Highbet is the latest in a long line of sportsbooks and online casinos from Aspire Global, a company with a strong pedigree in the betting industry as they operate a number of popular websites such as Karamba and Hopa. Highbet proudly proclaims that they are committed to “CARE” – Customers Are Really Everything, which is a clever acronym but one that is often difficult to live up to! So in this Highbet review we’ll be taking a deeper dive into their sportsbook to check out what punters can expect from this new addition to the betting landscape.
Bet £10 Get £15 Free Bet
Bet £10 Get £15 Free Bet
Highbet was launched in April 2021 and being a sister site to the more established sportsbooks Hopa and Karamba is certainly a good sign that punters can expect a similar level of service from this brand new betting site. Another good sign is that Highbet was revamped in October 2021, with the main colour scheme changing from an uninspiring grey to a far more vibrant blue.
At first glance the site looks great but it does seem from the home page that Highbet casino games are very much the priority here, with no mention of the sportsbook at all, other than a link on the left-hand side.
However, it’s what happens when you click on that link we’re concerned about, and in this Highbet review we will concentrate exclusively on the sportsbook and outline whether they can effectively juggle an online bookmaker and casino without compromising their sports betting offering.
The first part of any of our sportsbook reviews is always site safety and this Highbet review is no different. The first tick in the box is that Highbet is licensed and regulated by the UK Gambling Commission. Another plus point is that Highbet also utilizes the latest 128-bit Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption technology to ensure that customers’ sensitive data is transferred securely when it is inputted by the user and stored in a safe virtual space!
Privacy is also an important consideration for bettors and this is certainly recognised by Highbet, who have an extensive privacy policy covering everything from the processing of personal information, to how they secure their customers’ information and much more.
Encouraging customers to bet responsibly, giving them the tools to do so and offering pathways to get help if gambling has become an issue is now a cornerstone of every UK betting site. And rightly so! There is an extensive responsible gaming section at BritainBet, with tips about how to self-diagnose gambling problems, advice related to managing your betting and much more.
There are links to all the major professional organisations that you can turn to if betting is becoming an issue, such as GAMSTOP, along with software that can prevent you from accessing betting sites altogether, such as Net Nanny.
Bettors can also impose daily, weekly and monthly deposit limits on themselves, as well as session time limits. If you want to stop gambling completely you can take a time out for a few days or weeks, or even self-exclude for a longer period of time. There’s also a reality check option, where a message will pop up after a preset period of time, reminding you of how long you have been playing, followed by the option to continue playing or to stop.
Overall, they get a big thumbs-up for their attitude to responsible gambling in this Highbet review, and if this level of detail is reflected in all new sites moving forward then that would be a big positive for punters.
The Highbet welcome bonus is a refreshingly simple one, where you just need to wager £10 to receive a £15 Highbet free bet. The minimum deposit needed to qualify for the offer is £10, but deposits by PayPal, Neteller, Paysafe, Skrill or Skrill 1-Tap will not be eligible. And the odds of your qualifying bet must be at least 2.0, which is even money in fractional odds.
You can check the bonus has been credited to your account by clicking “Bonuses” on the left-hand side and once it’s in your possession you are ready to go! The main terms and conditions relating to your Highbet free bet are that it must be placed at odds of 1.8 or higher, which is 4/5 in fractional odds, it must be used all at once and it will expire if not claimed within 14 days.
There are no wagering requirements which is a big plus, but just remember that if your Highbet free bet is a winner then you will only receive the profits back and not the £15 free bet itself, but this is common among sportsbook welcome offers and nothing to be concerned about.
There are no other Highbet new customer promotions, but there is a Highbet casino bonus for new customers which we have outlined below, alongside the main deal.
That’s the long and short of it for this part of the Highbet review, but we would highly recommend you check out the Ts & Cs relating to this Highbet welcome bonus, so you are absolutely clear about what is required to take advantage of this offer.
Highbet offers | Highbet offers description | Wager requirement | Min qualify odds | Offer expiry | Min deposit |
Free Bet | Bet £10 Get £15 | N/A | 2.0 / Evs | 14 days | £10 |
Highbet Casino | 100% match up to £50 & 50 free spins on Starburst | 35x | N/A | 21 days | £20 |
When it comes to Highbet offers for existing customers, we’re sad to report that there are no Highbet promotions for those already signed up to the site, which is disappointing in that even the newest of sportsbooks tend to have at least one ongoing offer.
We also have a small gripe in that while the addition of short betting previews is a plus point, at the end of each one the author writes “Check out our betting offer for this match”, which again led us to expect a special deal but instead, we were just directed to the main event page.
We should stress that this is not a major deal and may just be teething problems from a new site, but on a sportsbook that features no existing customer offers, it makes it a little bit more frustrating!
Now it’s time to outline all of the major site features in the next part of our Highbet review, with a particular focus on the range of sporting markets on offer and how to place a pre-game and in play bet.
The range of sports at Highbet is very impressive with 27 available to bet on at the time of writing, alongside four of the biggest E-Sports in DOTA 2, Rainbow Six, Starcraft and CS:GO. You can also bet on a decent range of special markets, including the Oscars, the next General Election and the Sports Personality of the Year.
On the sports markets section of the home page, you will be able to find the event you wish to wager on by clicking on the list icon on the left-hand side and then clicking through to the games you are interested in. If you know the specific team or individual you wish to bet on you can just type that into the handy search box, and there’s also a “Quick Links” button which tended to feature the biggest football markets whenever we checked it out.
And speaking of football, when we were putting together this Highbet review we were hugely impressed with the range of leagues you could bet on with over 1,500 games from over 60 countries. The most popular matches feature over 350 markets but even in a match from the Cypriot second division, we found over 100!
There were also impressive ranges of markets for other popular sports such as cricket, tennis and rugby union, but when we checked out the NBA and NFL markets on offer, we found a decent amount of over 50 per game, but were disappointed at the lack of player-specific bets such as “Tom Brady to throw for 290+ yards”.
Odds at Highbet can be viewed in fractional, decimal and American formats, which should be more than enough for your average punter, but the big question is how does Highbet UK compare to other sportsbooks?
In our experience, new betting sites don’t tend to concern themselves too much with how their odds stack up against other sites. Part of the reason for that is the quality of a sportsbook’s odds is often a low priority for new customers. In addition, with hundreds of thousands of prices flying around, no site could ever claim to offer the best odds. So, it was no surprise to see that Highbet’s odds were average across the board.
However, when it came to football the quality of the odds moved up a notch and when we compared Highbet’s football odds with those of some of the biggest players in the sports betting sphere, they were frequently as good, rarely worse and sometimes better.
The lack of “Best Odds Guaranteed” horse racing offers and Odds Boosts is certainly a mark in the negative column though.
The minimum wager at Highbet is a more than acceptable £0.09 and there are no maximum bets, which is a real plus for bettors who gamble large amounts at a time or those looking for a truly life-changing Acca win!
Football is the in play king when it comes to popularity with punters, so it’s no surprise to see Highbet’s excellence in this field (pun very much intended) translated to their in play offering. Even at quiet times, there were over 20 games to pick from and within each match, there was an impressive selection of markets.
When it comes to other live betting opportunities Highbet bettors are also well catered for with over 10 sports available at pretty much every time of the day, as well as live E-Sports.
At the time of writing this Highbet review, we found that live streaming was not an option, but what we did find was that every sport that you can bet on in play had a nice looking graphic showing the latest score and key stats from the game. In addition, for a lot of sports, there were live animations showing events as they happened, along with key stats such as shots on target, bookings, corner kicks and even dangerous attacks.
Being able to settle bets early has become a staple of online betting. Cash out is available on many of the sporting markets you will find at Highbet. You just need to click on “My Bets” on the right-hand side of the home page and if your bet is eligible there will be a clickable yellow dollar sign next to it, and from there you can end your bet early.
We were expecting a strong customer service offering from Highbet, thanks to their “Customers Are Really Everything” ethos, and for the most part that’s what we got. The Highbet support team are available via live chat seven days a week between 08:00 CET to 00:00 CET (07:00 – 23:00 GMT) and you can email them outside of these hours.
You can access the customer service area of the site easily by clicking on the speech bubble icon at the bottom of the screen, and we found that all of our queries were answered quickly and effectively.
The only downside is the lack of a 24-hour service, but that would probably be more of an issue for on-demand casino users playing at all times of the day and night, rather than sportsbook bettors who only tend to need help during more sociable hours!
Now for the part of our Highbet review where we outline the signup, deposit and betting processes.
With no mobile app available the only way to join Highbet is by visiting their home page on your mobile device or desktop computer. Luckily the Highbet signup process is a simple one, on both large and small screens!
Click the “Create Account” button on the top-left of the screen to open the first of two Highbet signup forms where you will be required to enter your email address and choose a username and password. After that, it’s time to fill in your full name, date of birth, address, the currency you wish to bet in and your marketing preferences.
When you’re ready to fund your account and take advantage of the Highbet welcome bonus for the first time you just need to log in and click on “Deposit” at the top of the screen. Then it’s a case of entering the amount you wish to deposit, alongside your payment details. And you will need to deposit at least £10 to take advantage of the Highbet signup deal.
This is an easy system but one thing we don’t like is that Highbet charges you 2.5% of every one of your deposits, so £10 will cost you an extra 25p, £50 will cost £1.25 and £100 will cost £2.50. This is only a small amount compared to the actual deposit and may not bother most bettors. However, when most sites do not charge such a fee it may affect someone’s decision to bet with Highbet.
The main sports betting page is not one of the most eye-catching we have ever seen, with a very basic font and all capital letters, but the ease with which we were able to navigate around the site certainly made up for it!
Once you click on a particular sport on the far left-hand side the specific leagues or markets will appear underneath, and then you can just select the one you want and all the matches related to that market will appear to the right, and then you just need to click on a match and the available markets will appear full screen.
If you want to place a football multiple bet that features a number of different games, but the same market within each game (such as over/under 2.5 goals, both teams to score) then that is made much easier by the presence of a number of dropdown menus at the top of the main football page which will change the featured market on every game that appears on the page.
The real beauty of this layout is that all of these sections will remain in place, which makes going back and forth from match to match a real piece of cake. And placing a multiple bet was a real pleasure too as we could just click from match to match and market to market on the same page, rather than going back and forth.
When you have found your selected bet you just need to click on the price of the outcome you wish to bet on and it will appear on the bet slip on the far right of the screen, which will stay permanently so you don’t have to keep clicking back on it. You can then add your stake and click “Place Bets”.
If you want to withdraw your winnings just click on “My Profile” on the left-hand side of the screen and then “Cashout”. From there you just need to select the payment method you wish to credit your withdrawal to, add the amount and click “Request Cashout”.
The minimum amount of your withdrawal needs to be £10 and your balance will always be rounded down to the nearest pound for the purposes of the withdrawal. You can withdraw to your bank account directly, by Visa debit card, the Skrill E-wallet, or Paypal.
Ahead of your first withdrawal, you may also need to share a photo ID such as a passport or driving license, but that is standard practice for many online sports betting sites.
When it comes to withdrawal times, on the Highbet site it says your withdrawal will take anything from less than one working day to six working days, which is about par for the course among sportsbooks in general.
There is no app, and as part of our Highbet review we asked customer support whether there were any plans to create one, but they were unable to tell us. However, Highbet does seem to have made a big effort with the way their desktop app looks in portrait mode on mobile as it translates very well.
If you want to qualify for the “Bet £10, Get £15” Highbet welcome bonus you don’t need to enter a Highbet bonus code when depositing.
However, many other sportsbook offers do require promo codes:
Deposits and withdrawals are key features of a sportsbook, so they are also a key feature of our Highbet review, and the table below provides a clear breakdown of the major payment methods currently available at Highbet.
Banking Method | Fees | Min Deposit | Min Withdraw | Withdraw times |
Debit Card | n/a | £10 | £10 | 0-6 days |
Skrill | n/a | £10 | £10 | 0-2 days |
Trustly | n/a | £10 | £10 | 0-4 days |
AstroPay | n/a | £10 | £10 | 3 days |
Paypal | n/a | £10 | £10 | 0-2 days |
Bank Transfer | n/a | £10 | £10 | 0-2 days |
Paysafecard | n/a | £10 | n/a | n/a |
Neteller | n/a | £10 | £10 | 5 days |
Our in-depth Highbet review has enabled us to create a comprehensive list of what we like and what we don’t like, which you can use to help make the decision about whether you sign up or not!
After checking out the Highbet sportsbook from top to bottom for our Highbet review it’s time to give you our final opinion, and overall we reckon the site is well worth checking out, mainly due to the strong welcome offer, a great range of sports to wager on and the fantastic Highbet football offering with competitive prices and an enormous amount of matches and markets.
However, Highbet is entering an ultra-competitive sportsbook arena and we worry that once punters have taken advantage of their free bet and settled into a regular punting pattern, they might find the lack of existing customer offers a real negative. And a 2.5% deposit charge could also impact customer retention, but only time will tell!