The following is a review of the betting agency TAB Sportsbet. I will update this review periodically to keep the details up to date. You can view other agencies that support Australian dollars here. You can view a list of other international bookmakers here.
TAB Sportsbet is owned and operated by Tabcorp Holdings, which is a well known brand in Australia for gaming and wagering. Visitors to the website must choose whether to be directed to the New South Wales (NSW) or Victoria sports betting site, because the company is licensed in both states. If you aren’t from either state, just pick one at random. The odds and features appear to be identical between the NSW and Victoria sites.
- New member offers – None. Presumably because it’s such a well known brand, with retail outlets in NSW and Victoria, TAB Sportsbet has chosen not to offer new member deals.
- Deposit options – Credit card, TAB Retail Outlets, Cheque, Money Order, BPAY, Electronic Funds Transfer, Australia Post Bank
- Withdrawal options – Electronic Funds Transfer, Cheque, TAB Retail Outlets, Australia Post Bank
- Transaction fees – none for Australian users
- Currencies supported – AUD, GBP, JPY, HKD, EUR, USD
- Minimum bet – $1
- Turnover requirements – none that I’m aware of
- Betting Markets / Options – the selection of betting markets is more than enough for most punters needs. They provide a good array of bet types for popular sporting fixtures.
- Live betting – Live ‘in-play’ betting during popular fixtures is available by phone and through their retail outlets in NSW and Victoria
- Credit facilities – Not that I’m aware of
- Restricted countries – TAB Sportsbet is not available to residents of the United States, U.S. Virgin Islands, Netherlands, Dutch Antilles, Hong Kong, Germany, Turkey, Denmark and Hungary
- Upsides
- Backed by a well known and trusted brand
- Simple and intuitive website layout
- An iPhone app is available for mobile betting by iPhone owners
- Members can access SKY Racing Live Video
- Residents of NSW and Victoria can place bets at their retail outlets
- Downsides
- There are fees galore for phone betting
- The odds aren’t as competitive as most other services
- There are no new member offers
- The sports betting market navigation can be frustrating at times. For example you can’t view head-to-head odds for all baseball games of the day at once.
- Bottom line – due the strong market share it enjoys through its retail outlets, TAB Sportsbet doesn’t have to be as competitive or innovative as its rivals, and this shows in its sports betting service. Having said that, the website offers a great selection of sporting markets, and a more than adequate range of deposit and withdrawal methods for Australian punters. Residents of NSW and Victoria will also appreciate the access to retail outlets that comes with membership. Interestingly, the owning company, Tabcorp Holdings, launched the rival service Luxbet in 2008. If you want a service that is backed by a large company, but offers more competitive member offers and odds, you may want to consider Luxbet instead. One last point of interest is that I have often found TAB Sportsbet’s odds to vary substantially from other bookmakers. So despite their higher margins, you can sometimes find the best value by using TAB Sportsbet to back a specific outcome. For this reason, serious sports betting enthusiasts should consider adding this service to their portfolio of memberships.