Founded in 1996, the first online sportsbook was created just two years after the birth of the first online casino. Bet placed by a player from Finland: First sports bet placed online in history. Event bet on: Football match between Tottenham Hotspur and Hereford United. Result: The world of gambling has changed forever.
Since that fateful day more than 20 years ago, both access to the Internet and participation in online sports betting have skyrocketed. In fact, it's predicted that nearly $60 billion will be wagered with online bookmakers in 2024, which is some serious money - more than the annual GDP of some small countries.
The ever-expanding and lucrative online betting industry continues to spawn new betting sites. But not all of these sites are worth your time, and some should definitely be avoided. That's where we come in!
This guide will help you determine which new betting sites are worth your business. With so many alternatives out there, it's hard not to feel overwhelmed by the choices and potentially fall prey to some unethical practices.
Finally, we would like to send you on your way with some valuable beginner betting tips and reminders. By the time you finish reading this guide, we sincerely hope that you will have a solid foundation from which to begin your journey into the world of online betting!
Recently launched books that take US players
The same 8 facts for every site below, and nothing beyond them. How the list is made.
10 operators, sorted by what each one actually pays out on sign-up, who licenses it and how established the brand is. Bonus figures below are the ones the operator publishes.
Commercial content. 21+ only. Gambling involves risk — never stake money you cannot afford to lose. Offers and terms change; check the operator page before you deposit.
Qualities that the Best New Online Betting Sites Possess
Trustworthy/Safe
The sad reality is that many Internet gambling sites are run in ways that are just plain wrong. Some are downright dishonest, while others use sketchy methods that give gambling a bad name, such as setting odds that are completely unfair; or taking their sweet time paying people who have won, and for reasons that are just not acceptable. What we really care about is helping our readers stay away from these sites.
Traditionally, we look at a site's history of dealing with customers and consider its reputation, but since these are new betting sites, the process is a bit different. We have to dig a little deeper, researching things like terms and conditions, average payout times, and the background of the companies and owners behind the online sportsbooks.
When choosing a new betting site, there is no more important consideration than security. You'll be depositing real money into an account at any bookmaker you choose, and that requires a level of trust that most people reserve for their banks or when dealing with government agencies. We take your trust very seriously and your gaming experience even more so. We expect a bookmaker to provide a reliable service and to be as honest as the day is long.
Responsive and Helpful Customer Service
The fundamental aspect of a great online gaming experience is excellent customer service. You want the online sportsbook that you patronize to ensure that any and all issues are dealt with quickly and emphatically. If you've ever dealt with a large corporation that doesn't prioritize dealing with actual people in an actual service capacity, then you know how almost unbearably frustrating that can be. And that is one of the main reasons why we say to you: bet on a book that offers excellent customer service.
The Vegas Aces lobby, our own screenshot taken in September 2026.
Before placing any bets with a new site, do a little background work on their customer service. There should be a well-defined part of their website set up to handle customer issues. Find that section and make sure there are at least three different ways to contact them. You should almost always see those three options:
Phone
Email
Instant Messaging;
Before you sign up, it's a good idea to try the different ways to contact the company. Start by calling the phone number. See if a real, live person answers and can help you. Then send an e-mail to the contact address. Note how long it takes to get a response; the faster, the better. Finally, use their online chat feature and see if it's staffed and can help you in real time. It's just a few things to do, but it can save you a lot of trouble and time if any of these contact points are faulty.
Wide Range of Banking Options
New online betting sites should ideally offer a wide range of banking options. More importantly, any site you decide to join should offer the financial transaction method that's easiest for you. From there, it's a geographical consideration; if you're based outside the US, you'll want to make sure that the site you use has a variety of methods to accommodate you.
You may want to use your credit card on the Internet. That probably works for most of your transactions, but if you're in the United States, you'll need to find another method. U.S. law now prohibits banks from sending money to companies they know are in the gambling business. If you want to bet and use an American credit card, you can't do it legally. In this situation, you'll have to pay by some other means, such as Bitcoin or an e-wallet.
Different payment methods have different processing speeds. You may not be too concerned about how slow a particular method is when you deposit, but when it comes to withdrawing, you want the method you use to be fast. Here is a list of some of the average processing times for the payment methods most commonly used by online gamblers.
Bitcoin - Usually instant
E-wallets - Can be instant, but may take 3-4 days depending on how quickly the bookmaker processes your request
Credit/Debit Card - 2-5 days
eCheck - 1-3 days
Manuscript Submission - A period of 2-3 weeks or more;
Quality Website
We also discovered that the professionalism and quality of the website is really what matters most. A well-designed website can have a huge impact on the customer experience in several specific areas. Here are some of the key reasons why having a simple, quality website is critical:
Graphics Quality - These days, online betting sites offer a wide variety of bets and features
one preferred style of sports betting is known as "live betting" or "in-game betting". This is a style of betting that allows you to place bets while a game is in progress. Some new betting platforms allow for live streaming of the event and an interactive interface where you can make your picks while enjoying the action. This requires smooth streaming and cutting-edge visuals to create a satisfying, heart-pounding experience for players
Website Design - When you're not betting live, there are occasions when time is a significant factor for bettors;
The Best Odds
In the long run, sports betting is a game of numbers. The smallest change in odds can mean everything. That's why we want our readers to bet only on the new betting sites that we recommend and that offer them the best odds and stakes.
One of the extraordinary advantages that online gambling sites have over their land-based competitors is this: despite the ridiculous overhead required for staff, utilities, state taxes and the like, online betting sites can afford to offer you more favorable odds. Since successful sports betting is all about finding the most valuable lines (even a half-point difference can mean the difference between winning and losing), this advantage is huge.
Variety of Wagers
In today's always-connected, always-hurrying society, the very brevity of life seems to preclude attention spans. While we can't put our heads together and change this enormous collective outcome, we can work around it in our own lives. One way is to choose new gambling sites with full menus of bets that will keep you interested and entertained.
Life is full of variety and we try to reflect that in the sportsbooks we recommend to you, dear readers. We try to find books that are not only functional and reliable, but also offer a lot of breadth. This means that they offer a lot of different types of sports and events to bet on, and within those events, a lot of different types of bets. The more options you have, the more creative you can get. And that gives you the chance to find a little niche in the betting world that you can exploit for profit.
Worthwhile Bonuses and Rewards Programs
Feeling appreciated is a wonderful feeling, and it applies to online sports betting as much as anything else. That's why when we're looking for the newest and best online betting sites, we pay close attention to the upfront bonuses these companies offer and the loyalty rewards programs they have in place. Nothing says "we want you here" like free money!
Almost every bookmaker has some form of welcome bonus for new customers. These usually come in the form of matching deposits or free betting credits, depending on when the bonus is received. Matching money is often given for the first deposit, while free betting credits are given just for signing up, but before making a deposit.
However, there are many conditions that come with them. For example, you may have to place a bet and then wait for your winnings to be processed before you can see any money in your account. And just because you have money in your account doesn't mean you have permission to do with it as you please. If using a betting site is a new experience for you, don't just use their website as your gateway to the world of sports betting.
More valuable rewards are given for customer loyalty. Most new bookmakers have some form of loyalty program. They track your bets, measuring their size and the frequency with which you make them, to determine your status as a player in the books. If you're a high roller or otherwise particularly lucrative to a site, you may be awarded anything from expensive prizes to much-touted vacations to cars.
Common Sports Wagers
Moneyline Betting
A Money Line bet means that you are picking the winner of the contest, pure and simple. Most sporting events involve unevenly matched opponents, and money line odds express which side is favored, which side is the underdog, and what your potential return is for a winning bet. All of this comes to us in the form of either a positive or negative 3-digit number.
For Example
You may be placing a bet on an upcoming boxing match.
Fighter A is the heavy favorite and is listed at -500 odds;
A bettor must wager $500 in order to win $100. A $500 bet on Fighter A that wins would pay out a total of $600. That's $100 in winnings and the $500 you wagered back.
On the other side of the equation is the underdog. In this case, it may appear that Fighter B is receiving odds of +650. This would mean that for every $100 bet, the player would win $650 if they bet on Fighter B and he wins. As in the previous example, if we bet $100 on Fighter B and he won, our total return would be $750.
The 3-digit number can still be a favorite or an underdog, since it is the first number to appear in the series of numbers that run away from 0. The number can also be a favorite and appear in a different form than when it first appeared. The number can also be an underdog. Even odds are -100, which means that you get $100 for every $100 you put into the game.
Handicap Betting
Suppose you want to pick a winner in an upcoming contest, but you want to avoid the uneven odds that money line bets often present. Most sports offer some form of handicap betting to help level the playing field. These bets are commonly referred to as "point spreads".
In this case, the oddsmaker may feel that the Patriots should beat Cleveland by 13 points. They will set a handicap, or spread, somewhere between 12.5 and 13.5 points. If you want to bet on New England, your line might be even money at -13.5. That is, you take the final score and subtract 13.5 from the Patriots' total. Obviously, New England has to win by 14 points or more for this bet to pay off.
If they win by less than 14 points, the bet is actually a loser. Conversely, you will see the Browns odds listed as +13.5. At the end of the contest, 13.5 points will be added to the total to determine the winner. They may lose the actual game, but as long as they keep it close enough to "cover the spread", the bet still wins.
Futures Bets
Futures bets, as the name implies, are determined in the future. Instead of betting on a single game or event, these bets are placed on the outcome of an entire season. Sports bettors often place these bets before the season starts, predicting which team will win its conference or championship.
Bets can be placed on a number of different outcomes. In addition to the championship bets you might expect, you will find bets on individual performance awards, such as the MVP or Heisman Trophy. You will also see bets on which teams will win their divisions and/or conferences.
Identifying a winning team before the rest of the betting public does can result in substantial profits on futures bets. Just a few years ago, Leicester City won the English Premier League despite being 5,000-to-1 underdogs. There were several players who actually hit this bet and made huge profits.
Totals Bets
Sometimes you may have an intuition about how a contest will play out, even if you're not entirely sure which team will come out on top. If this is the case, you can opt for a total or over/under bet. These bets are based on the combined scores of the two teams in the contest.
For example, suppose the Golden State Warriors are playing the Houston Rockets. This game promises to be high scoring. We may not be able to figure out which team has a better chance of winning, so we could alternatively bet on the total score. In this scenario, let's say the bookmaker sets the total (or line) at 275.
A standard betting approach for prognosticators who are confident in their predictions is to pair a money line or spread bet with a total bet. You believe the Warriors will win and that the total will be higher than the spread. You put both predictions together on one ticket. This not only increases the odds, but also the potential payout. This is a common approach for bettors who are very confident in their prediction.
Proposition Bets
A prop bet is a bet on something that doesn't fit into one of the above categories. These bets can be on anything and are often very creative and out there. A great example of when to use these bets is when betting on the Super Bowl.
Every year, sportsbooks around the world offer a wide variety of Super Bowl betting odds. These bets don't just cover who will win or lose, they go far beyond that. For example, you can bet on the outcome of the coin toss or the length of the national anthem. You can bet on which player will score first, or even the color of the Gatorade that will be poured on the winning coach's head. Prop bets have become an integral part of the Super Bowl betting phenomenon, and their existence raises all sorts of questions about the legality and morality of sports gambling.
Beginners Betting Tips
Whether you are new to betting on sports or simply looking for a fresh online betting site, these useful tips apply just the same.
It's crucial to keep in mind that gambling can have对应potential ways问题to影响你的生活.
Therefore, it is important to remain disciplined, responsible, and honest with yourself at all times.
Bankroll Management
The term bankroll management refers to both planning and organizing the money you are going to use for gambling ahead of time. This is done to avoid the problems that can sometimes arise when participating in any type of gambling. The first step in effective bankroll management is to determine the size of your bankroll. It must be an amount that you can afford to lose. And it should be an amount that, if lost, would not cause any kind of financial disruption in your daily life.
Say your bankroll is $500 for the month and you only want to bet one contest each week. Your betting plan would be to make four $125 bets. This helps you stay organized with your money so you don't blow through your bankroll too quickly. And it keeps you from making stupid bets with your last few dollars.
Document Your Bets
One useful tip for improving your odds is to keep a clear record of your betting habits. You can do this by simply writing down each bet you make, but in the long run, using spreadsheets on a computer will prove more helpful. The more detailed your records, the more useful they will be.
When documenting your bets, be sure to record a lot of information. Record the choice you made, the odds you were given, and the outcome-won, lost, or pushed. Also note the reasoning behind your choice and where you got the advice that led you to it. Compare this to what you did the last time you were in a similar situation. Keep doing this, and over time you will develop a very distinctive signature as a bettor. And you will not only learn what your signature is, you will learn how to read it.
Being a successful sports bettor requires more work than simply picking games to win. It requires the relentless refinement of a craft, the paying of constant attention to detail, and the reading of one's results with the kind of analysis often reserved for the postmortem of a failed military campaign. The successful bettor treats this work as a serious job, and the more effort one puts into it, the more profit one can reasonably expect to get out of it.
Find Positive Value
The odds set for a particular contest carry an implied probability. Thus, a bet with odds of -100 means that each side has a 50% chance of winning, since the return is $100 won for every $100 bet. Expected odds on a coin toss, for example. But what if the sports book offered +200 odds on heads and -400 odds on tails?
Here, the bookmaker has made an underdog bet on heads, even though there is a 50-50 chance that either outcome will occur. Suppose you had to bet on heads, no matter how strong your intuition was that the next roll would come up tails. The only time you'd bet on heads and not get a lousy line is if the actual probability of heads coming up next is greater than the implied probability given by the odds.
Shop for the Best Odds
There's no rule that says you can only sign up with a single sportsbook. You can, and really should, think about signing up with 2 or more so that you can peruse the finest odds for each game or event.
Generally, online sportsbooks will offer comparable odds for each contest. However, there are times when there are slight variations. And even if the difference is small, it's always worth your time to find the best odds you can.
The professional oddsmakers at sportsbooks are remarkably accurate in their predictions. When it comes to gambling, it's absolutely essential that they get it right if they hope to turn a profit. And yet, even these nearly infallible predictors allow each college and NFL team a projected margin of error within their point spread bets.
This means that when they send out a line for any given game, there are guaranteed to be a handful of both good and bad college teams within it.
Good teams that might win by a wide margin - and bad teams that might lose by a wide margin. And yet, on any given Saturday or Sunday afternoon, your trusty betting guides will have every team within their projected range of wins and losses. So they're going to be right.
And they might be wrong.
And they might be right.
And they could also be wrong, depending in part on whether the controlling interests for your gambler-friendly neighborhood casino would just as soon see you win or lose.
Research
However, research is of paramount importance to those who seek victory. The top prognosticators are never satisfied and are always, and I mean always, looking for the slightest edge. They are, in essence, great number crunchers, with a straw of data even in the classiest of establishments.
Note
The more research you do, the better your guesses will be. And when your guesses are good, finding good bets will be a breeze.
Research can involve all kinds of efforts. You may analyze complex statistics and create intricate models that help you generate simulated outcomes on which to base your decisions. Others will simply watch the commentators on TV or peruse sports articles online. No matter what you do, remember that research and winning are inextricably linked.
Refine Your Data
Once you are accustomed to collecting data, the next step in becoming a profitable sportsbook operator is identifying which information was valuable and which was not. If you want to build accurate models, you must constantly refine your data. Consider the following example: You may find that a team's home and away records are far better indicators of its potential performance than travel distances. You might also find that any bet that involves a team traveling across the country is a bad bet. In this scenario, you would refine your data and model by incorporating your new findings.
Learning from mistakes happens through constant refinement. Let's say part of your data set is a prediction by ESPN's Steven A. Smith. After a few weeks, you probably learn that he's literally almost always wrong. So the next move would be to remove his prediction from your data set, or at least change your approach to his information. The better move, however, would probably be to find more value in betting against him from now on.
Never Chase Losses
Important
Losses encourage a gambler to gamble more, not least because the gambler first believes that he or she has a fair chance of winning back the losses.
Often, when chasing losses, a gambler will significantly increase his or her bets compared to what he or she would have bet had he or she stayed with the same ill-fated plan that led to repeated losses in the first place.
For a gambler, the emotion of pursuing a winning strategy and being on the verge of regaining his reputation as a person with a winning hand is a powerful motivator for increasing the bet.
Resist the urge to ever feel entitled to a win. Gambling doesn't work that way; each bet is separate from all the others. We all have to face bad stretches when we get the raw end of the deal. But when that happens, it's more important than ever to stick to the betting plan and otherwise take care of your bankroll with as much aplomb as you can muster.
The only way to protect yourself from catastrophic losses and the resulting financial chaos during a losing streak is to make the right decisions. One of the main ways gamblers dig themselves into the proverbial hole is by "chasing" losses. This means not accepting that the streak will end and betting more and more until you run out of money. When your luck doesn't turn as you planned, you can quickly lose significant amounts of money, leading to consequences that are too horrible to describe. NEVER CHASE YOUR LOSSES!
To Wrap Things Up
We are constantly checking and reviewing new betting sites and only pass on the best recommendations to our readers. You can rest assured that you are dealing with the safest, highest quality online sportsbooks on the Internet.
So take a look at our list of recommendations and discover the betting site that's right for you. Now that you've perused this guide, you should have a clear understanding of the new, best betting sites and a solid foundation of knowledge from which to make your decisions. Whether you want to put a lot of time and effort into picking winners or just want to make the games you watch more interesting, online sports betting is available to everyone.
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