If you’re a sports fan considering opening an account at a new sportsbook, there are certain questions you should ask, that we can help you answer. That’s why we’ve written our best online sportsbook reviews.
Recommended Sportsbooks for UFC Betting in the US
Recommended Sportsbooks for UFC Betting in Canada
Like any rankings list, these are subjective to a degree and universal agreement remains elusive. However, we’ve done our best to weigh up the total offering provided.
We advise spending time on each site before deciding, as we’re sure each has something to offer that may appeal to you.
What’s more, don’t just settle for one – we recommend diversifying your accounts across a number of the best online sportsbooks available to you.
#1 BetUS
- Pros: Reputable US sportsbook. Established 1994. Wide range of markets offered. Great promotions.
- Cons: Low default bet limits.
- Welcome Bonus: 125% up to $3125 sign-up bonus; $6000 in referral bonuses.
BetUS has been in operation since 1994, an impressive run in the online sports betting world. It offers markets on all the sports you would expect to find, and stands out for offering players a wide range of promotions that don’t always carry too onerous play-through requirements.
It isn’t as slick an offering as some other sites, but it’s functional and efficient. But what really sets BetUS apart from other sites is the incredible amount of information and data available on-site to help you make you betting decisions. Expert analysis, picks, news and stats are all available without having to leave the site. Truly impressive.
Read our full sportsbook review, or visit the site:
#2 Bovada
- Pros: Reputable US sportsbook. Established 2011. Good betting tools. Wide range of sports markets offered.
- Cons: Low max deposit limits.
- Welcome Bonus: $250 (fiat) or $750 (crypto) first deposit.
The Bovada sportsbook has been live since 2011, offering a breadth and depth of sports to bet on. Fan-requested prop bets are a nice touch, and representative of the site’s efforts to engage its community. Personal prop and parlay bet building tools are a plus. The Welcome Bonus is smaller than at competitors, especially the fiat figure, although rollover requirements are reasonable. Loyalty scheme allows for the redemption of rewards for cash back.
Read our full sportsbook review, or visit the site:
#2 BetOnline
- Pros: A great all-rounder. Established 2004. Available to US players. Wide range of sports markets offered.
- Cons: Can’t buy crypto on-site.
- Welcome Bonus: $1,000 first deposit 50% (fiat) or 100% (crypto) matched.
BetOnline is an American sportsbook with a trusted following, operational since 2004. While the overall package may not be quite as impressive or dazzling as some of its competitors, the site meets the brief and as a sportsbook, delivers. First-time depositors can get up to $1000 in a sign-up bonus. There is no structured rewards or loyalty program.
Read our full sportsbook review, or visit the site:
#3 Bodog
- Pros: Reputable Canadian sportsbook. Established 1994. Good betting tools. Good range of sports markets offered.
- Cons: Low max deposit limits. Limited crypto offering.
- Welcome Bonus: C$400 100% matched first deposit.
The Bodog brand is one of the best known in the space of online sportsbooks and gaming. It’s had a colorful history in that time, but things have settled down in recent years. Bodog’s sportsbook offering is comprehensive; it shares the same betting platform as its sister site Bovada, including some cool betting tools. First-time depositors can claim a 100% deposit matched bonus up to C$400.
Read our full sportsbook review, or visit the site:
#4 Cloudbet
- Pros: Established 2013. Competitive odds; high limits.
- Cons: Unavailable in the US.
Cloudbet stands by its Best Prices claim, offering competitive odds and high limits since 2013. The sports offering is comprehensive, while the site boasts some unique data comparison tools designed to allow players to make more informed betting decisions. There is no Welcome Bonus for sportsbook users, but the site recently launched a six-tier Loyalty Program to reward consistent play.
Read our full sportsbook review, or visit the site:
#5 Stake
- Pros: Good sports offering; slick UI. Big-name sponsorships. Can buy crypto onsite.
- Cons: No fiat gameplay;
- Welcome Bonus: 200% matched first deposit up to $1,000.
Stake is a slick site – on different levels. The UI is neat, tidy; design and navigation clean. The site is stylish, which may seem superficial but makes for a nice UX. Sports offering is comprehensive, and offers a stable of ongoing sports promotions which some may enjoy. Commercial tie-ins with Watford FC in the EPL and the UFC, with big name ambassadors like Sergio Aguero and Israel Adesanya makes Stake feel as much a brand as a sportsbook. This will undoubtedly appeal to some. New players are greeted with a 200% matched deposit up to $1,000.
Read our full sportsbook review, or visit the site:
#6 SportsBetting
- Pros: Pared-back, no-nonsense site. May appeal to some.
- Cons: UI unlikely to appeal to all.
- Welcome Bonus: $1,000 first deposit 50% (fiat) or 100% (crypto) matched.
SportsBetting.ag is a sister site to BetOnline, and as such their offerings are very similar from a functional perspective. For example, the betting-tool functionality is the same. However, the difference is notable in the UI, with SportsBetting providing a pared-down, stripped-back site. This can make navigation cumbersome, and it isn’t the easiest on the eyes while on-site. First-time depositors can get up to $1000 of Welcome Bonus funds, and are encouraged to play with cryptocurrency. There is no structured rewards or loyalty programme.
Read our full sportsbook review, or visit the site:
#7 MyBookie
- Pros: Reputable sportsbook. Established 2014. Good betting tools. Wide range of sports markets offered.
- Cons: Live betting a weakness; not the best banking limits.
- Welcome Bonus: $1,000 first deposit, 50% match.
MyBookie is, without a doubt, a comprehensive sportsbook, with a range of sports and a granularity that’s impressive. It’s bold UI is not only eye-catching but makes navigation easy, although the site can sometimes let itself down on the some of the finer details. The live-betting experience was a bit of a disappointment compared to other sites, but MyBookie is a legit option worth checking out.
Read our full sportsbook review, or visit the site:
What to Look For in a Sportsbook – UFC / MMA
What you want from your sportsbook will be shaped my many factors, no doubt intertwined. Are you an experienced bettor? A newbie may look for different things than a sharp bettor.
What type of experience are you looking for? An entertaining way to while away an hour or two on-site, or are you there simply to lay a bet as quickly and easily as possible and be on your way?
In our reviews, we focus on six areas of equal importance – these touch points are not prioritized – that we believe should point you in the right direction.
Sports betting experience | Live betting |
Bonuses and Rewards | Deposits, Withdrawals and Limits |
Customer Support | Security/Trustworthiness |
We won’t explore each of these in too much depth as they relate to each sportsbook here. For that, we encourage you to read the full reviews and check out the sites for yourselves.
1. The Sports Betting Experience
Sports on offer
We figure if we’re going to review a sportsbook, starting with the sports offering makes sense. We look at the range of sports on offer, and the number of leagues or competitions offered in each sport. The crazy thing about online sportsbooks is the granularity that can be achieved. Anyone for Pro Tour Mexico beach volleyball? Casual cycling fans might bet on the Tour de France, but the Tour of Flanders E3 Saxo Bank Classic? Does Armenia Infinity Cup badminton tickle your fancy? (These are all actual markets available on Cloudbet.)
Betting tools / Cool features
The next factor is, rather simply, how easy is it to make a bet. Betslip features and bet-building tools are ways a site can distinguish itself from others. Is it easy to place a double, create a parlay, or make a teaser? Can you lay a very specific player prop easily? Maybe, if the tools exist.
Bovada/Bodog, BetOnline and SportsBetting all have pretty slick prop builder tools.
Cloudbet may not have the slickest betting tools, but boasts other cool features. For example, it has a bunch of unique comparative data tools that other sites can’t match. If that’s your thing.
Bet limits
Information such as betting limits ought to be important to you. If you tend to bet fairly often, but conservatively and for fairly low stakes, then for the most part this might not be an issue. But if you bet only occasionally, and like to make a big splash when you do, then you ought to know.
No point going online to make your life-changing Super Bowl Winner bet if the book isn’t going to take your action. Although, that’s not a great illustration – the Super Bowl is the biggest single betting event of the year and pretty much all sportsbooks raise their regular limits to accommodate the extra action. But you get our point.
2. Live Betting
In this day and age, we couldn’t consider a recommended sportsbook if it didn’t offer live betting. While it may be enough for a casual bettor to simply back your team on the weekend, others love to seek out the thrill of playing along with live action. The popularity of live-betting has sky-rocketed in recent years.
All the recommended sportsbooks we have reviewed offer live betting.
Some sportsbooks also live-stream events, so if you find the right book which happens to stream your sport of choice, that could be hugely beneficial to you.
New to sports betting? Do you know what the moneyline is, or a point spread? Ever heard of vig, but don’t quite know how it works?
If not, that’s cool… let The AllStar help you get a grip on your betting basics. All this and much more is explained in our Betting Education articles, written for folks who’ve never laid a bet in their life, but might be interested in trying.
3. Bonuses and Rewards
Welcome Bonuses
Welcome Bonuses are the easiest way an online sportsbook will look to catch your eye. It’s an attention-grabber that usually takes the form of free money. And who doesn’t like free money?
But as you know, very rarely is anything truly free, and strings attached is par for the course. While the offer usually takes the form of free money, the strings usually take the form of what are known as play-through requirements, or rollover requirements that you must meet before you can withdraw those funds.
What is a rollover requirement?
A rollover requirement is a staking requirement that as a player you will need to meet before the sportsbook allows you to access the funds in question.
Let’s take a hypothetical $1,000 deposit, which the sportsbook matches 100%, so you start with $2,000 in your playing account. A free $1,000 is a beautiful thing, isn’t it?
Well, the rollover requirement is generally listed as a factor of “x” – 10x meaning you would need to wager those funds 10 times before you can withdraw funds. 10x on $1,000 means $10,000 worth of bets before you can access those bonus funds (and almost always any funds won using those bonus funds). And there’s a very real chance that 10x could actually be 15x, 20x or 30x. Or more.
What’s more, does the rollover requirement apply to just the bonus funds, or does it also include your deposited funds too? It may.
The bottom line here: Be sure to read the terms and conditions of any Welcome Bonus closely – or our breakdown in our reviews.
Our reviews look at the details of each Welcome Bonus and compare them against each other, emphasising the rollover requirement as an important factor to consider.
Lastly, it’s a fairly normal practice for sportsbooks to offer smaller, ongoing bonuses, such as “reload bonuses” when you top up your account, a free live bet, or specific event- or competition-related promotions. Right now, March Madness NCAA basketball is grabbing the limelight.
Rewards
Under the “Rewards” umbrella we’re talking about the good stuff sportsbooks like to offer players for sticking around and continuing to use their services. It’s a thank you. Many service industries use them, and our recommended sportsbooks are no different.
Generally, these take the form of structured VIP-style loyalty programmes, where the more you play, the higher you climb, and along the way become eligible for better rewards.
For example, Bovada and sister-site Bodog reward players per $1 wagered depending on the type of bet placed and/or the sport chosen. These points can later be exchanged for cash once you’ve accrued enough of them.
The higher you climb the rewards ladder, the fewer points you need to use to claim back $1. Check out our reviews for more details.
Cloudbet has recently revamped it Loyalty scheme, and is confident enough in its long-term offering that for sports players it has replaced its old 5BTC Welcome Bonus.
Crypto bonuses
A lot of sites offer larger bonuses if you are willing to deposit in bitcoin or in another of the many increasingly popular coins. In some cases the bonuses can far outstrip those offered to players who only deposit in traditional fiat currency.
4. Deposits, Withdrawals and Limits
How easy is it to set up an account, deposit and start playing? For us, this is a key part of the user experience. We all know that a bad experience from the very start is unlikely to engender loyalty and/or faith in a product or service. As the first touch point with a customer, we take this into serious consideration.
When trying to deposit funds, there are numerous factors that come into play – with convenience chief among them. Most sites take credit cards, but be aware of hidden fees – or at the least the potential charge, and whether or not this varies form site to site. Beyond credit cards, you can probably transact with most old-school methods, like bank transfers and wires, but expect them to take time to be credited.
Deposit and withdrawal limits are also worth knowing – you don’t want to have a preferred method of deposit, only to find you have to deposit more than you would like to. Or perhaps worse yet, want to withdraw a large amount of your funds only to find that the system won’t support such a transaction.
Every site is different and our reviews do our best to break them down for you.
Crypto deposits
Operating as we are online, it should be no surprise that the recommended sportsbooks reviewed all encourage players to use cryptocurrency – be that Bitcoin, Ethereum, Tether (USDT) or any one of the many increasingly popular altcoins.
Annoyingly, however, not every site affords you the ability to buy cryptocurrency on-site, meaning you will need to do so elsewhere and then deposit from your wallet. If you are not already into cryptocurrency, this could be a significant hurdle or barrier to entry, and so we see it as a pretty significant negative.
Other sites do allow you to buy crypto on-site, which, if they’re pushing you to use it, we consider a bare minimum quite frankly. Whether or not you own cryptocurrency, or are willing to buy some to begin your sports-betting experience, we value sites that try to make that as easy as possible for you.
At both Stake and Cloudbet you can buy crypto on-site. Read our full review, or visit Stake:
We also consider the number of different coins that a platform can support, and in that case Cloudbet is the clear winner here – the sportsbook of choice for true crypto converts.
5. Customer Support
For the same reasons we’ve stressed already, customer support is crucial if it’s going to inform your client/customer relationship. And it will.
The accessibility of support staff varies form book to book, and for some this can be a game-changer too. The personal touch is always nice, and in our view, appreciated – so it’s great when someone actually picks up the phone to greet a newcomer. We view that as a real plus.
All sites generally offer some mix of a searchable “Help Centre” or “Knowledge Base” that tends to cover FAQs and evergreen content on how things work on-site. Some offer live chat, some don’t. Support can generally be emailed, or called on toll-free numbers.
If you spend just a few minutes on community boards, subreddits or the like, researching sportsbooks two things become immediately clear: 1) people don’t react kindly to not being able to withdraw their money when they want to; and 2) accusations of incompetence at best, and scamming at worst, are thrown around with what often feels like reckless abandon, especially in relation to point 1.
Which leads us nicely on to…
6. Security/Trustworthiness
Although this sits as the last of our recommended sportsbook reviews touch-points there are some who – quite understandably and unarguably – insist it should be top of the list. Our list is not prioritised.
After all, at the end of the day, you will be providing these sites with your cash money.
As far as security is concerned, all the sites we have reviewed here employ basic industry standards or security, using a Secure Socket Layer (SSL). As ever, personal security best practices come into play here, and we suggest that wherever possible you use Two-Factor Authentication (2FA). many sites will reserve the right to carry out further KYC enquiries, which may require you to provide some form of picture ID, or proof of address.
Although reputable online sportsbooks will do their best to provide you with the best playing experience within their power, it is worth recognising that they also sometimes face issues with players trying to game them. Attempted multi-accounting is a well-known problem, and so as legitimate business concerns they may sometimes require more information from you than they normally would.
There are also valid reasons why a sportsbook might delay a withdrawal request, or ask for time to process such a request which does not – and should not – automatically leave them open to false accusations of nefarious behaviour or worse, scamming.
In our reviews we often say that a site’s longevity is a good indicator of their trustworthiness. Like any business, if not more so than many given the nature of t the business, these online sportsbooks can’t risk their survival on reputational risk and shady business practices.
As a final point, all of our recommended sportsbooks are licensed by regulatory bodies.
Do Your Own Research
Now that you’ve actually read all of the above – and we thank and commend you for doing so – here comes the caveat emptor.
At the end of the day, despite all the effort we’ve put into pulling together our recommended sportsbook reviews – and we truly hope you find value in them – the best advice we can give is still to go check these sites out for yourself.
Explore. Take a look around. See what grabs you, or what doesn’t.
We have tried to give you some food for thought, helpful pointers and direction, though ultimately the decision will be subjective and is yours to make.
And finally… Diversify
We’ll leave you with this final reinforcement: If you can’t pick one sportsbook to play with, that’s OK – because it often pays to have more than one account.
Odds will differ across sites, and having more than one account allows you to better shop the line to find the best odds. Plus, if one site goes down for some reason you’ll still be able to get your bet on. Because no one likes missing out on a winner.