RetroBet Bookmaker Review

RetroBet Summary

RetroBet Features

• A nice design and some stylish graphics
• Many varied betting markets and a good depth of bets
• A customer services team that’s helpful and efficient
• Loads of brilliant bonuses and promotions

Bonuses? Too Right There Are!

There are loads… bonuses galore! And not only for the bookie but right across the board. While we won’t be too specific because their promotions are often changed, we’ll give you an idea of what they have on offer.

For starters there is a nice welcome bonus that kicks in at 200 Turkish Lira and pays out a whopping 100% bonus up to a maximum of 350 TL, but that’s just for starters and at the time of this review there were no less that 12 other bonuses and promotions on offer.

They range from a 50% bonus that comes with combined and multi-bets, to ‘mobile phone-type’ bonuses, bonuses for introducing friends to the site, ‘investment’ bonuses, and all the way through to the more traditional cash bonuses for regular punters.

These, as we have said, will change periodically but RetroBet bookmaker clearly make it their business to offer a lot of varied and attractive bonuses, so we thoroughly recommend that these are checked out from time to time – even if it does need a bit of Google Translate to understand their finer points!

A Nice-Looking Site, with a Fair Bit of Swagger

With a whole bunch of bonuses still whirring around our heads (in a good way), we moved on to the bookmaker itself and were immediately struck by its good looks.

If first impressions count for you, then you’ll be quietly impressed by what RetroBet offer. The site has a pleasing look with some subtle colouring, which is accompanied by some nice, not-too-garish graphics. Equally important is that it’s also a site that’s easy to navigate around, all based on the traditional three-column layout.

The site consistently sticks to the same theme and, as per normal, the left sidebar is used to list their betting sports, with each line representing a different sport with numbers indicating how many markets and live markets are available. The exact number and variety of sports is something we’ll come onto, but it’s nicely designed and is done so in such a way it allows the punter to drill down on a country by country basis. Only when you’ve reached the base level does it fill the main body of the page with betting data. How many levels depends on the country and how it breaks down its different sports and competitions.

To use soccer as the most obvious example, a single click on the line opens a list – still within the sidebar – which is based mainly on countries, but at the top are a couple entitled ‘internationals’ and ‘international clubs’; these are options for international teams, international football and specific competitions like the UEFA Champions League and the Copa Libertadores.

Once a country is clicked on, it opens a sub-menu that lists the leagues available, and once you’ve drilled down to the base level it fills the main body of the page with all the data you need to make your bet. It’s presented in the form of a list of individual fixtures.

Each fixture is offered in a single line with standard info and bets – date and time of fixture, the three-way bet etc – with a number at the end of the line which, when clicked upon, lists all of the different bets and markets available for that fixture. And there are a lot. The odds default to decimal form and on the same line is a stats icon, which takes the bettor ‘off-site’ to a page provided by Sportradar, where there are a whole load of statistics relating to that fixture.

For live events – accessed via a link at the top of the page– they offer a very good match tracker graphic that keeps the customer up to date information on the progress of the match in detail. In addition, they offer all the bets and data you would expect to see on a quality site when live betting.

[NOTE: You need to have signed up to the site in order to gain access to this live betting service.]

Moving onto the main body of the sports betting page, it too defaults to listings of upcoming football fixtures, with games listed in in chronological order; the ones about to kick off at the top.

The right-hand column follows tradition, with the betting slip at the top, and below it is some in-house ads, for roulette or poker.

All in all, it’s a pleasing layout but, most importantly, it’s held together with some reliable and smooth functionality.

Loads of Markets – Spoilt for Choice In Fact

RetroBet bookmaker offer a really good range of sports, varying from the go-to sports of the day through to the more obscure and sometimes lesser-known sports. This good selection comes with some value bets and interesting, in-depth, betting markets. At the time of this review they were offering their customers no less than 24 sports:

Soccer, Basketball, Tennis, Handball, Baseball, Hockey, Football, Snooker, Darts, Cycling, Motor Sport, Boxing, UFC, Golf, Winter Sports

Despite including 24 different sports – a good, solid number – they still offer their punters some quality coverage, including, as you would expect, all the big leagues, events and competitions, but also loads of lower-level and amateur events that many customers may not have heard of. To use soccer as the obvious example again, they cover leagues regarded as the best in the world – English Premier League, Spanish Primera Division, German Bundesliga, French Ligue 1, Italian Serie A, Turkish Super League etc – but also many lesser known leagues from countries like Ecuador, Costa Rica, Peru and Saudi Arabia.

As with most quality betting sites, they offer some top-notch coverage of the big American Sports – NBA, NFL, MLB and NHL – and the world’s biggest tennis competitions and circuits – US Open, Wimbledon, French Open, ATP tour, WTA tour, Davis Cup etc. Also they go big on sports beyond the big American competitions and offer in-depth coverage of basketball and ice hockey and give superb coverage of an especially popular European sport – handball.

In terms of odds and value, RetroBet bookmaker is not far off the mark. With the industry standard being generally recognised as odds compiled between 105% and 106%, the fact that at the time of writing theirs averaged out at 108.5% comes within an acceptable range for a new site. And in fairness to their odds compilers, they were wholly consistent with those we tested coming within a 0.5% range.

Like to Bet on the Go? Not a Problem

As you would expect, RetroBet is a fully optimized mobile site and so if you prefer betting on the go – either on your smartphone, tablet or phablet – you will find a good configuration that displays the same info as the desktop site, and which translates perfectly to English (and we assume the other languages available). It works nicely for both iOS and Android and offers a good betting experience in terms of navigation and responsiveness and. There were no apps available at the time of the review but given that the mobile optimization works nicely this in not a major problem. They also can be accessed via Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Depositing? Withdrawing? – Not a Problem

Cash-out is an automated process on RetroBet bookmaker, so, in the normal scheme of things, they operate at the acceptable end of the scale, with pay-outs processed within 24 hours. At the time of this review, there were no negative comments online regarding RetroBet payouts, which is always a good sign.

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Turkish Facing but Still for All

The site is aimed predominantly at the Turkish market and so defaults to Turkish as its base language, but has a ‘toggle’ for English, Russian and Georgian, and translates to each. It uses Turkish Lira as its betting currency but, as standard, defaults to the Euro if funds are deposited through PayPal.

There are some restricted countries, and their customer services team informed us that the onus is on the customer to only play on RetroBet bookmaker if their ‘local authority’ rules permit. At the time of the review, punters from the US and UK were not permitted to bet on the site.

Safe and Secure. What More Can You Ask

Our view is that a reasonable gauge of a site’s reliability and security comes from online, and so it’s a positive sign that there were no adverse comments to be found. Equally, our review gave us no reason to doubt that RetroBet bookmaker is anything but a safe and secure place to have a bet. It also came across as well-managed and reliable.

We’re also happy to report that our dealings with their customer services team were good, with a live chat facility that worked nicely. All of our questions and queries were answered efficiently and quickly. There is also an email address (support@retrobet.com) where customers can send any questions or queries, and some useful FAQs.

One negative to report is that we found no evidence of RetroBet taking their responsible gambling duties seriously. While it may sound counter-intuitive for a site that relies on punters spending their money to promote this, we applaud those sites who acknowledge that betting can become problematic for some. Sadly we found no mention of this.

Our Verdict

First thing to say is the promotions and bonuses on offer are really good, with something for everyone. The live betting we also found to be excellent – with a super match tracker – and the odds fell into the respectable category for a new site.

If there was a disappointment, it was around the lack of mentions of responsible gambling and, from a professional viewpoint, it’s a shame the good translation doesn’t extend beyond the main betting pages.

Retrobet bookmaker doesn’t quite live up to our expectations, especially for punters from the UK and the US. For a better deal, check out our best betting sites below.