Bonuses can make or break any sportsbook and more often than not they are the first thing that a player looks for when entering a site. There’s a reason we always put this section first in the reviews after all. So how does Golden Nugget compare to others?

Well on the welcome bonus front it’s a pretty decent betting offer. All first-time players will get a first bet match bonus of up to $250. It’s a nifty amount and the Golden Nugget online sportsbook is generous enough to hand it out at a 1x wagering requirement. So place a bet of $250 and get another $250 to spend simple as that. There are some T&Cs of course but they’re extremely easy to find right on the bonus offer itself.

The bonus amount here could always be better especially when compared to other sportsbooks like bet365 which offers a deposit match of up to $500. Sure $250 is not bad but Golden Nugget is not exactly bringing out the big guns here. No Golden Nugget’s ace up its sleeve is not its welcome reward but its Golden Lines bonuses.

Every day Golden Nugget will provide boosted odds on a selection of bets – an offer called Golden Lines. It’s a hell of an offer and gives players something new to be excited for every single day. There’s a lot to say about this offer which is in the expert rating below.

The welcome bonus is a decent starting point getting an extra $250 with relatively few strings attached. It’s also nice to see that Golden Nugget online sportsbook bonus codes are not necessary here and you can instead claim your cash once you’ve met all the conditions.However the real meat here has to be the Golden Lines offer. I’m a sucker for daily deals so this fits right in my wheelhouse. Here Golden Nugget online sportsbook gives players a reason to log in every day with boosted odds on multiple different sports. Football and basketball are common appearances which is great but other less popular sports also pop up and entice players to check them out. Hell those odds almost made me check out a cricket game before I thankfully came back to my senses.It’s pretty much impossible to be disappointed with this offer which makes it so ingenious. New players will always have a popular choice like a match from the NFL boosted over there so they can comfortably place safe bets. Experienced players on the other hand can try their luck with a sport they’re not so familiar with and see how things go. It’s good news all around for newcomers to the Golden Nugget app.Unfortunately some bumps with the Golden Nugget bonuses need to be mentioned. The main problem is the low selection of bonuses themselves. Apart from Golden Lines and the welcome bonus (which is only used once) there are daily low vig bets parlay boosts and that’s it. I also consider it a bit of a slap in the face that while players can technically sign up for a VIP program they will get almost no benefits from it with the sportsbook. The only thing a VIP player can do is deposit more money with the rest of the benefits saved for the casino. It makes the VIP program utterly pointless for players only interested in the sportsbook which is a real wasted opportunity. In our view it’s clear that their focus is more on the casinos side as their online casino bonus is one of the best in the US.

Players are pretty sorted when it comes to payments. Golden Nugget offers a whopping 13 different types of payments pretty much covering anything a player could possibly need. This is up there when it comes to US betting sites and even Borgata only reached 12 types.

All of the main options are there of course like VISA Mastercard and American Express and there are also several other options such as Paypal ACH with VIP Preferred cash with PayNearMe or at the casino cage or even a Bank Wire Transfer if you’re so inclined. You can even do cash at the cage in Atlantic City. Good payments = good news we all want efficient ways to cash out our Golden Nugget bonus.

Their standout option is their Play+ prepaid account. It has the fastest withdrawals and deposits cashback on account loads and even some VIP deals attached to it (though we will go over those in the expert section). It’s clear Golden Nugget wants players to use this method as players even get a free $10 on enrollment.

The full list of Golden Nugget sportsbook legit options: VISA Mastercard Discover American Express Play+ VIP Preferred PayPal PayNearMe 7-Eleven Online Bank Transfer Bank Wire Transfer Cash Safekeeping.

There are also no deposit or withdrawal fees though it seems Golden Nugget forgot to put that on the site. Well that’s not entirely true – they did mention the ‘no deposit fees’. They just decided to only put this information next to the Play+ account section to push players to use it. A bit of a cheeky trick to get players to sign up for Play+ but we’ll forgive them for it since there are no fees at all.

Safety is always the highest priority for us and we’re wary of any sportsbook that doesn’t score well in this section. Thankfully our Golden Nugget sportsbook review rates it very well here proving itself a safe and reliable platform to bet on.

Golden Nugget sportsbook is currently licensed in 5 states which is always a good sign. It also has a responsible gaming section with links to organizations like 800GAMBLER so the site also does its duty to keep players safe from gambling addiction.

All of the necessary tools are there including self-imposed sports betting limits and cooling-off periods and can be easily accessed from the ‘My Account’ section. Finally as expected the site features the ever-important SSL encryption so you know your details are safe when you’re doing your sports betting.

Thankfully things start to look up here for the Golden Nugget sportsbook review. The sportsbook features all the betting features we could ask for neatly packed in a user-friendly UI that’s easy to manage and understand.

You’ve got your cashouts with all the markets that can be cashed out having a nice big green logo on them. Not everything can be cashed out Golden Lines for instance does not allow it but the green logo does help in figuring out what can and can’t be cashed out and in Golden Nugget’s defense most markets allow it. There’s also a bet builder that pops up right next to your bet slips allowing you to build away with ease. The UI is exceedingly user-friendly here in both desktop and the Golden Nugget sportsbook app.

Live betting is also an option here and the features are just as impressive. There’s a handy schedule that lets you filter through various upcoming live events the odds are rapidly updated and the live data is very in-depth. It’s nice to see a sportsbook that takes the time to show different stats for ‘attacks’ and ‘dangerous attacks’ in soccer games.

It’s a shame that there is no live stream available and players will instead have to make do with a simple graphic that shows simple information as it happens.

As is standard with all our reviews we sampled a bunch of games and converted those odds to some nice average percentages. After seeing what came out it looks like Golden Nugget odds are actually pretty decent.

The general percentage payout for odds comes in at around 95.16%. Seeing as we consider 97%+ to be the dream and 93%- to be the nightmare Golden Nugget coming in almost exactly at 95% puts it very comfortably in the middle. 

Sure it can certainly be better but other sportsbooks like Borgata and SugarHouse all came out lower so we’ll take it. Payouts for football and basketball both averaged around that mark too as they came up to 95.68% and 95.26% respectively so we can surmise that the Golden Nugget sportsbook odds are quite consistent across the sports section.

Live payouts are a bit more disappointing coming in at 93.51%. It’s very common for live payouts to be a bit worse since players have the added bonus of seeing the game play out in front of them but the difference is a bit more than we would have liked. This is especially significant since as stated in the sports section before Golden Nugget likes to only open some markets when the game is live.

*data gathered 9th January 2021

This section of the Golden Nugget sportsbook review is unfortunately where things go sour. Of all the sections to underperform in Golden Nugget decided that ‘sports’ would be the least important aspect of its sportsbook. Not the cleverest of moves here.

The site lists a middling 17 sports for players to bet on and it was even cheeky enough to include Golden Lines as one of those sports. Even with us indulging it and pretending that online bet boosts are a sport that’s still a pitiful amount of sports for a sportsbook. Compared to BetMGM or Borgata or more of the best online sportsbooks with 20+ sports to choose from it’s hard not to be disappointed here.

Unfortunately that’s not even where the bad news ends. Some sports like football feature an impressive 111 markets to bet on but basketball only features 35 sports betting markets for some reason.

These will only jump up to the 100+ once the match goes live which is an incredibly cheap move on Golden Nugget’s part. Even something as crucial as Money Line bets are withheld till almost the start of the match.

Finally it is completely impossible to bet on the Houston Rockets. This one is actually to be expected since the casino owner also owns that team so sorry Rockets fans you guys are just going to have to go somewhere else.