Excellent Welcome Offer

When I signed up to join bet365’s sportsbook, I’d heard from a lot of people that it was a straight-forward and easy to understand process. And that there may be a welcome offer for new customers.

I’m pleased to say that those people were correct and my experience of signing-up as a UK customer to this bookie was a great one as they made it really easy in comparison to other bookmakers out there.

It was a simple one-page sign-up, so whilst they needed all the usual information from me – email, username, address etc, having it all on one page made it seem quick and simple.

Once I was registered with them I was instantly asked if I’d like to deposit, although you can skip that part, and it was at this point that a bet365 sign up offer was presented to me – however, they call it the bet365 Open Account Offer.

The bet365 new customer offer that I was presented was to ‘bet £10 get £50 in free bets’ which, even without reading the terms and conditions comes across as an extremely generous offer.

The terms and conditions that I was given on this promotion were incredibly fair too – firstly I had to claim the offer within 30 days. I then needed to make a qualifying deposit of £5-£10 in order to qualify for a 500% matched amount in bet credits, up to a maximum of £50.

Open Account Offer

I was informed by their promotional text that my qualifying deposit is my largest deposit (capped at £10) made in the 7 days prior to you claiming the offer. Thankfully I was using my debit card anyway as it is one of the few payment methods that qualify for the bonus. Once my deposit was in, it was matched x 5 in bet credits.

The next step was for me to release the bet credits by making qualifying bets of a total value of the qualifying deposit and these bets needed to settle within the first 30 days from opening my account. These bets had to be at odds of 1/5 (1.2) or more and in markets/fixture combinations that only have 2 or 3 outcomes – such as a win-draw-win market

Interestingly I would have lost my bet credits if I had not made qualifying bets to the total (or greater than the total) of my initial qualifying deposit. Once my credits were released though, I got to use them but was reminded that any returns from bet credits would not have the bet credit included, it would only be any winnings from bet credits that would go into my withdrawable balance.

Overall, in my personal opinion, when you compare these terms to those of other bookmakers, I think they’re very favourable, especially if you’re looking to deposit a decent amount from the beginning – it really seems that they want to look after you from the start; that’s how I felt anyway!

Key Terms & Conditions

Here’s a summary of the key terms and conditions that I experienced when claiming bet365’s Open Account offer, explained by bet365 themselves:

New Customers only. Bet £10* & Get £50* in Free Bets. Sign up, deposit between £5* and £10* to your account and bet365 will give you five times that value in Free Bets when you place qualifying bets to the same value and they are settled. Free Bets are paid as Bet Credits. Min odds/bet and payment method exclusions apply. Returns exclude Bet Credits stake. T&Cs, time limits & exclusions apply.

Significant Terms and Conditions

• Available to new customers only. Make a qualifying deposit of £5* or more and claim the offer within 30 days of registering your account to qualify for 500% of that amount in Bet Credits, up to a maximum of £50* in Bet Credits. Once released, your Bet Credits will be held in your account balance and are non-withdrawable.

• To release your Bet Credits for use, you must place qualifying bets to the value of your qualifying deposit (capped at £10*) and they must settle within 30 days of claiming the offer. Only qualifying bets settled after claiming the offer will count towards this requirement.

• Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, paysafecard and all other prepaid credit and debit cards, where available, cannot be used for either your qualifying deposit or any subsequent withdrawal of returns from Bet Credits stakes unless we have successfully verified an accepted form of your Identity Documents and you have entered a Postal Verification Code (PVC), or we have successfully verified two accepted forms of your Identity Documents. See full Terms and Conditions for details.

• Bets placed must meet certain conditions to count towards the release of your Bet Credits:

• Must contain at least one selection at odds of 1/5 (1.20) or greater.

• In market/fixture combinations that only have two or three potential outcomes (for example Soccer Full Time Result), where you have placed bets on more than one potential outcome, either pre-match or In-Play, only the outcome with your highest cumulative stake will count.

• Where a stake has been partially Cashed Out, only the remaining active stake will count.

• Where a bet has been edited using our Edit Bet feature, only the new stake on the new bet will count.

• Fully Cashed Out, Instant Games, Gaming, void bets or In-Play bets which are settled as a push will not count.

• Your Bet Credits are non-withdrawable, and Bet Credits stakes are not included in any returns. Any returns from Bet Credits placed will be added to your Withdrawable Balance. Bet Credits cannot be used on certain products, offers/promotions and bet types. See full Terms and

• Conditions for details.

• Your Bet Credits will be forfeit and removed if your account is inactive for 90 consecutive days.

• *or currency equivalent

T&Cs, time limits and exclusions apply.

What are bet365 like with Existing Customers?

A lot has changed in the 10 years that I’ve had a bet365 account – in particular around responsible gambling and site security, like with their GamCare partnership, – and online sportsbooks have found it tough to adapt to this approach in my opinion. However, bet365 have not struggled to adapt.

I receive regular emails promoting their responsible gambling measures and whenever I join a new bookmaker I always check this section of their site out as it’s important to me to know that they’re looking out for you as much as they can.

During my experience with them, I’ve been offered the chance to set deposit limits on a daily, weekly or monthly basis – a measure that’s really great if you just want to bet casually and responsibly.

In the 10 years I’ve had an account, I’ve never once had a problem with bet365 when it comes to banking issues either – I’ve always considered my money safe with them and have not had to question them otherwise.

Now that they are such a massive online bookmaker, they transcend the betting world and are often in the mainstream news pages – in particular the business sections. The more you read about them, the more you realise that they try their hardest to ensure they’re meeting all regulatory requirements within the UK, where I bet from.

When it comes to trust and safety around online betting sites, bet365 stand out due to being one of the world’s largest, whilst still being privately owned. Who owns bet365? It’s the same owners now as it has been since the beginning – the Coates family, headed by Denise Coates.

Available on iOS, Android, and Mobile Web!

I’ve only used bet365 on occasion using the mobile website, rather than playing at bet365 online, and it’s always worked as expected – essentially the exact same experience. It’s easy to navigate around bet365’s mobile website and just as simple to select and place your bets.

When it comes to the bet365 apps, I use the iOS app regularly and again it’s really simple to use. From the pin-code bet365 app login to navigating the mobile app, everything works well. Much like the desktop experience you can tell that they’ve invested heavily here.

Android users are covered too as it’s clear within the Google Play store that there’s a bet365 Android app available to download. Friends who have this installed assure me that the experience is exactly what you’d expect from great sports betting sites – easily navigable, simple to get your bets on, with a good user experience.

I really enjoy the bet365 in play experience on mobile – with the bet365 live match/event visualisations and data points providing just enough info to help me make my sports bets.