Virgin Bet Review:

Virgin are a household name in the UK. Virgin Bet. The service was released in June 2019 and is so far only available on mobile devices. It’s instantly recognisable that this is a Virgin endeavour thanks to the synonymous red colour and branding. Virgin have a great reputation in other areas of business so it will be interesting to see how they handle the world of online betting. Read on to find out if you should use Virgin Bet and whether their focus on mobile devices and usability could help them overtake the more traditional companies.

The fact that such a large well-known brand is behind the app should give a feeling of reassurance to those who might doubt their capabilities and trustworthiness when it comes to safety and fund security.  Virgin Bet has licences from both the UK Gambling Commission and the Gibraltar Gambling Commissioner, is a member of the International Betting Integrity Association and on top of this is also independently assessed by eCOGRA, the eCommerce and Online Gaming Regulation and Assurance.

Because it has only recently launched there’s no news yet from customers on the trustworthiness of Virgin Bet, however, we can tell you that the service uses 128-bit SSL encryption, the same used in online banking, to protect user data and a third party fraud checking service to help ensure the safety of debit and credit card users. On top of this Virgin Bet safeguard your funds in a separate account solely for clients to ensure that funds can be recovered by customers in the event of insolvency.  This fund protection is rated at a medium standard by the Gambling Commission of Great Britain.

All of these measures should mean that customers of Virgin Bet are likely to find the service to be fair, pay-outs to be prompt and accurate, personal information kept secure and for there to be a commitment to proper customer support in the event of disputes.

Virgin Bet offer three different payment methods as of now for deposits and withdrawals which can be set up and changed easily.

There are minimum and maximum deposit amounts to consider before you start which will also depend on the payment method used. For example VISA or Mastercard have a minimum deposit amount of £10 and a maximum of £10,000 whereas PayPal also has a minimum of £10 but a maximum of £5,000. These amounts are also the same for withdrawals.

Virgin Bet are committed to ensuring fast withdrawals of your funds and aim to process all requests within four hours although they can sometimes take up to 24 hours, from there the payment to you will depend on the method you choose, PayPal is more or less instant but bank account withdrawals and those using credit or debit cards can take several working days. Usually it’s between 1-3 for cards and up to 5 for bank accounts.

Although Apple pay is offered for deposits there isn’t support yet for it to receive withdrawals so your bank details will need to be used instead.

So far Virgin Bet is only available on mobile devices as either a mobile site or an app which can be downloaded from either the Apple Store or Google Play. All three options function in the same way and with identical features and navigation although for now horse race betting is only available on the app, not on the mobile site.  It’s unusual for a betting service to only be available on handheld devices but it seems to be the way of the future with smartphones becoming ubiquitous in today’s world.

The app itself is clear and simple to use, with a clean style and similar layout to other betting apps available. Its ease of use is perhaps one of the standout features of the site and makes it easy to place bets on a range of different markets no matter where you are. Fingerprint log in is also available on supported devices to speed up the log in process and avoid forgotten passwords.

The size of the app download is around 14MB which is pretty small and allows most users to download and use it from the phone fairly easily. On top of this the app is designed to run very fast even on older phone models.

Currently Virgin Bet offer a welcome bonus for all new customers. New members are entitled to £20 of free bets after first making a bet of at least £10 within fourteen days of opening their account. Terms do apply to this bonus of course, the £10 bet must be made on odds of at least  ½ (1.5), the bet itself should settle before the fourteen days after opening your account have passed and the £20 of free bets is given in the form of two separate £10 “bet tokens”. The free bet tokens themselves must be used within fourteen days of their acceptance before they expire and will not be returned as a stake on a winning bet. On top of this the tokens cannot be used together, they have to be used on two separate bets. This is a fairly standard welcome bonus as far as betting sites go and although it’s reasonable it may not be enough to entice bettors to download the app.

On top of the welcome bonus Virgin Bet also offer Happy Hour price boosts and regular price boosts where the odds are improved for a short time on specific markets or events.

Virgin Bet have a great selection of markets on a lot of different sports from football, horse racing, tennis, cricket and more including niche sports like water polo and eSports in addition to specials such as politics and reality TV. The app is very easy to use and it’s simple to navigate through the different options you can pick and the many kinds of markets that are offered including in-play bets, overall the design of the app sets it apart from its competitors as it’s so intuitive to use and runs very smoothly.  On top of that, for football matches in the big leagues, the stats of each team are displayed alongside the odds so you can check the results of each team’s last five games as well as head to head history before placing your bets.

An interesting feature that Virgin Bet provide on UK and Irish horse racing events is their “best odds guaranteed” feature. This guarantees that a bet to win or each way placed on a horse after 7:00am on the day of the race can have your odds improved if the starting price is bigger than the price you placed the bet at. Your odds will automatically be improved to the starting odds of the horse if they are better than the odds at which you placed the bet.

The betting interface used by Virgin Bet has been developed by SBTech who are an award winning sportsbook provider that also work with SkyBet.

From what we’ve seen so far Virgin Bet offer competitive odds which usually match other big bookmakers, for example the odds on the final of the 2019 ACON between Senegal and Algeria. Algeria to win is at odds of 9/5 on Virgin Bet and most other major betting sites.

Casino games aren’t offered in the same app as Virgin Bet but Virgin Games, where you can play slots, poker and other casino games is available on a separate app.

On top of regular bets Virgin Bet also offer in-play betting on a huge variety of sports including football and more niche sports like table tennis. All markets that are available in regular betting are also available in play and although there is no streaming available a graphic is used to display when a particular team is attacking, the direction of the play and also set pieces, throw ins and shots. The time of the game is also shown to give you all the information you need.

Cash out is a feature that has become something no betting site can do without so we’re pleased to see Virgin Bet offers customers the ability to close a bet before expiry, either by fully cashing out or partially. Account balances are immediately updated upon choosing to cashout allowing you to guarantee your profits or minimise your loss.