Pointsbet.com.au
Year established: 2017
Mobile compatible: Yes
Jurisdiction: Australia
Overall rating: C
Recommended: For professional players (Spread betting company)
PointsBet Sportsbook Review
PointsBet has hit up the online bookmaking space in recent years, launching in Australia in 2017. The company is fully licensed and regulated by New Jerseys Division of Gaming Entertainment, and practises responsible and ethical gambling with the relevant organisations, something that’s positive to see in todays society. The site aims to offer competitive odds on Australian focused markets, with an innovative sports betting format known as Points Betting. This is the same as Spread Betting, where your winnings and losses change best upon how strongly your bet wins or loses. Its important to note, that as this is an Australian bookmaker, many countries including the UK and US are currently unable to create an account and use the betting services.
Betting Markets
Diving into the PointsBet Sportsbook, its evident that all of the most popular sports, leagues and events can be found on the site. The old favourites are all here, including Soccer, American Sports, Boxing and of course Aussie Rules. One notable exception, possibly due to the fact that this site only offers the Points/Spread Betting format to its customers, you can’t currently bet on Horse Racing on the Sportsbook, so if this is your go to betting sport then its recommended to look at other Aussie bookies. Within each sport are all the major upcoming games, and you can search through and navigate around the site via drop down menus for league, country and similar. There isn’t a lot of depth in terms of covering minor leagues, but most people want to bet on the biggest games around the world so this isn’t a major issue. A real positive for the site, there’s a variety of Promotions and Offers to tap into and enjoy with Early Payouts, Boosted Odds and Risk Free bets all ready to use.
Live Betting
Live Betting is alive and kicking on PointsBet, you can get here by clicking on the Live Bet button on the left hand toolbar. Real time odds which continuously update pepper the screen across all the games currently taking place at the moment around the world. At the moment of writing this review, there doesn’t seem to be many games currently inplay, reflecting the lack of depth in certain sports where minor leagues are also comprehensively covered. You can view the games that will be taking place imminently too on the site, a nice helpful feature for extra sports betting info. In order to place bets, you need to call up a dedicated Australian number to place bets and get the most recent odds with a PointsBet operator.
Casino
At the current time due to Australian laws on online Casinos, there isn’t currently anything in this area on offer on Pointsbet.
Usability of the Site
PointsBet is very well put together, with crisp, clean and clear branding, and memorable theme and logo, and intuitive navigation in place. The site ticks the box on providing a social aspect to its offering with a blog, although more could be done in terms of loyalty based promotions, competitions and games to keep customers returning on a regular basis. All customers get their own dedicated account area to review betting activity and keep track of winnings and losses, and the site has 24/7 email and Live Chat support to ensure that if you have a query, it can be resolved quickly and you can concentrate on sports betting fun. The site is fully mobile friendly, and also has an app on both IOS and android so don’t forget to download these if you love a flutter whilst on the go. You can deposit by Visa and MasterCard, unfortunately E Wallets aren’t an available method at the current time.
Conclusion
In conclusion, PointsBet is definitely doing the majority of things right when in comes to offering a decent sports betting experience to customers. It has competitive odds, and covers most of the right sports, but there are a few points to improve on. The site could expand on its depth of sports betting leagues, giving customers more choice on what to bet on at all hours of the day. It would be also great to see the site expand its loyalty based offering, with competitions, a social chat function and more for it to continue to grow as a business in the coming years. Finally, its important to note that not everyone enjoys spread betting, so offering a normal betting experience with fixed odds should also be something they look at to expand on the current customer base.
Advantages:
- New and exciting format, first of its kind in Australia;
- Industry leaders/innovators in NBA, NFL, AFL and NRL betting;
- Hundreds of niche betting markets that can’t be found with other bookies;
- Heaps of stats-based and player based betting markets, which perfectly lend themselves to spread betting;
- Payouts are exponential so the more “right” you are the more you win;
- Huge welcome bonus for new players;
- Easy to deposit/withdraw;
- Great customer service.
Disadvantages:
- Not a traditional Australian bookmaker;
- Can be risky for recreational punters;
- Spread betting can be confusing at first if you’re new to the game;
- No live online betting (due to Australian law) or in-play phone betting yet;
- You’ll be charged a fee if you leave your account dormant for a long time;
- Limited deposit options.
Payments:
Visa/Mastercard, 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.
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