Sportsbet Review

Sportsbet Review – Introduction:

Sportsbet is an Australian corporate bookmaker that offers a wide range of sports and Esports betting. Sportsbet started in 1993 and was a regional bookmaker with only 8 employees. In 2005 Sportsbet was on the brink of bankruptcy before Matthew Tripp purchased the company for just $250,000. Sportsbet saw a complete transformation and currently employs over 600 staff. In 2009 Paddy Power came knocking and acquired a 51% stake of Sportsbet as they looked to expand their operations into Australia. By the end of 2011 Paddy Power had completed their takeover.

The Paddy Power influence soon kicked in, taking their generous money-back specials and bringing them to Australia. Sportsbet paid out all on all bets on Federer to win Wimbledon before the tournament started as well as England to win the 2010-11 Ashes Series after just a single day of play.

Head on over and bash the poms!

Reputation and Reliability:

Sportsbet is one of the most recognisable brands in Australia and they grew to another level after the Paddy Power investment. They often advertise in traditional media such as on TV as well as online, sometimes pushing free to play million dollar AFL & NRL tipping challenges. Sportsbet are here to stay and with a solid Aussie heritage and strong backing from one of the largest bookmaking franchises in the world, you can trust them implicitly. We’re confident they’ll treat you right.

Sportsbet – CSGO Betting:

Currently Sportsbet almost always only offers the regular match winner markets. We imagine it’s just a matter of time before they extend their offering so that they reflect Paddy Power’s additional range of markets such as outright tournament winner betting, map winners and handicaps. For now, Sportsbet offers regular, yet simple betting opportunities. We can’t wait to see what it looks like in a few months’ time!

Sportsbet – eSports history:

Sportsbet’s history within Esports, as you’d expect, is incredibly limited so far. They first started taking bets in 2015. They haven’t sponsored any tournaments like CrownBet, or teams like Unikrn. They started out by offering League of Legends and Dota betting and expanded into CSGO afterwards.

Payment Options:

Sportsbet have all the payment options you’d expect from a major bookmaker, such as credit/debit cards, bank transfer, BPay, Skrill and POLi, with the welcome addition of PayPal which isn’t supported by some of their competitors. If you like using PayPal, Sportsbet could well be the bookmaker for you.

The minimum deposit is just $5 with the minimum online bet being $0.01. Who places one cent bets?!

As well as Aussie Dollars, you can play on their site with currencies including New Zealand, US, Hong Kong and Singapore Dollars. Bare in mind their restricted territories, just because you can transact with these currencies doesn’t mean they necessarily accept customers from your location – but they do in Australia and that’s what usually matters most.

Customer Support:

Sportsbet offer live chat customer support, although it isn’t available 24/7 like some of their competitors like Luxbet. Live chat is open from 8am-11pm AEST Monday to Saturday and from 9am-9pm AEST on Sunday. If you have a query we’d suggest using live chat as this is the quickest way to get your issue resolved. Other options include telephone (1800-990-907) and email support.

If you fancy sending them a letter with your query, you can even do that. Don’t expect a response for weeks though – so go for live chat if you’re looking for the speedy option.

Website & Betting Options:

The Sportsbet website has been reincarnated in recent years and their website has had a makeover by the Paddy Power team as the similarities are glaringly obvious between the two. This is a good thing because historically the European firms invest more in their websites and thus have more features for punters.

The site is nice and easy to use with navigation between sports done on the left hand side of the site. If you can’t see e-Sports on the left side underneath Cycling, you’ll need to click on “More Sports” further down the page to find CounterStrike betting. We’re not sure why sometimes it’s displayed as a main sport and others not.

The odds are displayed in decimals (i.e. $2.00) which is just what you’d expect. You can place single win only bets or create multiple bets! Add more selections into your multiple and get greater potential returns. Sometimes CSGO odds are short, so it makes sense to put a few of them together to give yourself the chance of a bigger win. Once you’ve added all your selections into your betslip, all you have to do is click on the down arrow. This will reveal “Multibet”. You will see the combined odds to give yourself an idea of the return before you place the bet.

As of yet there is no live streaming available on their site. This could change in the future. Luckily for now, we can all just head over to Twitch to watch the matches as per usual.

Sports Markets:

Racing is a particular strength for Sportsbet so if you like a flutter on the Melbourne Cup or any other races throughout the year, Sportsbet is a great bet. You will need to register with them in order to see what promotions they have on offer for their customers.

Other Products:

Sportsbet like to keep everything above board so there are no pokies or other similar products available currently.

Verdict:

It is early days for CSGO Betting on Sportsbet, but give it 6 months and we can see them being one of the industry leaders in Australia just like they are in racing and other sports. We’d like to see a bit more variety in the bets that they offer rather than just the straight match winners, but betting real cash on CSGO is always much better than skin betting.