The beautiful game has enchanted fans for generations, so it’s hardly a surprise that football betting sites have exploded in popularity in recent years.

A YouGov poll in May 2022 found that football is the most popular sport for Brits to bet on, with 45 per cent of regular UK gamblers having bet on the sport in the previous 12 months. That pipped horse racing (37 per cent) as Britons’s favourite sport to bet on, with golf (nine per cent) a distant third ahead of boxing (8 per cent) and tennis (8 per cent).

Almost every UK betting company has an extensive range of football markets but we’ve rated and reviewed the best football betting sites available to punters.

Best football betting sites by category

There are many different facets to football betting, with many enjoying in-play odds, others preferring accumulators and some regularly partaking in bet builders. Rather than arbitrarily ranking football betting sites from one to 10, we’ve focused on which UK bookmaker is best for each facet, allowing you to select a bookie that suits your needs.

To find out more about how we rate bookmakers and about gambling responsibly please scroll a little further down the page.

Best football betting site for in-play betting: Bet365

Bet365 are one of the most recognisable names in UK sports betting and their memorable adverts with Ray Winstone propelled them further into the limelight. That fame is well-earned and they’ve consistently proven themselves as one of the best in a variety of betting aspects.

In-play betting is one of those areas as they offer a huge number of markets and very competitive odds. Bet365 offer a large number of matches to stream live on their platform, meaning bettors can watch and bet at the same, and if they don’t offer a live stream of a chosen game, they have stat trackers on a huge number of football matches.

Their betting app and mobile site are both very speedy and don’t seem to have any noticeable lag, which is important when you want to bet in-play at a moment’s notice. All of their products look smart and are easy to use.

Best football bookies for accumulators: BoyleSports

BoyleSports offer one of the best football betting experiences and have become the place to go for putting on an accumulator. Whether you enjoy a small-stakes acca on the Saturday football or an accumulator on the midweek European action, BoyleSports have numerous features to bet on football.

Their Acca Rewards and Acca Loyalty programmes help make them an excellent choice. With Acca Loyalty, customers are awarded a £5 free acca once they’ve placed five £5 accumulators (with at least five selections and total odds of greater than 3/1).

Meanwhile, Acca Rewards allows you to either boost or insure your accumulator. In a football acca of at least three legs, Insure means you get your stake back as a free bet if one selection lets you down, while Boost increases your prospective winnings (from a 3 per cent boost for a three-leg acca, to a 100 per cent boost for a 14+ selection).

Unlike most football betting sites, users are also rewarded for regularly placing accumulators with Boyles handing out a £5 free acca bet for every five accumulators of five legs or more that are placed.

Best online football betting site for free bets: Betway

There’s nothing quite like a freebie to add to the betting experience. The feeling of betting with less risk and the possibility of plentiful rewards is tantalising. That’s why free bet offers are a priority for so many football fans when selecting a new betting site.

Betway thrive in this space, with their popular Free Bet Club giving you the chance to rack up the freebies that can be used on football. You need to stake at least £25 on trebles, accumulators or bet builders (in any sport) between midnight GMT on Saturday and 11.59pm GMT the following Friday to qualify.

Do that and you’ll earn £10 in free bets in two £5 free bet chunks, with the first paid on the Saturday after qualification and the second paid on the Monday, giving you additional funds for your betting bankroll. If you’re not already a Betway customer, their welcome offer will suit acca fans as it gives you up to £30 back in free bets if your first accumulator loses.

Meanwhile, Betway are known to give out free bets worth £2.50 for bet builders on key Premier League games – log in every weekend to see if you can claim your free punt.

Best UK football betting site for specials: BetVictor

Specials are a fun twist on traditional football betting, with either unexpected markets or enhanced odds becoming available for customers. BetVictor run regular outright specials that other online football betting sites don’t, while also having extensive manager markets, transfer odds and trophy multiples if you’re keen to expand your horizons beyond just match betting.

They also have a Lucky Dip feature that can give you outlandish odds on selections. You are given a market and a price, for example Premier League winner at 16/1. You enter your stake, do the ‘lucky dip’ and then you’re assigned a random selection in that market and paid out at odds of 16/1 if they win. You could get Manchester City, whose actual odds to win the title are considerably shorter than 16/1, or be given Nottingham Forest, whose actual odds are much longer. That’s the luck of the draw.

If you enjoy a random element to your free bets, then BetVictor have added a unique gimmick to their Loyalty Club. If you make five bets of at least £5 throughout the week (midnight GMT Monday to 11.59pm GMT Sunday), each at odds of 1/2 or greater then you’ll earn a free bet. To find out how much that free bet is, you ‘open the box’ and an amount between £1 and £25 is revealed. You’ll then have the flexibility to use that amount as one free bet or a number of smaller free bets as you wish, on any sports market. Incidentally, BetVictor also have one of the best betting apps with free bets.

BetVictor’s site and app, with their white, blue and dark grey aesthetic, is clean and smart-looking. They’re well laid out, easy to navigate and quick to load, making for a good user experience on mobile. If you’re an acca lover, their bet builder is easy to navigate with its own separate tab and has every market you could want in an easily accessible list.

Best best new football betting site for price boosts: Parimatch

Keeping an eye out for price boosts is a good way to increase your potential winnings on a bet and bookies intermittently offer these enhanced odds. One of the newer football betting sites on the UK scene, Parimatch, are becoming well known for their price boosts.

They regularly offer reasonable price boosts on major football matches, as well as football accas they have chosen for you, and also offer intermittent ‘super boosts’ on football markets, amongst other perks from time to time.

Ahead of Euro 2024, for example, Parimatch had a promotion where England were available to win at 50/1, while they currently also have a £30 free bonus offer for new customers when they deposit (via debit card or Apple Pay) and bet £5. However, £10 of that £30 credit is reserved for Parimatch’s new slots site.

Best football bookmakers for bet builders: NetBet

Bet builders have become increasingly popular on UK football betting sites, joining accumulators as an alternative multiple bet type enjoyed by both casual bettors and more regular gamblers. The concept of a bet builder allows you to combine selections on specific markets on an individual match to provide greater odds.

NetBet have embraced the concept of the bet builder, offering it across a variety of sports, and by signing up and wagering £10 on a bet builder, you’ll receive £30 in free bets, including a £10 free bet builder token.

Bettors can also earn free bet builder tokens via NetBet’s Wheel of Fortune, which can be spun daily as long as punters have wagered £5 or more in the last four days.

NetBet’s bet builder tool allows bettors to combine up to six markets from any one game, while they offer a quick bet builder tool, giving you the option of browsing pre-selected bet builders you can easily add to your betslip.

Best betting app for football: Betfred

The key to a good football betting app or mobile site is speed of site and user interface. Betfred excel in both these categories with no discernible lag when loading up or confirming a bet and an easy-to-navigate layout with everything you need at your fingertips.

Their all-round football betting offering is impressive, both in terms of odds and range of matches/markets, while all their promotions and features from desktop are available to mobile customers.

Betfred’s welcome offer can also be used for football with £50 in free bets available when you bet £10. You just need to enter ‘SUMMER50’ when you register and deposit (using a debit card) to be eligible for the free bets. Once you’ve done that and placed a bet of at least £10 on any sports market (at odds of at least evens), you’ll be rewarded with the £50 of free bets. Those will be 3x £10 free bets for any sports market and 2x £10 accumulator free bets, all of which have to be used within seven days.

Best football betting site for live stream: Unibet

Being able to watch and bet on a game has never been easier thanks to an increase in the number of live betting sites available and one of the best football betting sites for live streaming is Unibet.

Unibet, who are one of the only bet £10 get £40 UK bookmakers around, have a dedicated streaming section, making it easy to check which of the 40,000-plus events they stream live each year will be shown on that specific day.

And the choice for football fans is enormous with Unibet streaming games from across the globe, including all the major European leagues like LaLiga, Serie A and the Bundesliga, while you can also watch FA Cup matches on their platform.

Most matches come with commentary so it’s just like watching a game on your television, only you have the option to use Unibet’s in-play betting service at the same time.

Be mindful that £20 of Unibet’s Bet £10 get £40 welcome offer is reserved for their online casino.

Best football betting site for virtual football: William Hill

Whatever time of day it is, there tends to be a football game going on somewhere in the world. But for those brief moments when there isn’t a match taking place you can watch, the best football betting sites have filled the gap with virtual football.

This is different from football in eSports, where gamers compete against one another on FC24 or eFootball, but rather a game played out by a computer than you can watch.

These matches come thick and fast on football betting sites, with William Hill showing a different match every three minutes. We found their virtual football platform the most user-friendly, although we were disappointed William Hill’s bet £10 get £30 sign up offer can’t be used in conjunction with virtual sports.

Ian Darke provides commentary on the game, which is shown at the top of the page, while there’s a selection of markets underneath. It’s similar to betting on a real football game, with punters able to back the final result, total goals and correct score before the contest kicks-off.

Best football betting site UK for Premier League betting: Talksport Bet

The Premier League is the most popular domestic league in the world and that’s translated to it being big business for football betting sites, many of which now offer Premier League-specific promotions.

Talksport Bet have embraced the English top flight and are running an offer to start the 2024/25 season where bettors can claim £30 in free Premier League bets when they wager £10 or more on any football game.

They also run two Footie Rewards schemes, giving punters a £5 and a £10 free bet when they place five or more wagers of a certain value on EPL or other league games.

TalkSport Bet also run a free-to-play game called Footie 4 Play, giving users a chance to win £2500 in cash if they correctly predict the final score of four Premier League games. Free bet prizes are also awarded if users get two or three scorelines correct.

Best football betting site offers

On any given weekend during the season, you’ll find a good selection of offers and promotions across football betting sites. There’ll be a range of price boosts or sign up offers tied to specific games, while you might even be handed a free bet to place on an accumulator or bet builder.

Below are a selection of the football betting offers punters can take advantage of each and every week:

Early payouts

Bet365 used to be the go to place for an early payout, offering to pay out on match bets if the side you backed to win went two goals ahead at any point. But plenty of other football bookies now offer this service, which tends to cover both singles and accumulators, with acca legs marked as a winner.

BoyleSports have gone a step further, offering to settle match bets if one side goes just one goal ahead, albeit the odds are reduced from the regular match betting prices.

This offer tends to only be available on specific competitions so check which leagues and cups are covered if you are planning to use this offer.

Money back

Accumulators have long been a staple of football betting, but now there’s a chance to take out some of the risk of placing an acca bet. Several football betting sites will offer punters money back as a free bet or in cash if one leg of their acca lets them down.

Punters will need to meet a threshold for the number of legs and combined odds of the accumulator to be eligible for accumulator insurance.

Bookmakers will also offer money back in other scenarios, such as if a match finishes goalless or if the player you backed in a player-specific prop bet is substituted before half-time.

Free-to-play predictors

Football betting sites have begun offering bettors the chance to win prizes via prediction games, which tend to take the form of having to correctly predict the final score in a certain number of matches.

These games are usually free to play and have sizeable cash payouts for anyone who correctly predicts the final score in all of the games. However, some bookmakers, such as Talksport Bet, will hand out rewards to those who get two or three scores right.

Hat-trick heaven

Betfred’s double delight and hat-trick heaven promotion is unique among UK football betting sites, offering to double and treble the odds on a first goalscorer bet should they go on to score two or three in a match.

It’s an offer that runs multiple times a weekend on selected matches and offers punters a potentially far bigger payout from their original bet.

How we rank and review online football betting sites

We take the rating and recommendation of football gambling sites very seriously and have stringent criteria for companies to even be considered for our list. Here are some of the factors that went into our thinking:

Regulation: This is a non-negotiable before we recommend any football betting sites. They have to be regulated by the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) for us to contemplate rating them, so you can be confident that every football bookmaker above is safe to engage with. There are too many illegitimate gambling companies out there to take chances – every site mentioned on this page is UKGC-regulated and secure to use.

Reputation: Our recommended football bookmakers are a mixture of household names and new football betting sites. The reputation of the company was very important to us and while the well-known sites such as Betfred, BoyleSports and Bet365 have reputations that precede them, we also considered the burgeoning renown of the newer companies generating buzz in the industry and how well-regarded they are overseas.

Gambling responsibly: Similarly to regulation, how committed the bookmaker is to responsible gambling was important to us. Have they taken genuine steps to ensure their actions towards their customers are morally sound? We considered their approaches to vital responsible gambling tools such as deposit limits, loss limits, reality checks and self-exclusion. More on this below.

Customer experience: How good an experience the site provides for its customers was also taken into account when choosing the best football betting sites – across desktop, mobile and app. If the site design is smart and well laid out, the useability is logical and straightforward, then that all makes for a better customer experience. Similarly, how easy it is to interact with support staff and solve any potential issues is also a factor. We also to like to see various payment options, such as PayPal betting and other modern forms of banking.

Promotions: Of course, a betting company can also be judged on its promotions and offers. Were these football betting sites offering unique deals we hadn’t seen anywhere else or that really enticed us to sign up? If you feel like you’re getting more bang for your buck – be that in terms of free bets, odds boosts or one-off promotions – you’re more likely to use the site.

Football betting tips

People love football in part due to its unpredictable nature. But that doesn’t translate well to betting, where, no matter how much research and studying you’ve done, there are no guarantees of being successful.

All you can do is give yourself the best chance at landing a bet and here are our five best football betting tips that will hopefully lead to more winners than losers.

1. Don’t bet with your heart: Football is a highly emotional game and that can cloud a football fan’s judgement at times. Don’t let your opinions on a team or player cloud your judgement when it comes to betting. Try to take your feelings out of the equation when assessing a football bet.

2. Analyse team and player form: Most football bettors will just look at recent results before placing a bet, but sometimes a wager requires a bit more digging. There’s a mountain of statistics available to look at and more often than not, the final score doesn’t tell the full story of a previous game. Take advantage of the stats packs to get a better view on a team or player before placing any bets.

3. Use different bookmakers: We all have our favourite football betting sites, but sometimes that football bookie doesn’t have the bet you want or the best price on a wager. Make sure to shop around to maximise the value of any bet.

4. Bet on leagues you know: Football betting sites now carry odds for all manner of leagues from across the globe and you’ll see an obscure football betting tip suggesting you wager on a game between two teams you’ve never heard of. Don’t do it. Stick to leagues you have some understanding of and that are well reported on, rather than taking a chance.

5. Beware the accumulator: It’s easy to get wrapped up in the big odds offered by an accumulator bet, but there’s a reason a football betting site is giving you those odds and that’s because, more often than not, an acca will lose. Keep the accumulator stakes small and instead bet on singles for a better chance at a more profitable football betting experience.

Responsible gambling with football bookies

The most important thing to remember is to gamble responsibly. Betting should only ever be considered a form of entertainment – it has not, and will never be, a surefire way to make money, no matter how much you think you know about football.

When betting on football, always assume you’ll lose and therefore, only bet what you can afford. Football betting can also be addictive, so please take steps to remain in control of your time and budget.

Make sure you use the responsible gambling tools offered by betting companies such as deposit limits, reality checks, loss limits, time outs and self-exclusion. These can stop your gambling from getting out of hand.

If you have gambling-related concerns, then seek independent help. There are several UK charities and institutions that offer support, advice and information, with a few listed below:

Best UK football betting sites summary

While we can recommend what we think are the best football betting sites, the truth is that every football punter is looking for something different from their bookmaker.

What’s ‘best’ for one person will be different to what’s ‘best’ for another. You may want to focus on in-play football betting, another person may prioritise having money-back offers if your accumulator just misses. Whatever your requirements, hopefully this information can help you make an informed decision about where you place your football bets.

Remember, each of our recommended football betting sites are fully licensed and regulated by the UKGC, ensuring that your personal and financial data is secure. Every site listed here is safe and legal but it’s important that you only pick a site that resonates with how you intend to bet.

Football betting sites FAQs

Is football betting legal in the UK?

Yes, football betting is legal in the UK, provided the site is licensed by the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC). Always ensure that the betting site is properly regulated to guarantee safety and fair play while betting on football. You can check the UKGC’s public register to see if a football bookmaker is governed.

How can I bet on football?

Every UK bookmaker will have a football betting section and most will offer odds on a huge range of leagues and markets. With that in mind, it’s just a case of finding a betting site that fits your needs, taking advantage of the sign-up offer and going from there. We have a full guide to betting on football you may wish to read.

What does each way mean in football betting?

An each way bet consists of two parts; a win bet and a place bet. Each way betting in football predominantly refers to a bet on a team to win a league or cup. Let’s say you back Arsenal each way to win the Champions League at 12/1. If they win the competition, you’ll be paid out at 12/1. If they reach the final and lose, you’ll be paid out at a percentage of their odds as part of the each way bet terms.

How do you win a football bet?

Our football betting tips section has a few pointers to help you win a bet, but with any form of gambling, there are no guarantees of success. Make sure you have done your research and are clear on what you want to bet on before placing a wager. If the bet does lose, stay patient and don’t chase your losses.