a few minutes look through the list above as we have already made our case for why they are among the best.
How do I join the Best New Betting Sites?
Opening an account at one of the best new betting sites in the UK is not hard or time-consuming. The registration process is the same for almost all online bookies licensed in the UK; let's go through it now.
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Select the new betting site you want to open an account with.
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Navigate to their website homepage or download and install their mobile app and then open it.
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On the bookmaker's homepage, there is a brightly coloured “Join” (or equivalent ) button. Tap it.
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Tapping the Join button opens an application form.
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Provide your name, address and a few other bits of information.
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Choose a username and password, or select biometric login and follow the instructions.
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Accept the bookmaker’s Terms & Conditions.
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Tap the “Join Now”, “Register Now” or equivalent button.
Congratulations! You now have an account with one of the UK’s best new betting sites.
Note: It’s important you remember that if you plan on taking advantage of a particular betting site’s Welcome Offer you will need to make sure your first deposit after signing up adheres to the Welcome Offer’s requirements (typically that means making a specified minimum deposit using a debit card), and that your first wager also conforms to the requirements laid out in the Welcome Offer fine print.
Are New Betting Sites Better than Older Betting Sites?
Everybody has a different definition of what is "better." Better only means more betting markets or a larger sign-up bonus for some gamblers. Better, to others, translates to odds that are more competitive and a large range of payment choices. Therefore, it is entirely arbitrary to say that newer websites are superior to older ones.
The bottom line is that you could make the argument either way. Typically where new betting sites shine is in their ability to learn from the mistakes of their predecessors. For instance, some established sites have been slow to get on the Live Streaming bus. They're attitude seems to be “we have plenty of customers right now without taking on the added expense and technical headaches that come with Live Streaming”. Someone developing a new site may sense how important Live Streaming has become to many punters and invest heavily in this feature right from the get-go.
On the other hand, established betting sites sometimes offer an array of sports from around the world that new betting sites can not compete with. And that includes obscure events such as the Cooper Hill cheese-roll in Gloucestershire where competitors race a 9lb cheese wheel down a grassy hill. And let us not forget curling, where large polished granite stones are slid along a sheet of ice with the goal of coming as close as possible to the centre of the target area.
Are New Betting Sites Safe?
Yes, new betting sites are safe. All of the best new betting sites that we have listed above are licensed by UK Gambling Commission. The UKGC usually does not license betting sites without examining them through a time consuming screening procedure to ensure that they are reputable, provide extremely strong security, and comply with GDPR data protection rules in the UK.
Can I live stream events at New Betting Sites?
Every betting site that we have included in this guide, in our opinion, deserves a place on our list of the "best new betting sites." We've already discussed why they rank among the best, but in case you missed it, take a moment to look over the list Here.
