ESPN BET Sportsbook Review

ESPN’s name recognition in the sports media space now carries over into the sports betting realm. ESPN BET is excellent overall, with a few stand-out features including excellent insurance promos for existing users and a top-tier loyalty program.

The welcome bonus at ESPN BET is especially enticing. New players who sign up can get up to $1,000 in bonus bets if their initial bet loses.

While there are many advantages to using ESPN BET, clear drawbacks exist, which will be explained in more detail in the sections below. Still, the sportsbook is easy to recommend overall and offers a great experience for bettors. 

Overall the ESPN BET welcome bonus is a solid offer. You can get a chance with a first bet reset of up to $1,000. This is a far greater value than many other online sports betting sites.

Note that any winning wagers placed with bonus bets will only return the profit and not the original bet. The best part about ESPN BET’s welcome bonus is how easy it is to claim. There’s no promo code or opt-in requirement. Simply sign up, deposit $10 or more ($10 is the minimum deposit anyway) and place a wager on any sport.

Within 72 hours after that bet settles, you’ll get your bonus bets. Use them quickly, though, as they expire after seven days if unused.

In most cases, sportsbook promos don’t end after the welcome bonus and ESPN BET offers some amazing promos even after you finish your initial bonus bets. There are various bonuses you can opt-in for, and ESPN BET offers these promos on a rotating basis for users to enjoy.

Insurance-based promotions can take many forms. For example, ESPN BET has offered first goalscorer insurance for soccer games, in which you get your wager returned if the player you bet on to score the first goal doesn’t nab that first point but does score later in the game. 

Another offer common to ESPN BET is the live betting insurance promotions, offering your wager back if you lose on qualifying odds with a live bet. Recently, ESPN BET offered this for NHL games, but it has been known to bring the format to other sports as well. 

Every day, you can opt-in for “so close” protection on a parlay bet with four or more legs and odds of +400 or longer. If your bet loses by exactly one leg, you will get your wager back up to $15, paid in bonus bets. 

Each week, you can become part of ESPN BET’s “Parlay Club.” Place four parlays of at least $10 and four legs within the week to get a $10 bonus bet. Opt-in is required for this bonus each week. 

That’s just a brief glimpse into the slate of rotating ESPN BET promos. Check the promotions page frequently for additional specials and perks based on which sports are in season. 

Overall, we found the ESPN BET experience to be of a high level. It’s not as flashy or well-polished as some competitor sites but it still does plenty to make things simple and easy. 

Take, for example, placing a bet. This process inevitably starts with making a deposit unless you already have money in your wallet. We clicked “Account” and then “Deposit.” We selected PayPal as the method of choice and deposited $20. It took only a few clicks and the process was finished in roughly one minute. 

Then came the actual test: How easy is it to place a bet at ESPN BET? The answer is simple: it’s very easy. One of our test users scrolled through the NBA options (basketball was in season during this review) and selected the Knicks vs. 76ers. The Knicks had “Even” odds (equivalent to +100 but listed as the word “Even” at ESPN BET), so they clicked that option and added the bet to their betslip. After typing in the amount of our wager and placing the bet we were good to go. The process was simple and seamless. ESPN BET was fast and responsive during the bet-placing steps. 

There was also an option to “Move the Line” to get alternate point spreads. It involved dragging a dot across a spectrum to adjust the odds. This is one of the most intuitive and simple ways to adjust alternate spreads in the marketplace and we appreciate how well ESPN BET integrated it into the user experience. 

The entire ESPN BET ethos seems to be geared toward making this easy for bettors and it largely succeeds in this endeavor. 

To create your ESPN BET log-in, follow these steps. Have your mobile device ready to go. 

This may seem like a lot of steps. In reality, signing up for ESPN BET only takes a few minutes overall. We signed up for an account for this review, and the entire process took us about five minutes. The only reason the process seems long is that ESPN has a separate page for almost every detail you enter. For example, once you enter your email address, you’ll then go to a new page to enter your phone number, and so on. 

The ESPN BET sportsbook is available for mobile devices. You can download the app via the iOS App Store or Google Play.

The vast majority of this review is based on our experience with the mobile app for ESPN BET. We truly enjoyed the experience and it seems tailor-made for mobile users. A few things we liked about the mobile app include:

Adjust the odds: Changing the point spread odds to alternate lines becomes much easier on a mobile device by simply tapping and dragging.

Bet on the go: This benefit is obvious, but it is still worth mentioning. The ESPN BET “Live” section has games that are currently in progress, making it easy to bet in-game on your device.

Compared to the desktop experience (which is still very good), we prefer ESPN BET on mobile. It feels sleek and designed with the user in mind. Our only minor complaint is that load times are occasionally a tad long, which can impact your experience if you are live betting or hunting for quick odds changes to take advantage of.

In many ways, ESPN BET is a lot like other sportsbooks. That’s a good thing—the best sportsbooks have things in common for a reason. The small differences, though, can be game-changers for bettors. ESPN BET offers a few key options that could be big for certain players.

While most sportsbooks offer responsible gaming options, ESPN BET takes things a step further by making its options available up-front. During the sign-up process, ESPN BET presents new users with various responsible gaming tools such as daily time limits, deposit limits, loss limits, maximum single wager thresholds and more.

Of course, these tools are accessible to change or adjust long after you already have an account. However, the presentation of the options during the account creation process made us feel like ESPN BET cared deeply about keeping players safe.

The “Exclusives” section in the ESPN BET app has all sorts of specials, including boosted bets, lines you can’t find anywhere else and other perks. Its highly recommended to check the “Exclusives” any time you sign on, just in case a bet you already wished to make is covered there.

ESPN BET is operated in partnership with PENN Interactive, which in turn means players can enjoy the PENN Play rewards program, which has become an industry leader right up there with MGM Rewards and Caesars Rewards.

Earn tier points as you play at ESPN BET to level up and get perks in the form of PENN Cash. PENN Cash can be redeemed for in-app bets or at PENN hotels and casinos. Plus, you can use points for prizes at the PENN Play marketplace.

ESPN BET has a wide array of accepted payment and withdrawal methods. Trusted providers are available, and the variety is excellent. Every bettor should be able to find a payment method that works for them. Here’s a comprehensive overview of each method offered at ESPN BET.

This is a lot of information, so let’s cover a few key points. 

Withdrawals come with a few important terms and conditions to know. 

ESPN BET must internally approve all withdrawal requests. This can take up to 24 hours, and then the withdrawal provider will begin processing your request.

Various methods have minimum withdrawal thresholds. Check by mail is $250, and wire transfer is $50,000. Other methods have maximum withdrawals, as detailed in the table above this one. 

Wire transfers are only available to ESPN BET VIPs, and you must be invited to become a VIP.

If you have further questions about deposits or withdrawals, get in touch with ESPN BET customer support. 

The site offers tons of great soccer markets and plenty of live betting opportunities. The odds are competitive as well, often beating out the competition.

A few lesser-known sports are missing from the ESPN BET roster, including surfing and handball. Of all the sports on ESPN BET, we like betting on soccer there the most. 

The first part of the ESPN BET customer journey is the “Help” menu, which is accessible from your account. It has FAQs, promotional info, and many other resources. The “Contact Support” menu has two customer support options:

Both options are available 24/7. 

Live chat starts with a bot, which is always a slight disappointment. They rarely understand player requests, and that was true for us. We asked what the deposit minimum was for wire transfers. The bot then requested we select which state we were betting from. We did so, and it connected us to an agent. 

The agent then requested additional details: full name, date of birth and state. The bot had already requested one of those details, which was slightly irritating. After we provided the information, though, the representative responded within five minutes only to tell us that wire transfers are for VIPs only (which is not stated in the help center)

Overall, we appreciated the helpfulness of ESPN BET customer support, but it was relatively slow, and the information we received was at odds with the public FAQ. 

Sometimes, finding a sportsbook is difficult. Comparing two major brands can be a helpful measure of whether a particular oddsmaker is for you. Below, we’ll compare ESPN BET and FanDuel across four key categories: welcome bonus, user experience, odds/markets and app. 

In the welcome bonus category, we give the nod to ESPN BET. The new user bonus at ESPN BET offers you a first bet reset of up to $1,000 in bonus bets if you lose. The value is high. The requirement to win your bet makes the bonus less than a guarantee, which is why we like ESPN BET’s welcome offer.

FanDuel’s latest welcome offer gives $150 in bonus bets upon placement of your first $5 wager, if your first bet wins, plus three months of NBA League Pass. No minimum betting odds required.

These welcome bonuses fluctuate, though, and both sportsbooks offer a large selection of promos for existing users.

As for the user experience, we hand the victory to FanDuel. It’s a tight race, and ESPN BET does a lot of great things with its UI. Frankly speaking, though, the FanDuel user experience is our favorite across all sportsbooks. We don’t think any sportsbook can compete with its aesthetic and functionality. 

For odds and markets, we once again give the edge to FanDuel. The odds are comparable at both ESPN BET and FanDuel. You might find one has advantageous odds on one side of a match while the other gives you a better line on the opposite end. This is typical. The reason FanDuel beats ESPN here is its depth of sports and markets available, which well overshadows the ESPN BET offering. 

Finally, we come to the app. As we’ve mentioned, the FanDuel experience is top-notch. ESPN does a lot of things right, though, and we believe it has the potential to give FanDuel a run for its money. 

Overall, we’d recommend FanDuel for bettors who want more sports and markets, but we’d recommend ESPN BET for players who want a better welcome bonus.