- Editorial3.00
- Users1.00 (1 reviews)
- Trustpilot3.50 (157 reviews)
- App Store3.60 (16k reviews)
Score2.82
AK Bets UK Review - Is it Safe or a Scam? (2025)
2021 formed AK Bets is a white-label solution in the sports and casino sector that is regulated by the UKGC via Star Racing Limited (UKGC licence: 9177). With the brand in a relatively infant state, we dive deep with our AK Bets review to answer whether or not the new kid on the block is worth signing up with.
AK Bets Overall Score
| Bonus | 1 |
|---|---|
| Sportsbook | 3 |
| Casino | 3 |
| Customer Support | 3 |
| Payment | 3 |
| Licensing Safety | 3 |
| Design and Usability | 3 |
| Overall | 3 |
With AK Bets far from a household brand and Star Racing Limited (UKGC licence: 9177) hardly a powerhouse of the gambling space the offering it puts together isn’t bad in truth with most aspects coming out somewhere in the ballpark of average.
The downsides to it are centred around a below average approach to responsible gambling, a poor range of payment methods and some annoyances in how the sportsbook is configured from a navigation perspective.
On the plus side, the sports coverage is reasonable, the betting margins of 6.85% are far from the worst you will come across and the casino is pretty solid too. Oh, and whilst payment methods are weak, the ability to deposit as little as £1 is a huge positive. You can enjoy it all on a mobile app as well!
About AK Bets
AK Bets has enjoyed a fairly rapid rise in the UK Gambling scene. It only launched as an on-course operator in the summer of 2021 – and even that was in Ireland. In early 2023 it took the leap into the online space and continues to trade there today.
Despite the limited age of the brand, it’s not necessarily as fresh-faced as it might first seem though with its registration underpinned by Star Racing Limited; Star Racing are registered to the UK Gambling Commission under licence number 9177 with their earliest licence activity dating back to July 2010.
Alongside AK Bets, which is a white-label offering, Star Racing Limited also operate another white-label domain in mcbookie.com alongside various iterations of Star Sports domains including starsportsbet.com.
Is AK Bets Legit & Safe?
AK Bet's UKGC License: 9177
AK Bets is technically still operating under its old licence, i.e. the one via Star Racing with account number 9177, but this will soon change.
The bookmaker has finally secured a licence of its own, with the account number 65961, and we will update this review as soon as the new one is fully active. Nevertheless, this is another sign of AK Bet's trustworthiness.
AK Bets's Trustpilot Rating: 3.5/5
Let’s get to it. A 3.5 out of 5 Trustpilot rating for an online bookmaker is stonkingly good. For context, household brands like bet365 and Ladbrokes only score at 1.2 out of 5. Admittedly, AK Bets only has 160 reviews on the platform but 50% of them have awarded a 5-star rating.
Of course, with half of the reviews raving about it there has to be a balance to bring that overall rating down to 3.5. There are also 40% of reviews awarding 1-star. The general theme of those negative takes are centred account restrictions and/or closures.
It is also noteworthy that over 90% of negative reviews are replied to by the bookmaker, which is a sign of an engaged operator. It should be noted not every review approved of the manner of the responses.
Has AK Bets Been Fined by the UKGC?
Whilst AK Bets has not directly been fined by the UK Gambling Commission, Star Racing Limited have received sanction in the past. The UKGC issued a fine of £594k for failures around anti-money laundering and social responsibility. The findings were announced in July 2023 but related to offences in the 14 months between March 2020 and May 2021.
Of course, AK Bets' recent move to trade under its own licence (65961) should not be forgotten amongst this chat.
AK Bets Welcome Offers
| Operator | Welcome Offer | Bonus Code | Claim Offer | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| | Welcome Offer Winnings Boost up to 25% on Your First Bet | AKACCA100 | Claim Offer | 18+. If your first bet is a Treble or Up on Any Sport (minimum 3 selections, odds evens) AK Bets will boost the profit gained on that initial bet by 25% in the form of a Free Bet up to a value of £/€100. Applies to new customers who sign up with the promo code AKACCA100. 7-day expiry on free bet. |
AK Bets Deposit Methods
Our thoughts on the payment methods and deposit process at AK Bets splits into two very different camps.
On one hand, the choice of payment methods is atrociously small. You can only deposit via card or bank transfer, which leaves an enormous hole compared to most established bookmakers. On the flip side though you can deposit from as little as £1, which is as good as it gets in the online betting space.
| Payment Method | Min. Limit | Transaction Fee | Processing Time |
|---|---|---|---|
 Visa | £1 | No fee | Instant |
 Mastercard | £1 | No fee | Instant |
 Instant Bank Transfer | £1 | No fee | Instant |
How to Deposit at AK Bets
Depositing at AK Bets is easy; you can follow our step-by-step guide on how to deposit below:
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Navigate to the Cashier
Assuming you are already logged into your AK Bets account, hit the orange circle containing the black head and shoulders icon; this is your account section.
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Hit ‘Deposit’
You will be faced with two prominent buttons alongside several menu options. Hit the orange ‘Deposit’ button.
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Enter Your Chosen Amount and Select Your Desired Deposit Method
At the top of the screen you have a grey ‘Deposit Amount’ box with four values showed beneath it. If the quick reference values contain the values you want to deposit, click on of those to populate your amount box.
You are not limited to those values though and can deposit from as little as £1. To achieve such a deposit, simply type the amount into the grey box.
When comfortable, hit ‘Pay Using Debit Card’ or ‘Instant Bank Deposit’ depending on your payment method.
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Enter Your Payment Details
The next step in the AK Bets deposit process is to provide your payment details. Hit the blue ‘Pay Now’ button when satisfied.
You will see a ‘Deposit Successful’ screen confirming your deposit.
AK Bets Withdrawal Methods
The withdrawal methods at AK Bets mirror that of the deposit process, which means punters are extremely limited in the choice they have. Equally though, you can withdraw from as little as £1, which is really good.
As for the withdrawal timescales, the benchmark stated by AK Bets is between 3-5 working days but our test showed our balance landing back in our bank within just three hours with no identify verification required either.
| Payment Method | Min. Limit | Transaction Fee | Processing Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Visa | £1 | No fee | Instant |
| Mastercard | £1 | No fee | Instant |
| Instant Bank Transfer | £1 | No fee | Instant |
How to Withdraw Funds From AK Bets
The AK Bets withdrawal process is explained step-by-step below:
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Login to Your Account
First things first, ensure you are logged into your AK Bets account. Once logged in, head to the ‘My Account’ section, which is the head and shoulders icon that sits above your account balance in the top right hand corner of the page.
Click it.
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Hit ‘Withdraw’
Click on the grey ‘Withdraw’ button that appears next to the more prominent ‘Deposit’ button.
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Set Your Withdrawal Amount and Withdraw
Now in the withdrawal screen, it will show you your withdrawable balance in the top right corner. You can configure your desired withdrawal amount in the grey ‘Amount to withdraw’ box either through free text entry or through using the quick reference amounts shown in orange boxes.
Once done, select your withdrawal method, which will nearly always be the method you used to deposit, and hit ‘Withdraw’.
The next screen you see will confirm that you have a ‘Withdrawal pending’.
AK Bets Sportsbook Review
There is plenty to applaud AK Bets for where its sportsbook offering is concerned. For starters, there is a reasonable coverage of different sports are concerned with 25 sports available to bet on with Political markets and Virtual sports acting as an additional pool of options for bettors.
It’s worth noting that isn’t anywhere close to market leading but it is a tidy selection, particularly with key sports like football and horse racing taking centre stage whilst AK Bets also position greyhounds quite highly, such is its roots as a bookie. Lesser sports like Gaelic Football and Cycling are also offered.
Starting off with horse racing, despite the negative of not being a Best Odds Guaranteed operator, the overall offering is pretty strong. It has UK & Irish race meets well covered with live-streaming available across a whole host of events. That live-stream functionality is not limited to races on these shores either.
Betting markets and the ability to watch the action unfold is offered on meets around the world too whilst Ante Post betting odds are available up to six months in advance for bigger race meets.
The good coverage continues on to the football markets too. The elite European leagues and cup competitions are all covered with far flung leagues, like the Australian Women’s League and several Brazilian tiers, also offering markets. In respect of the market depth, Premier League matches offer north of 100 different betting odds, which is tidy, if not tremendous. There is also a betbuilder feature.
Whilst we’ve touched on several strong points so far, we do have to be critical of the sportsbook layout. Navigation around the sports themselves is fine but the market spread within a sport is woeful; using football as the example, there is no need to see Player X 1+ shots, Player X 2+ shots etc. It is not remotely user friendly.
As for betting margins, our test came in at 6.85% which, much like a lot of the sportsbook offering here, is somewhere around the average benchmark.
AK Bets Casino Review
AK Bets might have started out as what you would envisage as a “traditional” bookmaker but that does not mean they have a substandard casino offer. It is not half bad.
Bettors will have an extensive choice of games. AK Bets has games from nearly 40 different studios including major names like Pragmatic Play and NetEnt with those games spreading across an array of different formats, albeit with a heavy weighting towards slots. There are some huge titles within those games too with ‘Bloodsuckers’ and ‘Big Bass: Floats My Boat’ a couple of examples of those brand names.
Where table games are concerned, you have a host of choice with roulette, blackjack, baccarat and solitaire all featuring, including low stake options that run as low as 10p.
If none of that quite hits the spot for you, there is a live casino as well. The live casino is supported by three studios – Evolution, Ezugi and Pragmatic – with the games on offer ticking off traditional table games along with some gameshow style formats including ‘Snakes & Ladders Live’ and ‘Sweet Bonanza CandyLand’.
The final note on the AK Bets casino is the ‘Casino Mini Games’ that lives as a banner in the sports book; this enables you to turn your hand to a small number of casino games whilst keeping the sportsbook open in the background of the same tab. This will be seen as a good thing by some punters but, for us, we don’t really like it.
AK Bets Mobile App
It is a bit of a surprise given their relatively small stature as a bookmaker but AK Bets do offer a mobile app, which is available on Android and iOS devices.
The detail available to users and the general usability of the app is not any different from the mobile-friendly website but the presence of an app does put you closer to the action and, as such, should be seen as a big positive.
AK Bets Responsible Gambling
In our opinion, AK Bets lets itself down a little bit where there approach to responsible gambling is concerned. Whilst it does offer a dedicated responsible gambling section it feels very much like a “we have to do this” type approach rather than a “we want to do this”.
Although there is a nod towards it during the customer sign up process and in the ‘My Account’ section, the responsible gambling section is largely buried in the site footer rather than being in a particularly prominent location – such as in the main menu - whilst the tools available to users, which are listed below, fail to go above and beyond the minimum:
- Deposit limits
- Play break
- Self-exclusion
It is not all negative for AK Bets though. The do have a set of questions that guide a bettor through a journey to identify whether or not they might have a gambling problem along with some signposting to support services; this is something we do like.
AK Bets Customer Support
The customer support on offer from AK Bets is very much straddling the ‘average’ line. There is a dedicated FAQ section on the website, which is not particularly extensive and the absence of a telephone number could be seen as another slight knock on the attentiveness it shows customers, albeit a lot of operators choose to dodge this method of contact in an ever-evolving technical world.
On the plus side, AK Bets does operate a live chat function that is open between the hours of 8am to 10pm with our tests proving response times to be strong. Email contact is available outside of that 14 hour window as well.
In addition to those traditional methods of contact, customers do also have the option to connect with AK Bets via social media; it has 19k followers on X and a LinkedIn profile.
| Chat | Yes |
|---|---|
| [email protected] | |
| Phone | - |
| Opening hours | 7 Days a week, 24/7 |
How to Get Started at AK Bets
With your eyes now wide-open to the pros and cons of AK Bets, you might decide you want to sign up with the bookmaker. If you do, the sign up process is set out below with step-by-step registration instructions:
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Head to AKBets.bet and Hit ‘Sign Up’
After navigating to the AK Bets website, akbets.bet, head to the horizontal header bar at the top of the page and click on the folder icon labelled ‘Sign up’.
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Set Your Email and Password
Your first step on the AK Bets sign up journey is to populate your email address and password. Once done, hit the orange ‘Create Account’ button.
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Enter Your Personal Details
You are now in a three-stage process to register. Firstly, you will need to provide your personal information, which includes your name, date of birth, phone number and address.
Before progressing to the next stage, you will also need to select your preferred currency and set your market preferences.
Hit ‘Agree & Join’.
On advancing past this step, you will be met with a pop-up window that asks for your occupation; you can either populate this information and ‘Save’ or bypass it by hitting the white ‘skip’ button in the top right corner.
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Configure Your Responsible Gambling Choices
You will now be tasked with completing a responsible gambling section. This entails setting three different tiers of deposit level whilst you can also switch a toggle to turn on ‘reality check’.
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Deposit Funds
The final step of the sign up process asks you to deposit funds. You can skip through this section and make a deposit separately, which we cover with step-by-step process instructions in our ‘How to Deposit at AK Bets’ section.
User Reviews
Average score of 1.0 by 1 users
Whitlock
24 December 2023
I have been using Ak Bets for 1 week now. I have made a total of £396 in deposits no issue at all with depositing, last night I tried to make my first withdrawal I had a balance of £480 and and requested to withdraw £250, it kept bouncing back to my account so after speaking to customer service they assured me thay they could just use my IBAN and they can process withdrawls which I provided then all of a sudden my accounts closed and they have went silent not responding to emails.
Thieves