Statistics reveal best bookmakers for football betting

Added: November 27, 2020

Leading tipster site Betting Expert analyzed various bookmakers’ offerings for European football, and further explored their markets and odds in order to determine who is the best of the best in the UK. Football is one of the most massively popular sports on the planet, with huge fanbases and lots of punters closely following the games. European football is particularly popular amongst fans around the world, amassing more views than all other continents, since most of the popular players play in European teams.

It is therefore unsurprising that football is the biggest sport for UK bookies.

After close examination of 26 different UK bookmakers in an attempt to find the best bookmaker for football betting, it was determined that each bookmaker has a unique quality that sets them apart from others.

For this specific comparison, the bookmakers reviewed included but was not limited to: Unibet, coral, 888 sport, LeoVegas, NetBet, betfair, betway, skybet, VirginBet, bet365 and many more…

Data was collected for two different matches across a weekend from each of Europe’s top five football leagues: England’s Premier League, Germany’s Bundesliga, France’s Ligue 1, Italy’s Serie A and Spain’s La Liga. The matches in question were Everton vs. Manchester United, Manchester City vs. Liverpool, Borussia Dortmund vs. Bayern Munich, RB Leipzig vs. Freiburg, Lazio vs. Juventus, Parma vs. Fiorentina, Paris Saint-Germain vs. Stade Rennais, Nice vs. Monaco, Valencia vs. Real Madrid and Barcelona vs. Real Betis.

From there, bookmakers were scored and ranked based on their commission takings and the number of markets they offered across the leagues. These factors helped to decide the best bookmaker for football betting. The results presented are based only on the data collected during the period November 2 to November 4.

No site came close to being named the best bookmaker for football betting without having good odds and a wide variety of markets in each of the five leagues. Football is an international sport, hence why bookmakers needed to perform well across all of the five leagues. Three stood out from the rest and they were:

Marathonbet
EnergyBet
Betsafe

Marathonbet came out in first place. Much of that was thanks to its incredibly low commission rates, which averaged just 0.73% across the five leagues. It also offered the highest average number of markets compared with the rest of the bookies we analyzed. Marathonbet offered odds on an average of 417 different markets across the 10 matches, over 130 more than the site in second place.

Second place was EnergyBet. EnergyBet landed in second place for offering a wide selection of betting markets (285) and for taking an average commission of only 4.23% across the five leagues.

And in third place was Betsafe, which landed this spot based on its low commission rates, which averaged just 3.77%. It was well in front of EnergyBet in this respect but couldn’t quite compete with the second-placed operator on the number of markets offered, with Betsafe averaging 233. Betsafe took just 3.19% in commission for the Lazio vs. Juventus match, the second-lowest of any bookmaker.

Best betting markets selection:

Most sites did well in this category, with an average of 144 markets to choose from across the 10 matches. But there were three specific bookies that topped the search for their selection of betting markets.

Once again, Marathonbet is in first place. It offered odds on an average of 417 different markets across the 10 matches. The highest number was in the Borussia Dortmund vs. Bayern Munich match, in which it offered odds on 432 markets. That was the highest number that was found in the entire survey across all 10 games.

There was quite a major gap between the first and second operators in terms of the number of markets offered. EnergyBet came in second here again, with an average of 285 markets to bet on across the 10 games.

William Hill rounded off the top three with an average of 278. Notably, it offered 307 markets for the Premier League matches, which wasn’t the highest figure we saw, but what set William Hill apart from the sites below it in the rankings was its consistency across all five leagues.

Best bookmaker for 1X2 odds:

This is, with no doubt, the most popular and easiest way to bet on football. There were some clear frontrunners in this highly popular category. Marathonbet came in first place, again, with 0.73% average commission.

Betsafe came in second overall. Its average commission rate of 3.77% put it well behind Marathonbet, but a reasonable distance clear of every other site.

EnergyBet rounded out the top three. Its average commission rate of 4.23% was well below the overall 1X2 average of 5.81%. In particular, EnergyBet stood out for its Bundesliga odds, taking 4.12% for both games, far outperforming the average of 5.84% for Germany’s top flight.

In conclusion, Marathonbet came out on top multiple times, but credit must also be given to EnergyBet, Betsafe and William Hill for making it into second and third place.

Marathonbet was overall the best bookmaker for football betting by a clear distance, coming out on top in every single category and providing the best odds in every single league and the largest selection of markets to bet on. The commission of just 0.15% for the Nice vs. Monaco game in Ligue 1 was specifically impressive.