Betfair Sports Review UK

Betfair Sportsbook Review (2025) - Is it Safe or a Scam?

Betfair launched its sportsbook in 2012 giving the brand a solid chunk of history behind it in the space. With that in mind, it’s not a surprise that it is a well-known name in the industry. Is it all it’s cracked up to be? Our Betfair sportsbook review answers that question, warts and all.

Betfair Sportsbook Overall Score

There is a host of positive things to say about the Betfair sportsbook. The betting margins though, are woeful with our test coming in at 16.72%, and, as such, we do not recommend signing up with it at this time.

More generally, Betfair is one of the more widely known sportsbook operators on these shores, and it’s for good reason.

Their coverage across sports in general is strong. They cover all the top sports in great detail with decent specials, regular boosts and live streaming of certain events as well whilst it is available to bet with both online and via mobile app; no matter how you access the operator, navigation is pretty simple too – even if you have to adjust to the busyness of the screen as the operator highlights special deals and popular markets.

Is Betfair Safe & Legit?

Betfair is a brand that is registered by the UK Gambling Commission and, as such, is considered a safe and legit operator. The structure behind Betfair is more complex than just one licensee though with four different companies making up its online offering. They are detailed below:

• 39439 – PPB Counterparty Services Limited
• 39435 – Betfair Casino Limited
• 39426 – PPB Entertainment Ltd
• 39561 – TSE Malta LP

Has Betfair Ever Been Fined by the UKGC?

Despite the household name, Betfair are not squeaky clean where UKGC regulatory action is concerned. In May 2023 it suffered a financial penalty of £490k for targeting customers who had applied for Self-Exclusion under the responsible gambling tools. This penalty came against licence 39439.

Further back, in 2018, the Paddy Power Betfair brand was fined over £2m for allowing stolen money to be gambled via its online platform; we should stress that wasn’t under one of the four licences listed with the offence coming via their Exchange offering but, again, isn’t a great look for the wider brand.

Betfair Trustpilot Score: 3.1 out of 5

A Trustpilot score of 3.1 out of 5 is pretty much bang average by any normal measure. That isn’t really true where the world of online betting is concerned though with 3.1 a strong score. Other household names like Bet365 and Ladbrokes can’t even boast a score half that good.

Of course, one critical thing to note is that Trustpilot ratings won’t be solely focussed on the sportsbook but they can still lead us to some common themes.

25% of the 3,200 reviews have awarded 5 stars with customer service the glowing takeaway. On the other end of the scale, 67% of reviews have given just 1 star. The general themes there being “account restrictions” and moans about the casino side of the Betfair operation.

Betfair Sports Coverage

With such a huge brand following, you might make the assumption that Betfair boast market leading sports coverage. They do not. That isn’t to say their sports offering is horrid. It isn't.

What we mean is that there are bookies in the market place that offer vastly better margins and that cover more sports from a pure count perspective with Betfair’s list of sports topping out around the 30 mark.

That’s still a pretty decent offering and, vitally, the most commonly bet on sports are all captured in a big way. Football and horse racing probably being the headline two.

It isn’t just the sports on offer that are noteworthy though. The markets sitting under them are really impressive too, and that is across nearly all 30 of the sports we referenced, not just the biggest ones.

Beyond that, you have plenty of bells and whistles as well with special offers galore ranging from unique promotions through to simple odds boosts. Live streaming, in-play match engines, bet builder functionality, celebrity picks and more.

Betfair Football Betting

In the UK, sports betting does not get any bigger than the football markets and Betfair have a football offering that can keep pace with the demands that come its way.

In terms of the competitions that are offered, it ticks the boxes you would expect as a bare minimum – and then some.

The standard covers off Europe’s big five leagues, their respective domestic cup competitions and the three European cup competitions as well as offering coverage down the respective pyramids in all those top footballing countries.

When you step away from the mainstream, the coverage remains excellent too. At the time of our Betfair sportsbook review, there are markets available across 177 different leagues around the world ranging from Albania all the way through to Vietnam and everything in between.

It is more than just a token coverage too; in Australia, for example, there are 12 different competitions on offer across the men’s and women’s game.

Needless to say, those competitions are not all born equal with respect of market depth but there is still a decent range of choice in some of the lesser followed countries; take a randomly selected Ethiopian Premier League match for example, which features 36 different markets.

Not bad for a league that, let’s face it, very few UK punters know anything about. As you might expect, those 36 markets are dwarfed by the coverage you get in the top competitions; the Championship playoff final features north of a whopping 250 markets.

That is without taking into consideration the #OddsOnThat feature Betfair run that allows punters to make bespoke requests, which are then featured amongst the markets in a standalone category.

The beauty of that market depth is that it really boosts the betbuilder feature on the site. They’re a big feature for Betfair too with “Popular Bet Builders” featuring as part of their highlighted coverage alongside flame emojis that detail how many punters have backed the combination.

Alongside that excellent coverage, there are also a couple of noteworthy Betfair specials to pick up.

They include the “90 minute guarantee”, which sees your bets paid out if they’re winning as a match ticks into injury time, and “Safe Sub”, which keeps alive player-specific bets even when subbed; the bet transfers to the player replacing them.

Other features, such as tip posts by ex-players, of whom Alan Shearer is the most notable, is another nice touch.

Betfair Horse Racing Betting

Horse racing remains one of the most wagered on sports around the world and, like with Betfair’s football coverage, it has a pretty stacked offering here. The headline call out being the sheer number of race meets that are covered.

UK and Irish events are expected, but there are a significant number of bookies that leave it there. Not Betfair. The coverage it offers is very much global.

As we write, just tomorrow, there are race meets available to wager on in the UK, Ireland, France, Canada, USA, South Africa, New Zealand, Argentina, Chile, Panama and Japan with that far from an exhaustive list of how far flung the coverage can be; that count actually stands at 23 countries.

What’s equally as good as the events covered is that fact that a lot of them come with live streaming as well. In addition to that, you’ve also got “Future Racing” and Tote betting options alongside a “Specials” section that includes odds boosts, jockey combos and expert tips in the shape of detailed meet previews

Unfortunately, whilst everything we’ve said on the Betfair horse racing has been positive to this point, we do have to end on a negative with it no longer offering Best Odds Guaranteed. That’s something the horse racing market leaders will typically provide.

Betfair E-Sports Betting

If football and horse racing are the traditional sportsbook offerings, E-Sports is the cool, new kid on the block and it is something that is gaining traction all the time. The offering at Betfair isn’t enormous but they do feature a lot of the popular games.

All told, it offers 10 different sports with brand names like FIFA, CS2, Dota 2 and Valorant perhaps the most noteworthy.

In addition to the defined E-Sports category, there is also a number of Virtual markets to look at covering motor sports, football, greyhounds and horse racing. It gives punters options to look at around the clock.

Betfair Sportsbook Usability

A strong sportsbook offering is meaningless if it is difficult to manoeuvre around the platform. Despite a fairly hectic landing page, this not really an issue Betfair have with its navigation intuitive enough for users.

The first thing you see in the sportsbook is a horizontal ribbon of logos, supported by words, putting some of the most popular sports just a finger touch away.

A slight negative here being that users can’t customise that ribbon, which would be a nice touch given it doesn’t contain a full selection of sports offered. That said, they are easily accessible via the ever-present bottom ribbon courtesy of the “Browse” button.

Back to the top of the page, underneath the main ribbon, you’ve got large yellow and black blocks detailing promotions, special offers and signposting responsible gambling resources, which can be scrolled through.

Under that, you have a grid of fast access markets and then you get into the actual betting events. These come smartly presented making them easy to read whilst placing or building a bet is simply a case of click and go.

Betfair Sportsbook: What Is the Betfair Exchange?

The Betfair Exchange sits separate from the sportsbook but is worth touching on, very briefly, given it is another platform where you can place sports bets under the Betfair umbrella.

From a look and feel perspective, the Exchange hits a lot of the same notes as the main sportsbook but the way it operates is quite different.

In a traditional sportsbook, a bettor will bet on something to happen against the bookmaker. In the Exchange, bettors bet against one another, meaning you can both ‘back’ outcomes or ‘lay’ outcomes, which effectively means betting that something will not happen.

With Betfair facilitating the deal, rather than actually taking on any risk as a bookie, they make their money through a commission rather than loading a betting margin.

This means that punters can potentially unlock stronger betting margins than in the traditional sportsbook model.