Bethard Review

Bethard might be most famous for being partly owned by Zlatan Ibrahimovic, but they’re more than just a celebrity pet-project. Their commitment to player safety and fairness is fantastic, and a great thing to see in an up-and-coming online betting site. Keep reading our Bethard review to find out why we think this is a great place for new bettors to get started, and they even have a pretty good online casino, too!

Bethard Welcome Bonus – 100% Up to €50/C$100!

Bethard certainly know how to keep their punters happy, especially when it comes to sign-up bonuses. The international Bethard new customer bonus gives punters 100% of their first deposit back up to €/$50, which is definitely a great way to start off your first few weeks with a bookie. Canadian bettors are the luckiest with Bethard, as they get 100% up to C$100!

The terms and conditions surrounding the welcome bonus are relatively achievable, and even casual punters should have no issues with redeeming this bonus. Bethard only require punters to wager the bonus amount 4 times over, which is much more generous than some other bookies we’ve seen out there. The odds restriction can be a little limiting for some players, with only bets of odds 1.80 (4/5) counting towards the wagering requirements, but with only a 4x multiplier and 60 days to redeem your bonus, this isn’t too bad at all. 

Bethard Sign Up Offer Terms & Conditions

• Min Deposit: €/$/C$20
• Restricted Deposit Methods: Paysafecard
• Wagering Requirements: 4 x bonus amount
• Min Odds: 1.8 (4/5)
• Time Limit: 60 days
• Void/Cancelled or Cashed Out bets do not count towards the wagering requirement
• Only the first bet on any game or market, pre-match or in-play, will count towards the wagering requirement.
• New customers only
• Eligible Countries: Germany, Denmark, Austria, Malta, Brazil, Chile, Ireland, Iceland, Luxembourg, New Zealand and Peru
• Full Terms and Conditions apply 

Offers for Existing Customers – Bethard Needs to Go Harder

At the time of writing, Bethard don’t have any sportsbook promotions running for sports bettors. They have had some exciting offers in the past, and we’re hoping to see more of that soon.

We do wish that Bethard had a bit more going on year-round, though the fact that they often run seasonal or event-based promotions gives us hope that we’ll see a few betting-based offers come our way soon. Of course, as when trying to claim any bonus, make sure to read the full terms and conditions to understand the wagering requirements and other challenges involved.

Bethard Security & Player Safety

Bethard do a decent job of keeping their players safe. Firstly, at a site level, they’re protected by 256-Bit SQL encryption. The fact that they bother to go a step above the basic 128-bit encryption shows that they care about protecting their users’ personal information and financial data. Bethard are also members of the Betting Integrity Association, which means they want to help make the betting and online casino market a safer space for customers in general.

When it comes to responsible gambling efforts, Bethard is affiliated with GambleAware and GamSTOP. These are two of the leaders in the responsible gambling space, and any bettors who feel they might need assistance can access their services from the links in Bethard’s footers. Bethard also make it extremely easy to set up a variety of limits on your account, if you feel you need them. 

Beyond that, they have probably one of the best signs of trustworthiness in the gaming industry: The Holy Trinity.

The Holy Trinity of Gaming Licences

When it comes to licensing for online betting or casino sites, three licences rule the roost: the UK Gambling Commission, the Malta Gaming Authority, and Curacao eGaming. The people behind Bethard must have played Pokémon as children, because they’ve caught them all. Or should we say, they HAD caught them all. Bethard used to have a UKGC licence, but have since withdrawn from the UK market.

This means that the three most significant licensing jurisdictions in the gaming industry have assessed and audited Bethard Group (the company behind Bethard) and each given them their seal of approval. Their ability to keep their players safe, the fairness of their games, their responsible gambling efforts and more have all been checked out and verified by the three most respected licensers out there.

Bethard Group are based in Malta, and the company is ADRg Affiliated.

Another point in Bethard’s favour comes from the fact that they’ve affiliated themselves with the ADR (Alternative Dispute Resolution) Group. This is a place where consumers and companies can have their disputes settled by an impartial third party, yet still avoid costly court fees.

Punters can just click on their logo in Bethard’s footer and instantly be taken to the ADRg’s website, where they can submit complaints.

Banking Methods at Bethard – Take Your Pick

One of the most essential things about a sports betting site is whether you can get your money in and out of it quickly and conveniently. After all, if you can’t do that, you can’t place any bets or enjoy your winnings. Bethard have a good little selection of payment methods, including some of our favourite e-wallets.

Is it the most exhaustive list? No. Is it enough that the vast majority of punters will be satisfied? Definitely!

Our tried-and-true favourites like Skrill, Neteller, and Trustly are there, as well as some more old school methods like wire transfer and PaySafeCard. Like we said, most bettors out there are likely to have at least two payment methods they feel comfortable using to choose from, especially when it comes to making deposits at Bethard.

Bethard Min. Withdrawal and Withdrawal Times

This is where things get a little odd. We spoke to customer care about this, and they told us that due to how things are processed on Bethard’s side, every single type of withdrawal can take up to five working days. Of course, this doesn’t mean that every withdrawal will take five days, but when using e-wallets like Skrill and Neteller, most people are accustomed to withdrawals being processed within 24 hours, if not sooner. We’d like to see withdrawals become faster at Bethard, and we’re sure that this will happen over time.

Bethard Sports Betting – Options are the Name of the Game

A big part of any of our sportsbook reviews is, obviously, reviewing the actual sportsbook section of this website. Before placing your first bet, you need to know if this website is going to give you the sport betting experience that’s right for you. How are the odds? What’s the spread of available sports like? Is there a decent variety of betting markets?

The first thing you’ll notice when heading to the Bethard sport page is how clean and inviting it looks. The black/grey/yellow colour scheme provides high contrast, making sure you can see where all the important things are without having to search around for them. 

When it comes to sport selection and events coverage, Bethard offers up a decent selection that the overwhelming majority of punters are sure to be happy with. We were able to place pre-match bets on every event we intended to, and we were reasonably pleased with the odds and the potential returns we could make on our stake.

They even had some interesting categories like MMA, different esports, and political elections. They might not have the most exhaustive list of sports or be the next generation sports betting site, but we were still very happy with how many options we had. 

Bethard Betting Markets – How’s the Selection?

Any punter knows that betting markets make or break an online betting site. Outrights are great and everything, but we like to be able to create betting slips longer than our weekly shopping lists. Of course, big football matches have tons of betting markets available, but then so do things like handball matches, Swedish ice hockey matches, and more. 

We love all the options that Bethard give us, and this is definitely a point in their favour. We found that this much variety made it much easier to redeem the welcome bonus, as there were just so many bets we wanted to place.

Odds Comparison – How are Bethard’s Odds?

We put Bethard up against two bookies who are similar in size and popularity to see how their odds shape up. As you can see from the table above, Bethard actually did pretty well, offering average to above-average value for punters. This is great news for any readers who are looking for as much bang for their buck as possible when building their betting slip. 

Bethard Mobile – Take your Bets on the Go

In the digital age, one of the most important factors of a sports betting site is how well it travels. Can I use it on my phone while on the train home from work? Can I use it on my iPad from the couch while the other half uses my laptop for work? 

With Bethard, all these things are possible. Their site is fully mobile optimised, meaning you can do everything on the mobile web version of the site that you can on the desktop version. Already at your mate’s house to watch the game on his new TV and realised you forgot to put your pre-match bets in? No problem, just whip out your phone or tablet and you’re good to go. 

The only thing that we found more difficult to do, oddly enough, was finding the customer support area on mobile. It’s hidden away at the very bottom of the menu, and it took us a good couple of minutes to find where it was. It is there, though, and live chat works the same way as it does on desktop. 

Is there a Bethard app?

Unfortunately, no, the Bethard app for both iOS and Android has been discontinued. This isn’t a massive issue, considering how well the mobile version of the site works, though it would be nice to have a dedicated app on our homescreen rather than having to use our web browser. 

In-Play Betting at Bethard

For some punters out there, nothing quite compares to the adrenaline rush of in-play betting. Making decisions on the fly and reacting to what’s going on during the match is the kind of heady rush that some bettors look forward to come match day. Fans of live betting are in luck with Bethard, as they have a great in-play sport betting offering.

Their great selection of betting markets carries over to their in-play betting offering too. This means that adrenaline-seeking punters can have a great time, as they’re likely to have dozens of options at their fingertips to build a truly custom betting slip. 

Does Bethard have Live Streaming?

No, like many other bookies, Bethard doesn’t support live streaming. It’s no secret that broadcasting rights are complicated, exclusive, and expensive, so we aren’t surprised to see that Bethard don’t offer that just yet.

They could, however, offer live streaming for esports live betting, as most esports events are broadcast for free on sites like Twitch and YouTube Gaming. While this feels like a bit of a missed opportunity, fans of esports betting can easily access those streams themselves, so we don’t think it’s all that bad. 

Bethard does, however, offer statistics (powered by BetRadar) on most of their matches, and these can definitely help bettors who are either new to live betting, or who are betting on a sport they aren’t too familiar with.

Bethard VIP programme – A Mystery to Unfold

When it comes to sports betting sites that also double as online casinos, there are no guarantees that sports betting customers will have access to VIP programmes. Even just finding this out can be difficult, as details of most VIP programmes are often kept top-secret. Sports betting enthusiasts are in luck with Bethard, though. Their customer service team confirmed to us that sports players are indeed eligible to be included in their VIP programme!

Unfortunately, that’s pretty much all the information we have about this mysterious VIP programme. We asked their customer service representative to give us as much information as possible, and all we know is that each VIP member’s experience is unique. They don’t seem to have a tiered system like some other sites do, where users can move from Bronze tall the way up to Platinum, for example. Each VIP member is given a custom set of benefits depending on how they use the Bethard site.

Bethard Customer Service – More Miss Than Hit

Bethard offer the standard communication options for a digital-age betting site: e-mail and live chat. As part of the Bethard review process, we contacted customer care several times using both means of communication.

To be perfectly honest, we weren’t impressed. The live chat was a lot slower than we’d like. We found ourselves waiting over 3 minutes to be connected to a Bethard customer service agent, with our shortest wait being approximately a minute and a half long, and our most extended wait being somewhere just over 6 minutes.

The customer service agents themselves were, unfortunately, not what we expected. Some agents struggled a little with written communication in English, which is something we don’t often see anymore. Also, none of the agents were particularly friendly or quick to respond, with one agent, in particular, being downright rude.

Things fared better when communicating with Bethard customer support via email, though. There weren’t any issues with their English, and they gave us pretty standard service in terms of tone and the helpfulness of their responses. Waiting time was still a little longer than we’d prefer, taking between 36 and 48 hours to receive a response each time, but this is still miles better than our live chat experience.

They do have an FAQ section for users to browse through when they click on the “support” icon in the top right corner. This is underdeveloped when compared to many of their competitors’ FAQ sections. It’s only 15 questions long, isn’t split into categories, and isn’t searchable. It is, however, a start, and we hope to see this area of their website grow and develop as time goes on. 

Bethard Contact Details

• Bethard E-Mail: [email protected]
• Bethard Live Chat: Yes, 24/7
• Bethard Phone Number: N/A

Bethard Markets – Global, but focused on Europe and Canada

Bethard are a global brand, but they seem to focus heavily on Europe and Canada. The site is available in both UK and Canadian English, as well as other languages, so you’re likely to feel at home. Some members of their customer service team aren’t the most proficient users of the English language, but that still didn’t stop us from being able to communicate with them. Punters looking for an exciting, young betting site would do well to give Bethard a chance, it could well be their new regular bookie.

Join Bethard – A Scrappy Up-And-Comer

Bethard might not be the most varied sportsbook out there, they might not have the best selection of promotions, and they might not have the best customer service. However, what they do have is a clear commitment to their users’ safety and security, above-average value on their odds, and a fair and compelling welcome bonus. Seasoned punters might not have all their boxes ticked here, but after our Bethard review testing, we can definitely recommend that new bettors give this bookie a chance.

Pros

• Huge array of supported payment methods
• Good value odds
• Decent selection of bonuses
• Great selection of betting markets

Cons

• Not available in the UK
• No apps for Android or iOS devices
• No live streaming