The Best Bookmakers On The Net add your favorites

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Since i am HUGE fan of all sports, i am also a big fan of sport betting ! And i bet on sports since 2000 (altough i had to ask my brother to withdraw the money for me since i did not have the age ) ! I am now a tipster on a number of betting sites and forums, so i have some experience with online sports betting ! These are the reviews of the best bookmakers on the net !GAMEBOOKERS : 9/10Gamebookers Site Design First thing that you will see at the online bookmaker that you decide to visit is site design. Site design is not crucial when we are talking about online bookmakers, but says a lot about bookmaker possibilities and reliability. Site design is also relative thing, and is a matter of subject opinion, but you will hardly find the punters that do not like Gamebookers design. Important thing is that site is pretty fast, with lot of content and good link positions so you will have no problem in finding what you looking for. Good color combinations (3 colors design). There are no big graphics or show effects. This site is designed to make your life easier. Site is made in frames with menu on the left side. Really easy to navigate. Excellent!!!Gamebookers - Opening account procedure Opening account procedure is also very important. Gamebookers solved this problem really good. You will easily find a link for registering. In couple of easy steps you will finish complete procedure in couple of minutes. All steps are easy for understanding. You can choose your own username and password, which is great and not available at many bookmakers. They even have checking procedure and they will not let you to choose password that is similar to your username. Good thing is that you do not need to do any deposit when you open account, and you can do it later. They have one great service, that we could not find at any other online bookmaker. When you register you have option to enter your mobile phone number, so later you will able to receive results of your bets via Gamebookers SMS service. This service is completely free and available for all bets bigger then 5 EUR. This is simple great. Just imagine: You can not watch the game you bet on, and while you are in shopping with your pretty lady (unfortunately we have to do this sometimes :-)) or on some business conference you got SMS with result information. Simply great and free of charge. After registering you will get confirmation mail with your username and if you lost your password you will always have possibility to use lost password link on Gamebookers site. I could not remember what else i would like to see in opening account procedure (maybe, they should deliver couple of beers and good looking blonde to our home address :-)). Excellent!!! Gamebookers - Money transactions: After you open your account you need to deposit some money if you want to bet. Let's see what Gamebookers offer for us. You can deposit using all available credit cards (VISA, Master card, Diners, Eurocard). Minimum deposit via credit card is 10 EUR. There is no deposit fees on credit cards. If you do not like to use credit card deposit or do not have credit card, you can use Western Union, Quickpay, PayPal, Paybox, Paysafecard, Netteler, WebMoney, E-gold and MoneyBookers (MoneyBookers is owned by the same company as Gamebookers ). Also, you can use bank transfer from big number of banks around the world. We recommend credit card deposit as it is the fastest way to do it. Gamebookers is using 128 bits SSL security, which is more then enough to be sure for your transaction. Bank transfer take 2-7 days. Minimum deposit via bank transfer is 10 EUR too. Withdrawal can be done at any time with number of options. Credit card withdrawal is an option of course, but only to the amount that you once deposited through that credit card. They are simply doing credit back to your credit card. Best way for withdrawal is bank transfer. You will get your money in the bank account in 2-7 days. Withdrawal options are checks too, but as very slow solution as with all others bookmakers. You will get check via post and that can be pretty slow especially if you are not from Western Europe. One of the withdrawal solution is MoneyBookers. Important notice is that when you are doing your first withdrawal (of hundreds that we are hoping for :-)) you will have to send your ID copy to Gamebookers . This rule have some other bookmakers too, and it is important for legal purposes, so they can prove that you are over 18 and legitimate for gambling. It would be smart to scan your ID and have it in one folder so you can send them scanned copy via e-mail. It can be done in a minute so it is not a problem. Gamebookers - Betting procedure: Ok, let's say that we have uploaded our account with funds - then let's bet :-) Gamebookers is setting standards in large number of online betting fields, so you should not expect that betting procedure is complicated. It is very simple. On the left menu, choose the sport you want to bet on. You will get list of available games grouped by leagues. Choose the league from a combo, and you will get the list of available games. With one click you will place the game in your betting slip. You can add more games to the betting slip or just this one (Of course it is possible to add games from different leagues or sports). After you add all the games you want to your betting slip, you should enter money that you are willing to risk on this games and choose to play on singles, parlay or combo. Then you submit your betting slip, and you are able to see your final betting ticket with possibility to confirm or cancel it. When you confirm the ticket, you have placed a bet. Procedure works great and is very easy. You have great account history with info about every bet that you ever took or even download history report. You have possibility to change odds format on the site. You can download list of odds for the upcoming games or make your own whatchlist (if you do this you will get mails as often as you decide with odds for the upcoming games and betting lines).You have option to sell the bet before the game end (like: odds for Chelsea win the title was 9.00 in one moment before the season kick off. I placed 100 EUR bet on it, after 2 weeks Abramovici bought Mutu, Crespo, Joe Cole and Makelele and odds went to 3.00, so we have the option to sell our bet for more money that we put in (3 times more :-)). This is rapid example, but it can go in opposite direction, like if you put an early bet, and later in the week 3 key players broke a leg in your team, it is maybe smart to sell your bet for less money then you bet in order to save what you can). They have even better bonus for all serious punters. If you place more then 100 bets larger then 5 EUR in six months you will become silver member (similar for gold member option) and will have 1% charge back for every bet that you place in the future (gold members have bigger charge back percent). They are offering great statistics pages, maybe best in the market for all punters also free of charge, as well as team news, player news and news from the market. It is possible that your session will expire often as they set sessions on several minutes (not sure how much really) especially if you are used to look at 10 sites at the same time. This is for security reasons (especially for people who are using public computers and who forget to logout after placing a bet) and you just need to login again if this happens. Their WAP site is also incredible with lot of option. I am not a fan of WAP at all, but their site is one of the small number that I find useful. Also, it is great to know that you can place a bet while you are on the fishing or whatever. Gamebookers - Betting events: Gamebookers is covering almost everything that you can think off. Soccer (almost all leagues that you can think of, even Romanian in last couple of weeks), basketball (NBA, NCAA, European, Spain, Greece, Italian...), Tennis (even some challengers), Cricket, Boxing, Handball, Racing, just name it and they have it in their basic offer. And this is not all, unlike other bookmakers, they are offering special bets for almost all matches, like handicap and asian handicap, half time/full time bets, under and over, correct score, first/last scores, number of bookings, etc...Simply great. There is also option for live betting on some matches, and that mean on all important soccer matches, all derby matches and similar. They are also offering P2P betting with small fee. This is great feature too as you have betting exchange and normal sportbook at one place. Finally, they even offer sport quiz with prizes for best players. I could not find any bookmaker online that is offering even 75% of what Gamebookers do. Gamebookers - Odds: This is the place where Gamebookers is not on the top of the list. Their odds are normal. Not extremely large, and not small either. Just normal. If you catch event early you will be able to find better odds, but during the week the slash the odds on favorites especially. So, their odds are little less then best on the market , but bigger then with other large bookmakers as WillHill or Ladbrokes. Gamebookers - Customer service: Customer service is crucial for online bookmakers as we see it. It is very important for punter to know that behind all this www and SF technology are real persons and to have someone to talk to, when you experience a problem. First of all, you will hardly experience any problem with Gamebookers , but even if you do so, you will have reply to your question in your Inbox quickly. Their customer service department is very helpful and friendly and we never had any problem with it for 3 years that I am using their service. They also have great FAQ section on the site with answers to almost all questions that you can remember to ask. Their managers are very often on punters discussion boards and are willing to answer to any question. Gamebookers have their own discussion board where you can also post some your questions and thoughts. Gamebookers - Reliability: Gamebookers is one of the most reliable online bookies at the market. They are in the busines since 1998. Gamebookers is situated in Antigues which is heaven for big number of bookmaker companies since their law offering a lot to online gambling community. Since last year Gamebookers have offices in Austria and UK, and working under Austrian and UK jurisdiction too, which is very good. They also have eTrust and Verisign licenses which tell something of their reliability, too. You will certainly not have any problems with them. Advantages: I am simply delighted with Gamebookers offer. Since there is large number of bookmakers at online market today, it is hard to choose one among others, but Gamebookers is solving this problem. They are simple much better then others. - Great design- Easy betting procedure, combo possibility- P2P service- Free SMS notification service- Great statistics pages- Sport news service- Fast, friendly and helpful customer service- Really large number of betting events (the biggest advantage) Disadvantages: - Odds are not big as we would like :-) Conclusion: Gamebookers is simply No1 on the market today, if my opinion is relevant and is certainly is one of the bookmakers that you must have account with.Pinnacle Sports 7.5/10Pinnacle - Opening Account: OK procedure, however you don’t get to choose your own user ID. You fill in a form with your name, address, phone number etc. and then receive a generated user ID in your e-mailbox. You are able to select your own password, which is good. After logging into the system for the first time, you are able to deposit money into your betttingaccount. Completely normal procedure here, as at most other bookies, however I’m gonna deduct a couple of points because you don’t get to choose your own user ID. 10% sign-up bonus for new clients.Pinnacle - Transactions: At Pinnacle there’s several ways to deposit funds into your betting account. You can deposit by; cash deposit at Western Union, bank transfer at Western Union, check, credit card and Neteller. The minimum deposit amount by credit card is 50$. Payouts are made into your credit card, your bank account, by check or Neteller. If you withdraw money more than once a month, Pinnacle will charge you with fees up to 25$. Pinnacle does operate with the same procedures as most other bookies and have high transaction fees, which does not suit the average punter. However, if you’re betting big and can afford 15$ to 25$ fees, I see no problems.Pinnacle - Navigation: Easy navigation, however it could have been easier. There’s no major problems finding your destination at Pinnacle, a nice little menu bar at the top of the page and a account-options bar to the left make it easy to find what you’re looking for. However, it can be a little troublesome clicking your way to the special bets like teasers/parlays etc., however you’ll get used to it after a couple of days.Pinnacle - Design: Very well designed site. White is Pinnacle’s main colour, and the complete site is tidy and very comfy to watch. Almost no flashing objects, and easy downloadable pages make me put up a high rating here.Pinnacle - Graphics: Pinnacle does not have high quality graphics, however graphics level is quite good. No use of unnecessary pictures, the color on the site are nice and it’s a nice layout also. But, they could easily made the page look a little better with some more graphical aid. Not the best on the web, but it works perfectly fine.Pinnacle - Bet procedure: Easy, but somewhat messy procedure in my opinion. You select the league you want to bet on. The games come up with a little stake-box next to each betting-outcome and you can write your stake in the box that’s next to the bet you want to make. You can also select different stakes on each bet. The only problem here is the stake format, which is American. You have to write how much you want to win, not how much you are risking like you usually write at most other bookies. It can be somewhat troublesome the first couple of times, however you’ll get used to it in no time. After choosing your bets, you get a chance to review your selections before you confirm by writing your password. For the special kinds of bets like teasers, parlays etc. it’s the same procedure as mentioned above.Only minus in this area is the stake calculation that can be a little difficult at first. Pinnacle should really consider to change or add to their system the normal European style of betting procedure where you get to write your stake.However, no major problems with the current procedure, it’s fast and easy once you get used to it.Pinnacle - Service: Good service, my e-mail requests have been answered within a couple of hours and the service office have good replies. However, you need to write good English in order to get the best answer to your questions.Pinnacle - Reliability: Based on the Netherlands Antilles in Curacao, Pinnacle have an alright reputation, and is also quite reliable. I have never experienced nor heard of people having problems with this bookie. Pinnacle also have strict rules for deposit and withdrawals of funds, therefore I believe that they’re a very serious bookie and also very reliable in that sense that the customers funds is very important and they don’t want to get in any trouble by getting a bad reputation amongst punters.I will say that Pinnacle are highly reliable.Pinnacle - Odds: Pinnacle will offer you the best of odds on American sports and on some of the footy-action. They have a standard on NBA spreads to offer 1.95 on each team, which is 0.4-0.2 higher than at other bookies. Pinnacle also have some very good odds on soccer games, sometimes they have the web’s best price. They rarely have bad odds, and when the odds starts to sink they just adjust the handicap or spread to even out the odds. Very good!Pinnacle - Events on offer: Pinnacle should be considered as the best bookie for betting on American sports because of their excellent and market leading odds. They have a variety of events on offer:- Basketball: NBA moneyline, spreads and totals offered, also College basketball spreads are on the menu. - Baseball: MLB and College bets.- Ice hockey: NHL moneyline, handicaps and totals.- Soccer: Offers 1X2, handicaps, totals and some special bets on all major soccer leagues in Europe.- Football: NFL, College and Canadian events on offer. Also some specials.- Horses: Offer odds on horseracing, mainly in the United States.- Teasers and parlays are offered on basketball and football.- Proposition for big sports events like the Olympics, World Cup, tennis etc. Just the selection of events you expect from an American type of bookie. Very good to see them offer soccer. However I would like to see some more regular propositions, not just for the big events, but also daily props from the NBA for example.Conclusion : Pinnacle is a must-have bookie if you often bet on American sports or you like to bet American style. They offer very good prices on their bet offers, and I consider Pinnacle to be a high-class bookie.BET365 7/10Bet365 - Overview: http://www.bet365.com/de/ is the online section of British bookmaking group Bet365 Limited. They have bookies shops in the U.K. pitches on the rails at many racecourses, and have customers from around the world.(so they claim!) They are affiliated to IBAS so we are able to bet with confidence with them, and they offer a free £20 bet for new accounts. So far so good, lets see how they rate.BET365 - Opening account: Opening an account is easy, the usual details are required, however, when asked what language you want the site to be in, the only language on offer was English! Perhaps they intend to have other languages on offer in the future. You chose your own username and password, and you are then allocated a customer number for use with the telephone betting. Both accounts feed off the same funds, which is something I like. The usual preferences are asked for, for example, what format you want odds displayed in, and I received a 2004 diary similar to betfairs this year, a nice touch.BET365 - Transactions: Deposits can be with Visa, Mastercard, bank transfer, bank wire, western union, Neteller and Firepay. Registering a card is easy, but only one card can be registered at any one time, to change this requires a phone call to customer service. Various currencies are offered, making their claim of having customers in 120 countries believable! Withdrawals for myself are back onto the Visa card registered which is a feature I like with the bookies I deal with, however, if you are changing your deposit/withdrawal method then all funds have to be withdrawn onto the original card then start again.BET365 - Navigation: Bet365 is not the fastest site to navigate, nor the easiest when first logging in. It uses a selection of sports on the left hand side, click to select your chosen sport, and then there is an array of ways to get to the bet you want, from using the drop-down boxes, or clicking on the particular event you want. It is something to get used to, and sometimes takes a bit of time to find the particular bet you want, especially in soccer where there are lots of different markets (see later). The drop-down boxes are quite frustrating, however, if you use bet365 a lot you will soon become familiar with the strange navigation. To get the full market on a certain match, point the cursor over the game, click and they appear.BET365 - Design: Design is simple, text easy to read, colors green, white and red. The homepage has a list of sports on offer, and also a top 10 of the most heavily bet choices, trying to get you to bet more on the short price odds-on bets!BET365 - Graphics/speed: No graphics to speak of at all, which generally makes the pages easier to read as nothing is cluttering the screen upBET365 - Bet procedure: A simple procedure, however, you are offered choices with ‘bet’ in text on them on some pages, and tick boxes on others. For the text boxes, click the box and the bet will then go into your betting slip. Often I have had to click the button, then check in my betting slip that the selection is in there, (I would have preferred a tick box method of selecting the individual selections throughout, then you can scroll up and down a coupon and see straight away what you have selected.) The click box method is used in the actual football coupons, but not when you are offered all the other markets on an individual match it is the text box. It is a small point, but one that is mildly annoying due to the inconsistency. Once the betting slip is brought up, the various different bets available are shown, as well as new features of bet365, the chance to lay selections. I have never used this feature, preferring betfair, but the option is there, and I will review this aspect of bookies in the near future. Once you have chosen your stakes, you are asked to confirm the bet and then it is placedBET365 - Service: All in English. Chose between decimal, dividend or American. All of the site is available before logging in. Customer service is very helpful, as are the telephone-betting operators. Both these are 24 hours a day from anywhere in the world, a useful dropdown guide gives you the appropriate telephone numbers to use from your country. Very good, would have been 9/10 if offering other languages.BET365 - Reliability: The site is a part of the bet365 Group Limited that owns the Provincial bet365 chain of Licensed betting offices in the UK and is affiliated to the Backhouse bet365 chain of Licensed betting offices. They have exclusive sites at all English cricket grounds, some football grounds and the usual horse and greyhound racing venues. They can be found with advertising hoardings at televised English football games and are affiliated to IBAS (Independent Betting Arbitration Service) and agrees to abide by its decision on any dispute that may not be resolved to your satisfaction. Payouts have always been quick and customer service good.BET365 - Odds: Mostly similar to other bookies for the majority of main bets, H/D/A, but in other sports, particularly tennis, they often have very good odds, usually cut quickly though. Where bet365 excel are the markets on offer, very often unavailable elsewhere.BET365 - Events on offer: All major football leagues, with win/draw/win, but other markets for football matches are numerous, especially the English premiership. As well as over/unders, correct scores, first/last goal scorer, first goal scorer combined with correct score, as well as a host of ‘novelty’ bets. Want to bet on a team missing a penalty? You should be able to find it at bet365. Live games offer in-running possibilities, as well as the H/D/A other markets are offered, such as next goal scorer. For the football punter, there is surely the bet you want here! Other sports offered appear numerous, from bowls to ice hockey to winter sports. I particularly rate the tennis service, all tournaments are offered, not just the big events. American sports are also well represented, I assume a large part of the overseas users are from North America judging by the number of markets on offer.BET365 - Overview : A decent score for bet365! The range of markets offered is excellent, especially for football, with all the different combinations available, and plenty of novelty bets to keep you interested. Other sports are served very well, although odds on main events are in line with other bookies. Sometimes better odds will stand out, so bet365 are certainly worth checking out. The site navigation is not always the easiest, but is ok, and the general transactions procedure are equal to any other bookie. For a bookie that claims to be global, the customer service should perhaps provide operators in other languages. In conclusion, I regularly use bet365 and would recommend them to anyone, navigation can take some getting used to, but markets available make it worthwhile.EXPEKT 8/10Expekt - Opening account: Very easy to open an account here. It requires the usual details and doesn't take longer than 3 minutes to fill in the forms. There is a confirmation e-mail which should apply to all bookmakers. You can choose your own password and username and then proceed to your bet immediately.Expekt - Transactions: One of the highlights of Expekt here. You can deposit funds by all the well-known ways(c.d/card,bank transfer, W.UNION etc.).They took care of reducing the minimum amount for deposits (it used to be 35 euros and now it is just 10, much more reasonable amount).However, the deposit fee via cards is still 2,5% which is somewhat high for a large book as Expekt.When it comes to withdrawals you couldn't ask for more. They recently abolished the 10 euro fee that used to be applied to every withdrawal. Thus,every withdrawal is free (despite others bookmakers policy to impose charges after the first withdrawal per calendar month). Actually that took place after sending them a couple of e-mails complaining about the high fee and they proved for once more that they listen to the client(typical characteristic of Scandinavian books).Now they use your IBAN (international banking account number, also used by Centrebet) something that allows them to deposit money in your bank account without charges. Note that the requested amount usually reaches your bank account into 3 days that is nearly the best among bookmakers when it comes to bank-account withdrawals. Expekt - Navigation: You can quite easily find the section that you are interested in on Expekt's site. It has the main options well organized and it is functional. You are able to have the "all coupons" option included in all the special bets. Very good.Expekt - Design: Rather stylized design. I personally like very much the iced-blue colour they use, it is not aggressive and relaxes the eye. Of course we cant talk about something really exceptional here.Expekt - Graphics/speed: Here there are some problems with Expekt.Concerning the download time and the time needed to enter the various betting options I find no difficulties, on the contrary the site itself is fast. Although I have to mention that I have encountered several times problems in accessing the site as it frequently is out of order.(typical example Christmas troubles when it took them 3-4 days to refresh their site and they tried to compensate this inconvenience with 10 Premier league matches without profit margin at all.)Seems often bogged down close to match starts in weekends, try to bet 5 min before kick off in the big leagues, and you will likely struggle a bit.Need great improvement in this partExpekt - Bet procedure: Very good procedure. You'll get you bet slip on the right side while you have the rest of the betting options available as well. It gives you the chance of using the usual systems (trixie,patent etc.).You can easily delete an option that you no longer desire to bet on and it provides a "save selection" choice which is really useful. It is among really few books that allows you to use a "standard" selection something extremely valuable especially to the Mediterranean countries where it is very common. It has available only decimals but i do not think that is much of a problem. High level here only to be compared with Betandwin's betting procedure (and Interwetten/Gamebookers's, Terje's comments)Expekt - Service: As the most Scandinavian bookies their customer support is good. Their e-mail correspondence is unbelievably prompt. Their average response time is about 20 minutes(!!). I have experienced far worse in many other bookmakers....They also provide e-mail support in several languages including mine (Greek) something worth praising. They have solved me immediately some problems including a serious one when I had made withdrawal to their bank account instead of mine and after examining the mistake they transferred the 400 euros to my bank account.I would give them a 10 here but they miss something really crucial. They lack telephone assistance which is of fundamental importance for a solid bookmaker and covers them with a "veil" of mystery. So 8/10 will do.Expekt - Reliability: No problem here. Ok with their payouts, well known bookie throughout Europe. Safe betting in a very healthy environment. Have been awarded in a couple of contests and as I know they sponsor some events within Scandinavian countries.Expekt - Odds: Very high odds indeed. The best in the market except Premierbet and a couple of more bookies. They can achieve that as they offer only online betting services. They offer a "loyalty" program which allows you to access higher odds to some games, if you bet frequently with them. They sometimes change their odds but comparing to their very low profit margin(9%) Expekt - Events on offer: EXPEKT is the definition of variety on the given events. From football 3th Norwegian league to trotting and from Greek volley (!!) to winter sports we talk about the betting opportunities paradise here. Furthermore they provide online fixtures to most of football leagues by just clicking upon each game. They deserve 10/10 here. Expekt - Conclusion :Expekt is a quality bookmaker in the means of reliability, stability and overall presentation, and they offer singles on all events. Should also offer telephone support, not just email support. Maybe online chat support? Expekt offers generally very good odds, and superb payout routines. Expect Expekt to improve on their eventual small minuses, because they have earlier shown that they care about what the public has to say. Enough said, really, experience their quality yourself.