Bwin

Who Are Bwin?

Bwin started out in Austria in 1997 and has grown significantly since then, branching out across the world to establish its sportsbook globally. In 2015 it was acquired by Entain, who remain its parent company.

• Established in 1997
• Lc International Ltd
• UKGC licence number – 54743

First Impression of Bwin

This review will reflect the service offered at the time of writing. I signed up on the desktop version of Bwin, but also used the mobile version to compare, as well as downloading their app. 

Bwin looks like one of those solid, been around for a long time, knows what they’re doing sportsbook. The black background (popular with so many) features flecks of yellow branding, but keeps things fairly understated. The homepage is a selection of seasonal promotions, trending accas, welcome offers and the main markets.

Bwin Live Betting

You can see how many live options are available from the In-Play tab in the menu, which also lists the number of markets (55 at this precise moment). These are split into different sports, including football, tennis, basketball, volleyball and esports, but you can also select the live streaming tab and see which events have live streaming as an option.

Bwin Live Streaming

The live streaming is really good from Bwin. It’s immediately clear which sports you can stream, and which you can’t, and these include tennis and esports. All these events come with supporting stats that you can choose to turn on or off. One extra feature, which you don’t see in many other places is a panel on the homepage called “Media”. Here, you can choose from live events, and stream on a small screen in the corner of the homepage. It features a dropdown menu to select events and works brilliantly.

Bwin Betting Odds

After looking through some alternative sportsbooks, as well as going through some comparison sites, it seems as though the odds offered at Bwin are okay for the most part, and it looks like it depends on the sport in question. For football, for example, it’s around what you’d expect and you can definitely find more value elsewhere, but there are some sports where the odds are great, American football being one. Overall, it just depends on what sport it is that you like to bet on.

Bwin Betting App or Mobile Site 

Interestingly, on Bwin’s app, the black background is completely reversed, and it’s exclusively black text on a white background. I really like the change and it’s definitely easier on the eye, with the smaller screen feeling brighter and cleaner. In terms of functionality, it’s all pretty seamless, with the main menu along the bottom changing topics, depending on which page you’re on. This is all pretty impressive.

Bwin Football Betting

Bwin isn’t far off making our best football betting sites in the UK, but does miss out. The package as a whole is good, especially when it comes to the number of events and competitions covered. There are some promotions, which we’ll get onto below, but the odds are just par for the course really, and could do with being just a little longer, and those two factors combined mean that it doesn’t quite make our absolute best.

Bet Builder 

There’s a very good bet builder feature at Bwin. A lot of events have pre-made bet builder options that you can select from if that’s your thing, but a crucial difference here is that you can add or edit the picks within these pre-made options. Most sports have bet builder as an option, and obviously football leads that. There are plenty of markets within the builder and the menu drop downs work very well indeed.

Bonuses

This is just about okay. There are a couple of free to play games – score predictor, for example – to win real cash, and there are some acca boosts and odds boosts. The only thing on top of that is their Goals Goals Goals promotion, which gives punters a £1 free bet for every goal that is scored in a selected match that you’ve places £10+ bet on.

Cash Out

Cashout is a very important betting feature for punters these days so it’s crucial that bookies integrate this feature into their mobile betting apps. At Bwin you can get partial cash out, which is great, but you can’t cash out on bet builders or edit your bet, which does let it down a bit.

Bwin Horse Racing

Bwin’s racing offering is decent. There’s full listing on UK and Irish meets, as well as races across the globe, including France, the US, Japan, Australia and more. You’ll get Best Odds Guaranteed if you take the early price and the starting price is bigger, which is always nice when it comes to the nags. At Bwin the cap is pretty high (£20,000), and you can get it from 8:00AM, but you can’t use it for multiples. Bwin also uses Timeform Tips, with each race featuring the tip at the top of the page.

win US Sports Betting

A full range of American Sports is available. We’ll check out the major leagues, but also look into the sports further down the pyramid and, as well as across the globe. 

American Football Betting

Punters will have to look elsewhere if they’re after NFL promotions and bonuses, because that’s not Bwin’s strength. In truth, you get the sense that they don’t actually need to do that because the odds that they offer in the first place are so good. They’re unreal, and one of, if not, the best out there compared to UK bookmakers.

Basketball Betting

Covering the NBA, WNBA, college basketball, Euro League, as well as leagues in Colombia, France, Senegal, Taiwan and more, Bwin has an exceptional basketball offering, with hundreds of different markets to choose from, making it a great place to come to for basketball betting. For individual NBA games there are usually 100+ different markets, including plenty of game props and player props.

Baseball Betting

The MLB, understandably, is a large part of Bwin’s baseball betting, but they also have markets for the Japanese, Taiwan and South Korean leagues and these also feature in their in-play betting. These in-play games have supporting stats that you can utilise for your betting along the way. There are lots of markets per game, with a couple of specials thrown in, also – “Will there be a run in the first inning?”, for example.

Ice Hockey Betting

You can bet on leagues all around the globe – Germany, Sweden, even World Championships – but obviously the NHL is the main draw here. On top of futures that you can get on conference and division winners, and player of the season awards, there are a ton of markets per game, with plenty of interesting player props on top of all the usuals.

Bwin Greyhound Betting

Bwin offers a standard greyhound section on its site. This includes UK races, but there is no live streaming on greyhounds and there is no Best Odds Guaranteed either. Each race has winner, forecast and tricast as betting options and there are Racing Post picks for a 123 on each race that you can choose to follow if so inclined.

Bwin Darts Betting

We’re constantly assessing the very best darts betting sites in the UK, and Bwin matches up well enough. I went through some of the upcoming Premier League match ups, as well as some smaller events such as the Modus series, and there are plenty of markets for each game. There’s also already some outrights on the next World Championships, despite how far out it is, which is always a decent thing to have and an easy win for bookies, and a little odd when they don’t. The markets for Modus games are very limited, however, and often just have winner as the only option.

Bwin Snooker Betting

Compared to the best snooker betting sites, this matches up rather well. There are markets for some small upcoming events, plus futures on the World Championships, UK Championships and Masters. Selecting a few Championship League games and the number of markets are more than you’ll get at most other bookies. You can split the markets by match, or by frame, and then make your selections accordingly. These include things like “1st colour potted in Frame 2” and “Will there be a foul in Frame 1”.

Bwin Rugby Betting (Union & League)

I like the way that Bwin offers the markets for Result, and Spread (named 2-way handicap on Bwin) immediately from the off. It’s something not done everywhere and definitely helps in terms of determining value. There aren’t lots of markets per game, and it could definitely do with more. I’d also like the options of choosing my own handicap, rather than just going (or not going) with what’s offered.

Bwin Cricket Betting

If there were anything in the way of specific cricket promotions, or if the odds were a little better, I could see Bwin being one of our Top 10 cricket betting sites. Overall, it’s a really good offering because Bwin has a brilliant selection of competitions, and that goes for tournaments across the world, as well as more minor competitions or  leagues in said countries. I also love how many markets are available here for each game assuming it’s a big fixture – it reduces a fair bit for smaller competitions and games, but that’s understandable. 

Bwin Tennis Betting

This is a very strong part of the Bwin sportsbook. You can stream live selected tennis matches, the bet builder option is great, the supporting statistics are on point and there’s brilliant coverage across a whole host of events. A large number of Bwin’s “trending accas” are either football or tennis, so you’ll see this populate parts of the tennis page, with the option to add directly to your betslip.

Bwin Golf Betting

Bwin’s golf offering is probably a bit above average. They offer each way odds up to 10 places on the majors, which is more than most, and that’s on top of some specials and odds boosts, especially in the build up to major tournaments. There are also player specials – markets like “to go bogey free” or “to make four or more birdies in Round 1” for plenty of different players among the favourites. They have futures on plots of upcoming events, but the number of markets for upcoming majors is super impressive. 

Bwin Motorsports Betting

There is loads here. For the next upcoming Formula 1 Grand Prix there are so many markets to choose from. Obviously there is the winner, but also how many times the safety car will be out, head to heads on driver finishes, and absolutely tons of yes/no question based markets to choose between. On top of that there are also markets for Nascar, Indycar, Rally, Speedway and Formula E.

Bwin Boxing Betting

There’s plenty of boxing bouts to get stuck into here, and the markets look dependent on how far in advance they are. Those this weekend and over the next few weeks have an okay offering, whereas the further away they get the less markets on offer. That’s fair enough, and I wouldn’t expect to find round by round and the like for fights that are months away, but I would definitely like more options for big fights happening this week, and that’s definitely limited based on my experience with Bwin.

Bwin Other Sports Betting

Whilst these sports might sound very niche, there is still a large enough market for fans, and millions of them in the UK, so good coverage of niche sports and events is key to be reviewed on OLBG; let’s dig in a bit further.

Handball Betting

Betting on handball at Bwin looks very impressive. There’s actually over 90 games to bet on at the time of review, and that’s way more than most bookies. There aren’t loads of markets per game, but the odds are great and there are competitions in Bahrain, Portugal, Romania, Greece and more listed. Handball is increasingly popular and Bwin looks to be struggling in terms of providing a platform for punters to bet on various handball events and tournaments worldwide. 

Cycling Betting

Bwin offers betting on cycling for sports bettors who like to dabble in cycling betting, and comparing it with others out there it’s what we’d expect. There isn’t a load of markets, but that’s true of anywhere to be honest. What you can get is odds on next year’s Tour de France winner, plus the Classics like the Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix and Milan-San Remo.

Aussie Rules Football Betting

As far as Bwin is concerned, their event coverage is pretty standard – they have most parts covered. The games, competitions and odds are good, but the actual list of markets isn’t huge per game. It’s not as great as some others out there, but overall they are still a solid option.

Political Betting

Bwin houses its political betting under its own section. Their political betting is pretty good overall. There are some US Presidential markets, but not loads, and odds on the next Mayor of London. In terms of UK General Election markets, there are next Prime Minister odds, majority odds and next party leader markets, too. Unfortunately there is nothing from anywhere else around the globe.

Entertainment and Specials Betting

This is very poor from Bwin, with just a market for TIME Person of the Year. I’d expect a bit more of a light-hearted approach to Specials betting, with markets in music, film, awards ceremonies and even some super-specific seasonal stuff. 

Esports Betting

The esports betting at Bwin is very good. There is an “Esports” tab in the menu  and this will take you to markets (inclungi in-play) for a huge range of games including, but not limited to, Dota 2, Counter-Strike, Call of Duty, League of Legends and Overwatch. On top of this, in the menu you’ll find e-versions of sports – football, basketball and hockey – that include games like GT Sports League, E-battles and E-Rivals. 

Virtual Sports

Bwin has loads of virtual sports betting options. There is football, horse racing, greyhound racing, motorsports, table tennis, cricket, baseball, and more. You name it, it’s almost certainly here and I actually can’t remember a bigger virtual sports selection anywhere else. The football, for example, features World Cup, Bundesliga, Champions League games, and on it goes. There is plenty here for virtual sports lovers.

Casino

Bwin does have casino. It’s incredibly easy to find their casino offering from their sportsbook, with banners across the top and, as mentioned, it’s where you’re directed to from the off. They also have some bonuses and offers that lead to casino spins should you win sportsbook bets.

Bwin Account Opening Process

A reassuringly easy process. At the top-right of the screen Bwin has their “Register” button. Bettors just need to select this and follow the simple steps as guided through. You’ll be asked for the usual information – name, date of birth, address etc – and once complete be sent a verification email. Clicking this from your inbox will redirect you to the site, and then you’re free to get betting.

Navigation and user experience [desktop v mobile]

I prefer the desktop version to the app, but both are good, if not the absolute best around. As mentioned, I really like the fact that the app is white, and desktop black – I think both are suited for their platforms. The way in which the menu changes on the app depending on what page you’re on is really good. I also streamed tennis and esports on the app and it works brilliantly. There’s clearly been a lot of thought and efforts put into this part of the service. 

Placing a bet

This section should only really highlight if there are issues, as the process is almost identical on every site. Within a few minutes of signing up to Bwin I placed a couple of bets on different sports, one of which took advantage of the welcome offer, and I used their bet builder feature, which worked well. 

Managing your account

As mentioned above, the design really helps this along. On the desktop version, it’s stuff to the  left of the screen. On the app, it’s all at the bottom, with just the login at the top. I haven’t experienced any issues logging in, or finding customer service options, either. Overall, it feels like Bwin has got this part nailed.

Bwin Responsible Gambling Features

As with all online betting companies, responsible gambling should be and will be an essential element of the service provided.

Expect KYC procedures and document supply as a matter-of-course, to confirm your account after you have deposited a certain level of funds and in the event of any large wins.

You can set limits for yourself across depositing options and daily staking options too, so you can set your levels and keep control of your gambling.

Expect Bwin to contact you via your preferred communication method if there are suspicious activities on your account. This protects your account from being accessed by someone other than you and ensures you control your gambling activity. Bwin have a legal obligation to question your activity if they believe it to be suspicious.

As part of Bwin’s commitment to safer gambling, they aim to make zero revenue from harmful gambling by the end of 2023.

Bwin Review Summary 

In the introduction of this review I mentioned that how much you may like this sportsbook will depend on what sport you like betting on, and what’s important to you when betting.

From a product perspective Bwin is fairly faultless. That applies to how well the app works, how easy it is to stream (and the quality of the stream), and the navigation of the site. When you load bets, use the media player, access statistics, everything is incredibly seamless. It’s such an easy thing to use as a customer, so if that’s important to you then Bwin has to be a consideration. 

In addition, some sports are very good – I’m thinking of American football and tennis, in particular. The downside is that the odds aren’t always great, and if there aren’t lots of promotions, or a free bet club (or similar) to make up for that fact, that may put people off. Overall, it’s a very well-rounded product that deserves your attention.