How We Rank & Rate Our Betting Sites at Freebets.com

We all have a favourite betting site and what makes it special depends on different things – but it’s always a personal choice.

At Free Bets we take into account a range of factors when we rank our betting sites, to ensure they’re tried, trusted and perfect for having a punt with!

But how do we review the sites? Here are the key areas we are looking at with each brand on our site.

1. Are The Betting Sites Secure & Trustworthy?

Among the biggest factors we take into account when recommending bookmakers is the safety and security of sites.

We only bring you betting sites that are completely safe and reliable and are fully licensed and regulated by the appropriate UK authorities.

All work in line with the UK Gambling Commission and have a great reputation among players.

We check to make sure they have great customer service options, with experts available to speak to easily via a number of methods.

As well as this, you’ll find many deposit and withdrawal methods, alongside plenty of odds, features such as live steaming and more. We really won’t leave a stone unturned to ensure our sites are completely safe and trustworthy.

2. Payment Methods

What you’ll find with a safe and legal betting site is that they offer a wide range of payment methods that also work in line with betting laws in the UK.

Among the most popular methods of payment include debit card and the likes of eWallet, such as PayPal, Neteller and Skrill. As well as this you’ll also find bank transfer and a number of different options. Essentially, the more familiar options, the more the site is a trusted one.

Methods to beware of currently includes cryptocurrency in particular, with many unlicensed bookmakers and casinos offering the likes of Bitcoin.

Additionally, when it comes to speed and payment fees, you should never trust sites which have large fees. We only recommend sites that have the lowest withdrawal fees and we ensure that any fees that are in place are clearly stated on the bookmaker’s website.

3. Sport Features & Markets

The best betting apps these days don’t just offer odds, they offer a huge range of features. They’re entirely ingrained in how we consume sport and are a key cog in many sports even existing.

When it comes to bookmaker offerings, there are many features available which makes them perfect for playing with. These are the key factors, all of which we consider when ranking sites:

• Large range of betting markets
• Good value odds
• Excellent welcome bonus
• Live streaming sports (including horse racing, football, basketball, etc)
• In-play betting
• Enhanced odds & price boosts

4. Welcome Bonus & Variety of Promotions

You’ll find that most safe, secure and well-ranked sites with us have a good value or wide range of welcome bonuses.

All the big names such as William Hill, Betfred, Ladbrokes and BetVictor have generous welcome offers that are easy to claim and can be done so in just a few steps.

You’ll find plenty across our site, particularly around major events such as us highlighting the many different Cheltenham free bets, Grand National free bets and World Cup promotions that are available.

Among the most common offers our recommended bookies have are:

• Matched bonuses
• Money back specials
• Risk free bets
• Price boosts/enhanced odds

Alongside these, we rank our bookmakers based upon offers for existing customers which include free bets for loyal customers, enhanced odds, acca insurance, non runner no bet, as well as many other bonuses focused on specific sports.

5. Best Betting Odds – Quality & Variety

There’s nothing worse than a betting site that offers no value to customers. Never fear though, all the sites ranked and rated highly by Freebets.com give good value odds that are well worth backing.

The variety with top bookmakers is huge, with dozens upon dozens of sports available and many different markets from outright and match results to the likes of goal scorers, correct score, total goals/points over/under and more.

We check that payout percentages are good and the sports and tournaments are wide. Among the more popular sports we look out for when rating betting sites are:

• Football
• Horse Racing
• Tennis
• Boxing
• Formula 1
• Rugby Union
• Rugby League
• Golf
• Cricket

And within all of those you’ll be able to enjoy many more odds beyond the basic markets.

6. How is the User Interface & Design

As far as we’re concerned, you can have the finest odds on the planet, but if you can’t navigate towards them, then you aren’t playing with a good betting site.

The way a site looks, plays and feels is important to us and we like a site to run smoothly, with clean navigation on both desktop and mobile.

We lookout for toolbars and menus that allow you to move from one sport and market to another in just a few clicks, while finding live streaming and in play markets should also be simple.

The best sites are simple. They understand how a user moves and operates and designs an interface in accordance with that.

All the sites here at freebets.com are tested thoroughly in this regard and every site here users will find simple to use, sign up to offers and play with.

7. How is the Customer Service?

Customer service is hugely important to us. While it’s something you most likely won’t use often, it’s good to know there are options if you do have any problems or questions.

We look out for sites that have:

• Live chat available across the day.
• Email addresses and telephone numbers to contact a brand’s team.
• Quick responsiveness – we consider the speed in which people receive a reply,
• Other means of contact – we also consider a number of other customer service features.
• Account settings and the ability to set betting limits is important to us alongside other customization features
• Comprehensive FAQ pages which can often be the most useful page on a site, quickly offering solutions to any common problems a punter may have.

8. Our Scoring System Explained

You will see lots of stars and lots of ratings when you're reviewing our best betting sites, but what do those scores mean and how do we come up with that final score?

We rate our brands over five key areas, and provide a score out of five for each one, each on its own merits - so we're not comparing to one another, we are assessing each brand by itself and making our own judgments when going through the sign-up process, so we can experience it like any other customer would do, regardless of whether we previously had an account or not.

The five key areas that make up a brand's score are:

• Website UX (Out of 5)
• Mobile App (Out of 5)
• Betting Markets (Out of 5)
• Payments (Out of 5)
• Customer Support (Out of 5)

The collective scores will be put together and balanced out to give an overall score for the brand, which you will see alongside the bookmaker card on any of our key pages.

The thresholds these scores represent are:

• 5/5 (90–100%): Exceptional - industry-leading, no significant weaknesses
• 4/5 (70–89%): Very good - above average with only minor issues
• 3/5 (50–69%): Average - meets baseline expectations
• 2/5 (30–49%): Below average - notable shortcomings
• 1/5 (0–29%): Poor - not recommended

9. The Review Process

So you now know what we're looking for when reviewing a betting site, and you know how we calculate an overall score for the brand, but exactly who does the review and how do we do it?

Here's a quick explanation of how we carry out every individual review:

For every brand review on the site, you will see an author attached to the page. We carry out every single review from the perspective of a customer following the steps above, so everything we advise and offer - that's a genuine recommendation and opinion from the writer.