After its launch in October 1998, Gamebookers has continued to develop as a bookie, with its big break arriving in 2006 after it was purchased by PartyGaming – with the firm merging with Bwin in 2011. Another giant step in its evolution came in 2016, when GVC Holdings bought PartyGaming Bwin before snapping up Ladbrokes and Coral the following year to form one of the world’s largest online gambling groups.
It’s well connected and sophistically operated, but how does Gamebookers compare to its veteran competitors? How will it stand up in ThePuntersPage’s in-depth Gamebookers review? Let’s take a look.
How We Rate Operators
At ThePuntersPage, our commitment to providing clear and comprehensive sportsbook reviews is paramount. We meticulously assess each bookmaker during our future-proof review procedure, focusing on several critical aspects:
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1.
Odds and Margins
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2.
Bonuses and Terms
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3.
UK-friendly Payment Methods
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4.
Betting Markets
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5.
Live Betting and Streaming
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6.
Betting Features
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Simple three-step process
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Basic information required
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Privacy policy available to view
As it is with the majority of new bookies, creating an account with Gamebookers is a quick and easy process.
There are three steps, with step one depicted above. To start, punters will be asked to enter their country of residence, preferred currency, email address and password.
A click of the orange ‘Continue’ button will take you to step two, which involves gender selection, then entering of your name and date of birth.
Just like that, you’re at step three. The final step, where the simplicity remains. The entering of your address and mobile phone number are the last obstacles before your official emergence as a Gamebookers punter.
You’re also asked your preferred method of contact from the bookie – email or SMS – regarding special offers and promotions. Once that’s all done, a click of the distinct green button at the bottom of the page will begin your Gamebookers journey.
It’s worth noting that customers will have the opportunity to view the bookie’s comprehensive Privacy Policy upon registration, as well as set Deposit Limits for their account. Customers are also automatically verified.
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Huge array of payment methods
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Efficient withdrawal times
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Simple deposit and withdrawal processes
Fortunately for customers, there are a myriad of payment methods available with Gamebookers when making a deposit or withdrawal. These include debit cards (VISA/Maestro/Mastercard), e-wallets (PayPal, Skrill, NETELLER, Luxon), Trustly, MuchBetter, paysafecard, and several others.
The minimum deposit for all payment methods is £10, although the maximum deposit does alter depending on the method. With some, including paysafecard, the maximum deposit is £750 but as much as £10,000 with others, most notably PayPal. The maximum deposit for debit cards is £5,000.
Withdrawal times, meanwhile, are typically efficient. The bookie says that with debit cards, PayPal, MuchBetter, NETELLER and paysafecard, customers will immediately receive their funds. However, with Skrill, it may take up to 24 hours and two days with Trustly.
Importantly, the deposit process is nice and simple. After accessing the clear ‘Deposit’ icon ubiquitous in the top right-hand corner of the page, punters will then be greeted by the first image in this section – the list of payment methods available.
Once their desired method has been picked, VISA debit in this example, customers will then be required to fill out all the basic financial information and the amount they want to deposit (remember, minimum £10). There’s also an opportunity here to add any bonus codes you may have.
Also, we have to commend Gamebookers for the complex FAQ’s they provide regarding payment methods. There’s an extensive FAQ’s section for every available method, with links provided during the depositing process to aid customers.
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No welcome offer for new customers
Unfortunately, there are no welcome offers for new customers to enjoy at the time of writing this Gamebookers review. Should this change in the future we will be update this section.
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No sportsbook promotions currently available
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No VIP program
Uh oh. Remarkably there are no sportsbook promotions available with this bookie either. Once we accessed the ‘Offers’ tab under the account icon, the above screen greeted us.
Gamebookers say “we constantly update our promotions so check back shortly”. Perhaps we just caught them at an untimely moment when writing this Gamebookers review.
VIP/Loyalty Program
Unfortunately for the more experienced punters, Gamebookers currently doesn’t offer any sort of VIP or Loyalty Program.
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25 different sports on offer
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Competitive odds
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Enhanced accas and price boosts
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Impressive specials offering
Gamebookers desperately require a deep and varied sportsbook to make up for their lack of promotions and offers. Unfortunately, however, we can only describe their sportsbook as sufficient, not overly expansive.
Nevertheless, punters can bet on 25 different sports with this bookie, with a wide variety of events and markets supplied within each of these sports. In the above example – an EFL Championship clash between Middlesbrough and Watford – 112 markets were available for customers to take advantage of, depicting their sufficiency, not excellence.
More significantly, though, how do they cope on the odds front? There’s no point in boasting a fairly impressive sportsbook if your odds aren’t competitive and attractive to players.
Thus, to put this to the test and measure the quality of Gamebooker’s margins we used the odds overround calculation. This is a percentage figure which is obtained when all the probabilities of an outcome of a bet are added together. Logically, this figure should come to 100% however this does not take into consideration the profit made by the bookie. For this reason, it is commonly accepted that an odds overround of less than 110% indicates good odds.
So, to carry out our little experiment, we picked three random football matches from the Premier League, EFL Championship and EFL League One. The results came to 105.27%, 107.02 and 105.01% respectively, indicating that Gamebookers’ margins are, in fact, more than competitive. Finally, a positive.
There’s also a dedicated Enhanced Accas – shown above – and Price Boosts page on the site. Here, customers can enjoy a plethora of different boosted accas involving football games from all over Europe, while price boosts cover various sports as well as an endless number of markets.
The bookie also gives punters the choice to display their odds as fractions, decimals, or American. The minimum stake for a bet is 50p, while the maximum stake is determined on a bet-by-bet basis.
Esports
Unlike the majority of bookies who attempt to align themselves with the modern-day betting trends, Gamebookers does not offer any opportunities for punters to bet on esports.
Be sure to check out our top esports tips and strategies, nonetheless.
Other Specials
When it comes to specials, however, Gamebookers excel. Politics and entertainment are both covered extensively by the bookie, while customers can also enjoy novelty markets such as the name of Harry and Meghan’s second child.
Their entertainment coverage is particularly impressive. Punters can bet on a wide variety of upcoming events, including the BAFTA’s, Oscars, Eurovision and Nobel Prize awards. Other novelty markets include “Tiger King” specials.
Regarding politics, future French, UK and US elections are available to bet on.
Cash Out & Bet Builder
Customers can take full control of their bets with Gamebookers’ Cash Out and Partial Cash Out features. A bet builder was not present at the time of writing this Gamebookers review.
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Basic live offering
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Great live streaming service
Gamebookers’ live offering is, once again, pretty basic. There are plenty of in-play events available every hour, with 56 markets on offer in the above football match – a Serie B bout that won’t garner much interest.
While the absence of a match tracker reduces the in-play experiences of customers betting on football, live statistics are provided as well as head-to-head records and both sides’ respective forms.
An area where Gamebookers do shinel, however, is with their live streaming service. At the time of writing, there were 18 events available to view live. Although, punters must have a funded account to utilise the service. Several sports are streamed live, including football, tennis, table tennis and snooker.
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Licenced and regulated by the Great British Gambling Commission and the Government of Gibraltar
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Emphasis on responsible gambling
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Plenty of account limits for punters to utilise
Gamebookers is operated by LC International Limited, which are licenced and regulated by the Great British Gambling Commission. The Gamebookers website is also licensed by the Government of Gibraltar and regulated by the Gibraltar Gambling Commissioner under the Gambling Act 2005.
There’s no denying their legitimacy.
As we noted earlier, the bookie’s Privacy Policy is thoroughly detailed and can be viewed upon the creation of your account. Punters also have the added assurance of their data being protected by a five-level security system, multiple firewalls, 126-bit Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption and early warning systems.
Imperatively, there’s a distinct emphasis on responsible gambling. It has its own tab under ‘Highlights’ on the left-hand side of the homepage as well as at the very top of the site. Gamebookers’ responsible gambling section discusses their approach, policy, account limits and other sources of help to prevent your gambling from spiralling out of control.
Regarding account limits, customers can set Deposit Limits upon registration, with other restrictions including Deposit Curfews (blocks deposits for a time period), Maximum Stake Limits, Time Outs and Self-Exclusions.
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Robust FAQ’s section
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Support 24/7
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Efficient live chat service
Perhaps the finest aspect of Gamebookers is their superb FAQ’s section, which seemingly covers every query. It’s incredibly helpful and should mean customers will rarely have to utilise their customer support service.
Nevertheless, assistance is available 24/7 via the bookie’s live chat service, email and telephone.
To test the efficiency of Gamebookers’ customer support, we opened a live chat session and queried about a potential VIP program.
As you can see above, we were asked to wait for a brief period before starting the session. However, we didn’t have to wait very long before we were contacted by one of the bookie’s support staff.
It was a friendly welcoming…
They were happy to help, although we did have to verify our name and date of birth for security purposes – this was only a minor inconvenience. Once we confirmed, it took a mere matter of minutes for our query to be resolved. They told us succinctly that there was currently no VIP program on offer.
You could argue that all support staff should know the answer to this question instantly without having to check, although they remained efficient with their work. Overall, there was little to complain about.
We also attempted to contact Gamebookers via email, but we received no response to our query. Thus, for any questions or queries, live chat is certainly the way to go for optimal efficiency.
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Jam-packed homepage
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Unreliable technical performance
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User-friendly structure
Gamebookers’ website – available in English, Russian, German, Romanian and Turkish – has plenty going on, with several different menus and slides packed into the homepage. Nevertheless, they do a good job in ensuring it all comes together in harmony. A basic white and dark grey colour scheme is followed throughout.
Regarding its structure, featured football events are prominent on the homepage, as are live events of various sports. There’s an A-Z list of Gamebookers’ sportsbook down the left-hand side of the site too, under the ‘Highlights’ tab which includes responsible gaming and live streaming tabs. The ever-presence of the betslip on the right-hand side, meanwhile, facilitates a quick and easy betting experience for punters as well.
A downside, however, was the website’s technical performance which proved a little scratchy when accessing some components of the site. This deficiency, though, wasn’t seriously detrimental.
There’s no access to any statistics or a blog of any kind either.
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Available to download on the App Store and Google Play
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Impressive technical performance
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User-friendly interface
Both Apple and Android users have access to Gamebookers’ mobile app as it’s available to download via the App Store and Google Play.
The bookie’s mobile app is well brought together with little to complain about from a technical perspective. Everything runs smoothly. The layout is user-friendly, with every component easily accessible. Live events and the most popular upcoming markets are prominent on the homepage, while an A-Z list of the bookie’s sportsbook is provided via its own tab at the bottom of the screen – where in-plays, your bets and betslip as well as slot games are also located.
Overall, it was tricky to find fault with Gamebookers’ mobile app, with simplicity and efficiency prevailing once
In addition to its sportsbook, Gamebookers offer several other products for customers to enjoy, namely Casino, Live Casino, Mini Games – accessible down the right-hand side of the homepage – and Virtual Sports. Unfortunately, however, there are, once again, no welcome offers for new customers to take advantage of.
Nevertheless, there is an endless number of different casino games for punters to enjoy, ranging from table games to slots. Live casino events, meanwhile, include roulette and blackjack. There’s a myriad of virtuals too: ten sports, including American Football and Speedway.
While Gamebookers’ lack of welcome offers and sportsbook promotions significantly reduces its intrigue for new customers, there’s plenty to like about the reliable, legitimate bookie. The site is well-structured, while both their pre-match and live offerings are undeniably sufficient for the average punter. We also have to commend what is one of the most robust FAQ sections we’ve seen, as well as their efficient customer service, top-notch security and competitive odds.
Overall, while the absence of offers and promos mean Gamebookers are susceptible to losing customers over time, this is still a viable option for punters. They do the basics well.