May 8, 2020 By D. Djokic
888Sport Review
APPROVED
LICENCE NUMBER:
39028
Probably one of the oldest betting sites in the world, 888Sport has a reputation as a trusted and serious betting operation. That’s why today we have an 888Sport review in line. The site boasts around 40 sports that you can bet on, live betting and a wide range of great promotions and bonuses. The story of 888 Holdings dates back to 1997, and they’ve been around since the first days of the internet. The company is based in Gibraltar and is behind another successful gambling story, Casino-On-Net. In 2008, the company decided to launch a sports betting website that would cater to the needs of a wider audience – 888Sport or, in some countries, 888Bet.
Pros / Cons
Easy banking
Intuitive betting
Great interface
Rich sportsbook
Slow customer support
A few currencies
History
The story of 888 Holdings dates back to 1997, and they’ve been around since the first days of the internet. The company is based in Gibraltar and is behind another successful gambling story, Casino-On-Net. In 2008, the company decided to launch a sports betting website that would cater to the needs of a wider audience – 888Sport or, in some countries, 888Bet.
How to Start
From the first moment you find yourself on their website, 888Sport makes sure you know what to do. You can see the “Join Now” button, which is located on the top right side of the screen. Once you press it, there is a three-step process that you have to go through. The first one requires you to enter your first and last name, country, email, gender and date of birth. The next step is the username and password creation, along with the security question of your own choosing. After that, 888 Sport takes you to the final step where you enter your desired currency, postal code, city, phone number and address.
After that, you have to wait an hour or two for a verification email, which is quite odd, considering the fact that it should be an automatic service. Once you click on the verification link, you’ll be taken back to the website homepage, and from there, you’ll have to click on the login button – and from there you’ll be taken to the final step of registration on an 888sport login page where you must provide your username and password. Congratulations, you can finally play!
Special Loot
There are an awful lot of bonuses that the website provides for its members. For all new members there’s a special welcome Free Bet bonus of £20 on a desktop plus a £10 Free Bet bonus on a mobile device cleverly disguised as a £30 Welcome Bonus. Free Bet is exactly as it spells: a free bet you can place on most of the games. You have to make a first deposit of £10 and enter the special 888sport promo code for 2018 which is ‘30fb’.
There’s also a wide range of daily bonuses you can check out, each with their own special promo codes, but they change daily, so make sure you check them out regularly so you don’t miss out on them. Additionally, there’s a great boost bonus for every member that places football bets at odds of 2.0 or more with a minimum amount of £10. The bigger the odds are, the more your boost increases, and if you win at odds of 5.1 or more, you get £5 in Free Bets.
This all sounds fine and dandy. However, upon reading the 888sport bonus policy we find out that any bonus amount you get has to be wagered 30 times its original amount; for example, if you get £10, you have to gamble at least £300 in order to even be eligible to withdraw those £10, which by now you’ve probably lost.
By far the most useful bonus you can come across is the American Dream Bonus, where, if one of your American market sports bets fails, you get the equal amount back from the 888 sports betting site in the form of Free Bets. Be aware, though, that Free Bets expire within 72 hours, so make sure to use them as soon as possible.
Loading Cash
Once you decide you want to start depositing some cash, you can click on your balance number at the top right corner of the page. A pop-up window will appear with all the available deposit options: we used Skrill, but there are also options for Visa and Mastercard (debit only for the UK players), Neteller and EcoPayz.
If you get stuck, 888 Sport has you covered: there is a button for deposit assistance and a short FAQ button that takes you through the process of depositing for each method. There’s also a small button that you might miss, but it enables you to deposit with the promo code, so make sure to check it out, along with the current promo codes available.
888Sport offers dozens and dozens of payment methods to its customers. You can load your cash using debit cards, wire transfers, pre-paid transfers, e-wallets, and PayPal users will be delighted to hear that 888Sport also supports PayPal. Another good thing is the speed at which the deposits are made. Our Skrill deposit took less than a minute, and the minimum was £10. The minimum amount for withdrawals is £10 for wire transfers, and £3 for all other methods.
Note that when making your first deposit, you’ll be asked to confirm your age, so make sure you have your passport or ID present with you. Upon uploading the images, the 888 betting site will send you another verification email, and then you’re pretty much good to go.
What About the Games?
As for the games assortment, 888Sport offers a satisfying amount of 40 different sports to choose from. The biggest section, of course, is football, where you have a selection of 105 different leagues and cups to bet on from around the world. You also have your average roster of greyhound and horse races, American football, ice hockey and rugby.
Now, this is a perfect time for a small 888 sportsbook review. Upon logging in, you can access your sportsbook and all relevant info by clicking on the top left corner. Once you’re there, you can find the data on your previous bets and the upcoming games you’ve bet on.
When accessing the league you’re interested in, you’ll be taken to a page that displays current and future games and their odds. Placing a bet is easy and intuitive: just click the button on the right side, upon which a small pop-up will appear and ask you to enter the specified betting amount and confirmation. The system loads your bet in a matter of seconds, so all that’s left is waiting.
You’ll be happy to hear that there are dedicated 888Sport mobile apps both for Android and iOS users that you can download if you want to play on the go. The apps run smoothly, and all the options are there, even the customer support.
Is the Site Working Well?
The site is designed in a simplistic manner with a bright orange header and a layout of its current games on a black background. Right on the top, you’ll find links to all the main sections of the website. The top right corner contains your balance and account information, and the left has all the sports listed in a random order.
The overall look of the site is sort of outdated and needs a little overhaul. If you go to bet365 or find any review online about their site, you’ll see that their interface looks much more coherent and functional, so 888Sport definitely has more work to do when it comes to updating the design. Most importantly, sometimes you won’t even be able to access the site, but we suppose that’s due to the high traffic.
The Spoils
In order to withdraw your money from 888Sport, just click on your balance and a pop-up window will appear demanding info about your email, the amount, preferred currency and withdrawal method.
“Will 888Sport cause me any withdrawal problems?” you might ask. Well, there is one pretty huge concern, and that’s the fact that you have to wait three working days in order to withdraw your money. The minimum withdrawal amount is £4, and if it’s your first time, you’ll have to provide a document in order to verify your age.
Is There Anybody Out There?
When talking about the people who might be holding you back, we have to note that the customer support at the 888Sport website is very slow and is one of the weakest points in our 888Sport review.
Unlike the deposit page, where you can find two buttons for customer support right in the middle of it, on the homepage you have to look around for quite a while until you find the customer support button tucked in the top menu. Clicking on it, you’ll be taken to a page where they have a dedicated phone number with operators working from 9 a.m. until midnight GMT, a large FAQ section and a contact form.
You’ll be sad to learn that there is no 888sport live chat. Upon completing the form, the support bot will suggest a couple of possible solutions from the FAQ, based on the word pattern you used, but if that’s not enough, you can still email real living humans. The website instantly sends you an email, but it’s just another bot suggestion with an indication that your real reply will arrive in approximately 48 hours. The reply arrived within 24 hours, and the support team did provide a valid answer, but it wasn’t worth the wait.
How Tight Is the Security?
The security at 888Sport is also kind of confusing, and it’s another weak spot in our 888Sport review. Upon registering and uploading the required documents, we found ourselves in a predicament where we were forced to take additional steps in verifying our identity. During this process, the website will arbitrarily cancel your bets, even though you were eligible to make them in the first place.
Upon reading the terms and conditions, we find out that the company is owned by the 888 Group based in Gibraltar and therefore complies with its local laws under Remote Gaming license numbers 022 and 039. The 888Sport UK website is operated by 888UK Ltd. (Remote Gaming License Number 000-039028-R-319297-0016) and is regulated by the Great Britain Gambling Commission. We are assured that the RNG (Random Number Generator) is tested by the company on a regular basis and that all the payout percentages are audited by third-party companies.
On the upside, the website promotes and supports responsible gaming. If at any time you start to feel like you might have a problem, you can set your own deposit limits or enter a Take-a-Break program that permits you to freeze your account from one day to six weeks. There’s also a self-exclusion program, but it’s not specified how long it lasts.
Conclusion
The end of our 888Sport review is reserved for summarizing all our general impressions. On the one hand, the gameplay is easy and intuitive, the sportsbook is comprehensive and depositing takes a full minute at worst if you’re using an E-Wallet.
On the other hand, there are not that many depositing options, withdrawing your money takes too long, not even counting the countless verification processes you have to go through, and the customer support response time should definitely be improved if 888Sport aims to qualify for a spot among the best betting sites.