Betfair Ireland – Trusted Online Betting Site
Betfair is one of the most expensive bookmakers around. This bookmaker thrives on giving you control, with their dedicated exchange opening up both sides of a bet. Alongside that, they have one of the widest arrays of sports, esports, and casino options with plenty of great bonuses.
While this is all great on paper, there can often be hidden downsides. This Betfair review covers what you need to know about the site and if you should choose them.
- Sportsbook, Exchange, and Casino Sections Included
- Regular Promos Across the Site
- Well-Functioning Site and Smooth Experience
- Payment Methods:
Registering – How to Open Betfair Account
The Betfair create account process isn’t a long one, you really only need a few minutes to go from finding the site to placing or laying your first bet. These are all of the steps to open an account:
- Click the ‘Join Now’ button in the top right.
- Enter your personal details like name, email address and security question.
- Proceed to add a deposit method.
- You’re in and can place a bet!
That’s how you sign up, and for most people, this is the entire process. You’re now in and can get on with your welcome offer to use your free bets!
However, sometimes you’ll need some extra verification. This usually isn’t necessary as they can confirm your identity from your details. If they can’t though, then you might need to upload a copy of your ID or proof of address to verify your identity though. If this applies to you, then these stages are all you need to do:
- Click ‘My Account’
- Then ‘My Account’
- Here, select ‘My Details’ on the navigation bar then select ‘Verification.’
The form to fill in your details here is pretty simple and verification tends to be quite fast. This is a legal requirement for the bookmaker, they’re secure to upload the documents to.
Betfair Payment Methods – How to Deposit and Withdrawal
- Minimum Deposit: €5
- Minimum Withdrawal: €1
- Maximum Withdrawal: €5000
While signing up quickly is a positive, for a decent bookmaker you need to be able to get your money in and out easily too. In terms of deposits and withdrawals, Betfair online betting has a wide array of options. You’re not getting the variety of some places like expansive crypto, but as a major bookmaker, every option on offer is secure, and their withdrawal times are pretty quick. These are all of the methods that they offer:
How to Deposit
This is all you need to do to deposit:
- Click the grey ‘Deposit’ button next to My Account
- Select between Debit Card or Alternative Methods
- Select your Betfair Payment Method
- Enter Amount
- Deposit
How to Withdraw
In testing for a review, withdrawals were just as simple as deposits. Although, there was one slightly irritating factor that’s recently popped up. This is how you can withdraw:
- Click your balance
- Click ‘Withdraw’
- Select your payment method
- Enter your amount
- Click ‘Withdraw’
One thing to watch out for is making sure you’re using the right withdrawal method. They don’t default to your normal method. Recently, they’ve been opening the withdrawal page straight to a Gift Card withdrawal! Make sure you’ve selected your preferred method, as this is easy to miss.
Betfair Sign Up Offers and Bonuses
- Bonus: €20 Free Bet
- Odds: 1.5
Bonuses provide a great incentive for signing up to a bookmaker. You get a bit more out of your betting there. For this Betfair Ireland review, they come up quite well in bonuses. They run regular bonuses throughout the year, offering free bets when you place a double, along with other occasional promotions. So, there are usually more bonuses beyond the Betfair sign up offers.
The site has also been known to hand out random €5 free bets to users who haven’t been on the site in a while. Their casino offers are available daily too, which should all help you get more value out of your betting. Although, the Betfair joining bonuses are definitely the main attraction here.
Markets and Making a Bet
The markets and process of placing a bet can be a dealbreaker for a bookmaker, here there is a unique approach. Once you open an account, you have access to both an exchange and a sportsbook. The sportsbook has you place bets in the normal way. You select your event, select your market, and then enter your stake in the bet slip to the right. This is relatively simple, and everything is organized well.
The exchange side of making a bet allows you to take the opposite side. Here, you can place a ‘lay’ bet. This is essentially making you the bookmaker. You can bet against that bet winning. This is a different way of betting, and the exchange is definitely one reason to look at this bookmaker over others.
In terms of markets offered, they are pretty expansive. They offer a range of bets on most sports. These include basics like winners or goals, along with wider markets like over/under, goal or point scores, specific metrics like corners, and result at time increments. The exact markets will vary depending on the sport you’re looking at, though. They also offer the Betfair Bet Builder. This lets you build a bet out of some very specific conditions, to make something with high Betfair betting odds like an accumulator but with only a single leg.
They also offers different odds types to fine tune your betting experience exactly to your preferences. Decimal and fractional odds are both available. You can change this at the bottom of the page.
The Exchange and Sportsbook both offer a Betfair cash out. So, no matter what type of bet you go for, you’re always going to be able to cash out early if you want to.
What Sports Are on Offer?
Having loads of markets available is great, but it doesn’t mean much if you’re not covering a decent range of sports. As an exchange alongside a sportsbook, this site has one of the widest ranges of sports out there. There are some of their options:
- American Football
- News and Current Affairs
- Rugby
- Baseball
- Boxing
- Cricket
- Cycling
- Darts
- Esports
- Football
- Gaelic Games
- Golf
- Motor Sport
- Greyhound Racing
- Handball
- Horse Racing
- Ice Hockey
- Mixed Martial Arts
- Snooker
- Table Tennis
- Tennis
- Volleyball
- Winter Sports
-
Football
-
Tennis
-
Basketball
-
Hockey
-
Volleyball
The offerings here include the most popular sports in Ireland like football, but also more niche like foreign minor league hockey! There are also more novelty and special bets. These vary from time to time, but at the moment they are offering political bets alongside bets on movie awards, reality tv shows, and who will be cast in roles like James Bond. They also offer virtual sports if you’re looking for a sport that never stops!
The range of sports on offer are some of the widest. When you consider that you also can take the exchange side of any bet, this might be the widest betting option.
Betfair Live Betting Options
Live betting is an aspect of a bookmaker that lets you place, change, and watch your bets in real time. Here, there are some pretty impressive live betting and streaming options. You can do live bets and cash out early on pretty much everything in the sportsbook.
Things are a bit more complicated in the exchange. Here, a cashed-out bet will place a corresponding bet that results in the profit you cashed out coming out no matter the outcome. This can be confusing at first, but it does work well if you don’t get too concerned with a messy betslip.
Betfair live betting with streaming allows you to watch the sports in real time too. You can react to changes in the game live with your bets. The quality of streams here is decent, but they can cause a few performance issues for the site. Some streams have commentary, but this isn’t universal or always in your language.
The Bookmaker in Terms of Functionality
Once you open an account, there are a lot more options for betting than at most betting sites. This can mean there’s a danger of the site becoming bloated and difficult to navigate. This isn’t really the case, but there’s some key areas where they can improve. All sports are divided up logically, but the individual events page has a bit of a problem.
Each individual market is listed on a taskbar on the left, this can make it frustrating to browse the various markets for one event. Such as a football match having over/under goals listed individually rather than just as one box. This is just a minor frustration though.
There is both a mobile version of the site and an app. For betting on the go, their Betfair app is probably the better choice as it can be difficult to navigate areas like promotions on the normal mobile site.
Is Betfair Legit?
Safety and security is vital when you’re picking a bookmaker online. They are fully licensed and regulated by the Malta Gaming Authority. They’re also regulated by the Gambling Commission in the UK and Northern Ireland. Betfair Ireland is definitely legit, and they have the regulator bodies to back it up.
Alongside the official regulation, the site uses SSL and encryption to keep the site safe along with complying with rules about separation of funds. They even work with third-party regulators like GamCare, Player Protection, GamStop, and Safer Gambling Standard. This should put you at ease if you’re wondering is Betfair safe.
Customer Support
While things mainly worked great for this Betfair review, you can still run into problems. In those cases, then having a good amount of customer care options out there is going to be a big positive. How do they come out on their responsiveness and ease of solving problems? They have a great range of options for getting in touch, so physically being able to contact them shouldn’t be a problem. They also had helpful customer service when contacted.
In testing for this review, we found that the live chat replied within around 5 minutes. This is pretty quick, and the customer care person on the other side was very helpful. There are about standard options for customer care, but each of them works well and is easy to find. The live chat is by far the easiest, though.
| Company Information | |
|---|---|
| Name | Betfair International Plc |
| Address | Triq il-Kappillan Mifsud, St. Venera, SVR 1851, Malta |
| Established | 1999 |
| License | MGA/CRP/131/2006 |
| Phone | 1800 238 888 |
| [email protected] | |
| Contact Form | No |
| Live Chat | Yes |
Conclusion
That’s how everything works and the main features, but is it a bookmaker worth your time? In a Betfair review, it is clear they offer elements like the exchange along and the wider range of markets or sports that very few other bookmakers can compare with. It might not be the most traditional site, but they have benefits that you can’t get elsewhere. There are a few problems here though, like unorganized betting markets and the mobile display. However, in all this site works very well and it is a great choice if you’re looking for an expansive and different bookmaker.
FAQ
There is a sportsbook component that offers a lot of different events and markets. On top of this, they also offer an exchange and casino. However, if you’re only interested in the sportsbook part of the site then you’re free to stick to that side. The Betfair sign-up offers are available at the sportsbook too.
Withdrawal times will vary depending on the payment method that you used and the processing time. These are the average times for each of their withdrawals:
- Cards – 2 working days +
- All Bank Transfers – 2 working days +
- PayPal, Skrill, NETELLER, WebMoney, QIWI – 4 hours +
- Apple Pay – 2 working days +
In our experience, PayPal and other online payment services are the quickest for Ireland. 4 hours was roughly standard for the withdrawal.
The exchange portion of the site can be confusing at first, but it is pretty simple to use. The ‘Back’ bet is when you’re backing a condition, so you win when the condition is met. Equally, the Lay is to bet against that condition being met. Lay bets have a liability which is the amount you have to payout if you lose, but they can be quite profitable if you use them smartly.