New players only. Minimum £10 qualifying bets. No cash-outs allowed. Free bet is a one-time stake of £30, minimum odds of 2, stake is not returned, maximum Conversion £30, 10X wagering the winnings, valid for 5 Days from issue. Excluded Skrill deposits. Full T&Cs Apply
One of the most exciting things about online sports betting is that it’s always changing. New sportsbooks are literally being launched all the time. In turn, this has two knock-on effects. It gives bettors more choice, and the competition drives older bookies to up their games.
GatoBet definitely qualifies as a part of this new wave, having only launched in 2019. One look at it, however, shows you that this is already a professional, modern business. It’s operated by a successful parent company, and certainly has the potential to make a real splash in this crowded pool.
Can GatoBet capitalise on this apparent promise? Do they stand out from the multitude of new bookies that are springing up all the time? To find the answers to these questions and plenty more, read on.
A welcome offer is the first thing many people will check out when visiting a new sportsbook. It must achieve two purposes, therefore: catch people’s attention, and deliver enough value to persuade them into signing up.
The GatoBet sign up offer achieves the first goal, with its advertisement of a £30 free bet in return for spending at least £10. As for the offer’s value… well, that’s a little more complicated. We’ll explain exactly what we mean shortly, but – before we do – let’s take a quick look at how to use this offer:
The experienced bettors amongst you will already have detected some troubling signs. Well, you’ll detect even more when you check out some of the T’s & C’s!
To be quite honest, we’re not entirely sure how to feel about this welcome offer. There are definitely things to like about it. Most obviously, betting £10 in real money to get a £30 free bet is a nice exchange in anyone’s book. As a value proposition, it’s equal to – or better than – sign up promotions at many major sportsbooks.
On the flip-side, of course, are the rollover requirements. Betting through your winnings 10 times is a serious task. The fact that this must be done in a mere five days makes it even tougher, although in fairness there are no odds or market restrictions on how you actually bet it.
GatoBet’s welcome offer does hold some appeal, but won’t be for everybody. In circumstances like this, a bookie should really have a stable of tasty ongoing promotions to ensure they attract new customers, and hang on to existing ones.
In terms of volume, GatoBet’s range of ongoing promotions is respectable, with six available at the time of writing. In terms of actual quality, however… well, it’s a mixed bag once again.
Let’s take a closer look at each of the offers.
Right now, GatoBet technically have two separate ongoing promotions for football. Realistically, though, there are only a couple of things to distinguish between them.
One is for the Premier League, while the other is for the EPL, FA Cup, Bundesliga, Serie A, and La Liga. The promo codes differ too: they’re ‘BACK’ and ‘CLEATS’ respectively. Apart from that, they work in exactly the same way. Both provide similar value to the sign up deal, but suffer from the same drawbacks.
To trigger the offers, you’re asked to bet £25 on those aforementioned competitions. Do so, and you’ll unlock a tidy £10 free bet, to be spent on anything you please. So far so good, but – as with the welcome offer – there’s a catch. Once again, you must bet through any free bet winnings 10 times before they’re converted to real money. GatoBet at least give you 30 days to do so this time, rather than just five, but it’s still a daunting prospect.
Football might be the biggest British betting market, but the sport of kings is still enormously popular. As such, we were pleased to see that GatoBet do indeed have an ongoing promotion specifically for racing fans.
How does it work? Well, you’ll be stunned to learn that it’s pretty similar to the other offers we’ve looked at! Once again, you bet a certain amount of money, and get a free bet in return. In this case, at least, the values of both parts are lowered. You only need to place £15 in qualifying bets, and the free bet is smaller too, at only £5.
£15 in wagers for a £5 free bet is fair value. But once more, you must bet through any winnings 10x before they convert to real money.
In addition to the three we’ve looked at, GatoBet currently have three further promotions for other sports: ice hockey, table tennis, and basketball. They’re all much of a muchness, though.
All of them follow the same well-worn, ‘Bet X, Get Y’ pattern. Aside from the sports you need to bet on, and the promo codes you must use, literally the only differences are those X and Y amounts. For table tennis and basketball, you’re betting £15 to get a £5 free bet. For ice hockey, it’s £25 for a £10 token.
Overall, we’re pleased to see a few different sports represented in these promotions. The lack of variety, though, is frankly ridiculous. We’d certainly like to see the likes of Best Odds Guaranteed, Acca Insurance, and so on added sooner rather than later.
While some bookies choose to specialise in one or two sports, the vast majority try to cater to a wide range of needs. Naturally, this makes sense if you’re simply trying to bring in as many customers as possible, and it’s the approach GatoBet have opted for too.
We’re pleased to say that they have absolutely succeeded in their efforts, providing an outstanding selection of sports markets. At the top end, these include old favourites such as football, horse racing, tennis, cricket, golf, boxing, motorsports, and rugby. The biggest American leagues – the NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL – are all supported too, and there’s a nice selection of eSports markets, including Dota 2, Overwatch, and CS:GO. Rounding out this impressive collection are more niche markets like chess, futsal, and beach volleyball.
Unsurprisingly, the most individual markets are available on football… and it’s not particularly close. The likes of tennis, horse racing, and eSports still have dozens, if not hundreds available at a time, though. Importantly, while the volume isn’t quite so great as Pre-Match, the Live betting section has plenty of available markets too. Again, these cover a nice variety of sports, not just the big-hitters like football and tennis.
On top of all that, there’s plenty of room for creativity in how you bet too. Alongside the usual bet types – Match Winner, Correct Score, and so on – you’ll find highly-specific markets, specials, and outright bets for many major competitions.
While there’s a lovely wide world of sports out there, football indisputably stands atop the pile when it comes to betting. It’s great to see, therefore, that GatoBet’s selection of football markets is absolutely exceptional
For starters, the sheer number of different competitions you can bet on is staggering. Both international and domestic contests from all around the world are represented here, covering multiple continents and a whole range of ability levels. On just one sportsbook, you’ll be able to wager on everything from the Champions League and Premier League, to the Copa Libertadores, Confederations Cup… or even the Korean second division!
Once again, there’s a high degree of variety in how you bet on all of this too. Most major competitions will have outright markets available, letting you bet on the likes of Winner, Top Goalscorer, and To Be Relegated. Looking shorter-term, there are also plenty of ways to bet pre-match. Here are just a few of them:
InfernoBet also bundle some of the most common multiples together for you, saving you the time of combining them yourself. ‘Match Result and Over 2.5 Goals’, and ‘Match Result and Both Teams to Score’, are just a couple of examples.
There’s also a solid selection of Outright markets on offer, ranging from League Winner to Top Scorer, and these are available on a surprisingly broad range of competitions. On top of all that, InfernoBet also provide intriguing Specials bets for the top markets, with ‘Player X Top Goalscorer and Team Y to Win the League’ being a particularly attractive proposition.
Football might be the main attraction when it comes to sports betting, but horse racing really isn’t too far behind. Despite this, many new bookies struggle to provide betting on it for licensing reasons. We’re pleased to say, however, that GatoBet do indeed have a horse racing section in place.
Right now, it’s not perfect. The only markets currently available are from the USA. You’ll still find dozens of Winner and Each Way bets available, on races at some of America’s biggest courses. But ideally, we’d like to see racecourses from the UK and Ireland added sooner rather than later.
A critically underrated sport when it comes to betting, tennis is actually an extremely popular market for punters. GatoBet have done an excellent job of providing for these bettors. In fact, tennis currently has the second-most markets of any sport on the platform.
All the major competitions from around the world are supported here. That covers the Grand Slams – like Wimbledon and the French Open – to dozens of different men’s and women’s tour events. In-play, pre-match, and outright wagers are all available, with GatoBet truly having left no stone unturned.
As noted, GatoBet have done a wonderful job of catering for a broad range of sports fans here. In addition to the aforementioned massive markets, British favourites like cricket, rugby, and golf are all given extensive coverage. Again, that extends to pre-match, live, and outright markets. There’s plenty of depth to these markets too, with betting opportunities available all year round, not just for the biggest contests.
Less-heralded markets like snooker and handball are shown some love too, and – when it comes to eSports – the selection is genuinely impressive. In fact, at the time of writing, there are more markets for League of Legends alone than any other sport except football.
It’s simply not good enough nowadays to only provide long-term bets for customers. For many, wagering on live matches is actually preferable to the old way of doing things.
Well, fans of in-play betting can have no complaints here. A huge emphasis has been put on live markets. In fact, these are the first odds you’re shown, rather than traditional pre-match ones.
You won’t quite find the breadth of markets here as you would for other bet types, but the selection is still impressive. Football and tennis fans are particularly well-served, and there are plenty of live betting opportunities for the likes of basketball, cricket, and eSports as well.
For many, using a mobile device rather than a computer has already become their default way to bet. In this context, it would seem pretty darn important that a new bookie got its mobile features right.
Well, apparently nobody told GatoBet! For starters, there’s no mobile app whatsoever available, either for iOS or Android users. Given the industry experience of GatoBet’s operators, ProgressPlay, this omission is frankly bizarre. It’s a mistake which simply must be corrected, sooner rather than later.
In this situation, you’d hope to have a quality mobile website in place, as the alternative to an app. Unfortunately, that’s not the case here either.
The GatoBet mobile site isn’t exactly terrible, but it’s certainly not great. The interface doesn’t adapt well to smaller screen sizes, and navigation is a chore. You can still place bets easily enough, and manage your account, but – in terms of quality – it’s below what we’ve come to expect in this day and age.
If you’ve been reading this GatoBet review closely, you’ll have gathered that we’re generally fans of what we’ve found here. This, however, is one area in which the GatoBet sportsbook lags behind its more established competition.
There’s a glaring lack of exciting features here. Live streaming is completely absent, which isn’t a big surprise from a non-premium bookie. More jarring are the absences of fairly basic features, which most modern sportsbooks have in place. A bet builder, for example, or a rewards program.
Taken alone, those absences might not seem like a big deal. When a bookie is also lacking the likes of a Best Odds Guaranteed promotion or a mobile app, though… it starts to paint a pretty lackluster picture.
It’s not all doom and gloom. Streaming might be missing, for example, but live statistics and a visualisation tool still keep you informed about ongoing matches. Overall, though, GatoBet could do with offering a few more exciting features to feel like a true alternative to the more established bookies out there.
While they can’t compete with the biggest bookies in some respects, GatoBet actually have a respectable range of payment methods on offer. It’s not the widest we’ve seen, but there should be an option for everyone.
Your choices are:
The minimum deposit amount is either £10 or £20 depending on the method. All deposits are processed instantly, except for bank transfer (which is naturally dependent on your bank).
The same options are available when making a withdrawal, except for Paysafecard. The minimum withdrawal amount is a mere £2.50, which is unusually low, but unfortunately all transactions also incur a £2.50 fee. Processing times also vary significantly depending on the method, from 1-7 business days, but all are subject to a ‘Pending Period’ of three days.
There are few things more annoying than a convoluted registration process. Fortunately this isn’t a problem with GatoBet, with only a few minutes of your time required to open an account.
To begin, simply head to GatoBet.com on either your computer or mobile device, and click the ‘Join Now’ option. You will now see the first, brief registration screen. Enter your email address and phone number in the relevant fields, set a password for your account, and hit the ‘Submit’ button at the bottom.
You’ll now see the second registration screen, which – again – is pretty straightforward. You’ll need to provide a few more personal details here, namely your name, date of birth, gender, and address. You can also determine your marketing preferences, and have the option of entering a promo code. Once you’re done, just agree to the terms and conditions, and click ‘Submit’ once more.
A four-digit confirmation code will now be sent to you via email and SMS. Enter that code into the pop-up box back on GatoBet’s website to verify your account, and you’re good to go. You can now head to the Cashier area to make a deposit, and start betting. If you’re planning to trigger either the welcome offer or an ongoing promotion, be sure to enter the correct promo code when making that deposit.
Quite honestly, needing to verify your identity with any bookie is a pain. Unfortunately it’s a necessary evil which is in place to help protect your funds, and with GatoBet you must also provide ID before making a withdrawal.
Fortunately, doing so is fairly quick and easy to do here. These are the handful of steps you must take:
A bookie can have the best features and range of markets in the world. Quite frankly though, if the interface stinks… nobody is going to use that sportsbook anyway! Not only is that not the case here; the interface is actually fantastic. It might not look spectacular visually, but the whole thing is intuitively arranged and mechanically sound.
Several of the platform’s most important sections – including Cashier, Account, and Help – are available via a handy top menu. On the bottom menu you’ll find further useful links, including the FAQ and the general T’s & C’s.
The bulk of the screen though, as you’d expect, is dedicated to betting markets. Browsing through these is an incredibly smooth process. To the far left, you have a scrolling menu containing every available sport. You’re given the option here to view either Live or Pre-Match markets.
Select a sport, then a competition, and all the eligible matches will be shown in a larger area. Click one of those, and you’ll get the specific markets and odds available on that match. When you spot a good price, you simply click it to add the selection to your betslip as normal.
Nowadays, you should be able to get any queries answered nice and swiftly. That is indeed the case on GatoBet, whose customer support offering is impressive.
You have two ways to contact the support team: email (via a ticketing system), or live chat. Naturally live chat is the quicker method, and it has excellent coverage too, being available 08:00 – 00:00 GMT every day of the week.
Elsewhere, there is technically an FAQ in place, but it’s fairly uninspired. For starters, it’s clearly been written with the Gatobet casino section in mind, rather than the sportsbook. Even the relevant answers are pretty brief, and it’s not particularly well-organised either.
GatoBet are a relatively new arrival on the sports betting scene, having only launched in 2019. There’s plenty of experience behind them, though. This comes courtesy of ProgressPlay, the site’s creators and operators. While they’ve focused more on casinos in the past, they’ve launched several sportsbooks in the past couple of years, and are generally a respected name in the industry.
GatoBet hold licenses with both the UK Gambling Commission and Malta Gaming Authority. Like ProgressPlay, they’re based in tax-friendly Malta.
Considering how recently they were founded, GatoBet have come a long way in a remarkably small amount of time. Quite honestly, we’ve seen much older sportsbooks have far greater problems than anything you’ll find here.
Obviously, there’s still some work to be done. Neither the welcome offer nor the ongoing promotions create a great first impression. The lack of a mobile app is a clear error that should be rectified. Other common features – like a Bet Builder or Acca Insurance – wouldn’t be hard to implement, but would greatly improve the offering.
With all that said, there’s already plenty to like here. The interface, while not flashy, is wonderfully intuitive. Both the breadth and depth of betting markets is outstanding. The licenses, customer support, and payment options are all highly respectable too.
GatoBet might need a little while to eliminate their weaknesses. Even as currently constituted, though, this is a solid sportsbook which is well worth checking out.