Mr Green Sports Review:

Mr Green Sports might be the new kid on the sports betting block – barely a year old at the time of writing – but it comes from the people behind the exceptionally popular online casino of the same name. And that excites us a lot.

Launched in Sweden in 2008, the multiple award-winning Mr Green was one of the first sites to tear up the established online casino rulebook to produce a stylish, player-friendly alternative to the big-name brands. Now it’s time to find out how they’ve taken that hard-earned experience and applied it to the world of sports betting. Can they stir up this new market just as they did the last?

While casino fans will need no convincing that Mr Green casino is a trustworthy – if mysterious – fellow, the lack of any information on the sports betting homepage about valid licensing might well give you pause for thought.

There’s no need to worry. This is, after all, a site from the winners of the IGA 2017 Gaming Operator of the Year, as well as an EGR Award in 2012 for social responsibility, among many, many others. We put it down to the fact that sports betting is more of a sub-site to the main casino portal than anything else.

Either way, while Mr Green Casino is licensed by the Malta Gaming Authority and the UK Gambling Commission, its sportsbook is operated in collaboration with B2B betting services operator, Kambi. Kambi has multiple licenses from the likes of Malta, Alderney and the UK Gambling Commission, among others, and that licensing extends to the Mr Green betting operations. In addition to operating in the UK, parent company, Mr Green & Co, also has an Italian license following approval for its takeover of Mybet Italia. Mr Green & Co listed on the NASDAQ Stockholm exchange.

Mr Green is just one of those brands, like Casumo and Rizk, which are put together with such care and attention to detail, as well as a keen on eye on creating a player-friendly product, that they seem inherently trustworthy. Although feedback on the betting arm is still pretty thin on the ground, Mr Green Casino has generally positive reviews from players, with no evidence of any obviously worrying trends.

The benefit of its many years of online casino experience is that Mr Green Sports has a good range of payment options for a newish betting site. Watch out for the 2.5% fee on credit and debit card deposits. Deposits made by e-wallet don’t carry fees, though. Withdrawal times depend on the method chosen with e-wallets like PayPal and Neteller getting your funds back to 2-3 days quicker than CC cards and bank wire.

The Mr Green sportsbook can be used on the following supported platforms: Android, tablet, Mac, Windows, Blackberry, iPhone, PC and Windows Phone. The Mr Green Sports site is designed to be responsive which means that visually it works as the same on desktops as mobile devices. Optimisation is slickly done, and the site works well on most mobile devices, so if you prefer using your mobile web browser than apps, Mr Green offers a good product.

On the other hand, it would be a shame not to take advantage of Mr Green’s award-winning casino and sportsbook app (IGA 2016 Mobile Operator of the Year) for iOS and Android.

You can deposit and withdraw, set betting limits, access live chat support and view your full betting history directly from the app, and access all the markets – including live betting – that are available on the full site. On top of that, the iPhone app offers secure quick access via Touch ID.

As always, iPhone users can download direct from the App Store, while Android users can download the app via direct link from the Mr Green website.

Just about every leading online sportsbook offers free bets and bonuses for new customers, except for Mr Green that is. It’s a strange decision, given that Mr Green is in a fight to attract customers in a viciously competitive industry. But it’s perhaps the clearest evidence that the site’s operators see bookmaking as an addition to their core product at this stage, rather than something that stands alone.

In fact, it seems clear that Mr Green has poured its energy into creating attractive offers to entice existing casino customers to have a flutter on the weekend’s games. So, while you won’t find the usual free bet welcome offer, everyone can claim a weekly £5 free bet in the Free Bet Club. You don’t have to do anything to opt in, simply bet £25 on accumulators between Monday and Sunday, and you’ll be credited with that free bet.

There are several terms and conditions to be aware of. Only trebles qualify, and the odds must be 2/1 (3.0) or greater, for instance, but overall it’s a promo that offers good value to the reasonably active punter.

For a juicier bonus, betting funds in the sportsbook can be transferred to the casino where new customers are given a 100% Welcome Bonus, and all customers receive 100 Free Spins after depositing and staking £20.

Mr Green also boosts accumulators on televised weekend matches from the main European football leagues, including the Premier League in England. There are also enhanced odds on offer for a variety of sports, including football and tennis which are the most popular betting sports across the internet. Other popular betting sports are also subject to price boosts.

Horse racing is the traditional betting sport in UK licensed betting offices, and Mr Green’s race betting is tailored to that market. Customers can take advantage of racing specials for meetings in the UK and Ireland, including jockey specials, winning distances, enhanced place terms, price boosts and enhanced multiples. There are also specific price boosts for televised races and odds enhancements related to jockeys.

Mr Green also pays out on both results if a result is amended and the first past the post is not declared the official winner after an amendment.

Mr Green offers odds for all the main betting sports in the UK and others that are popular in other parts of Europe. There were 33 sports on offer at the time of writing. Pretty decent but falling short of the 40+ that NetBet Sports offers

The type of bets available include singles, each-way bets and system bets that combine a number of options in various permutations. In UK betting offices the Trixie, Patent, Yankee and Heinz are popular and Mr Green offers these combination bets to its online sportsbook players. Odds across the full range can be displayed in fractional and decimal odds format.

The following sports generate most betting interest around Europe and the rest of the world and Mr Green features them in their main sports menu: football, horse racing, golf, tennis, cricket, baseball, basketball, formula one and rugby. The site also features non-sports markets for politics and entertainment.

Football is perhaps the most popular betting sport in the world and some competitors offer more than 100 markets for the big matches. Mr Green offers match betting with a deep selection of markets for all the biggest leagues and competitions, including the Europa League, Champions League, English Premier League, German Bundesliga and La Liga in Spain. But even minor competitions, such as Australian U-20 football, offer up a decent choice of markets to bet on.

Other sports have fewer markets, and football has by far the most betting options with Mr Green. Customers can bet on the main tennis tours. Overall, the sports, markets and odds service is goodbut not exceptional and other sportsbooks cover more sports and leagues.Odds quality is generally average or better, although Mr Green’s absence from the main odds-checking services makes it awkward to compare directly. One good feature is that once you reach your max bet limit you can ask to be referred up to a trader to increase your bet size.

If you’ve visited 888Sports (another Kambi-based platform), you’ll be familiar with the card-based layout featured on the Mr Green Sports homepage. It has its roots in Google’s design language of recent years, and it does look clean and modern. However, we think 888’s addition of a sidebar menu to jump between sports is definitely something Mr Green should add to aid user navigation.

Mr Green has a live betting module in which customers can bet on a range of sporting events in-play, with the Live Betting homepage displaying live events by sport. At the time of writing the site offered live events for the following sports: football, tennis, basketball, ice hockey, snooker, golf, darts and baseball. Each event has the match score on displa and for each event the teams, league, score and the elapsed time is shown and there is a link to related markets.

Football is the most popular in-play sport around the world. Live matches generate huge turnover, especially those that are shown on television. Some operators live stream sports, but Mr Green does not offer this facility. Bettors will stake more when they can see the action take place so the absence of live streaming puts Mr Green at a disadvantage against other operators.Having said that, Mr Green’s live betting infographics are well-designed and easy to follow, and provide a good level of useful detail.

Mr Green offers a good range of live markets in addition to the match result, although there are more in-play markets for football than for any other sport, as one would expect. Overall, while the absence of live streaming is acceptable, the fact that Mr Green has not yet added a cash out facility could be the bigger loss. It will surely be more keenly missed by serious bettors.