Optibet.com
Year established: 2008
Mobile compatible: Yes
Jurisdiction: Malta
Overall rating: C
Recommended: For recreational players
Optibet Sportsbook Review
Optibet is a current mainstay of the Baltic online gambling community, and has recently been trying to make inroads outside of this region. This is a Latvian company, that offers its website in the Baltic languages of Latvian, Estonian, Lithuanian and Finnish, as well as Russian and English, which was founded in 2008 and was initially just an online casino - that focused on their home Latvian market. They quickly became the biggest online casino in Latvia and branched out to both a sportsbook platform and the rest of the world. Latvia has a fairly strict and well regulated market, so they can be deemed fairly trustworthy to have excelled in such a market. Their rest of the world (.com) site is licenced by the gaming hub of Malta and they operate solely in Euros.
Betting Markets
Optibet offers a wide variety of betting options, but mainly within Ice hockey and football. The local leagues in Europe are covered excellently, even covering semi -pro and amateur leagues. They do also offer a wide range of sports on which to bet, but the issue is that the depth into which you can bet within these sports is vastly inferior to their Football and Ice Hockey options.
They include all the sports you will usually find in a sportsbook and even a small politics subsection, which contains the option to vote on the next German Chancellorship and the US 2020 election, with options including Kobe Bryant and Lady Gaga - if you fancy wasting some money you can even bet on Jared Kushner being the next President of the United States. Additionally you can bet on who will be next President of the Latvian Football Association. They appear to enjoy a joke at Optibet and also offer the chance to bet on Ikea winning the next Nobel Peace Prize. Whilst this is simple light-heartedness, they could be better placed to improve their sportsbets instead of wasting time with novelty bets.
They do also offer a casino section, but this is unavailable to players based in the UK, although the use of a VPN could bypass this.
Live Betting
The casino restriction to UK users is unfortunately also extended to the live casino. However, the in play live betting on the sportsbook is available but is fairly underwhelming in terms of scope. It offers the usual worldwide football betting options, although it is offers less of the more obscure football leagues for in play betting than some of its competitors do. Instead focusing on European, internationals, and the Americas ignoring the leagues of Asia.
Mobile Betting
Although they do not offer a dedicated mobile phone or tablet app, they do offer all their games and betting options in flash allowing them to be compatible with both Apple and Android smart devices. However, they do not offer a live-streaming service for who want to watch games in real time.
Customer Support
Optibet offers customer service representatives 7 days a week between the hours of 09:00 – 23:00 EET (Eastern European Time). They offer a live chat interface which offers the quickest response rate, an email address for out of hours queries and also a local phone number.
Sign-up bonus
When you first sign up the Optibet, if you use the bonus code, FIRSTSPORTSBONUS you can claim a 50% bonus of up to 50 Euros on your first deposit, which can only be used in the sportsbook. This sign up promotion is available to UK based players.
Conclusion
Optibet, having consolidated the Baltic market have attempted to branch out into the rest of the world, yet have struggled to do so with their casino and live casino sections blocked on their rest of the world site. Their sportsbook is nothing special and their promotions are not jaw-dropping. This is a fairly run of the mill trustworthy sportsbook for UK punters with little risk, but also little incentive to sign up.
Advantages:
- European facing bookmaker;
- Great selection of sports;
- Large betting offer, competitive odds;
- Good Live betting section;
- Bonuses, benefits and advantages that go beyond the welcome bonus;
- Runs on NetEnt and Microgaming platforms;
- User-friendly website;
- Available in different languages;
- Great live customer support;
- Quick payouts.
Disadvantages:
- Less established than other bookies;
- Odds aren’t the greatest for local sports;
- There are very low limits for some events;
- Fees on some deposit methods;
- Some restricted countries.
Payments:
Visa/Mastercard, Skrill (Moneybookers), Neteller, Euteller, Bank Transfer
*Keep in mind to double check information. Be prepared for changes to restricted countries, bonuses, currencies, deposit and payment options, languages, contact info.
Join Optibet now >>>