Horse racing and betting have been synonymous for generations – if you want to be taken seriously as a company in the gambling industry, then you better have a good horse racing product.
It’s the bread and butter of sports gambling but there are plenty of ways for bookmakers to differentiate themselves, so we’ve ranked and reviewed the best horse racing betting sites out there to help you find the one that’s right for you.
With King George Weekend at Ascot coming up and the Goodwood Festival hot on its heels in August, now is the perfect time to familiarise yourself with what UK betting companies have to offer when it comes to horse racing.
Horse racing betting sites UK ranked and reviewed
Imagine it’s Cheltenham Festival week and you fancy a punt on the nags. Or it’s Grand National Saturday and you want to get involved with a wager on the gee-gees. Where should you go?
Almost every betting company in the UK offers horse racing odds but some give a better experience than others. Below, we’ve highlighted 10 of the best but rather than a straight, slightly arbitrary ranking from one to 10, we’ve chosen the specific aspect of betting they excel at to create a ‘best-in-class’ list for your needs, whether that be free bets, price boosts or live streaming.
To find out more about our process and gambling responsbily scroll down this page.
Best horse racing betting site for free bets: Betway
If you’re after some freebies to complement your horse racing betting, then Betway is a good place to start. Their weekly Free Bet Club can see you earn £10 in free bets (which can be used on racing markets) if you stake at least £25 on trebles, accumulators or bet builders (on any sport) the previous week.
If you’re not already a Betway customer, their welcome offer is also one of the best on the market, giving you up to £30 back in free bets if your first accumulator loses.
Best horse racing betting site for price boosts: Unibet
A lot of horse racing betting sites offer some form of price boost but it’s hard to beat Unibet’s when it comes to horse racing. Their neatly-named ‘Uniboost’ promo allows you to get bigger odds on any horse you choose up to three times per day. The maximum stake is £20 but this is still a handy tool for boosting any horse that you’re particularly confident about.
Their site is clean and easy to use, especially on desktop and mobile, while Unibet also have a competitive welcome offer, with £40 in free bets back if your first bet loses along with a £10 casino bonus.
Best horse racing betting site for accumulators: BoyleSports
If you’re an accumulator lover, head over to BoyleSports, whose Acca Rewards and Acca Loyalty programmes make them the best choice for racing accas.
BoyleSports’s Acca Loyalty is the betting equivalent of a coffee shop stamp card, where customers are awarded a £5 free acca once they’ve placed five £5 accumulators (with at least five selections and total odds of greater than 3/1).
Meanwhile, Acca Rewards allows you to either boost or insure your horse racing accumulator. In any acca of at least three legs, you can insure to get your stake back as a free bet if one selection lets you down or boost so that your odds are improved by increasing amounts if you win (from a 3 per cent boost for a three-leg acca, to a 100 per cent boost for a 14-strong selection).
Best horse racing betting site for live streaming: Bet365
Bet365 badge themselves as the home of live streaming and the amount of live sport they’re able to show backs that up. In terms of horse racing, the amount of global coverage they stream makes them the perfect choice if you want to watch the race and closely follow your horse.
Unlike many betting sites, Bet365 stream every racing meet in the UK and Ireland, including every race from major events such as the Cheltenham Festival and Royal Ascot, even once the TV broadcasters have gone off air. They also have selected international meetings available to view. Most races are free to watch, provided Bet365 accounts are funded, but occasionally a nominal bet on an individual event may be required to enable access.
Aside from live streaming, Bet365’s entire horse racing offer is impressive, with competitive odds, a clean site and app plus a welcome offer that has up to £30 in free bets available.
Best horse racing betting site for money-back promos: BetGoodwin
BetGoodwin are one of the newer kids on the block but have already made waves in the industry with their focus on horse racing and a veritable feast of racing-specific bonuses, offers and money-back promotions.
Their Best Odds Guaranteed for all UK and Irish racing means you’ll always get the best price but they also offer a free bet refund (up to £100) for a wide range of scenarios where you’d probably consider yourself unlucky as a punter. You will get your money back if your horse:
- Is beaten by under half a length in a chase
- Is beaten by a nose in any race
- Finishes second to a 50/1 or bigger-priced winner
- Falls at the final hurdle when leading
It’s a strong offer from the newcomers in a competitive market and, allied with a pleasant black-and-yellow aesthetic plus good site useability, earns them a recommendation from us.
Best horse racing betting site for cash out: Kwiff
Another newbie making waves, Kwiff are trying to disrupt the industry with innovative, unique features that traditional names in the betting sphere haven’t considered. Their free bets are often ‘surprise bets’ – a bet generated by their algorithm that could be on any sport or bet type – and you’ll secure a £30 surprise bet as part of their welcome offer when you deposit and bet £10.
Their cash out offer is also unique as customers can qualify for a ‘Supercharged’ cash out. Not every cash out will be supercharged but it adds more funds to the total cash out amount available when randomly triggered. Kwiff’s cash out facility is easy to use and speedy, with transactions quickly settled, making it our recommendation.
Best horse racing betting site for Best Odds Guaranteed: Betfred
Some, although not all, horse racing betting sites offer Best Odds Guaranteed, which is a win-win for gamblers. The premise is that punters can take an early price on a horse but if the starting price is longer than when they made the bet, they’ll still be paid out at the longer odds.
Betfred are particularly good for this feature as their Best Odds Guaranteed prices are generally available from 8am on the day of the race, whereas most other companies don’t release theirs until 9 or 10am. It allows bettors more time to find market inefficiencies and secure longer odds than would otherwise be available.
More generally, Betfred offer a good all-round horse racing product and new customers can earn up to £50 in free bets for betting £10 on a sports market as part of their welcome offer.
Best horse racing betting site for profit boost: BetMGM
We discussed price boosts earlier, with Unibet pegged as the best horse racing betting site for them, but profit boosts are a slightly different beast, despite both being designed to increase potential returns.
Whereas a price boost applies to an individual price, a profit boost is applied to specific bets, such as accumulators, with the potential profit increased by a set percentage. BetMGM’s Golden Silks Daily Racing Boost promo is one of the best examples of this. By opting in on a Monday and staking up to £20 on any horse racing market, customers will unlock seven 10 per cent profit boosts – one per each day of the week.
This is part of an impressive all-round offer from BetMGM, one of the best new horse racing betting sites. BetMGM are well-known in the American market but are only just starting out in the UK and already turning heads.
Best horse racing betting site for extra places: LiveScoreBet
Betting on a race where extra places are available is a great way to back an each-way hunch and while most horse racing bookmakers will offer extra places on occasion, LiveScoreBet do so on selected races every single day and many more races than other sites. Boyles and Betfred are also good in this category with more regular extra place races than most horse racing sites in the industry.
While it’s the extra places that really make LiveScoreBet stand out, they also have a handy offer where you’ll get your money back as a £10 free bet if your horse finishes second or third in a selected race.
Best new horse racing betting site: BetUK
BetUK may be new on the scene but there’s plenty to recommend them as a good option for horse racing betting, not least of which is their Free Bet Club. If you opt into the club and bet £15+ on horse racing between Monday and Sunday (at odds of evens or greater), you’ll earn a £3 free bet. The £15 must be a single racing bet but you can do it on two occasions during the week, so could earn £6 of free bets for placing £30 of initial bets.
Their welcome offer allows you to earn £30 worth of free bets when you sign up, deposit and bet £10 on any sport. That £30 is made up of a £10 horse racing free bet, a £10 free bet builder and a £10 football free bet.
There is a free-to-play weekly predictor game called Racing Six, where you predict the winners of six races and can win up to £50,000, and BetUK also offer daily specials on horse racing, all of which make them the best new horse racing betting site.
How we rate horse racing bookmakers
We take the rating and recommendation of horse racing bookmakers very seriously and have stringent criteria for companies to even be considered for our list. Here are some of the factors that went into our thinking:
Regulation: This is a non-negotiable before we recommend any horse betting sites. They have to be regulated by the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) for us to even consider rating them, so you can be confident that every site above is safe to engage with. There are too many illegitimate gambling companies out there to take chances – every site mentioned on this page is UKGC-regulated and secure to use.
Reputation: Our recommended horse racing bookmakers are a mixture of household names and new horse racing betting sites. The reputation of the company was very important to us and while the well-known sites such as Betfred, BoyleSports and Bet365 have reputations that precede them, we also considered the burgeoning renown of the newer companies generating buzz in the industry and how well-regarded they are overseas.
Responsible gambling: Similarly to regulation, how committed the bookmaker is to responsible gambling was important to us. Is ‘When the fun stops. Stop.’ just a slogan to the company or have they taken genuine steps to ensure their actions towards their customers are morally sound? We considered their approaches to vital tools such as deposit limits, loss limits, reality checks and self-exclusion. More on this below.
Customer experience: How good an experience the site provides for its customers was also taken into account when choosing the best horse racing betting sites – across desktop, mobile and app. If the site design is smart and well laid out, if the useability is logical and straightforward, then that all makes for a better customer experience. Similarly, how easy it is to interact with staff and solve any potential issues is also a factor.
Promotions: Of course, a betting company can also be judged on its promotions and offers. Were these horse racing betting sites offering unique deals we hadn’t seen anywhere else or that really enticed us to sign up? If you feel like you’re getting more bang for your buck – be that in terms of free bets, odds boosts or one-off promotions – you’re more likely to use the site.
Remember to gamble responsibly
The paramount thing is to gamble responsibly. Betting should only ever be considered a form of entertainment – it has not, and will never be, a surefire way to make money, no matter how much you think you know about horse racing betting.
When betting, always assume you’ll lose and therefore, only bet what you can afford. Sports betting can also be addictive, so please take steps to remain in control of your time and budget.
Make sure you use the responsible gambling tools offered by betting companies such as deposit limits, reality checks, loss limits, time outs and self-exclusion. These can stop your gambling from getting out of hand.
There are several charities and healthcare providers should you wish to seek help for gambling-related issues. The providers below offer guidance, support and information:
Best horse racing betting sites summary
Ultimately, while we can recommend what we think are the best horse racing betting sites, the truth is that everyone is looking for something different from their chosen bookmaker.
What’s ‘best’ for one person will be different to what’s ‘best’ for another. You may want to focus on odds boosts, another person may want to have money-back offers if your horse is pipped at the post as a priority. Whatever your requirements, hopefully this information can help you make an informed decision about where you place a bet.
Remember, each of our recommended horse racing betting sites is fully licensed and regulated by the UKGC, ensuring that your personal and financial data is secure. Every site listed here is safe and legal.
