Betsonic Sports Review

Betsonic Summary

Betsonic Features

• A promising new bookmaker
• Reasonably competitive odds
• Large promotions on offer

Website

The landing page of the Betsonic Sports website is striking, with several sliding graphics and a range of colours. Whilst there is plenty going on, the site does not appear cluttered, and it is easy to navigate around. Selecting the sports section takes the user to the bookmaker, which adopts a black, red and grey theme. Customers are able to flick between decimal, fractional and American odds.

‘Hot links’ can be found on the left hand side of the page above the list of sports. The text for the sports is too big as it does not allow some letters of the words to be included in the menu bar. This is very poor.

The list of upcoming and popular matches can be found in the middle of the page. Unfortunately, the sport type is not listed, and therefore football, basketball, NFL etc. are all mixed up with each other which can be confusing for beginners or those without an intricate knowledge of each sport.

Access to ‘instant games’ can be found on the right hand side of the page, with ‘market movers’ beneath, and the bet slip above. There is an extensive statistics section (powered by Score24), which gives analysis and data on a plethora of different sports. This is a useful tool.

The live betting section is very similar, except the colour scheme is terrible. The teams currently playing are listed in white and the background is in grey, which makes deciphering the text very difficult.

When visiting the Betsonic Sports website address from a mobile device, customers are directed to the main unresponsive site on their device. This is obviously difficult to navigate around and not ideal. However, when searching for ‘mobile Betsonic’, it turns out that there is a demo mobile site in testing. This is much better, giving a smooth experience and allowing customers to easily switch between bet types, their account and other areas of the site. Customers are unable to sign up or login to the mobile site (an error message is returned), so it is likely that it is in the final stages of testing and will be released soon.

The website is restricted for customers from France and the USA.

Languages

BetSonic offer their website in several languages; English, Greek, Polish, Romanian, Turkish, Italian, Spanish and interestingly, Arabic.

Markets

There are a very low number of sports covered by Betsonic. At the time of review, there were 14 different disciplines available, with football, basketball, ice hockey and American football having the most markets. Sports such as bandy and rugby league did have their own section, however each discipline only had odds for one match.

The Betsonic Sports modus operandi appears to be solely to compile odds for upcoming events. Even when looking at football betting, there are no ante post, top scorer or specials markets. There are only ten countries from around the world whose leagues/matches are priced up – this is an extremely low number with most firms compiling odds for matches from at least 20 different nations. The English football coverage extends as far League Two. Again most firms tend to at least offer odds for the league below, The Conference.

The depth of the markets is also limited. English Championship football matches typically have around 33 additional markets on top of the 1X2 odds. This does not compare favourably with other online bookmakers, indeed BetVictor offered 77, Paddy Power 76 and TitanBet 95.

Odds

The Championship match between Ipswich Town v Charlton Athletic was used to assess the competitiveness of Betsonic’s odds. The figures below represent the book percentages of the same firms. The closer to 100% the sum of all the odds when displayed as percentages, the more competitive the odds:

BetVictor – 102.9%
PaddyPower – 105.6%
Betsonic – 106.0%
TitanBet – 107.2%

Betsonic come out third, just marginally behind big industry player PaddyPower. A book of 106% is around standard for the industry, so no real negatives with the odds compilation for football at least.

Bet Limits

Unlike most betting firms, Betsonic actually indicate their maximum stakes for different games and sports. To see the limits, customer can hover over their desired games. The maximum stake for English Premier League games is €1000, Championship games €600 and for League One, €500.

American football has varying limits, with college football capped at 100Euros. The maximum stake pre game for NBA matches is €300, with European basketball having a lower maximum of €100. The in play betting limits typically restricts customers to much smaller bets across all sports, with €20-100 maximums commonplace.

Promotions

When signing up for a Betsonic Sports account, customers are eligible for a 100% welcome bonus up to the value of €50. The bonus is available for customers residing in the EU (except for France) and can be activated by emailing support@betsonic.com with the subject ‘bonus 100%’

So what are the terms like? Not fantastic for those looking to get their money in and out quickly and make the most of the bonus. Firstly, any customer who has wagered prior to attempting to claim their bonus and has not resected the bonus wagering requirements are unable to receive the concession. Secondly, the bonus and deposit amount must be wagered at least 12 times in the bookmaker. Any bet must be a double upwards to contribute to the wagering requirement, with minimum combined odds of 1.75 required for each bet. The maximum stake per bet should also be equal or less than the first deposit to qualify towards the rollover requirements. Furthermore, if any bet contains a selection with odds of 1.20 or shorter, it will not be included.

The terms make it very difficult for customers to retain their initial deposit amount and benefit at all from the promotion offered. The stringent requirements are there to deter those who like to scrape bonuses, but it makes it very difficult and off-putting for the average punter when trying to enjoy the sign up promotion.

In addition to the 100% welcome bonus. Betsonic provide an alternative promotion for new customers. Their 50% welcome bonus enables punters to claim up to €100 as an initial bonus (based on a €200 deposit), but again the same requirements and terms apply. There is a €50 cashback offer for existing customers. If they place a treble on the football and just one match loses, the customer receives a refund. This refund must be rolled over five times in the bookmaker before being eligible for withdrawal.

Betsonic Sports’s promotions are fairly large in size for a relatively new company, but they are very difficult to extract.

Customer Services

As with many new and small online bookmakers, there is no direct telephone numbers for customers to use to discuss their queries. However, Betsonic do state that if customers wish to speak via the telephone, then the individual should email the company with their name, topic and phone number and they will receive a call back. This is better than many similar sized firms.

BetSonic provide one email address – support@betsonic.com. This email service is manned 7 days a week from 9am to 11pm CET. There is no live chat service.

Payments

There are several ways in which customers can fund their Betsonic accounts. Having several e-wallets has to be commended, as this method of funding accounts is becoming increasingly popular.

Final Thoughts

The Betsonic Sports website is generally well put together, and the piloting of a mobile site signals the intentions of the firm to expand their operations. However, several improvements are needed. The list of sports is poor and the limits are low, especially when it comes to live betting. At face value, there is an attractive sign up bonus, but the terms and conditions make it far less appealing than at first glance. For low staking punters who want another option, there is nothing really negative to say about Betsonic, but to attract a larger market share, they will need to expand their markets and limits. As such a young company, this is possible.