Click on the bet365 online sportsbook site and you’ll see ‘New Customer Offer’ – offering up to $200 worth of bonus bets. All you have to do to claim the money is deposit $10 into your account and place a $1 qualifying bet. Sounds good right? Well it is. The only real catch is that the money will be credited to your Bonus Bets.

But $200 in bonus bets isn’t exactly chump change and it’s always nice to be able to gamble without risking your own cash. However when it comes to welcome bonuses compared with other sportsbooks it’s a little on the lower end. Borgata for instance offers new players a risk-free first bet offer of $1000 a lot more than the amount bet365 is offering. Our betting offers page covers more of the good stuff running around the US sports betting scene.

New players will also need to jump through a couple of hoops before earning their bonus bets. Depositing money is unfortunately not good enough players will also need to bet the money on odds of -500 or greater. We should note here that bet365’s bonus bets are non-withdrawable — you can withdraw your winnings but not your stake. Also risk is excluded from any returns the bonus can’t be used for some bet types such as the parlay bonuses and it’ll expire in 90 days if the player’s account is inactive.

Bet365 does have a considerable amount of other offers available mainly a sizable amount of early payout offers which we’ll go over in more detail in the expert section below. 

Yeah things don’t seem off to a great start. However there’s still quite a lot to look forward to here. As we highlighted $500 is still a sizable amount of money and once claimed it is yours to keep so long as the account stays active. It’s also nice to see that bet365 online sportsbook bonus codes are not necessary here and you can instead just claim your bonus once you’ve met all the conditions.The downsides can however be hard to ignore particularly with the Bonus Bets. I’m simply not fond of how bets placed with Bonus Bets do not qualify for the parlay bonuses. Those bonuses are easily the best offer that bet365 has and being excluded from them just feels like being forced to stay outside while all the cool kids’ party indoors.Fortunately bet365 does have other offers up its sleeve. As stated before the parlay bonuses are particularly enticing allowing a player to even have a multi-sport parlay bonus of up to 70% on 14 team parlays and upwards. To compare Unibet sportsbook only allows you to go up to a 50% boost.There are also several early payout options that I particularly like as it gives you more chances to leave with your hard-earned winnings. With soccer for instance bet365 will pay out your bet in full if the team you back to win goes even just 2 goals ahead at any stage during the game. If the match finishes at a 0-0 tie and the bet loses you’ll get your risk fully refunded anyway which adds a nice little safety net to the whole experience. These options are all quite enticing and more than make up for the welcome offer.

Bet365 starts to make up for its payouts and bonuses with a more decent showing here. The sportsbook offers 10 different payment methods which is a nice bit of variety to have. It’s not really near the top for the US Borgata for instance offers a whopping 13 different choices. However bet365 does give the player quite a few options to choose from.

When it comes to payments bet365 offers Visa Mastercard and PayPal and players can even use good old internet banking if they’re willing to wait a few days for withdrawals. Bet365 even comes with its own Mastercard a handy little thing since it’s the only option that lets players withdraw instantly besides cold hard cash.

It’s not the most expansive list you’ll ever find but the ones that are here are of good quality and that’s always a plus in our book.

Full list: Visa (debit and credit card) Mastercard (debit and credit card) bet365 Mastercard Paypal PayNearMe Skrill paysafecard cash online banking Apple Pay.

Bet365 also thankfully has no fees for either deposits or withdrawals letting you hold onto that little bit more of your hard-earned cash. If you require more details then all of the info on payment methods is very easy to find. Simply click on the ‘Help’ button right at the top of bet365’s home page click on ‘Payment Methods’ and you’re there. All of the information a person could ever need on how to give their money to a corporation.

We’ve highlighted a few issues in this bet365 online sportsbook review but thankfully safety is not one of them. Bet365 has been a mainstay for years so it should be no surprise that this site is approved legal and licensed in the state of New Jersey with licenses even in Colorado and New York (though it is yet to launch in either state).

The sportsbook also takes steps to help with addiction with links to both 800-GAMBLER and NCPG at the bottom of the website. There’s also a bright green link to responsible gaming at the top of the website attached to the sticky bar. Not only does this help remind the player to be careful but it also links to all the various tools that bet365 has at its disposal to help players deal with problem gaming.

Players can easily track their activity here and put limits on deposits spending and sessions. They can even do a full time-out or self-exclusion if necessary. It’s good to see bet365 taking active measures to keep its players safe. Add in a strong SSL encryption and 2-step verification and players have no reason to feel unsafe while playing at this online bookie.

So far bet365 has been giving an average showing but here is where it starts to really shine. The sportsbook has a number of impressive features that let it show off what it can really do.

Cashout? Check. Bet Builder? Check. Live streaming and live betting? Check and check. It’s all here and each one is decked out with a few extra quality-of-life options. Now players can partially cash out their bets leaving that little bit in just in case they think they might have a shot after all. The bet editor also lets them add swap or remove selections from a bet after it has been made. There’s even a handy easy-to-access schedule of daily events so that you can plan ahead. Bet365 is so dedicated to making the player’s life comfortable I’m surprised it doesn’t come with a free onesie.

On the bet365 online sportsbook streaming and betting has its own little section with ongoing data constantly being updated to help the player make better decisions. The layout also makes placing a bet quick and efficient even while keeping one eye glued to the game.

We’ve taken a look at the average payout percentage that bet365 has to offer and from what we’ve seen what’s on offer here is exactly that: average.

Bet365 clocks an average of around 94% in its general payouts across the board. On the one hand this certainly makes life a little bit easier. No need to stay worrying too much about which sports have the best payout if they’re all roughly the same. However 94% is hardly a stellar number. It’s only slightly above the 93% which we like to classify as ‘low tier’. It’s not terrible but it’s not great either.

The good news is that live payouts are not too far off clocking in at around 93%. Seeing as how live payouts are usually quite a bit less in exchange for the added edge of seeing the sport play out live it’s nice to see that the live payout of bet365 is not trailing too far behind.

A preliminary scroll through bet365’s sports options will initially show 22 different sports. These range from the more popular choices such as football basketball and baseball to the slightly more niche options such as golf cricket and snooker.

This at first all seems pretty standard. However upon closer inspection a user may notice that there’s  a separate section exclusively for virtual sports. Here there are 12 more options. Some are virtual alternatives to sports already listed such as football and basketball whilst some other sports are completely unique to the virtual sports section — like horse racing and greyhounds. 

There’s also an impressive number of betting options on display with both football and basketball clocking in at 100+ markets. Football itself is at 147 markets only 3 shy of the 150 mark. Bet365 is pulling out all the stops here and its recent addition (at the time of writing) of virtual soccer to its roster of sports shows that it doesn’t intend to slow down anytime soon.

At present bet365 online sportsbook is all about sports. Meaning there isn’t anything else to bet on other than sports. Sectors such as esports or politics are unfortunately omitted from this sportsbook so players wishing to bet on those will have to look someplace else.