Betway Review

How do I feel about Betway? Let's start with some positive notes, a few reasons to consider opening an account:

Betway is listed as an accredited site at Casinomeister.com. Casinomeister runs the most popular and detailed casino blacklist (and accredited site list) on the Web. Though the site gets a relatively low grade (7 out of 10), a listing as "accredited" implies that they resolve player complaints and pay winnings in a timely fashion.

The casino library includes more than 500 games. Variety matters to online gamblers, and I have no issues with the casino games hosted at Betway. But lots of players are looking for the biggest collection of games they can find. Slot gamblers will be particularly impressed by the game lineup.

Betway holds gaming licenses from several reputable jurisdictions. In order to do business with certain European countries, the site had to earn gaming licenses from obscure and persnickety jurisdictions like Germany and the UK. I usually point out when a site holds a license from a disreputable jurisdiction, so I give Betway credit where credit is due.

Now for a few negative features that may have some gamblers thinking twice about joining the site and making a deposit:

Betway runs few promotions, many of which have awful terms. I reviewed Betway a year ago for a different project, and at that time I bemoaned the fact that the casino bonus had a 40x deposit-plus-bonus rollover. That has since increased to 50x, which makes it one of the hardest bonuses to clear ever. Sportsbook, poker, and bingo players have their own bonus offers, which range from so-so to ridiculous, mostly because of wagering requirements and game exclusions.

American players can't open accounts. This is only a big deal if you live in America – but I do, and I know plenty of online gamblers in America who would love to have access to this site.

Betway's casino library is made up entirely of Microgaming titles. Microgaming is a major player in the casino game design industry, but their slot machine games are pretty dull. Sure, they have more than 500 games available, but what good is a gigantic library if the titles are mostly sub-par? I go into more detail about the game library below.

Below is an overview of each of the gambling options available at Betway:

• Sportsbook Welcome Bonus: First-time depositors who plan to wager in the sportsbook are eligible for a 100% deposit match worth up to $/£/€30. The site imposes a 10x wagering requirement, and bonus funds are released in increments as they're earned.
• Casino Welcome Bonus: New casino customers are eligible for a series of three bonuses spread across their first three deposits for a grand total of $1,000 in free cash offers. Each of your first three deposits is matched and capped at a different rate. The wagering requirement is massive - 50x the total bonus-plus-deposit, and players have just three months to clear as much of their bonus amount as they can.
• Poker Welcome Bonus: New poker players are eligible for a 200% deposit match bonus worth up to $750. The bonus funds are released in 1% increments based on how much poker you play. The more you play, the faster you earn your bonus cash.
• Bingo Welcome Bonus: Bingo players – make your first deposit and you're eligible for a 300% bonus worth up to $150. Minimum deposit to trigger bonus is $5. A wagering requirement equal to 30x the bonus amount is in place.
• Referral Bonus: For every person you refer that makes a deposit of at least $20, you'll earn $20. This bonus requires a rollover of 8x the bonus.

Betway supports the following world currencies:

• Australian dollars
• Canadian dollars
• Euros
• New Zealand dollars
• Norwegian kroner
• British pounds sterling
• Russian rubles
• Swedish kronor
• US dollars
• Czech Republic korunas
• Denmark kroner

This is a list of all available deposit-only methods at Betway:

• Astropay
• EPS
• Euteller
• GiroPay
• Maestro
• Neosurf
• POLi
• PaySafeCard
• Przelewy24
• Sofortueberweisung
• UKash
• eWire

This list represents all methods that can be used for deposit OR withdrawal at Betway:

• Citadel Direct
• ClickandBuy
• Credit Cards
• Direct Bank Transfer
• EntroPay
• EziPay
• Lobanet
• Neteller
• PayPal
• Qiwi
• Skrill
• Visa
• Visa Electron
• ecoPayz

Betway launched primarily as a sportsbook about a decade ago, adding casino games and other gambling options in the years since. The site still claims that the sportsbook is its main source of income, though its poker room and casino games (not to mention its excellent bingo games) earn good reviews and seem to have a good deal of traffic.

Betway is one of the leading online bookies in the UK, competing against bigger names like Paddy Power and Betfred. The site has tons of sponsorship deals with professional teams, and they advertise to get their name out even more. They have a lot traffic through their sportsbook.

Before we get into the site's available sports markets and other details, let's talk about the new live betting platform. Betway is pushing live betting heavily on their site and in advertisements, but I found it a little disappointing. Maybe it's because of the time of year of my visit, or maybe it's just bad coverage, but I could only find soccer games listed as in-play.

Besides a limited live betting selection, the sportsbook interface is easy to use, responds quickly, and looks really professional. In most countries that have access to Betway, they show live events one click away from the betting interface. And for a free live feed, the streams are pleasant enough. If the ability to stream live games matters to you, contact customer service and find out if people from your country have access to streaming.

Betway covers the following sports:

The emphasis is on European sports. It's nice to see some obscure markets available, too. "Pesapallo" is the national game of Finland – it's a hybrid of baseball and other bat-ball sports that's not played much outside of Scandinavia. "Netball" is a team game based loosely on the rules of basketball. It's most popular among women in Commonwealth nations like Canada, South Africa, India, and Australia.

But obscure markets aren't the site's only forte – the sport with the best coverage is "football," what US bettors like me call soccer. Not only is soccer the only sport covered in their live in-play options, Betway covers many different pro and amateur leagues from all over the world. On the day I visited for this review, soccer games from the MLS in America to a third-degree semi-pro Icelandic league were available--and all levels in-between.

Betway covers more markets than that – when other sports or major events are in season, the site opens new betting opportunities.

Here's an example:

At the time of my visit, they had special wagers available on Wimbledon and the Tour de France, along with some special eSports events and The Ashes, a cricket series between England and Australia.

According to the sites own promotional material, as many as 12,000 markets are available at the site on any given day. The variety of sports available for wagering is impressive but clearly geared toward the taste of Northern European customers. That's no surprise, as the site is most popular in Scandinavia, Germany, and the UK.

Yes, Betway's casino is home to more than 500 titles. I'm not sure that having a gigantic library is worth as much as having an interesting game library. I'm usually unimpressed with libraries made up of games by a single designer, and when that designer is from the "so-so tier" of designers (Playtech, Microgaming, RTG), then I'm even less excited at the prospect.

The games at Betway are broken up into five categories.

Here's a quick guide to each category, as listed on the site:

Slots

I counted 449 slots at my last visit. Betway's casino is primarily a slot site.

The collection is large, but because all the slots were designed by the same company, many games are similar to one another. Microgaming will often take a design, use fifteen different themes, and give it fifteen different tiles, with little variation in terms of rules, bonuses, and other features.

That said, Microgaming does produce some nice games. My favorites are their licensed titles, of which some three dozen are now available at Betway.

Here are some descriptions of the better-quality Microgaming slots available at Betway:

• The Finer Reels of Life – A celebration of wealth and glamour. This is a 5-reel slot that uses the popular 243 ways to win motif instead of the typical pay line layout. Images of expensive cigars, shining diamonds, and giant bottles of liquor bounce around on the screen to an old jazz soundtrack. This game offers multiple bonuses, including one which pays a minimum of ten free spins and a 5x wager multiplier.
• Jurassic Park – Microgaming is licensed to provide this slot, which includes real images and audio from the classic Steven Spielberg film. This is a 5-reel, fifty payline slot with five different movie-themed bonuses that award up to twelve free spins.
• Immortal Romance – Microgaming made this Twilight knockoff back when sparkly vampires were all the rage. I like the Wild Desire feature that pops up randomly and scatters wild symbols across all five reels. The theme may seem dated already, but the game runs smoothly and has some cool horror and surprise elements along with quality video and audio effects.

Casino Games

A total of twenty-six titles are available in this category, which includes everything from classic table games to video poker, casino poker, and more. It's an odd collection of games. I organized my list alphabetically, because Betway seemed to have them in no particular order at all.

Here's the list:

• 3 Card Poker Gold
• American Roulette
• Atlantic City Blackjack Gold
• Baccarat
• Baccarat Gold
• Card Climber
• Castle Builder
• Classic Blackjack Gold
• Classic Multi Hand Blackjack
• Double Bonus Video Poker
• Double Exposure Blackjack Gold
• European Roulette Gold
• French Roulette
• HiLo 13 European Blackjack Gold
• High Speed Poker
• High Streak Blackjack
• Max Damage
• Multi Wheel Roulette Gold
• Multi-Hand Premier Blackjack Gold
• Multi-Hand Vegas Downtown Blackjack Gold
• Premier Blackjack Hi Lo Gold
• Premier Multi-Hand Euro Bonus Blackjack Gold
• Premier Roulette
• Red Dog
• Vegas Single Deck Blackjack Gold
• Vegas Strip Blackjack Gold

Luckily, Betway maintains a static page that contains all the rules for these games, which can be found directly from their website.

The disappointing thing about this list is how many game variants are the same old game presented with different graphics, slightly-higher wagering limits, or other minor features that have nothing to do with the game. "Premier" blackjack, for example, is no different from the site's other classic blackjack games except that it uses darker colors and different graphics.

Scratch Cards

Twenty-two scratch card games are available at Betway. I'm seeing more of these games at online casinos – where once sites had just one or two lotto-style scratch card games, now they have dozens.

I'm not sure what the appeal of these instant-win games is when most people can buy them at the local gas station or grocery store. The games don't have much variety of game play; most of them are the "match and win" variety with different graphics and prize amounts.

Betway poker is part of MPN, the old Microgaming Poker Network. MPN is not one of the larger networks online – in fact, it's downright small. Traffic peaks at around 1,200 players across the entire network, and tournament participation is sketchy, particularly for high-stakes events.

Luckily, the MPN poker software is solid. I'm not much of a poker player, but I found it intuitive, with a stable and attractive interface. As for features, all the big ones are represented – preferred seating, auto top-up, the use of a four-colored deck, and the ability to take notes directly in the software, among other features.

Available games:

• Texas Hold'em
• Omaha
• Seven card stud
• Omaha hi-lo

As is often the case these days at poker rooms, the majority of traffic at Betway's cash games is in no-limit hold'em tables. I saw a few pot-limit Omaha games running at my last visit, but I didn't visit during peak European playing time, so my opinion might be skewed.

Blinds are available as low as $0.01/$0.02 and top out at $25/$50. The most traffic is concentrated around the $0.50/$1 level and below. That's not uncommon for a modern poker room on the Internet.

One of the newest features at Betway is the online bingo parlor, added in the summer of 2014.

Betway's bingo site earns a lot of good reviews, and though I don't play much bingo, I was impressed. The site's bingo games are available for play on tablets and smartphones, as well as the desktop site. I haven't seen much mobile bingo attached to all-in-one gambling sites, so nice job, Betway.

At the time of my visit, only two games were available – standard 75-ball and 90-ball bingo. Players can play up to 50 cards at a time, and tournaments are scheduled as far as a month ahead.

The site conducts business in the following languages:

• Czech
• Danish
• German
• English
• Spanish
• Greek
• French
• Finnish
• Italian
• Latvian
• Norwegian
• Portuguese
• Polish
• Russian
• Swedish

Betway's general customer service email address is: [email protected].

Contact Betway via toll-free phone number using the appropriate number for your country:

• UK: 0808 238 9841
• Canada: 1-877-811-2604
• International: +44-808-238-9841

You can communicate with Betway via Live Chat. Betway promises "24/7" Live Chat access.

I found a postal address for Betway on a review site. Write to Betway at:

9 Empire Stadium Street
Gzira, GZR 1300, Malta

Betway strikes me as an average gambling site – not a bad site, but not impressive enough to warrant the use of superlatives. It's a typical all-in-one gambling venue, with a cool eSports betting service and a well-reviewed and active bingo parlor attached. Betway is coming up on its ten-year anniversary, so expect to see some special bonus offers and other announcements over the next year or two.