New Betting Sites 2021

Online bookies love to dish out free bets, deposit bonuses or other sweeteners to attract people to sign up to use their products. This presents a fantastic opportunity for you, the discerning betting connoisseur, to hoover up a pretty decent pile of bonuses and risk-free wagering opportunities through signing up to new betting sites.

The best sign up offers around can often be found at new betting sites.

New betting sites don’t have an incredibly strong global brand such as the likes of Bet365 (and they can’t afford to hire Ray Winstone to suggest people should sign up with them). That means they often have to go above and beyond with their sign up offers in order to compete.

If you look at what betting sites used to look like compared with the modern-day aesthetics, it’s chalk and cheese. New UK bookmakers tend to implement state-of-the-art software on their desktop site, as well as their dedicated mobile betting app.

This is particularly important when it comes to things like live betting, as there is a necessity for betting sites and apps to work quickly and efficiently with no glitches or lag. You’ll also find new bookmakers innovating in certain areas to try and differentiate themselves: for example, SBK has integrated social and tipping elements to their swanky sportsbook app.

Debit cards and credit cards have been popular methods for deposits and withdrawals on betting sites since the inception of online gambling, but lots of punters are now moving towards e-Wallets like PayPal. There are plenty of reasons for this, chief among them probably being convenience and security: Once you’ve linked your preferred e-wallet to a bank account, you don’t need to directly provide the bookie with details of your cards or accounts, if that sort of thing concerns you.

If your preferred betting site payment methods aren’t available at your current bookie, then it of course makes sense to scout out a new option that caters for your banking needs.

Even cryptocurrencies are beginning to appear on some new bookmakers’ list of banking options, and the quick, secure and smooth transactions via methods such are sure to appeal to punters going forward.

Unfortunately, UK online bookies are unlikely to accept an NFT of your favourite meme as payment just yet. Probably for the best.

New betting sites simply won’t make the grade if their odds can’t compete with the established bookies. It’s a bookie-eat-bookie world out there.

Check the new bookie’s odds against Bet365 or one of the other established heavyweights and see how they compare.

On pure prices alone, Bet365 is probably on top of the market in the UK. That’s not a surprise - it’s the world’s biggest bookie so it can afford to have high payout percentages. Economy of scale, init. If a new bookie comes anywhere close to Bet365’s prices in the markets you fancy having a flutter on, you know you’re on the right track.

Bookies know that once they’ve whetted your appetite with a sign up bonus, you punters will be demanding more, more, and even more. To placate you, most bookies offer great betting promotions which can be ongoing features or relate to specific events.

Offering uniquely tasty promotions is another way that a newer bookie can stand out in this crowded market.

Kwiff, for example, regularly emails me with ‘Surprise Bet’ offers that will get ‘kwiffed’ if you’re lucky (to translate, they’ll give you a random free bet and the odds might get boosted by insane amounts).

Some new bookies offer exciting or obscure markets that aren’t available on more established sites. That might be because they use a different odds provider, or they’re targeting a different demographic.

Variety of markets is a good reason to add a new bookie to your selection of active accounts.

I once knew a guy called Simple Steve who signed up to a new online bookie without checking what markets it had open for betting. Simple Steve was well into his ski jumping and spent months working on a statistical formula to calculate the relationship between exact lift off angle and final competition standings to the 99% scientific significance level.

‘I could make some money on this’, thought Simple Steve, and he signed up to the first online bookie he could find.

However, Simple Steve made the catastrophic error of committing to a new bookie without making sure it offered the markets that he wanted to bet on and, lo and behold, his new bookie didn’t offer prices on ski jumping.

Simple Steve was so gutted. All those months in the garden shed working on his statistical edge gone to waste - word on the street is that he’s not watched a single ski jumping event since. Too many bad memories.

The moral of the story is to have a browse around the new bookie before you sign up to make sure it has the bets you want to take.

Better still, read an expert, comprehensive review like the ones you can find on My Betting Sites. If he’d have just read our VBet review, for example, Simple Steve would know that it has ski jumping markets… Tragic.

Some new bookies, like SBK, pour their heart and soul into top-quality dedicated mobile betting apps. That’s great, because the statistics show that most Brits that bet online do so via a mobile device.

What isn’t great is that some new betting sites don’t offer the same seamless mobile experience. That can be a bit of a pain as, even though nearly all offer a reasonable experience via a standard mobile browser, that still doesn’t really come close to a good, responsive app.

I should add that, in my opinion:

A bad betting app is worse than no app at all (especially when your hard-earned money is at stake).

It's probably best to stick to the mobile browser if you think a new bookies’ app is a dumpster fire.

This is not the fault of the new bookie per se, but it is sometimes the case that the layout or format of a new betting site might be quite different to the one you’re used to.

For example, I like to bet on asian handicaps. Some bookies display the asian handicap lines from the current score, while others display the lines from 0-0 regardless of current score. So if the home side is winning 2-0, backing the home team at -0.25 at one bookie might be the same as backing them to beat -2.25 at another bookie. The best way to double-check what you’re betting on is to compare the prices with a bookie you’re more familiar with

Other things that might be off-putting at first are different menu layouts and UX in general. But if you like the rest of what a new bookmaker has to offer, then you’ll soon get used to its new quirks.

Basically the opposite to the above section on how a good variety of payment options can be a reason to sign up to a new bookie.

If you can’t conveniently deposit your dosh at a new bookie, why would you bother?

Most of the big bookies know how important solid customer support is to their overall brand and to customer trust. They all have big FAQ sections, or even dedicated support/help websites in addition to various avenues through which they can be contacted (live chat, email, social media, telephone, etc.).

This isn’t always the case with new online betting sites, which may have comparatively smaller budgets to try and create a competing service.

It’s easy to check what sort of customer support is available by checking the in-depth reviews on mybettingsites.com.