How We Rate and Review Sportsbooks

We’ve prioritized quality sports reporting for over 70 years, and you can expect that same caliber of coverage with each of our online sportsbook reviews.

Our SI Verdict is the culmination of hundreds of hours of expert testing and reevaluating. This process ensures you have access to the most accurate, in-depth, and unbiased sportsbook evaluations in the industry.

Our online sportsbook reviews promise to provide you with helpful, comprehensive analysis of legal sports betting platforms. We rigorously test each betting app and website across seven categories, awarding a rating out of five stars for each one, along with an overall rating for the sportsbook — our SI Verdict. 

Here's a glimpse into each of the seven categories:

🎁 Bonuses and promotions 

Does the online sportsbook offer a worthwhile welcome bonus with clear terms and conditions (T&Cs)? After creating an account, will you continue receiving daily boosts and other promos? We answer these questions and more as we claim bonuses, scour T&Cs, and closely monitor ongoing sportsbook promos.

📱 App experience 

Most legal betting sites have accompanying mobile sports betting apps — but these apps are not all created equal. We put each iOS and Android platform under the microscope as we address and test everything from design, performance, features, and overall reliability. 

➕ Odds pricing 

While the best betting sites price their odds competitively, we’re always looking for an edge. If an online sportsbook sets early odds, is slow to react to news and weather reports, or offers better — or worse — odds for a particular bet type, we’ll highlight our findings in our review. 

🏈 Sports coverage 

From NFL and NBA odds to obscure snooker and handball markets, the best online sportsbooks offer a wide range of betting opportunities. In our sportsbook reviews, we'll report on the depth of mainstream North American coverage and uncover niche markets unique to each bookie. 

💳 Payments and payout speed 

We prefer online sportsbooks that accept a variety of deposit methods and process withdrawal requests promptly. Our reviews include full rundowns of payment options, payout speeds, minimum transactions, and more.

🌟 Sportsbook features

Top-rated betting sites will keep you engaged and elevate your betting experience with popular features like same-game parlays (SGPs), live betting, live streaming, online casino games, and more. We assess not only the presence but the quality and robustness of each of these key features.

ⓘ Customer support 

We hop in live chat sessions, send emails, inquire on social media, and reach out to support agents over the phone as we assess response times, expertise, and the overall helpfulness of the sportsbook’s support team. 

🔄 Up-to-date reviews

Our ratings are fluid, meaning we’re constantly reevaluating online sportsbooks and revisiting our reviews. Whether it’s an improved app experience, a new sign-up bonus, enhanced features, or a revamped banking section, we’ll keep you informed with accurate, up-to-date information. 

We’ve been a trusted source of sports news, expert opinions, and entertainment since 1954 — and we don't take your trust lightly. After all these years, we remain steadfast in our approach and refuse to compromise the quality of our product.

The result? Over 750,000 bettors rely on our in-depth analysis, picks, sportsbook reviews, and more every month.  

💡How do we do it? 

For starters, we’ve been betting with legal betting apps and websites for years. In fact, our team has more than 40 combined years of experience as profitable sports bettors.

When reviewing online sportsbooks, we create new accounts, make real-money deposits, claim new-user sportsbook promos, and place well-researched bets daily to gain a full understanding of the good — and not-so-good — features of each online sportsbook.

We would never recommend a sportsbook we wouldn’t use ourselves, and we’re not shy about dissuading you from wasting your time with unsatisfactory betting sites. 

🚀 Our mission

We’re obsessed with sports, so naturally, we've embarked on a mission to provide that same best-in-class coverage to sports bettors who have followed the Sports Illustrated brand for decades. 

We aim to provide the very best sportsbook reviews in the industry by demonstrating our expertise and sharing our first-hand experience with each sports betting platform. With our thorough research and analysis, we check our biases at the door to provide you with full, balanced assessments of the best betting sites available in 2025.

From submitting parlay picks at local retailers in the 2000s and frequenting popular Vegas sportsbooks to the countless hours spent navigating sports betting apps and websites, our sports betting experts have done it all. 

Here’s some insight into our expert analysts and sportsbook reviewers.

Jeff Watters, Senior Betting Analyst 

🏆 Years of betting experience: 18+
🔎 As seen in: Covers, Newsweek

Jeff leads a talented team of expert betting analysts and sportsbook reviewers focused on delivering industry-best experiences to North American bettors. With his inventive mindset and relentless pursuit of "best-in-class" content, Jeff ensures SI readers have access to unparalleled betting analysis that’s comprehensive, unbiased, and well-researched. Jeff’s primary goal is to give new and casual bettors the confidence they need to come to their own conclusions when deciding how and where to bet online.

Ryan Hagen, Betting Analyst

🏆 Years of betting experience: 20+
🔎 As seen in: Calgary Herald, Vancouver Magazine

Ryan's goal is to impart his unbiased betting knowledge to prospective bettors, allowing them to make informed decisions. He has written and edited hundreds of sportsbook reviews for some of the most prominent companies in the sports betting world.

Kyle Collis, Betting Analyst

🏆 Years of betting experience: 6+
🔎 As seen in: Dodgers Way, Hardwood Houdini, Predominantly Orange

Kyle approaches sportsbook review content with accuracy, balance, and attention to detail. He leans on his strong editorial background to ensure every SI reader has the tools they need to enjoy a more confident and rewarding sports betting experience.

Geoff Ulrich, Betting Analyst

🏆 Years of betting experience: 10+
🔎 As seen in: DraftKings, Fantasy Life

Geoff loves providing actionable content, and his goal is to always find an original or underappreciated piece of information that gives his readers an edge. His knowledge of betting and industry experience enable him to create reliable betting content and sportsbook reviews that readers can trust when choosing which site to deploy their bankrolls.

Some offshore operators masquerade as regulated sportsbooks, but we do our due diligence before committing to a full sportsbook review. 

We exclusively conduct reviews of legal, licensed sportsbooks as these operators provide safe, secure platforms you can trust with your bankroll.

📜 Rules and regulations

Local gaming commissions establish clear, thorough sports betting rules and regulations before allowing online sports betting operators to accept wagers. From the legal betting age and tax rates to geolocation rules and accepted bet types, strict guidelines keep legal betting sites in check. Online sportsbooks must adhere to these rules to avoid punishment that may include fines or even the loss of their sports betting operator licenses.

🔒 Website and app security

Licensed online sportsbooks undergo stringent testing and regular audits by local gaming authorities to ensure appropriate measures are in place to protect your accounts and personal data. Here are some examples of how these websites keep your information safe:

• Data encryption: Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) or Transport Layer Security (TLS)
• Partnerships with cybersecurity platforms
• Firewalls to thwart unauthorized attempts to access servers
• Two-factor authentication
• Geofencing software

🤝 Fair play

With legal online sportsbooks, you can expect to view odds from reputable software providers like Amelco, Flutter, GiG, Kambi, and SBTech. What's more, these operators provide fully transparent and detailed rules for each betting market. By reviewing these rules, you'll ensure you're informed and know what to expect before your bets settle.

🛑 Responsible gaming

Most legal betting sites not only promote responsible gambling — see the Responsible Online Gaming Association — but provide you with all the resources to stay on top of your gambling habits. These tools include:

• Time limits
• Deposit limits
• Loss limits
• Timeouts
• Self-exclusion

We pride ourselves on providing honest, unbiased reviews of legal betting sites. So, when we encounter unlicensed and unregulated platforms that refuse to pay out winnings and treat customers unfairly, we do not hold back.  

We strongly recommend avoiding the untrustworthy websites that have landed squarely on our list of sportsbooks to avoid.

Our sportsbook reviews include the first-hand experiences and unique perspectives of everyday bettors. We provide not only our expert analysis but also the valuable opinions of thousands of others who have downloaded and placed wagers on the sites and apps we evaluate.  

This integrated approach ensures you hear from bettors of all backgrounds and experience levels before making the informed decision to create a new account or move on to the next sportsbook.