Best football betting sites
The era of bookmakers offering a simple free bet handout to their loyal customers is banished to history, with an increasingly competitive marketplace leading the bookies to devise ever more creative promotions in a bid to lure in the punters and keep them interested.
The majority of these promotions centre around football which, as the most popular sport in the world, appeals to the masses in a way that no other sport does.
Football also offers the biggest variety to bettors in terms of competitions, fixtures, and specific betting markets, meaning that experts and casuals alike can get as granular as they wish when picking their punt.
In the section below we go through some of the biggest bookmakers on the market and look at how their football promotions stack up against the competition.
About the author
After backing his first winner at Euro 2008 on his 18th birthday, Alex Wrigley was a regular football punter for years before being snapped up by a burgeoning Apsley International, where he rose through the ranks to become content editor in 2019. He now regularly contributes football betting content to the Racing Post, Free Super Tips and various bookmakers.
Top-rated bookmakers for football betting
Best football betting sites
RP Recommends: the must-have bookmaker accounts for football betting
1. bet365
An industry-leading product, a huge range of fixtures and markets, an unmatched in-play betting experience and a plethora of promotions make bet365 a must-have for any football punter.
2. Paddy Power
An innovative approach to football promotions means the next breakthrough offer is always just around the corner. Combine that with a monstrously large pool of matches and markets and you’re on to a winner.
The best online bookmakers for football betting in 2024
bet365
One of the world’s leading online gambling platforms, bet365 offer an unrivalled selection of fixtures and a class-leading product to boot, while they have also caught up with the competition in recent years by introducing a range of promotions.
Their 2 Goals Ahead Early Payout Offer was introduced after Paddy Power debuted the promotion and offers insurance against those freak comebacks (I’m looking at you, Luton Town), with any bet on the full-time result market paying out if your selection goes two goals up. This promotion is available on more than 80 competitions on bet365 and can be applied to single bets or multiples.
Also available on more than 80 competitions, bet365’s Soccer Acca Boost offers a simple yet elegant boost to your profit on winning football accumulators. The winning boosts begin at a humble 2.5 per cent for doubles and goes all the way up to a 70 per cent profit boost for multiples containing 14 selections or more.
The team at bet365 don’t stop there, though. They also pay out unlimited places inside 90 minutes on Each-Way First Goalscorers, offer money back as a free bet on player-specific markets if your selected player is substituted before half time with their Soccer Substitute Guarantee and have Full-Time Result Enhanced Prices on Premier League, Championship, League One, League Two, FA Cup, EFL Cup, Champions League and Europa League fixtures.
Add all this on to their rock-solid platform, regular super boosts, unparalleled in-play betting and live streaming options and it is no surprise that bet365 continue to go from strength to strength.
Betfair
The Betfair Sportsbook offers little in the way of football promotions when compared to some competitors, but there are some other compelling reasons to join Betfair as a football bettor.
The main draw of Betfair is, of course, the exchange, which offers punters a fresh approach to betting whereby they can back and lay bets against other Betfair Exchange customers.
This allows customers to set their own odds and wait for another player to take the other side of the action, effectively resulting in the fairest odds on the betting market across a wide-reaching range of competitions and fixtures, with the action also extending to in-play betting.
Not all is lost for Betfair Sportsbook, though. While the promotions are sadly lacking, the Bet Builder product is one of the most extensive in the business, offering a gigantic range of markets to add to your same-game multiples. All the usual markets are represented along with more niche sectors, such as fouls, to be fouled, goalkeeper saves, team and player shots, player passes and more.
Betfred
Betfred pride themselves on the breadth and scale of their bonuses and their football-specific promotions are no different, with a few intriguing propositions from the Salford-based company.
Their Acca Flex offer is similar to bet365’s Soccer Acca Boost, offering a profit boost on football multiples of up to 50 per cent. The profit boost is not as generous as bet365, though, with a five-leg accumulator with each leg a minimum of 1-2 odds required to unlock a mere 2.5 per cent winnings bonus. Their maximum boost of 50 per cent is available on winning accumulators of 12 legs or more.
Fortunately, Betfred have a couple of other more enticing offers, with the long-standing Double Delight and Hat-Trick Heaven promotions taking the biscuit. Here, first goalscorer backers can double or treble their odds if their selected player scores the opener and goes on to score a second or a third within 90 minutes.
This promotion is only available on specific fixtures and customers must ensure they back their selection on the specified Double Delight and Hat-Trick Heaven first goalscorer market, but it offers the potential for big winners.
Coral
As you would expect from a company that has kept up with the times for almost a century, Coral offer customers a well-designed interface and a wide range of competitions and fixtures to bet on, as well as must-have features such as in-play betting, live streaming and Bet Builders.
However, the site is sadly lacking in many of the unique promotions many of Coral’s competitors have launched, instead turning their attention to a variety of free-to-play games.
One such free-to-play feature does harbour some appeal, though. Coral’s Football Super Series prompts users to answer four match stats on selected fixtures, with two correct answers yielding a £1 free bet, three giving out a £2 free bet and all four bagging a tasty £100 in cash.
That being said, Coral do often come up trumps in terms of odds for Premier League games, so they are worth keeping track of if you aren’t compelled by novel promotions.
Ladbrokes
Despite being part of the same Entain group as Coral, Ladbrokes do provide the football punter a few extras for their betting journey and the most significant is based around offering the best accumulator experience possible.
With the tagline ‘Our acca has it all’, Ladbrokes multiples have a number of enticing propositions, starting with a daily odds boost of your choice and leading on to the ability to track and edit your accumulator in play, such as removing losing legs. Finally, if your first accumulator of the day contains five or more selections from selected markets, you’ll get a free bet of up to £10 if you are let down by a single leg.
Ladbrokes don’t stop there, though, also taking a leaf out of some other bookmakers’ books and paying out if your selection goes two goals ahead with their 2up&win promotion.
Combine that with a slick platform, plus loads of fixtures, markets and plenty of price boosts, and Ladbrokes is an excellent destination for all manner of football bettors
Paddy Power
Paddy Power are often seen to be driving innovation in the betting promotion arena and their latest release, Super Sub, does just that, rolling over your player-specific bets to their replacement should your selection be substituted.
Super Sub applies to a wide range of pre-match and in-play player-specific singles, including goalscorer markets, foul markets, card markets and shot markets and it opens up some new strategies for betting. For example, a punter could look at which defenders are most likely to be substituted off for attacking players if their team is in need of a goal and back them to score, knowing their potential replacement’s odds would be much shorter.
This is not Paddy Power’s only promotion, though, with the firm also offering money back as a free bet if one leg of your five-fold or greater accumulator lets you down. Like Ladbrokes’ almost identical offer, this only applies to one accumulator per day and the minimum total odds must be 3-1 or bigger.
They also offer the same extensive markets as partners Betfair, making them a popular choice for Bet Builder aficionados.
Sky Bet
Sky Bet made a name for themselves with free-to-play games such as Sky Super 6 that were promoted heavily on the main Sky Sports channels, but their latest promotion offers much more realistic value to football bettors.
Sky Bet’s AccaFreeze allows you to take complete control over your five-leg or greater accumulators. Once customers have placed their bet, with at least one leg being on the full-time result market, they can track their accumulator and are offered the chance to freeze it if a selected team goes ahead in the match.
Many bettors have been using this to enormous success by backing underdogs that start well or back against favourites that tend to take a while to get going and freezing those selections.
Alongside this new promotion, Sky Bet also run the Sky Bet Club, through which customers can claim a weekly reward if they stake £30 or more, and offer regular odds boosts on the biggest games and a slick Bet Builder product.
Unibet
Many of Unibet’s promotions centre around horse racing but they do have one notable football offering for the increasingly popular Bet Builder crown, offering customers a daily opportunity to ‘Uniboost’ their Bet Builder.
Just three Bet Builder selections are required and there is a maximum stake of £10. Once the selections are added to your betslip and a stake is input, you will be prompted to boost your Bet Builder and multiply your potential profits.
Unibet also offer a range of daily odds boosts, although it must be said that the markets on offer aren’t quite as granular as bookmakers such as Betfair and bet365.
William Hill
William Hill are one of the most recognisable names in the industry and their football promotions are very much focused around increasing your potential winnings, illustrated by the prominent position of their daily Enhanced Odds on the homepage.
Apart from these bookmaker-chosen bets, William Hill customers can boost their odds on their own bet builders with their #YourOdds EPIC Boost promotion, offering one EPIC boost per week on #YourOdds bets containing three or more selections and totalling at least 3-1 odds. This will boost the odds on the bet between 25 per cent and 100 per cent, with a £5 maximum stake permitted.
Similarly, they also offer a daily #YourOdds Bet Boost and a daily Football Acca Bet Boost on multiples of four selections or more, both with a generous £20 maximum stake to use across a massive range of fixtures and markets.
Another leading bookmaker worth betting with
BoyleSports
Often overlooked, BoyleSports offer some of the best football-led betting promotions out there and compete with their more illustrious competitors across the board.
This includes another Early Payout offer if your selected team goes two goals to the good, while they also offer the option to boost or insure your accumulators. Their Acca Boost payouts begin at a three per cent bonus for trebles and go all the way up to 100 per cent for 14-folds, while Acca Insure returns your stake back as a free bet up to £20 if one leg lets you down on a five-fold multiple or greater.
Not only that, but all those accumulator offers pair beautifully with BoyleSports’ Acca Loyalty promotion, through which customers get a £5 free accumulator for every five accumulators they place.
How to sign up with the best online football betting sites
OK, so now we know which bookies made it onto our list of the best football betting sites, it’s time to learn how to register. You can join any of the firms advertised on this page using your desktop or mobile, and it takes just a few minutes to complete.
Choose which of the betting sites you’d like to join and follow the steps below or register at more than one. Joining multiple bookies gives you several welcome bonuses and increases your chances of getting the best price on your picks. Follow these steps to register.
- Click any link on this page to your chosen bookmaker.
- Select the join button at the head of the homepage.
- Complete the registration form, providing your details.
- Create a username and password.
- Add the promo code as required.
- Make your first deposit and bet on football.
- You’ll receive a welcome bonus free bet.
