Bwin is, without doubt, the first giant bookmaker in gaming history. They were founded in 1999 and were first known as BetandWin and later Betwin before they will end up in renaming the brand as Bwin. The brand is licensed in the UK and in Gibraltar, while it also holds many local licenses. The popular bookmaker is a member of IBIA, the International Betting Integrity Association and is listed on the London Stock Exchange.
Bwin.com offers 50+ sports, a wide variety of extra features, like Build a Bet, Multiview, Partial/Automatic cashout and continuous promotions. Bwin Bet acts as the official sponsor to competitions like Euroleague, the German Bundesliga, the Italian Serie A and the Spanish La Liga, and to top-flight football sides, like Valencia FC and Atletico Madrid.
The pre-match section comes with a 94%+ overall payout. The odds rise up to 95%+ at the top football Leagues like Premier League and Bundesliga at the W-D-W market. That is not the case for secondary leagues and bets, where the rate drops down to a below-average 93%+. NBA’s payout, on the other hand, rises up to 96%, which is relatively high compared to other bookmakers. The punters can choose among 30.000+ pre-match events daily from more than 50 sports. The football enthusiasts may place their bets on 200+ extra wagers at every football match, such as combo bets, player to score, cards and corners. On the other hand, Asian Handicaps are not available. Both basketball and tennis punters will find lots of extra spreads and alternative totals to bet on.
Bwin sport gives the punters the chance to place their bets on lots of outrights and on US Sports. Moreover, they can wager on awards like The Oscars and on many political bets, but Horse racing and Greyhounds are absent. The sportsbook comes with unique features like Bet Builder and Edit My Bet. The players can choose among three odds formats, Fractional, Decimal and American.
Licensing & Safety
Bwin website is provided and operated by a company called ElectraWorks Limited who have all the correct licenses to operate in the UK market and abroad.
Bwin are also members of the European Sports Security Association, which aims to offer customers a fair sports betting product by preventing insider bets and betting fraud.
Player complaints are a serious issue for Bwin and the web is littered with them. They focus on:
- Slow paying players
- Closing accounts after just a couple of winning bets
- Predatory wagering requirements
- Shocking customer service
- Closing accounts without justification
Ownership:
- Bwin, which was known as betandwin until 2006, was first founded back in 1997.
- The company held an Initial Public Offering (IPO) on the Austrian Stock Exchange in the year 2000.
- In 2011, Bwin merged with British company PartyGaming to become at the time the largest publicly traded online gaming firm in the world.
- Bwin.Party Digital Entertainment PLC, as the company was then called, was acquired by GVC Holdings PLC in 2016.
Given were talking about a publicly traded company it’s surprising that have such a bad reputation among punters – surprising but oh so very true.
They also stiffed marketing partners in the past, with predatory terms and conditions, which is another major concern.
Bwin Betting Markets
More than 100 different betting options are offered for soccer games alone. Besides the traditional money line bets, you can also bet on totals, handicaps, and of course, in-play markets. Naturally, the number of betting markets is different depending on the chosen sport. For example in cycling, you can bet only on outright odds for the winner of the tour, before it starts.
Bwin Sporting Events
It is not a surprise that you can bet on soccer, tennis, basketball, American football, cycling, volleyball, and baseball. In addition, you can place your bets on some rare sports such as biathlon, triathlon, floorball, cross country skiing, and much more.
In-Play Betting
Live betting is well catered for by Bwin, with a clear and obvious link on their homepage to a dedicated live betting area.
In this section you’ll see all of the events currently in-play listed and arranged by sport. Major sports like football and tennis are well accounted for, but smaller ones such as badminton also see events regularly taken in-play.
It is football matches which boasts by far the most in-play markets through Bwin but higher profile events from other sports can still feature 20 or more different betting options.
Bwin in-play interfaces always feature a live scoreboard at the top, which generally also features simple, live text commentary.
To the right of the scoreboard, you will also find a ‘Media’ area of the interface. When available, it is here that you can find either a live animation giving updates from the event or a live stream of the event.
Available Competitions, Leagues, and Tournaments
The variety of different competitions and events is also massive. Bwin is highly focusing on the most popular soccer leagues, the English Premier League and the Spanish La Liga.
Choosing your favorite sport, on the other hand, will open a new tab full of ongoing tournaments on which you can bet with a simple click of a button.
Bwin Casino
If you decide to check out what’s on offer at the Bwin Casino page, you most likely won’t be disappointed. Far from a token ‘nod’ to the casino crowd, it’s more of a fully-fledged and well-developed casino with literally hundreds of games to choose from. The Live Casino section is particularly impressive, as too is the mobile casino experience and the handful of bonus offers exclusive to casino gamers.
Special/Exotic Bets
Besides traditional betting opportunities such as correct score, double chance, halftime, 3-ways, etc, Bwin has some exotic betting markets as well. Do you know what bandy is? Probably not…It is a little known winter team sport played on ice where skaters use sticks to direct a ball into the opposing team’s goal. And Bwin has betting markets for it!
Now, if you like it and want to bet, our featured sportsbook is the right place for you. Some interesting political campaigns are also available for wagers. Last but not least, you can pledge if you think Star Wars 8 will have the highest grossing opening weekend in the USA in 2017 or if the same movie will win both the best director and best picture Oscar?
As you can see, Bwin is giving its customers the chance to bet on almost everything.
ELITE BETTING SOFTWARE, TONS OF MARKETS
If Bwin were rated just on their interface and betting software, they might be the best bookmaker online. The sports and number of markets available are extremely impressive, and although a lot is happening on your screen, navigating around and placing bets couldn’t be simpler.
Their most popular markets are listed in the upper left-hand corner of the day. Clicking on a sport, and placing a selection doesn’t require a page reload, and wow, is their software fast. One of our top features, unique to Bwin (at least we haven’t seen it anywhere else) is favorite market preferences. Customers can star their favorites markets and have easy access to them as soon as they log in. It can save a lot of time, particularly because of the sea of options at Bwin.
The left side of the screen also has a live total of the number of markets they currently offer. It’s typically at least 15,000 or more. There is also a ‘last minute bets’ button that allows punters to check for value quickly in the final seconds of pre-match markets.
As far as sports available for betting, there are few sports or leagues that Bwin doesn’t provide. It’s not worth our time to list them all here, but if someone in the world is taking bets on it, there are probably odds available.
They don’t necessarily have a focus on a particular area, but there will be more betting markets on high profile European sports, such as football and soccer compared to say compared to less popular sports like darts or handball.
Software aside and number of markets aside, their odds are just average. It’s not particularly an operator you would look at immediately for the best price. However, in-play betting markets seem to reduce the bookmaker’s edge. Their live betting options and interface are as excellent as the pre-match betting options if not better.
Mobile app / mobile version
The Bwin app is made better by the fact that you can enjoy full screen live streams on that. That’s a huge boon for the app and of course, with the cash out feature available on mobile devices as well, you can keep full control of all of your bets whenever you like and whenever you are. You also get free live updates in the bwin Sports App of any goals that fly in. The same user friendly feel that you get from the main website you will find across their mobile and app platforms too.
How to register with bwin in three easy steps
To gain access to thousands of great betting markets on football and other sports, we’ve put together a simple guide on how to register with bwin.
New customers can even qualify for a FreeBet of up to £10 if their first wager with us, at odds of even money or greater, isn’t a winning one!
The easiest way to sign up for an account is to head to the bwin sports betting site and click on the REGISTER NOW link at the top of the page.
A pop-up menu will then appear, steering you through a three-step process towards getting up and running – and potentially receiving a £10 Backup Bet.
- STEP 1: Provide your country of residence, an email address, plus your gender (male or female), first name and surname.
- STEP 2: Create a User ID and a password, set a personalised security question and answer, select your preferred currency and provide your date of birth.
- STEP 3: Fill in your house number, street name, city and postcode, plus a mobile phone number, indicate how you would like to receive FreeBets, bonuses and offers from bwin (Email, SMS, phone call or post) and click CREATE MY ACCOUNT!
After filling in the appropriate forms with this information, bwin will send you an email with a link, which you will need to click in order to verify your registration.
You are then free to start browsing our comprehensive list of betting opportunities on football and other sports to find selections you fancy backing.
There are over 30 major sports you can have a flutter on with bwin, the world’s largest online gaming company.
Welcome Bonus
If you are considering giving Bwin a go, you’ll probably be interested to hear about their new customer welcome promotion.
The promotion provides a so-called ‘Back-up Bet’ worth up to £10, which a new customer can receive in the following way:
- Visit the Bwin website
- Register a brand new account with the company
- Make a deposit of £10 or more
- Place a bet worth up to £10 at odds of 2.0 or longer
- If the bet loses, a free bet equal in value to the stake will be credited to your account
- That free bet can be used to place a further Bwin sportsbook wager but won’t return the stake with any winnings
The problems with this offer are it’s size, the fact you don’t get a bonus when you win your first bet and your first bet must be at min odds of evens or higher.
Given the company have a poor reputation and a poor bonus offer we don’t recommend you sign up – see these betting bonus deals at reputable bookmakers for an alternative.
Deposits and Withdrawals
Bwin’s list of cashier options is among the largest we’ve seen for an online bookmaker. They have an extensive list of accepted currencies and many local deposit options depending on your jurisdiction.
The most popular deposit method will likely be by credit card or debit card. They accept both MasterCard and Visa. There are no fees for depositing and withdrawing with any credit or debit card. However, with e-wallets, such as Neteller and Skrill there is a 3% charge on withdrawals. This is extremely rare for an operator of their size. Bwin drops the ball by not covering these fees for customers.
To make matters worse, they also charge for bank wire withdrawals and have a minimum amount of $50,000 before players can request a bank wire payout. We guess not many of these are requested and processed.
Withdrawals speeds are all over the place. It seems the general feeling after reading feedback from customers that Bwin has below average speeds, but they are still honoring all requests, from all methods within 7-10 days. These rates are below the industry standard. Many operators process the majority of their withdrawals within 24-48 hours, but they are still far from slow-paying or rogue territory.
Customer Support
It is clear that this betting site strives to create a top customer support service for all of its players, and it has done a very good job. Currently, should you need the help of an agent; you have the option of contacting via a contact page on the website. Furthermore, you can also use the live chat option and a direct contact phone number, all of which are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
The contact forms are normally responded to within the day and the phone and live chat options are responded to within minutes. In general, we found the agents to be very helpful, knowledgeable and professional, assisting us quickly and ably. This is definitely a top class support.
As well as the customer support, there is a great Help section which covers most of the FAQs. Here you are able to find the answer to many of the queries posed such as registering and password issues, account problems, and all sorts of queries from the different sections – casino, sports and poker. It is well worth having a look here before contacting support.