There’s no denying that we are a nation of mobile phone lovers in the UK, and that enthusiasm certainly extends to the betting fraternity, who just love gambling on the go using mobile betting apps on their devices.
Punters are spoiled for choice when it comes to betting on their phones or tablets, so we’re here with our take on the top UK mobile apps, using a specific set of criteria to help you pick the best Android or iPhone betting apps for you.
Best Mobile Betting Apps in the UK
BoyleSports has grown from one betting shop to become one of the biggest and most trusted bookmakers in the world. They also launched one of the first betting apps in 2012 and introduced an improved live bet tracking facility as recently as June 2022.
When comparing all of the betting apps with free bets on offer, we were particularly impressed with BoyleSports. And that’s thanks to the number of existing customer deals, price boosts and accumulator offers, as well as an extensive betting blog with news, tips and punting guides. All wrapped up in a betting app that is visually appealing and very easy to navigate.
With a pre-pandemic turnover of 10 billion pounds, Betfred are a certified betting behemoth. They aren’t resting on their laurels though as Betfred’s betting service is among the best we have encountered. They have one of the best welcome deals out there and a superb selection of existing customer offers across multiple sports including football, horse racing, greyhound racing, boxing, rugby league and cricket.
Betfred are also hugely experienced when it comes to wagering on the go, having launched one of the first mobile betting services back in 2006, and their experience shows as the Betfred app is one of the best we have encountered.
10Bet’s slogan is “For the bettor”, which not only has a nice double meaning but tells you that they are determined to provide customers with a rewarding betting experience. And we were very impressed with the look of the 10Bet app, which is light, bright and makes excellent use of unique graphics to stand out.
They also have one of the best welcome offers in the business, as new 10Bet customers can earn a 100% first deposit bonus of up to £50. And existing customers can take advantage of a nice selection of betting deals including bespoke offers relating to certain football games.
10Bet’s unique, mobile-only “Pulse Bet” feature is also a nice touch, where you can win big by betting on a goal to be scored in the next 30 seconds, 1 minute, 5 minutes or 10 minutes of a football match.
888sport provides arguably the most tailored betting experience you can get on a mobile app, starting with the fact that your betting history is remembered and your favourite sports appear more prominently as a result. Also, tapping on “Made For You” will bring up suggested bets based on previous winning wagers and other bets you have placed.
You can also tap on “Betfeed” at the bottom of the app, where you will find trending bets that are proving to be most popular with punters in general and add them directly to your betslip.
And if you like betting on horse racing you will love the “BetFinder” feature, where you can find inspiration for your selections by searching for the horses running that day that meet certain criteria such as being a previous winner at the course they are racing at, a previous winner at that distance and many more categories!
The best compliment we can give QuinnBet is that we could probably write a decent-sized article just focussing on the multitude of promotions on offer at the site! And it all starts with a unique sign up bonus that will refund 50% of a new customer’s losses that are incurred on their first day of betting, up to £35.
And once you’ve signed up there are a host of special betting app offers to enjoy, particularly when it comes to football and horse racing, including unique football offers such as Crossbar Insurance, free bets if a match ends 0-0, as well as cashback offers and Bet Builder rewards.
SBK proudly claims that they are here to “rewrite the sportsbook” and it’s fair to say they are practising what they preach, with betting odds that are frequently best in class. And as an app-only offering with no casino games, you can be confident that their focus is entirely on their mobile sports betting service.
SBK has also incorporated a social element into betting, where you can see what other punters are betting on, comment on their tips and follow them if they’ve netted you a winner or two! And you can also check out the SBK Betting Zone, where we found a huge range of expert betting advice across multiple sports, with a strong focus on football and horse racing.
However, it’s important to mention that if you have already signed up for SBK’s parent site Smarkets and open up a new SBK account, you will be charged 2% commission on all winnings. However, new SBK customers with no Smarkets account will be on a 0% commission rate.
As the betting arm of one of the most well-known brands in the world, VirginBet has an immediate advantage when it comes to catching the eye of potential customers. However, they are clearly aware that a recognisable name will only get you so far, and have made a real effort to build a strong betting service on desktop and mobile.
VirginBet is one of the top betting apps when it comes to the number of price boosts available, with the headline boosts of the day appearing front and centre on the app home page. And the betting app itself is a pleasure to navigate, with a simple colour scheme and all the main sections such as promotions, “My Bets” and popular sports just one tap away from the home page.
With Spreadex being known primarily for their industry-leading spread betting offering, when it came to the Spreadex app, our worry was that the fixed odds side of things might take a back seat.
However, we were pleased to see that punters can swap between fixed odds and spread betting markets after tapping on a particular match or event, so if you aren’t interested in the spreads side of things you need never encounter it!
And we were also impressed with the superb in-play betting service offered by Spreadex, including a wide range of mobile live streaming, and an excellent betting blog with tips and features across a number of sports.
Patriotic punters drawn to the BetUK betting app are sure to be impressed by its simple layout and the fact that selected special offers are presented front and centre on the home page. One such promotion that caught our eye was the BetUK Acca Club, where you can earn free bets and profit boosts when placing multiple football bets.
And when it comes to brand ambassadors, BetUK have excelled themselves, with racing royalty Kieran Fallon providing regular expert opinions on the Sport of Kings, and football legend Teddy Sheringham doing the same for the Beautiful Game!
Now it’s time to outline some of the key features we always look for in the best free betting apps, and more importantly, let you know which of the best apps for betting feature them. And just so you know, we’ve zeroed in on features that are not shared by all betting apps, rather than including in-play betting and cash-out, for example, which are features common to all the apps in this article.
Sportsbook App
Live Streaming
Price Boosts
Acca Insurance
Minimum Deposit
BoyleSports
£5
Betfred
£5
10Bet
£10
888sport
£10
QuinnBet
£10
SBK
£10
VirginBet
£5
Spreadex
£1
BetUK
£10
With all of the leading bookmakers offering strong betting apps for both iOS and Android, choosing which are the best apps for betting for you can be difficult. So we’ve come up with a set of criteria that you can use to work out which app best meets your needs.
The safety and reliability of a betting app is always our number one priority, so we’re pleased to report that all of our top 10 betting apps are licensed by the UK Gambling Commission, which is the gold standard of UK betting regulation. All of them also feature the latest SSL encryption and firewalls to protect customer information.
Any sportsbook wishing to attract new customers and retain the ones they have, needs to offer a good amount of new and existing customer offers that can benefit punters in different ways. Some examples of this are giving away free bets, rewarding punters for placing a certain number of wagers or even compensating them for a losing bet in some way.
In addition to betting promotions, the best online betting apps will also offer features such as Price Boosts, Bet Builders, live streaming, in-play betting with up-to-date statistics, cash out and even Face ID-enabled login.
In a saturated marketplace, online betting apps that can provide something no one else can are sure to gain an advantage, such as bespoke mobile betting offers.
No amount of razzmatazz can make up for an app that is difficult to navigate, and being able to find your preferred sports and markets, as well as accessing available promotions quickly and easily are key features of the best free betting apps.
How an app looks may not be a huge priority for some, but an eye-catching design and colour scheme is a key consideration for many punters when selecting a new betting app.
The very best free betting apps are hugely intuitive and react to your previous betting decisions to provide a tailored betting experience. For instance, some betting apps will remember your betting history and feature your favourite sports more prominently as a result.
Good betting apps will need to provide an effective in-play betting service because that is likely to be a major reason why they have been downloaded in the first place!
Online betting can be a complicated business and while good betting apps are easy to make your way around, punters will always need to seek help occasionally, so the support offered by a betting app needs to be as wide-ranging as on a desktop betting site.
Now it’s time for our step-by-step guide to finding and downloading a betting app and placing a wager.
Step 1: Find the App
The first step is to head to the App Store or Google Play and search for the betting app you are looking for. And you should be wary of any offshore betting sites that you may encounter that direct you to other places to download an app.
Step 2: Sign Up & Log In
If you have already signed up then your login details will work on the app too and you just need to tap “Login”, which is generally near the top right corner. And if you haven’t registered then right next to the login tab you will find another tab saying “Join”, or “Register” and from there it’s a quick and easy process to input your details.
Step 3: Deposit Funds
Once you’re logged in you’re going to need to fund your account and make sure you deposit the minimum amount to trigger your welcome bonus! Generally, the cashier is accessible by clicking on your balance at the top of the screen, “My Account”, or something similar! And from there you just need to input the details of your preferred payment method and the amount you wish to deposit.
Step 4: Find and Place a Bet
Now it’s time to place a wager, but before that, it’s always worth checking out all the available promotions to see if any apply to the sport you are interested in betting on. When you’re ready to have a punt just click on your selected sport, which will either be listed across the top or left-hand side of the screen.
And if you can’t find your chosen sport then there should be an A-Z menu to find exactly what you’re looking for. Once you have found your preferred event it’s just a case of tapping on the selected match and market to add to your bet slip, repeating if you’re placing a multiple bet, inputting a stake and tapping “Place Bet”.
Step 5: Withdraw Funds
If your bet is successful you may want to withdraw your winnings to enjoy the fruits of your success, in which case you need to access the cashier section once again and tap “Withdraw”. Then you need to input the amount you wish to withdraw, as well as the payment method to which your cash will be paid back, which will generally be the same one that you deposited with.
As saturated as the UK betting market is, every year sees the launch of at least one new sportsbook. And of course, any new betting site will almost always feature a mobile app to accompany their desktop site! So here are the best new betting apps in the UK:
In the battle for mobile phone supremacy in the UK, the iPhone and its iOS operating system have maintained a lead over their Android counterparts. And here are what we believe to be the best betting apps for iPhone:
Bookie
Bonus
Key App Features
Visit Site
Bet £10, Get £30 in Free Bets
Visit BetUK
Bet £10 Get £60 In Bonuses
Visit Betfred
Bet £10 Get £30 In Free Bets
Visit SBK
Despite Apple’s market share advantage, the Android operating system is still hugely popular, so here are the best betting apps for Android too!
The best live betting apps will feature as many as possible of these key components – a wide range of sports and markets, live streaming, a good range of in play statistics and quick updates. And the three apps below are some of our favourite live betting apps. Cashing out your bets before an event has officially finished is a key component of in-play betting. All of our top 10 betting apps offer this feature but the three sportsbooks below also allow punters to partially cashout, which is basically collecting some of your winnings but leaving a bit of your stake remaining until the end of an event. To say that football is hugely popular in the UK would be a massive understatement! Betting on the beautiful game is also extremely popular, so the best football betting apps need to be full of the features that footie bettors would expect, such as football free bets, football loyalty bonuses, Acca Insurance, Bet Builder and Price Boosts. Here’s three of the best football betting apps: Horse racing may play second fiddle to football when it comes to punter popularity in the UK, but wagering on the Sport of Kings is still in demand. And using horse racing betting apps to have a bet is a great option because most of them will offer live streaming for race meetings at home and abroad, allowing you to watch races that you would usually miss unless you subscribed to pay TV services! So check out these three of the top horse racing betting apps below: The main advantage of using a betting app is that it opens up a whole new world of betting on your mobile device. So you need never miss the chance to place a wager just because you don’t own a desktop computer or you’re simply out and about. And even if you do own a computer, betting on a device that is always close to you is often the preferred way to bet! We’ve all experienced the irritation of a mobile app crashing, but that annoyance would be increased if you were in the middle of placing a wager! Thankfully, as long as your internet connection or 4G/5G reception is stable, betting app crashes and errors are rare. And even if they do occur they can often be resolved by a quick app update from the developer. And you can make sure that your betting app is always working to its full capacity by making sure the latest version is installed on your phone or tablet. Mobile betting is here to stay and is only going to get more popular in the coming years as technology advances and betting companies look to harness the potential of punters betting on the go. And using the information on this page you can now make an informed decision about which of our top 10 betting apps are the best for you. And of course, we wish you good luck on your betting journey!
Bookie
Bonus
Key App Features
Visit Site
Bet £10 Get £60 In Bonuses
Visit Betfred
Bet £10, Get £30 in Free Bets
Visit BetUK
Bet £10 Get £20 In Free Bets
Visit VirginBet
Best Live Betting Apps
Bookie
Bonus
Key App Features
Visit Site
Bet £10, Get £30 In Free Bets + £10 Casino Bonus
Visit 888sport
Bet £10 Get £20 In Free Bets
Visit BoyleSports
100% First Deposit Bonus Up To £50 +25 Spins
Visit 10Bet
Best Online Betting Apps For Cash Out
Bookie
Bonus
Key App Features
Visit Site
Bet £10 Get £20 in Free Bets + 2x £5 Total Goals Spread Bets
Visit Spreadex
£25 Free Bet + 10 Free Spins
Visit QuinnBet
100% First Deposit Bonus Up To £50 +25 Spins
Visit 10Bet
Best Football Betting Apps
Bookie
Bonus
Key App Features
Visit Site
Bet £10 Get £20 In Free Bets
Visit BoyleSports
50% of your First day losses awarded as free bets up to £35
Visit QuinnBet
100% First Deposit Bonus Up To £50 +25 Spins
Visit 10Bet
Best Horse Racing Betting Apps
Bookie
Bonus
Key App Features
Visit Site
Bet £10 Get £20 In Free Bets
Visit BoyleSports
100% First Deposit Bonus Up To £50 +25 Spins
Visit 10bet
£25 Free Bet + 10 Free Spins
Visit QuinnBet
Why You Should Use Betting Apps
Betting App Crashes & Errors
Summary
FAQ
What are the key features of good betting apps?
Can I receive bonuses at betting apps?
Which betting apps give out free bets?
What are some of the best features found on top betting apps?
Which are the best betting apps for iPhone?