You probably came here searching for the best bitcoin and cryptocurrency sportsbook that will cover all your betting needs. Although checking reviews is always a good thing to do to make the perfect decision, you still need to be careful.
But Why? Because 95% of all crypto sportsbook reviews you can find online are usually paid ones. And this is something you want to avoid.
It means that the owners of the websites received money for publishing the reviews. Moreover, pretty often the writing of these reviews is curated by the gambling company. This is how the business is done in the gambling industry.
But how could this help real players looking for a trustworthy opinion?
It is sad to realize that the goal of most reviews is not to give you an unbiased judgment but to convince you to start betting as fast as possible. You can still refer to forums, where real people should share their experience, but believe me or not, those posts can also be purchased by gambling websites.
🧐 How do I review Bitcoin sportsbooks?
Each Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency betting website that I review here has been tested by me with a real deposit. I became a loyal player of sportsbooks for a while to get as much information and experience as possible. I test the speed of money transfers, the promotions the sites offer and talk to the support team with relevant and sometimes stupid questions.
This ensures that the whole information published in the sportsbook review is based on a real experience and not dictated by the owners.
I never take money reviewing these sites. However, I use my affiliate links for the bookies that I feel work in the best way. You can use my links or not, this is up to you. Don’t forget that I risk my own money while reviewing the sportsbooks, so any additional income helps me to create more and more content.
I am not a sports expert that studies the stats of the previous matches. I also do not search for insights for upcoming games. I bet for fun, but I love to do this at a proper cryptocurrency sportsbook, that is fair, fast, and that covers my needs.
Below you find the list of things that I check while placing bets on each of the sportsbooks.
💸 Does the sportsbook pay?
The first and most important thing to check is whether the betting website actually pays out the winnings. This can be easily checked on Bitcointalk and Reddit. Withdrawal issues or delayed transfers are usually reported in forums.
The best way to verify the withdrawal process is by making a deposit and requesting payment after a while.
⚽ What sports can you bet on?
You will always find all the popular sports pretty much on every sportsbook: football, basketball, tennis, and other popular games. Nonetheless, I think that the real fun and value might be hidden in the less popular and unpredictable sports.
For example, it is always fun to bet on esports, Australian football, and hockey matches. Here the less known team might easily beat the favourite one.
🎯 Bet options available
Having enough sports titles is not enough. You also need to have different bet options. While you can always bet on the match-winner, there might be a lot of side events with fewer chances to predict their outcomes. Your goal is to find an underrated event and a variety of betting options.
🔴 Live betting
While I am not a big fan of live betting, for some people this aspect might be important. Live betting creates different bet possibilities. This is great for users that are searching for unique bets and underrated situations.
✅ Are the odds good?
To determine whether the odds are good or bad, you need to get familiar with the betting margin. A margin is a percentage that a sportsbook puts into the odds as a commission. The larger the margin, the more money you need to pay in order to place the bet.
The formula for a margin calculation is pretty simple: for decimal odds, you just divide 1 for the odds number for every outcome, multiply it by 100 and then summarize the numbers. Then you deduct 100% from the sum and get your margin percentage.
Getting confused? Don’t worry, here there is an example.
Team A is playing against Team B. Odds for team A to win is 2, the draw is 2,5, and the odds for Team B to win is 4. Let’s put the numbers into the formula: (1/2) x 100 + (1/2.5) x 100 + (1/4) x 100 = 50 + 40 + 25 = 115. Now we deduct 100 from 115 and get a 15% margin.
The margin can vary not only between the different bitcoin betting websites but also between the different sports and leagues.
💰 Maximum bets
Having a low margin is not enough. The sportsbook should also have comfortable maximum bet limits. While the biggest sports and leagues may have high limits, less popular titles may have serious limitations.
Always check the maximum bet sizes on the sports you are actually going to place bets on. It may happen that the limits are extremely low.
👁️ Can you play with no KYC?
I don’t like any KYC procedures for several reasons:
- They are time-consuming
- They might be used to delay the payment
- The paranoiac inside me does not want to share any personal information online
This is why I prefer to place my bets on Bitcoin sportsbooks, which pretty often work with no license and no KYC at all.
While I understand that id verification is important to prevent underage gambling, pretty often KYC procedures become an instrument for the site owners to perform dirty tricks.
Is it safe to place bets on cryptocurrency sportsbooks that have no license?
I would say that there is no difference, as there are near to zero cases when the licensing authorities help players in case of any problems. According to the sportsbook’s terms and conditions, they can perform any action they think is right based on their sole decision. So the chance that a licensed betting website will be of any sort better, than an unregulated one, is very small.
🌐 Is VPN access allowed?
VPN protects your data and allows you to access any website while you are traveling. If you decided to use a VPN for placing bets, then it is better to know in advance if this action is allowed. Sometimes VPNs are being used by the bonus abusers, that’s why some gambling websites restrict their usage.
⚠️ Ways to deposit and withdraw
As I am placing bets only with cryptocurrencies, it is important for me to have several types of coins available for deposit and withdrawal. While Bitcoin is the most popular coin, it is not that suitable for gambling, especially when there is a lot of congestion on the network.
Transaction fees might be ridiculously high. Additionally, the speed of the Bitcoin network can also become slow these days. That’s why Bitcoin-only sportsbooks have no chance to compete with the venues offering Litecoin, Doge, or Tether payments.
🤑 Betting promotions
It is hard to find fair promotions that are not invented against the players. On the paper, those promotions might look good and attractive, but once you start checking the terms and conditions, you will find out that there are always some limitations. While making each Bitcoin sportsbook review I check the welcome and regular promotions from the math perspective.
The best bonuses and promotions have no wagering requirements and no other restrictions. The bad ones will require you to bet the winnings gained from the promo multiple times or will limit the size of the odds to make the bonus less rewardable.
🚀 Withdrawing speed
Each withdrawal request always needs a confirmation of the support agent before it is processed. The agent will briefly check the gaming activity to make sure that there was no abusing or cheating. The regular time for the bookie to approve your withdrawal is around 1 hour. The best crypto sportsbooks confirm the payment in 5-10 minutes.
Once the withdrawal is approved by the betting website, there is nothing much you can do to speed up the process. So here I check the promptness of the payout confirmation. Declination of the withdrawal with an irrelevant reason is also a red flag.
🙋 Customer service
If you are making a lot of deposits and withdrawals, participating in regular promotions, or claiming bonuses, then there is a high chance that sooner or later you will need clarification from the support team. I test out the attitude of the support agents and their reaction speed.
I ask different types of questions, including silly ones to understand how professional customer support is. I also let you know the communication methods the sportsbook is using: is it a live chat, email, or maybe telegram?
📱 Mobile support
Betting and smartphones is the best combination. While it is unpleasant to play casino games on a smaller screen, the betting process does not include any special graphics and is very suitable for mobile usage.
You may think, that nowadays there are no gaming operators which do not offer a responsive mobile interface, but believe me, some companies still do not spend much time on improving mobile performance. A good smartphone experience is not only about having the design that fits the screen, but also navigation, informational boxes, and buttons that are easy to tap or slide.
So these are the aspects that I check while making the reviews of bitcoin and crypto supporting sportsbooks. These are based purely on my personal experience and I try to take as many screenshots as possible to show you all the nuances.