Ladbrokes Review

Ladbrokes Review – Introduction:

Ladbrokes are one of the most trusted high street brands in the UK betting industry. With thousands of shops and a strong online presence, Ladbrokes are recognised as an industry powerhouse with a wide range of betting and gambling services which includes casino, bingo, poker, lotteries and virtual sports on top of their regular sports betting offering.

Ladbrokes started offering betting on Esports in September 2015 but have to date been reluctant to get too deeply involved. Nevertheless, they’re a solid bookmaker and check their website to see if they have an offer available for new customers.

Formed all the way back in 1886, Ladbrokes has enjoyed massive growth and now employs 13,000 people across their retail estate and in their UK, Gibraltar and Israel offices, and has a reported annual revenue of £1.1billion. This puts them up amongst the largest betting firms in the world.

They recently announced plans to merge with Gala Coral in a deal expected to value the business at £2.3bn. This means 3,945 Ladbrokes Coral branded shops in the UK making it the largest chain of bookmakers on the high street, although the competition commission is expected to force them to sell some of their shops.

Reputation and Reliability:

Being one of the largest gambling companies in the world reputation and reliability are a given here. You know you are safe betting with Ladbrokes. They are listed on the FTSE250 and have over 2,000 shops across the United Kingdom, so they aren’t going anywhere.

Ladbrokes are licensed and regulated within the UK by the Gambling Commission and are also registered and registered as an international betting company in Gibraltar by the Gibraltar Gaming Commission. They also hold an Australian license for Ladbrokes.com.au.

Ladbrokes – CSGO Betting:

Ladbrokes offers CSGO betting in the simplest form currently: you are able to back either team to win but there are no handicap bets. They infrequently add CSGO matches so they aren’t a firm to rely on if you want to bet on eSports every day. In other titles such as DOTA2, they do offer first kill, which team wins the first map and other assorted handicap bets, which they badly need to add for CounterStrike too.

Ladbrokes – eSports history:

Ladbrokes are very new to Esports. They haven’t been involved with any tournaments or organisations yet and seem to be taking things slowly, as they don’t have a wide product range yet. They do offer betting from a number of different games but it is sporadic, so you can’t be certain what they are going to price up.

Payment Options:

Depositing and withdrawing is simple and speedy. Ladbrokes have one of the fastest withdrawal periods across the entire industry. You can withdraw via Paypal and have the money in your account within 2 hours. The only issue we’ve ever had is when we’ve won large amounts of money. By large, we mean £10,000 or more in a short space of time. A few times this has happened there have been some slightly strange delays. But we got the money fine and understand it: we’ll put it down to that the bookie was reeling from losing a large wad of cash and decided to have a little sulk. This won’t be a problem for 99% of people, although we do hope you get to experience it one day as it’ll be a polite reminder of how well you’re doing with your bets.

One thing that is worth looking out for is that when you deposit you have an option to deposit to your main wallet or to casino or bingo. By default the money will go into your main wallet. What’s the difference? Unlike other sites Ladbrokes has multiple wallets for each section of their site. If you want to play in their casino you need to deposit to the casino wallet. We’ve experienced issues where we’ve rushed to put a bet on and for some reason we’ve deposited to the wrong wallet because the site hasn’t defaulted to the correct wallet. We then refresh the page and see our balance is £0 as our money is resting in the bingo wallet. Just be careful with this, you won’t lose the money, it’s just saved in the wrong wallet and you can easily transfer it into the sports betting side of the site.

Customer Support:

A wide range of options are available to you should you require assistance. You can ask your questions via a live chat option which is the way to get a response the fastest. Email support is available as well as a dedicated twitter account to handle queries, @LadbrokesCare. There is also phone support for queries regarding your account or if you want to place a bet (though there is a £25 minimum for bets placed via the telephone).

Website & Betting Options:

Thankfully, the Ladbrokes website had a complete overhaul in the summer of 2015. It’s still not the easiest website to navigate, but it’s much easier now compared to earlier this year. We’d regularly give up trying to find specific markets as we just couldn’t find them, but that’s not the case any more.

You can find the Esports markets by clicking on “A-Z Sports” at the top left and scrolling down to “E-Sports”. Odds are displayed as fractional, you can change to decimal either in the My Account section, or by clicking the settings cog icon in the top right hand corner of the site.

You can put your selections into multiples to increase your returns if you wish. You simply need to add all the teams you want to back in your acca into one bet slip and you’ll be presented with an option to place either single bets or couple them all as an accumulator.

As for the rest of the site, Ladbrokes offers betting on almost every sport imaginable, from football to fishing. On top of this they have 3 sections containing slot games, called Casino, Games and Vegas. A fully functional Live Casino allows you to play popular casino games like blackjack and roulette with real life dealers. Bingo, poker and lottery bets are also available.

Ladbrokes offer live streaming of certain events such as tennis, football and horse racing. There’s no Esports just yet, but maybe one day it will join the traditional sports.

Sports Markets:

Ladbrokes is a high street bookmaker, which typically means every bet you could find in a shop is available online. Bonus accumulators for Football, regular enhanced odds specials across multiple sports and in-play betting for every sport you can think of. If you can think of it, you can probably bet on it at Ladbrokes.

Other Products:

Ladbrokes offer a variety of different casinos where you can try and spin up your winnings.

Ladbrokes Casino runs on the Playtech platform which means you’re getting an eye-watering experience from the favourite platform of many serious casino players. You can take part in your favourite casino games from the comfort of your own home. Roulette, Blackjack, Casino Hold’em and Baccarat are all available either in the typical arcade format that you might be familiar from playing in their betting shops, or with real life live dealers waiting to take you on on behalf of the house.

Ladbrokes are actively on the look-out for new VIP clients on their casino, which isn’t normal for most casinos. If you hit a certain turnover requirement then expect an email from Ladbrokes’ VIP team offering you exclusive opportunities, bonuses and hospitality at major sporting events.

Verdict:

Ladbrokes is a high street name in the UK and one that has been around for almost 130 years. You know your money is safe and that if there are any issues they’ll be resolved promptly. Their CSGO betting offering is limited currently but as they see the potential of it they’ll put the effort in to offer more in-depth betting opportunities.

Generally, Ladbrokes are a great company, so it’s worth having an account, see if there are any offers available to you and keeping an eye on what is priced up.