bet24.com was founded in 2001 by Holger Kristiansen, the man behind the Danish Odds game “Oddset-spil” which was the most successful game in Denmark during the mid-90’s. Originally bet24 offered purely sports betting services to its clients but over time the company expanded its offering to include casino and poker games. The company has clients in over 70 countries and a UK and Maltese gaming license.
Lotta Lindquist-Brosjö succeeded Holger Kristiansen as CEO of bet24 in October 2006. Lotta used to work for Ryanair in the Nordics and is building bet24's betting footprint across Europe.
The ultimate owner of Bet24 is Modern Times Group, MTG AB which owns 90% of the company. Modern Times Group is a Scandinavian based TV operator that claims to be the largest Free-TV and Pay-TV operator in Scandinavia and the Baltics as well as the largest shareholder in Russia ’s largest independent television network.
Unique is certainly one word to describe bet24’s website. They take the unusual step of listing the available sports in a right-hand menu (which admittedly is disorientating), whilst occupying the left-hand column with log-in fields, betting slip functionality and a slow-loading games jackpot. While both of these columns are static, you can scroll the content in the middle. Perhaps more time should be devoted to promoting the latest sports events and less on the poker and gaming products (which have a section of the website devoted to them).
Clicking on a sport in the left hand column can also prove slightly confusing, due to bet24’s decision to list the matches / races in chronological order, with no thought given to compartmentalising them. The customer is instead forced to choose a sub-section themselves and migrate themselves away from the chaos of markets staring them in the face. However, the bet slip functionality is very neat and does actually benefit from being placed on the left-hand side, where it’s clearly visible when making selections.
The live betting section clearly needs some work. To the untrained eye, you might be waiting for the In-Play markets to load before realising that they have done already. Then you realise that these aren’t necessarily current live events but just ones that bet24 intend to show.
Bet24’s odds won’t get too many punters excited about their odds, although they seem reasonable enough for core sports such as football, tennis and cricket. One suspects that, as a Swedish company, they’re more likely to be competitive on ice hockey, handball and bandy than anything else. At the time of writing, some of their football odds are standout, although one can’t help feel that’s more due to latency in updating prices than actually taking a position.
Customers will take a spectrum of views on the markets being offered, according to the matches or games in which they’re interested. If bet24 are covering a football match which might attract interest from Denmark or Sweden , you’ll get a sweet array of betting opportunities. Otherwise, you might find market range extremely limited. The number of sports covered is small-ish, and there is no greyhound betting available, despite an advert on the homepage to show live racing!
Clicking on ‘Contact Us’ automatically launches an email with support@bet24.com in the ‘To’ field – slightly disconcerting. However, there is also a freephone number, although working hours of 0800 – 2200 GMT is restrictive.
New Bet24 customer are offered a sport betting bonus of 50% on their first deposit up the value of £30. The bonus amount must be wagered 4 times at minimum odds of 1.50 before the bonus cash can be withdrawn.
It appears as though the bet24 sportsbook could do with a little TLC if it’s to challenge some of the bigger boys in the market. The problem is that they have nothing that really sets them apart from their competitors, unless you count listing their available sports down a right-hand menu instead of on the left!
Therefore, while they are harmless enough and offer a decent new customer promotion, they don’t quite match many of the others out there in terms of odds, range of markets, live betting or customer service. If they are to be a serious player, all of these areas need addressing soon.