The beautiful game has enchanted fans for generations, so it’s hardly a surprise that football betting sites have exploded in popularity in recent years.
A YouGov poll in May 2022 found that football is the most popular sport for Brits to bet on, with 45 per cent of regular UK gamblers having bet on the sport in the previous 12 months. That pipped horse racing (37 per cent) as Britons’s favourite sport to bet on, with golf (nine per cent) a distant third ahead of boxing (8 per cent) and tennis (8 per cent).
Almost every UK betting company has an extensive range of football markets but we’ve rated and reviewed the best football betting sites available to punters.
Best football betting sites by category
There are many different facets to football betting, with many enjoying in-play odds, others preferring accumulators and some regularly partaking in bet builders. Rather than arbitrarily ranking football betting sites from one to 10, we’ve focused on which UK bookmaker is best for each facet, allowing you to select a bookie that suits your needs.
To find out more about how we rate bookmakers and about gambling responsibly please scroll a little further down the page.
Best football betting site for in-play betting: Bet365
Bet365 are one of the most recognisable names in UK sports betting and their memorable adverts with Ray Winstone propelled them further into the limelight. That fame is well-earned and they’ve consistently proven themselves as one of the best in a variety of betting aspects.
In-play betting is one of those areas as they offer a huge number of markets and very competitive odds. The sheer amount of live streams they have also means you may well be able to watch your pick live and even if not, they have stat trackers on a huge number of football matches. Their betting app and mobile site are both very speedy and don’t seem to have any noticeable lag, which is important when you want to bet in-play at a moment’s notice. All of their products look smart and are easy to use.
Best football bookies for accumulators: BoyleSports
BoyleSports offer one of the best football betting experiences and have become the place to go for putting on an accumulator. Whether you enjoy a small-stakes acca on the Saturday football or are an accumulator on the midweek European action, BoyleSports have numerous features to bet on football.
Their Acca Rewards and Acca Loyalty programmes help make them an excellent choice. With Acca Loyalty, customers are awarded a £5 free acca once they’ve placed five £5 accumulators (with at least five selections and total odds of greater than 3/1).
Meanwhile, Acca Rewards allows you to either boost or insure your accumulator. In a football acca of at least three legs, Insure means you get your stake back as a free bet if one selection lets you down, while Boost increases your prospective winnings (from a 3 per cent boost for a three-leg acca, to a 100 per cent boost for a 14+ selection).
Best online football betting site for free bets: Betway
There’s nothing quite like a freebie to add to the betting experience. The feeling of betting with less risk and the possibility of plentiful rewards is tantalising. That’s why free bet offers are a priority for so many football fans when selecting a new betting site.
Betway thrive in this space, with their popular Free Bet Club giving you the chance to rack up the freebies that can be used on football. You need to stake at least £25 on trebles, accumulators or bet builders (in any sport) between midnight GMT on Saturday and 11.59pm GMT the following Friday to qualify.
Do that and you’ll earn £10 in free bets in two £5 free bet chunks, with the first paid on the Saturday after qualification and the second paid on the Monday, giving you additional funds for your betting bankroll. If you’re not already a Betway customer, their welcome offer is also one of the best on the market, giving you up to £30 back in free bets if your first accumulator loses.
Best UK football betting site for specials: BetVictor
Specials are a fun twist on traditional football betting, with either unexpected markets or enhanced odds becoming available for customers. BetVictor run regular outright specials that other bookmakers don’t, while also having extensive manager markets, transfer odds and trophy multiples if you’re keen to expand your horizons beyond just match betting.
They also have a Lucky Dip feature that can give you outlandish odds on selections. You are given a market and a price, for example Premier League winner at 16/1. You enter your stake, do the ‘lucky dip’ and then you’re assigned a random selection in that market and paid out at odds of 16/1 if they win. You could get Manchester City, whose actual odds to win the title are considerably shorter than 16/1, or be given Nottingham Forest, whose actual odds are much longer. That’s the luck of the draw.
If you enjoy a random element to your free bets, then BetVictor have added a unique gimmick to their Loyalty Club. If you make five bets of at least £5 throughout the week (midnight GMT Monday to 11.59pm GMT Sunday), each at odds of 1/2 or greater then you’ll earn a free bet. To find out how much that free bet is, you ‘open the box’ and an amount between £1 and £25 is revealed. You’ll then have the flexibility to use that amount as one free bet or a number of smaller free bets as you wish, on any sports market. Incidentally, BetVictor also have one of the best betting apps with free bets.
BetVictor’s site and app, with their white, blue and dark grey aesthetic, is clean and smart-looking. They’re well laid out, easy to navigate and quick to load, making for a good user experience on mobile. If you’re an acca lover, their bet builder is easy to navigate with its own separate tab and has every market you could want in an easily accessible list.
Best best new football betting site for price boosts: Parimatch
Keeping an eye out for price boosts is a good way to increase your potential winnings on a bet and bookies intermittently offer these enhanced odds. One of the newer names on the UK scene, Parimatch, are becoming well known for their price boosts.
They regularly offer reasonable price boosts on major football matches, as well as football accas they have chosen for you, and also offer intermittent ‘super boosts’ on football markets, amongst other perks from time to time. Ahead of Euro 2024, for example, Parimatch had a promotion where England were available to win at 50/1, while they currently also have a £20 free bet offer for new customers when they deposit (via debit card or Apple Pay) and bet £10.
Best football bookmakers for bet builders: Unibet
Bet builders have become an increasingly popular way of betting on football in recent times, joining accumulators as an alternative bet type enjoyed by both casual bettors and more regular gamblers. The concept of a bet builder allows you to combine selections on specific markets on an individual match to provide greater odds.
What makes Unibet stand out is their ability to combine bet builders across different matches, giving you far more options. They allow a large number of selections on a single bet builder and offer bet builders for a huge number of European leagues, not just English football. You can also pair bet builders together to create a bet builder multi.
Their ‘Uniboost’ feature is also a neat way of increasing bet builder odds. Once per day, customers receive a Uniboost bet builder token which will enhance the odds of any bet builder (with at least three selections) in a single click up to a maximum bet of £10. It’s another way to get more bang for your buck and is accessible through the Unibet app in addition to the website.
Best betting app for football: Betfred
The key to a good football betting app or mobile site is speed of site and user interface. Betfred excel in both these categories with no discernible lag when loading up or confirming a bet and an easy-to-navigate layout with everything you need at your fingertips.
Their all-round football betting offering is impressive, both in terms of odds and range of matches/markets, while all their promotions and features from desktop are available to mobile customers.
Betfred’s welcome offer can also be used for football with £50 in free bets available when you bet £10. You just need to enter ‘SUMMER50’ when you register and deposit (using a debit card) to be eligible for the free bets. Once you’ve done that and placed a bet of at least £10 on any sports market (at odds of at least evens), you’ll be rewarded with the £50 of free bets. Those will be 3x £10 free bets for any sports market and 2x £10 accumulator free bets, all of which have to be used within seven days.
How we rank and review online football betting sites
We take the rating and recommendation of football bookmakers very seriously and have stringent criteria for companies to even be considered for our list. Here are some of the factors that went into our thinking:
Regulation: This is a non-negotiable before we recommend any football betting sites. They have to be regulated by the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) for us to contemplate rating them, so you can be confident that every football bookmaker above is safe to engage with. There are too many illegitimate gambling companies out there to take chances – every site mentioned on this page is UKGC-regulated and secure to use.
Reputation: Our recommended football bookmakers are a mixture of household names and new football betting sites. The reputation of the company was very important to us and while the well-known sites such as Betfred, BoyleSports and Bet365 have reputations that precede them, we also considered the burgeoning renown of the newer companies generating buzz in the industry and how well-regarded they are overseas.
Gambling responsibly: Similarly to regulation, how committed the bookmaker is to responsible gambling was important to us. Have they taken genuine steps to ensure their actions towards their customers are morally sound? We considered their approaches to vital responsible gambling tools such as deposit limits, loss limits, reality checks and self-exclusion. More on this below.
Customer experience: How good an experience the site provides for its customers was also taken into account when choosing the best football betting sites – across desktop, mobile and app. If the site design is smart and well laid out, the useability is logical and straightforward, then that all makes for a better customer experience. Similarly, how easy it is to interact with support staff and solve any potential issues is also a factor.
Promotions: Of course, a betting company can also be judged on its promotions and offers. Were these football betting sites offering unique deals we hadn’t seen anywhere else or that really enticed us to sign up? If you feel like you’re getting more bang for your buck – be that in terms of free bets, odds boosts or one-off promotions – you’re more likely to use the site.
Responsible gambling with football bookies
The most important thing to remember is to gamble responsibly. Betting should only ever be considered a form of entertainment – it has not, and will never be, a surefire way to make money, no matter how much you think you know about football.
When betting on football, always assume you’ll lose and therefore, only bet what you can afford. Football betting can also be addictive, so please take steps to remain in control of your time and budget.
Make sure you use the responsible gambling tools offered by betting companies such as deposit limits, reality checks, loss limits, time outs and self-exclusion. These can stop your gambling from getting out of hand.
If you have gambling-related concerns, then seek independent help. There are several UK charities and institutions that offer support, advice and information, with a few listed below:
Best UK football betting sites summary
While we can recommend what we think are the best football betting sites, the truth is that every football punter is looking for something different from their bookmaker.
What’s ‘best’ for one person will be different to what’s ‘best’ for another. You may want to focus on in-play football betting, another person may prioritise having money-back offers if your accumulator just misses. Whatever your requirements, hopefully this information can help you make an informed decision about where you place your football bets.
Remember, each of our recommended football betting sites are fully licensed and regulated by the UKGC, ensuring that your personal and financial data is secure. Every site listed here is safe and legal but it’s important that you only pick a site that resonates with how you intend to bet.
