The World Cup is the pinnacle of international football and arguably the pinnacle of international sport worldwide, seeing as football is the most popular sport across the globe. It therefore goes without saying that the World Cup is also one of the biggest events to bet on, especially within the UK.
When looking for the best World Cup betting sites it’s really important to look out for some key features such as free bets and promotions on offer, how the sites are set up for World Cup betting along with the usual sports betting features like banking and customer support. We’ve broken down loads of information about world cup betting and the best sites for you to take a look at.
- World Cup 2018 Betting
- Best World Cup Mobile Betting Apps
- Popular World Cup Betting Markets
- Ante-Post World Cup Betting
- Popular Pre-match WC Betting Markets
- World Cup Live Betting
The Top 7 World Cup Betting Sites in the UK





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When choosing the best World Cup betting site for you, we understand that you need more information than just the basics, so our list is comprised of all of the top online betting sites that offer great World Cup betting opportunities.
The list is based on our original bookmaker reviews where we look at all the important elements that a great online sports betting site should provide – from promotions and free bets to customer support and banking, along with looking at mobile and live betting products.
Whilst the reviews don’t focus solely on the World Cup betting and take a much broader look at what makes a bookmaker great, our list takes that information and combines it with which bookies offer you the best opportunities for this great football tournament.
World Cup Free Bets – Getting More from Online Betting Sites
The way that the UK betting market is currently, you can’t move for all of the promotions and free bets on offer – and that’s without the World Cup in mind.
Throw in the biggest football tournament in the world and the online bookies go crazy for making sure that you’re well looked after – either as a new customer or an existing customer. The key is that they all want your custom and are willing to compete heavily for it. You can use this to ensure you get the most value on your betting.
If you’re joining a new online sportsbook then it’s worth taking up a new customer offer that isn’t necessarily bespoke to the world cup as this just gives you a bit extra as there are plenty of world cup free bets on offer for existing customers.
Whether you want a World Cup odds boost, top goalscorer free bets, daily World Cup promotions or even the chance to win a huge amount on one of the many bespoke World Cup games that most of the big online betting sites bring out, you’ll be sure to find some excellent added value.
Can I Bet on the World Cup at 888Sport?
888Sport are one of the biggest online betting sites in the UK with a rich tradition of sports betting and when it comes to betting on major tournaments they offer everything you need – the World Cup is no different at all.
You’ll find all the outright markets, match-level markets and In Play markets directly from their home page as well as hosting their own World Cup dedicated pages where you’ll find all betting opportunities in one place. 888Sport have made it really easy to navigate.
888Sport World Cup odds are generally very competitive compared to other large online betting sites and they have plenty of enhanced odds and free bets dedicated to the tournament too.
You can read even more about 888Sport and what they have to offer new and existing customers within our 888Sport Review.
World Cup Betting at Unibet
Having made big strides recently to really focus on the UK side of things, Unibet offers plenty to its customers – great customer support, a really solid sports betting product with great odds and markets as well as their standard promotions.
Whilst maybe not quite as strong as 888Sport in terms of navigation and finding the World Cup markets, they still have a really strong proposition for World Cup betting at Unibet with all the biggest and best betting markets available along with some really great World Cup special offers.
In 2018 they really went to town by hosting the Unibet Jackpot where anyone could get a daily share of the prize, just by betting on the normal betting markets. Every bet you makes gets you a ticket into the draw for that daily jackpot prize with the final itself holding a jackpot of £150k.
It’s this sort of innovative campaign that really draws us in and is starting to really stand Unibet as a major UK bookmaker.
World Cup Betting Russia 2018
The 2018 World Cup in Russia may have seen it’s fair share of controversy in the build-up but to look at it purely from a betting perspective, never have us punters had it so good – that doesn’t mean that it’ll be the best World Cup for football necessarily, but that the betting markets are as mature as they ever have been and everyone’s competing for our business.
Russia will be a 32 team format and takes place over June and July across the whole of Russia, with 12 venues and 11 cities hosting the players from across the world. So whether you’re a Messi fan, a Salah preacher or a Ronaldo worshipper, they’ll all be on display and, more importantly, you can bet on all of them.
With loads of betting offers and free bets available, it no longer makes sense to get loyal to one or two brands and it’s a case of really spreading your money around doing some great World Cup odds comparison and cherry-picking the best online betting sites out there that will offer you more.
There’s no doubt that you’ll see enhanced odds and odds boosts for every single match, on every single day during the tournament and there will be a battle between the bookies of who can take market share and come out on top.
Outside of this, you’ve got a tournament with no really clear favourite, some of the best footballers in the world present and a betting environment demonstrating more markets than ever before – including Request-a-Bet style markets, data markets, all the usual outright markets and hundreds of match markets per game.
Betting on World Cup 2022 in Qatar
If Russia courted controversy then Qatar is on another level with the odd choice taken to give a country that regularly sees temperatures in the high 40s the world’s biggest football tournament. Coupled with their incredibly strict rules and there’s a strong argument to say it won’t be a great World Cup.
However, if you take the location out of it, we should be in for an incredible spectacle – loads of new stadia, a country eager to prove it can work, a challenging environment to play in and the last chance to see a World Cup hosting just 32 teams, before the USA, Canada and Mexico host the 2026 World Cup in the new 48 team format.
If we look at it from a World Cup betting perspective too, then it’s fair to say that the betting industry has just continued to grow and continued to innovate, giving us punters the best World Cup betting experience to date.
When Will I Find Qatar 2022 World Cup Betting Odds?
As soon as the Russia World Cup has ended, the Qatar World Cup betting odds will already be up and running and throughout all of the qualifying rounds until the tournament itself, you’ll be able to bet on the outcome – after all, research is key in tournaments like this so get your Qatar odds comparison tools firing to find the best value.
On top of this, huge jackpot competitions targeting new and existing customers and a betting world where you’re in charge by requesting bets will be the order of the day, whilst no doubt there’ll be even more options when it comes to cryptocurrency payment methods and crypto betting.
The Best World Cup Betting Apps
When betting on the World Cup, it often helps to have a big screen or desktop device in order to do your research with, however just as important is having some of the best online betting sites providing top quality betting apps so you can bet on the go.
Our reviews focus on mobile betting apps in general terms but you can rest assured that if an online bookie has put enough thought and investment into their apps, then they’ll definitely make sure that the World Cup experience is really strong there too.
Speed, ease and navigation are all key elements to having a good mobile app for betting, allowing the user to find what they’re looking for quickly and efficiently. During a tournament like the World Cup, where most people will be watching on their main screens, it means they’ll likely be betting on their mobile devices so these elements have to be up to scratch.
We’ve listed the best online betting sites that have both a strong World Cup product and excellent mobile app – so go and take a look and see if you agree with our reviews.
What are the Most Popular World Cup Betting Markets?
As the betting world evolves, so do the markets that you can bet on for tournaments such as the World Cup and we’re now in a place where most things you can think of can be bet on. The best World Cup betting sites will also have the biggest selection and most innovative markets available.
There are some absolute key markets when it comes to the most popular for World Cup betting and we’ve separated them out into the following areas:
- Ante-Post Betting Markets
- World Cup Pre-Match Markets
- Live Betting Markets
Read on to see the different types of market and most popular markets for each area:
Ante-Post World Cup Betting
Ante-post gets easily confused really amongst new punters and all it really means is making a bet before an event has taken place.
Generally though, online bookies have ante-post markets on big and major single events like the World Cup, or big Horse Racing events, when you can bet from a long way out. If you think about it, you could technically bet on who will win the 2022 World Cup, even if it was only 2020. Some of the best ante-post World Cup markets are:
Tournament Winner
A pretty obvious market that allows you to bet on who will win the World Cup. You’ll be looking for the online betting site with the best World Cup winner odds or the best World Cup winner promotion.
Every team playing in the tournament will be available so whether you want to bet on the favourite for the World Cup or back an outsider at huge odds, then this is the market for you.
Top Goalscorer
Much like the tournament winner market, this is a pretty obvious one. The top goalscorer market – sometimes called the Golden Boot market – allows you to bet on who you think will score the most goals across the whole of the tournament. This includes goals from the group games and knock-out stages, including those scored in extra-time but excluding penalty shoot-out goals.
This market is great as it gives you something to follow across the whole tournament even if your own team don’t make it through. There’s also a good chance that the top scorer could be a bigger price than the usual favourites, especially if a good player has an easy initial group to get through, so be sure to check those World Cup top goalscorer odds.
Winner/Top Goalscorer Double
This gives you the chance to really max out on the World Cup odds front. If you really fancy a particular country to win the World Cup, then it’s quite likely that one of their players will be towards the top of the goalscoring charts.
So why not bet on both in a combined bet, which will see the World Cup winner odds combined with the World Cup top scorer odds to give you much bigger odds overall. So whether you’re betting on France, betting on Germany or betting on Brazil, add in one of their players and watch the goals come in.
Name the Finalists
Whilst not the most attractive market, you get to choose who will make it to the final, meaning you’ll be picking two teams to be the finalists.
It’s another good market if you want slightly bigger odds – for example, if you’re positive that Germany will win the tournament but they’re too short a price, then why not add in the second team to make the final to give you a better price.
Top ‘Continent’ Team
This is a really interesting market and one for real World Cup betting aficionados to get involved with. Ultimately it pitches all the teams from a particular continent against each other to see who make it the furthest.
Take Asia as an example – the ‘best Asian team’ market will ask which of the Asian teams will make it furthest in the tournament. So you have to take into account who they all play in the group stages and which team may make it to the knock-out stages. Often you may find value here as the traders of online betting sites focus on the core markets more.
Highest Scoring Team
This is a really fun market where you bet on the country that you think will score the most goals across the entire tournament, so you’re either looking for World Cup teams that have ‘easier groups’ and may score more, or teams who will go really far in the tournament.
It gives you a really fun way to enjoy the whole tournament whilst cheering for goals but also needs some good research to begin with when looking at the world cup odds.
Group Winner Markets
Group markets are also really interesting and, very simply, this just means you’re betting on individual teams to win their respective groups. So if Australia, France, Denmark and Peru are all in the same group, you’d be picking who’s most likely to win it.
France’s odds may suggest they’re the favourites but you may really fancy Australia to make it to the top. Either way, it’s a great way to have a betting interest in the group stages of the World Cup.
Team Specials
You can normally get odds on a couple of different ante-post markets focused on teams only. Normally these are ‘the stage of elimination’ and ‘team top scorer’ markets.
The ‘stage of elimination’ market just means you’re betting on which stage a country may get knocked out of the tournament.
The ‘team top scorer’ market is, very simply, choosing which player will end up as the country’s top scorer across the entire tournament. So if you have expert insight into one of the outsider teams, you could use this to determine who their top scorer may be.
The Most Popular World Cup Pre-Match Betting Markets:
The likelihood is that if you’re reading this page then you’re already a football fan and interested in betting so we’re not going to go into every single market and explain them out fully. However, pre-match betting is essentially the bets that you’ll place before a match has kicked off.
This shouldn’t be confused with ante-post betting which refers more to longer-time out, pre-match betting – what we’re talking about are the bets you may place on the day of a match but before the first whistle is blown.
The most popular markets to bet on here for the World Cup will very much mirror that of any other major football league or tournament such as the English Premier League so there should be no surprises when it comes to World Cup match betting.
The best World Cup betting markets are:
- 1X2 or Win/Draw/Win
- First, Last and Anytime Goalscorer
- Both Teams To Score (BTTS)
- Team to Win and BTTS
- Over 2.5 Goals
- Request-a-Bets
Generally, you’ll find huge betting markets for pre-match betting included under all of the following headings – at the end of the day, with most World Cup matches having close to 200 markets each, you’re sure to find something you want to bet on:
- Goals
- Players/Scorers
- Corners
- Cards
- Handicaps
- Asian Handicaps
- Match Specials
- Time-specific markets
World Cup Live Betting – In Play betting during the Tournament
All of the online betting sites will be looking to maximise their World Cup live betting opportunities as it’s a way to have customers betting more frequently. However, from a customer perspective, this should be seen as a great thing as it means more opportunity for you to find solid value from the markets.
Live betting, or In Play betting, as it’s also called essentially covers any bets that are placed after the kick off – either of a match or a tournament. So a lot of the markets stay the same as the pre-match state but the traders will trade them in real-time.
On top of all of the markets as listed in the Pre-Match section, you’ll also get more and more ‘time-specific’ and fast markets to choose from, which gives you the option of betting on what may happen during a certain time period – for example, will there be a goal between Uruguay and Brazil in the 30-35 minutes bracket?
These markets can be really exciting and if you’re watching the game then you can really get a feel for what’s likely to happen – when it comes to World Cup live betting, all of the best online betting sites that we’ve reviewed will have great products both on desktop and mobile which should mean that your World Cup betting experience is even better.