While online casinos and online poker are intimately related, online sports betting is definitely a world all to itself. There are different rules and different expectations. Plus, you’re betting on things in real life, rather than on the ‘roll’ of a computer’s dice or online slots reels.
Sports betting has been around as long as there have been sports (maybe longer…I can imagine the first bettor, maybe some kind of caveman, betting on either the Woolly Mammoth or the Saber-tooth that was chasing him…but I digress).
Some countries have handled it better than others; the UK, for example, has managed to set up some of the finest sports betting establishments in the world without destroying the fabric of civilization as we know it. The situation in the US (at an online sportsbook or online casino USA) is a little less ideal, however…
So we’re at the strange point where we have to recommend separate “Best” sportsbooks; one batch for US players, one batch for everyone else.
Luckily, the top US-based sportsbooks are world-league anyway, so it’s not amateur hour. We’re talking about names like Sportsbook.com, BetUS, and SportsBetting.com…three of the best there is. Take that, UIGEA!
The international scene is simply more crowded with excellence. On one hand, you have the tried-and-true online versions of reputable names like William Hill, Ladbrokes, and Paddy Power. It’s hard to go wrong with companies that have been doing this for decades.
On the other hand, you have the ‘new breed’ of online-only sportsbooks (who match the classic in quality, and benefit from not risking spreading themselves too thin with land-based shops to operate) such as bet365 and bet770. Plus, there are the gambling megasites like 888.com — most of which sacrifice quality for quantity, but not 888, whose sportsbooks, poker, online slots and everything else are among the very best in the world.