Tennis is a sport loved by many across the globe, so it’s no wonder it’s also huge in popularity amongst bettors, especially live in-play as the odds chop and change at an extremely fast rate; you can even bet point by point with some bookies.
What can you expect from the best tennis betting sites? We’ve done all the hard work so you don’t have to! Check out the sections below as we look at bookie promotions, free bets, pre-game and live in-play markets, odds, accumulators and product features.
That’s not all - It couldn’t be easier to choose an online tennis betting site as we’ve reviewed and listed the best bookmakers available for one of the world’s leading sports.
All bookies worth their salt will offer tennis but some are doing a much better job at it than others with plenty of live in-play markets, real-time data, and statistics, so don’t settle for the first bookie you come to.
Of course, all of the best tennis betting sites will be licenced in the UK if they're to be considered reputable for British punters. Our list of nine top bookmakers, above, are all licenced and have a really solid tennis offering - Betway, William Hill, Betfair, Paddy Power, BetVictor, Bet365, Coral, Unibet, and Ladbrokes.
Most of the promotions bookmakers offer are often related to football as it’s by far the most popular sport to bet on, which is understandable. However, there are plenty of bespoke promotions and free bet offers out there relating to Tennis, especially when one of the Grand Slams is on the horizon such as the Australian Open, Roland Garros, Wimbledon or the US Open.
There are a variety of offers to keep an eye out for such as your standard new customer sign up offers and matched deposit bonus upon registering, but, often when there is a big tennis tournament on, bookies will adjust their new customer welcome offer to include tennis.
Some examples include ridiculously enhanced prices on certain favourites as a new customer welcome bonus whereby the winnings are paid in free bets, or something like a bet £10 get £30 offer where the £10 must be placed on the tennis tournament in question at the time.
An ongoing existing customer offer that stands out and is offered by a couple of bookies is the tennis accumulator bonus; enjoy up to 100% bonus on accas. All you need to do is place a treble or higher on tennis matches with them and if it wins, they will boost your winnings by up to 100% depending on how many selections you’ve added to your acca. Who doesn’t love an acca? It’s a fantastic way to boost your winnings and is proving to be a very popular promotion amongst tennis fans.
Now, everyone has their own opinions as to which bookmaker to use for tennis, but a lot of our reviewers have reported nothing but good things from their time betting on tennis at bet365, which suggests that they’re right up there, if not at the very top of the tree in terms of great bookmaker experiences for tennis betting.
Do you want to bet on Challenger events? They’ve got you covered. What about ITF events? Tick. They even cover the qualifiers for the ITF events pre-game and in-play, so when punters say you can bet on pretty much any tennis event with bet365, they mean it, minus John McEnroe and Andrei Agassi having a knock about in the park of course.
As well as the standard Match Odds market, bet365 also offer First Set Winner, Handicap 2-way and Handicap 3-way and Set Betting to name a few but be sure to check them out for yourself as there plenty of pre-game and in-play tennis betting markets to cater for everyone.
Mobile betting has come on leaps and bounds since the smartphone first arrived and it continues to grow as the Wi-Fi infrastructure spreads across the globe at such as fast rate which allows players to interact and play.
For UK punters, betting apps are available on Android or iOS via Google Play and Apple’s app store respectively, which makes it easy to access the best bookmaker apps to get your tennis bets on; it’s simply more convenient than trying to find a laptop or desktop computer, you can be on the move and still get all the updated information for any event you are interested in.
If you’re also wondering how to bet on tennis, you’ve come to the right place. There are plenty of markets available to bet on, but it will depend on which bookmaker you use as to how many markets are available in certain matches and tournaments.
In terms of how to bet on tennis and win, well, if we knew that then we’d not be writing about it, we’d be on a yacht somewhere. However, there are certain markets to keep an eye on if you’re looking at potentially making a quick turnaround on your investment, such as live in-play markets.
Where you live will depend on how popular a tennis betting market is as, for example in Asia, it’s all about handicap betting over there, but the core betting markets in the UK tend to be the ones listed above. Let’s explain them in more detail.
The basic who is going to win the match bet but also the most popular in the UK. Pick a player to back and if they win then your bet is a winner. If they lose, you lose your bet. Simple.
This includes game handicaps and set handicaps. Some punters also call it tennis spread betting.
As you know, there are four points in each game – 0, 15, 30 and 40. With game handicaps, the underdog is given a game advantage and the favourite is given a game deficit.
For example, Andy Murray is -4.5 games and Grigor Dimitrov +4.5 games.
To win a set, a player needs to win six games, unless it goes to a tie-break where a seventh game is needed to snatch the set. Men play a maximum of five sets whereas the ladies play a maximum of three. The set handicap works in the same way as a game handicap. The underdog is given a set advantage and the favourite is given a set deficit.
For example, Serena Williams -1.5 sets and Simona Halep +1.5 sets.
This includes total sets and total games and is an extremely popular form of tennis betting.
With total games over and under markets, you can place a bet on, for example, under 19.5 games or over 19.5 games.
Again, it’s the same with the total sets over and under. Using a men’s match as an example, you can place a bet on the match ending with under 3.5 sets played or over 3.5 sets played.
Pick a player to win a certain set. Again, this type of tennis betting is popular, especially in accumulators when there is a strong favourite to build some value and better odds.
This includes tournament winner, player to reach the final and each-way betting. Outright tennis betting is perhaps the easiest type of market for novice tennis bettors to understand. It’s worth noting that the odds tend to shorten in the outright markets as soon as a tournament begins, so place your bets on a winner before it begins.
Easy to understand as it’s simply a bet placed on a player to reach the final of the tournament.
Make sure you check which bookmaker has the best each way odds before placing your bet on the tournament winner market! Why bet with a bookmaker who only offers two places when some can offer three or four!
Punters use this to predict the match correct score or set correct score. There are some great odds to be had in these markets if you know your tennis as your chances of winning this type of bet are lower.
These are available too, don’t worry! A new and extremely popular feature with punters, request a bets are becoming a regular occurrence in football, but in tennis, we only really tend to see them during the Grand Slams.
Rather than just accept the bets a bookmaker has to offer on their site, you can go to Twitter or Live Chat to request a bet. Bookmakers use their own names for this type of bet such as #pickyourpunt, #betyourway or #yourodds to name a few (the hashtag is there as it was born on Twitter – it is very popular on this social media platform), but they love them because it adds a bigger margin with every selection added.
Live betting on tennis is growing in popularity all the time with a wide range of markets available with numerous bookies. It’s a great way to potentially build your winnings with point by point, game by game and set by set betting available.
Every bookmaker offers live in-play tennis betting these days, which means that as soon as a match begins, there will still be markets available for you to bet on in-play.
Whether you bet on mobile or desktop, it’s worth keeping an eye on what bookmakers offer the better prices on in-play tennis events as there’s nothing better than grabbing a bit of additional value in places.
It’s not just prices where you can enjoy some extra value – live match data and live video are also on offer with most bookies, but some do it better than others. Live streaming a tennis match as you’re betting on it live is a great way to keep tabs on what’s going on, but please bear in mind that the live video is always subject to a short delay when compared to live on court.
Quite a few is the answer. Even if there isn’t any live tennis available to bet on with certain bookmakers because the season has ended, or you only tend to bet big during the grand slams, you can still have a bet with virtual tennis. Some bookies offer virtual tennis betting every four minutes on markets such as match odds, total points, and correct score, so if you think you can’t find any tennis to bet on, think again!
Most of them do, yes. Please do make sure you research which bookies offer cash out if this product feature is a must for you as there are some lesser known bookies that do not offer it.
Most tend to offer cash out on Match Odds markets and outrights only, but with this feature continuing to gain popularity amongst bettors in football, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see cash out available on more tennis markets in the near future.
The key events in tennis are based in the USA, France, England and Australia.
Taking place on a hardcourt surface in Melbourne in January and the first Grand Slam of the calendar year, the Australian Open was first held in 1905. Punters look for Men’s Australian Open betting odds more than women’s betting odds statistically, but with the women’s event only being three sets, it can lead to a quicker turnaround from a betting perspective.
More often than not it’s been either Novak Djokovic or Roger Federer lifting the Norman Brookes Challenge Cup in the men’s singles and Serena Williams in the ladies singles lifting the Daphne Akhurst Memorial Cup.
The French Open has been going since 1891! It’s taken a long time for someone to become so dominant on clay, but Rafael Nadal has become the king of clay after winning so many titles since 2005; Nadal won a whopping five in a row between 2010 and 2014.
Novak Djokovic and Stanislas Wawrinka have won the French Open in recent years, so if Rafael Nadal ever suffers an injury leading up to the tournament, the outright betting market certainly has some value to be had as any one of the top 15 players stand a fantastic chance at decent odds.
Played on grass and the oldest of the tennis Grand Slams, Wimbledon is a favourite with many punters and professionals across the globe. There are plenty of Wimbledon betting tips and previews as well as betting advice from tennis experts leading up to the July event.
Roger Federer has enjoyed the most success at this tournament, surpassing William Renshaw’s seven titles in the 1880’s, and if you’ve kept an eye on the Wimbledon betting odds every year since 2003, he’s been at the very top over the last decade or so.
Martina Navratilova still leads the way for women’s singles titles at Wimbledon over the years with nine, but Serena Williams isn’t far behind.
Played on a hardcourt surface at Flushing Meadows in New York and the final Grand Slam of the year, the US Open begins at the end of August and spills over into September, with the first weekend of the tournament coinciding with the Labor Day.
Roger Federer dominated the men’s draw from 2003 to 2008, but there have been plenty of other winners of the tournament since then, which makes the outright betting market, especially the ante-post outright market, an appealing one.
As with all the previous three Grand Slams, bookmakers add numerous incentives for new and existing customers such as US Open bets and new customer offers, so make sure you keep an eye out for these ahead of a Grand Slam – take advantage of the bookmaker promotions and giveaways.
