Boylesports Review:

The Irish bookmaker BoyleSports is a high street betting giant that first opened its doors to punters back in 1989. Its online and mobile betting site haven’t quite reached the heights of its offline operation, where it competes with the likes of William Hill Sports and Ladbrokes Sports, but in our view it’s only a matter of time.

What you get right now from BoyleSports is a well-regarded bookmaker that sets the standard when it comes to offering great odds and comprehensive betting markets. This is an online betting site that gets the fundamentals right. Read our detailed Boylesports review below to find our more on the nuts and bolts of the operaration.

Betting with BoyleSports is a far cry from dealing with the faceless, no-name bookies that abound online. This is a huge company with more than 1,700 employees, not to mention a couple of hundred high street betting shops that you can visit at any time.

Happily, BoyleSports (Gibraltar) Limited  generally has a good reputation for upstanding conduct and honesty, it’s also in possession of valid licenses from the Government of Gibraltar and the UK Gambling Commission. Additionally, it’s a member of IBAS, the Independent Betting Adjudication Service, which handles dispute mediation for the British gambling industry.

Forum feedback is not that extensive, there’s the usual grumbles from punters who don’t understand identity verification. There were a few serious looking complainst from people complaining that there accounts were closed after winning a few bets but not enough to show this to be a consistent trend.

Aside from the usual online payment methods, it’s also possible to add money to your account by depositing cash at one of BoyleSports’ UK or Ireland betting shops. You can deposit or withdraw any amount from as little as £5, while BoyleSports sets no maximum limits.

There isn’t a bookmaker around that can afford to ignore the  mobile betting market. With the sector growing by the day, mobile punters are on the lookout for high-quality optimised sites and apps. This certainly hasn’t escaped the notice of the team at BoyleSports. The app is available for both Android and iOS handheld devices, and it provides access to pretty much everything that the desktop site has to offer.

The app proves to be pretty solid, even if it falls short of being extraordinary. But that really isn’t the true story of what the BoyleSports app is all about, as it’s the peripherals that make the platform what it is. While laying down your wagers, you are also granted access to hot off the press sports news and a mountain of statistics, in a similar vein to William Hill. On the desktop site, this information isn’t handled particularly well, but it appears more refined when presented on the mobile app.

BoyleSports mobile app isn’t great, although it’s just a few small tweaks away from that level. There is no denying that it’s very good, though, and it’s sure to prove a favourite for anyone that enjoys a statistics-heavy betting experience.

Like practically every other online bookmaker, BoyleSports offers a free bet welcome offer to sweeten the deal for new customers. And though it might not be eye-catching, it should prove attractive to the regular punter.

BoyleSports pays £25 in free bets as five lots of £5 free bet tokens. The first of those is triggered with just a £10 deposit and bet within your new account. After that, you get another £5 free bet for every three bets of £10 or more. If you prefer to bet at lower amounts, the free bet you receive will be calculated as 50% of the average of the preceding three bets you make. That means if you only bet £5 each time, you’d receive a free bet worth £2.50.

Free bets expire within 7 days which isn’t so great. The bonus doesn’t apply to depositors using Neteller or Skrill, but is otherwise fairly flexible, with no wagering requirements before withdrawal.

The lack of any wagering requirements is a major benefit, making it much easier to get hold of any winnings you might accrue from your free bets. The only other significant term is the requirement that bets be made at Evens (2.0) or greater. Not the most favourable you’ll see, but still within reasonable limits.

Alongside this sign-up offer there are other promotions available to customers, although the regular line-up of offers is a little thin, comprising the standard “best price guarantees” on horse and greyhound racing, Acca bonuses and insurance, and money-back for fallers and non-starters in horse racing.

Where this bookie does better is with the enhanced odds available on selected sporting events, alongside other promotions like cash-back offers and double winnings. As a BoyleSports customer you can expect to hear from the promotions team incessantly about event-specific free bets and other promotions throughout the year.

There are lots of things that go into making a top online betting site – from the deposit offer to the user interface – but markets and odds are by far the most important, and this is where BoyleSports shines.

BoyleSports’ reputation for providing broad coverage of the sporting spectrum, combined with lots of markets and great odds goes back to a time before it even extended its operations to the online sphere. There’s a reason its Ireland’s number-one independent bookmaker.

The range of available betting options is extensive and you can find all the most popular UK sports, including football, rugby, boxing and cricket. You can expect upwards of 60 markets on the big Premier League games. That’s fewer than the 100 or so you can find at some of the other major bookmakers, but it still provides plenty of opportunity. Coming from Ireland it naturally has a good range of betting markets on horse racing

If your betting interests lie outside of the mainstream, you’ll be pleased to see sports on offer such as  basketball, volleyball, golf and handball. In all, there are 33 different sports and entertainment markets on offer which puts it in the middling pack of sports offered by bookmakers.

Like all UK facing sports betting sites Boylesports is a multi-vertical site with casino games,  bingo, lotto and virtual sports accessible from a single account.

In terms of the site design and user interface, Boyelsports is letting itself down here. The design is something from the mid 2000’s and it now look a bit outdated. Its not that you won’t be able to find what you’re looking for, but with more and more betting site minimizing their on-screen clutter, Boylesports has a fair bit of work to do here.

BoyleSports could be forgiven for leaning entirely on its brand name and reputation for market-leading odds, but it should be commended for working tirelessly to keep up with the times. Part of this growth has come about through in-play betting, as BoyleSports has plenty of it to offer, even if it is a bit unsteady on the presentation side of things.

It’s great to see a bookmaker that has a large number of live betting markets to offer punters, but we certainly wish that they’d have presented things a little better. BoyleSports simply blasts players with information. There is really no division between sports, with all games and markets just “thrown out there”. However, the ability to easily “favourite” the events you want to focus on does go some way to tidying things up. We do like the in-play visualisation for tennis matches, though. It really captures the “moreishness” of live tennis betting.

From a live streaming perspective, BoyleSports is a bit hit and miss. While it’s great to see the bookmaker stream live sport, we were pretty disappointed to find out that all they cover is horse racing and greyhound racing. Promising so much, but coming off as a little half-baked, improvements are called for here, both from a desktop and mobile in-play perspective.

Finally, cash outs (but not partial) are available on Football, Tennis, GAA, Snooker, Darts, Rugby, Cricket, Baseball, Basketball