Best greyhound betting sites

The most obvious bet to place on a greyhound race is simply: which dog will win?

That’s the absolute bare bones of greyhound betting and every online bookie offering bets on the dogs will have a racecard with single and each way bets for a range of races every day.

However, there’s far more to dog betting than simple straight win. There’s forecasts, trap specials and challenges, accas and multiples, totes, futures and lots more.

The top sportsbooks will have a variety of these different bets available in addition to the core win or each way odds.

Once you’ve picked your market, the next decision is whether you want to risk your hard earned cash and take the odds on offer.

Bookmakers make money in two ways. They keep the stakes when punters lose bets (obviously), but the second way is often less obvious - bookies factor in a margin (sometimes called a vig or overround) so that they win long term regardless of race outcomes.

This margin is bigger on some events than on others, and it can vary quite significantly from one online bookie to the next. That’s one reason the same dog might be priced shorter at, say, Paddy Power than at Coral.

It’s well worth shopping around before you decide where to place your bet. You could also just read our in-depth reviews of the top bookies where we provide information about the value of the odds being offered (hint: bet365 often offers the best prices).

Greyhound racing is high-octane stuff. A quick Google search tells me greyhounds can run at speeds in excess of 40 miles per hour.

That means races are over in a flash and it’s pretty hard to follow what’s going on if you’re not watching the race live.

We can’t all be down at the track to watch the races we place bets on, so the next best thing is being able to watch the live stream without having to leave the bookie’s site!

Fortunately for us, dog racing live streams are widely available at UK online bookmakers.

Sign up bonuses are the mechanical hare that bookmakers use to attract new customers to their products.

They generally aren’t specific to greyhound betting but the majority of bonuses on offer can be used on greyhound bets.

The sign up bonus is probably the best bonus offer that you’ll get as a punter so it’s well worth your time finding the best possible one.

So, what makes a good sign up bonus? Well, these are a few of the factors we look out for:

• Total value
• Minimum deposit
• Wagering limit
• Expiry time
• Qualifying deposit methods
• Minimum qualifying bet odds

Aside from the odds they offer and the availability of features like live streaming, the offers and promotions run by greyhound betting sites are a key differentiator.

These can be split into two broad categories: regular and event-specific.

Regular offers include things like best odds guaranteed (where the bookie offers you the SP if it’s better than the odds you got when you placed your bet), money back if 2nd to fav (you’ll get a refund or free bet if your dog loses to the favourite) and odds boosts.

Event-specific offers are advertised around major fixtures and often present more high-value opportunities.

You can look out for greyhound event promotions on My Betting Sites as we post the best ones as and when we find out about them!

Even if it might not seem like the most important factor ever, UX could be the difference between you choosing one greyhound betting site over another.

After all, even if a site offers nice odds on a range of markets and has good promotions, that’s all worthless if the design of the site is poor and you can’t navigate your way to place different bets without a load of hassle.

The best UXs don’t just make it easy to place bets, they also make it easy to access account information, make withdrawals and to get in touch with customer support

More than half of UK punters use their mobile device to place bets. That means a decent mobile platform - ideally dedicated mobile apps for both Android and iOS - is pretty important for any top online greyhound bookie.

The same thoughts about Design and UX apply for the mobile experience, too (in fact, it’s almost more important to have a slick customer experience on the small screen).

Note that you shouldn’t ever need to pay to download a betting app. Our advice would be to stick with apps that you can find on the official App Store (for iOS) or Play Store (for Android)

Being able to offer a variety of different payment methods is becoming increasingly important for UK online bookmakers.

It’s not really enough these days to only offer deposits and withdrawals via Visa/Mastercard debits cards. Punters want online services to be convenient for them and bookies are no different.

In addition to debit cards, payment methods we like to see include e-wallets like PayPal, Neteller and Skrill as well as prepaid cards and pay-by-phone options like Boku.

If you think about it, you should never need to use customer support at an online bookie. Everything should be clear and simple and there shouldn’t ever be any issues.

Life isn’t generally so simple, though. There will likely come a time when you need to ask customer support for help - for example if you aren’t sure why a bet isn’t being paid out as a winner or if you want to check the rules for a promotion.

In such situations, you’ll want top notch support with customer service reps that get back to you quickly.

In our experience, live web chat is the most effective way to solve your issues, but other channels like email, phone and even social media are also welcome.

Single and each way bets are the most straightforward types of greyhound bet.

With single bets, you are simply betting on a specific dog to win the race.

With each way, you’re backing a dog to either win or place.

Trap challenge bets are interesting as you aren’t backing specific dogs per se. Instead, you’re betting on which of the traps (where dogs are released from at the start of the race) will win the most races.

Traps are usually numbered one to six, with trap one on the inside and trap six on the outside.

Trap challenge bets generally cover races at a single meet, but are sometimes extended to cover races at multiple events.

There are plenty of different forecast type bets, including:

• Straight forecast: Predict the dogs to come first and second, in that order.
• Combination forecast: Predict the dogs to come first and second in any order. This requires multiple stakes to cover all permutations.
• Tricast: Predict the dogs to come first, second and third, in that order.
• Combination tricast: Predict the dogs to come first, second and third in any order. This requires multiple stakes to cover all permutations.
• Forecast double: Two separate forecast bets, one in each race. This way, your bet can ride for longer than a single race.

As with footy punters, multiples and accas are popular among greyhound bettors.

Doubles, trebles, four-folds and up are regularly placed covering races across a single meet or across a day’s racing at several tracks.

Permutations that offer some insurance for near misses, like Trixies, Patents, Yankees and Lucky 15s are also widely offered.

A tote, or pools bet is a type of parimutuel bet. That means players place stakes into a pool and the winner takes home that pool rather than being paid out at odds offered by the bookmaker.

Pools bets typically require the player to pick the winners of multiple races (typically five or more across a race day or fixture).

If more than one player correctly picks all winners, the prize pool is shared between them.

If you fancy something a little bit different, head to a betting exchange and trade greyhound prices just like you would trade commodities or stocks on an exchange!

Trading on the exchange can be very lucrative if you manage your positions sensibly and put the hard work into training yourself to recognise patterns in price movements in the build up to races.

You can also use an exchange to place greyhound bets in the same fashion as at a sportsbook. The difference is that other punters offer the bets and the exchange takes a commission on winnings (rather than the bookmaker making its money by factoring vig into the price it offers).