Ladbrokes

Ladbrokes is one of the oldest bookmakers, established since 1886. It made its online debut only in the year 2000. It is owned by the company Ladbrokes Sportsbook LP & International plc which currently has over 15,000 employees in 5 countries and over 2,300 betting shops in the UK alone. When it comes to sports betting, they have a lot of sports and sporting events to bet on. One of the most important sports on their platform are horse racing and greyhounds that can be found in both versions, real and virtual.

*Bonus T&Cs apply. 18+. New users only. Min deposit & stake £5. First qualifying bet matched as a free bet. Min odds 1/2.

Ladbrokes offers more than just sports betting. Users will also find here casino, games, bingo and poker sections.

How is one of the oldest betting companies holding up to the much younger competition? Ladbrokes review

As we discussed in our other articles regarding to betting, this activity is really old. For hundreds and hundreds of years humans used to bet in a way or another. Speaking of old bookmakers, here comes Ladbrokes in the equation. Ladbrokes was founded, believe it or not, back when the Panama Canal was just a developing project. More exactly in the year 1886. Ladbrokes had as founding fathers two gentlemen, Mr. Schwind and Mr. Pennington. Back in the day, they were commission agents for horses trained at Ladbroke Hall situated in Worcestershire, UK. The brand rose in popularity fairly quickly and by the year 1953 the clientele was mainly formed by British aristocrats. After the World War 2 the financial situation wasn’t that great, that was do to several economic factors and regulations introduced after the war. Those events led to the acquisition of Ladbrokes in 1956 by Mark Stein and his nephew, Cyril Stein.

Years went by, betting shops were made legal again in 1961 by the government and 5 years later Cyril Stein became the chairman of the firm and enrolled Ladbrokes in the London Stock Exchange. Initial evaluation was rated a staggering 1 million dollars. In 1993 Cyril Stein retired as a chairman but the brand continued to evolve at a rapid pace. In the year 1999 they acquired Stakis Hotels chain and rebranded the company as Hilton Group plc. Later on in 2005 the hotel chain was sold again and the name Ladbrokes was back again on the papers.

Fast forwarding to our present days. In 2016 Ladbrokes merged with Gala Coral Group, creating the largest bookmaker located in the United Kingdom, having more than 4.000 betting shops and 30.000 employees. The history lesson is done, now let’s focus more on the website and the betting experience there.

Here are the main website categories:

• SPORTS (with Live Sports)
• CASINO (with Live Casino)
• SLOTS
• BINGO
• POKER
• LOTTO
• VIRTUALS

We’ll take each one and talk a bit about how the betting is feeling in general. But before we start, we must say, this is one of the largest selections of betting options we have ever seen.

SPORTS

When you click the Sports tab you will be redirected to a sub-domain of the website. Here you will see all the sports that are available for your betting desires. In the top part of the page you will see the most popular sports and to see all the sport types just click the menu in the left (A-Z Sports). Some of the sports present here are: Football, Basketball, Tennis, Cricket, Golf, Boxing, MMA, TV Special, Horse racing and more. The interface is super nicely arranged and doesn’t feel cluttered at all, compared to other betting platforms that we’ve tested (see our sports betting website reviews). To place a bet is standard procedure. Just click the odds that work best for you, the matches or races (depending on the case) will appear in the right side of the screen (in the Betting Slip), and then you are ready to submit your bet.

Well, of course, if you have a positive balance in your account. Also from the right side of the screen, next to the Betting slip, you can see a history of you betting activity which is nice and handy. Most of the betting platforms put the user in a very difficult position, they make you dig deep in the menus to find you past bets that were placed. Thumbs up from us to the Ladbrokes approach! Also the matches and the sports selection available is complete. All the major sports and competitions, from the majority of the countries on the Globe are present on the website. In this context we can easily say that is one of the best pre-match betting experience we have ever had on a website. It’s simple, easy to use and performs very well.

Visit Ladbrokes Betting

The Live Sports section is not bad either. Here you will find a list of sports that are available for Live betting. Just to mention a few, there is: Football, Tennis, Basketball, Snooker and more available. The betting experience is the same as on the pre-match betting, but the difficulty as you may know, can be a little bit higher when we compare it to pre-match bets. So we advise you to place Live bets only if first you practiced with pre-matched bets for a number of betting slips. Also very important to mention, is the extremely intuitive way they decided to place the Upcoming matches for Live betting.

Will anyone guess? Right below Live Betting as a separate tab that can be expanded. This is genius on so many levels and the user experience team of the website deserves a raise. Is the most logical place to insert the Upcoming matches, not in the sidebar, buried down under other than thousand options. In conclusion, the sports betting area is one of the best one we’ve ever come in contact with.

CASINO

Want to see how a virtual Casino experience feels like? Ladbrokes Casino section is just the place to get started. We are not saying that this section is the best, period, in the online field, no!  That’s just absurd! But nonetheless is one of the top Casino experiences on the web. Here are a number of card games, casual games, games based on movies (which is  on th to find), table games and Video Poker. The games can be filtered by your preference and most certainly will find what you are looking for. A fair number of games are optimized for mobile and the platform on which they run seems to be in house brewed by Ladbrokes. That is a nice addition, contributing directly to the good user experience overall. Being in control for the most part of the betting experience, you will know precisely which part need improvements, so the user won’t experience weird behavior.

Visit Ladbrokes Casino

Also from the Casino category you can access the Live Dealer (Live Casino). The card and table games that are found here, i guess you know them already, but we’ll make an enumeration just in case. In the Live experience tab are available the following games: BlackJAck, Roulette, Baccarat, Hold’em and Hi Lo that we don’t see that often in Live virtual casinos. In order to access the games and start placing your bets you need an account and the client downloaded. Unfortunately the client is available only for Microsoft Windows operating system, that’s a shame. As for the betting experience and client performance, they are great. A host will assist you through the whole duration of the game, the gameplay is interactive and the interface is standard. To the next category now.

SLOTS

There is an entity category on Ladbrokes dedicated to virtual slot machine games. Hundreds of titles are available and all are developed in-house by Ladbrokes. Here you can find popular slot games and adaptations, also titles that are completely new and have an interesting gameplay. All the games have a different look and feel, even though the principles on which they’ve been developed are the same. In the top part of the game are some filters that can help you filter the games or game you are looking for. Also the grand majority of the slots are optimized to run very well on a smartphone. You can reach the mobile dedicated portion on the website by scanning a QR code on your Android, iOS or Windows phone. Weirdly enough, the games are not available for testing in a demo mode. If you want to experience the games in a demo environment you have to select the category Games from the top menu. In essence here you will find even more Slots, but this time the slot machine games can be tested. If the look, feel and bonuses please you, then login and start playing with real money. It’s nice to see the demo option being present!

BINGO

Bingo is originally from Italy and starting to make its way through Europe in 18th century. In our days, Bingo halls are starting to decline in numbers but this doesn’t mean that activity is suffering in the online field. Ladbrokes and as many other online betting websites, has a Bingo category for the enthusiasts. Here are a number of Bingo games ranging from 75 ball to 95 ball, it even has some special rooms and multiplayer rooms. In the special rooms you find branded games and the multiplayer rooms are for friends and family groups. They can offer you a interesting and fun group experience nonetheless. To see when you can join the bingo rooms, consult the schedule that is available on the website.

Visit Ladbrokes Bingo

POKER

If you are interested more in the Poker side of the website, here we’ll put you up to speed. In order to access the Poker tables available on Ladbrokes you need to download the Poker Client. As of now, the client is available only for Microsoft Windows, Android and iOS or through a mobile browser. The computer and mobile platform are developed in house, but the interface is similar to other Poker clients. On the left, in the PC client, there are all the game types and tournaments. In the middle are listed all the tables with the stars indicating the number of players in the room, the game type average pot and so on. In the top part of the client are some useful options for customization’s and some more relevant stats. Also in the client you can access the Casino section. The client works great and loads the games fast, too bad it isn’t available for MacOS or in browser from a desktop PC. At least you can enjoy it on mobile, so i guess it’s a good thing.

Visit Ladbrokes Poker

LOTTO

The website also has a Lottos section where you can find a pretty decent variety of Lotto games from around the globe. If you enjoy Irish Lotto, Spanish, NY or 49′ here you will find them all, in different iterations. Check the results of the rooms super easy by days and see the jackpots. A standard Lotto look and feel. For the most part it offers you the real life thrill and excitement, but from the comfort of your own home, being a plus. Also the games are available on your mobile smart device.

VIRTUALS

Virtuals is a subsection of the sports category, but it’s kept separately. The subcategory Virtuals, if you are wondering, has its own section because it’s not available in all countries. Here as you may or may not guessed, are computer generated competitions. Just to name a few: Football, Cycling, Tennis, Speedway, Greyhounds and others. Layout wise all the streams are in the middle and the sports are in the left. Also, from or experience, we must say that this is one of the biggest sports category we have ever seen, huge plus for Ladbrokes. In terms of the betting experience is exactly the same as in the case of pre-matches or live betting and you need a browser that supports Adobe Flash Player.

REGISTRATION

Ladbrokes offers one of the best account creation experiences that you can have on a betting site. First of all the registration form it’s opened in a new, distinct window. At first you will tell us that is not a big deal, but it’s a touch that helps a lot with the user experience. You don’t have to hit the back key 1000 times, because the page you were on before disappeared. Small touches make the difference in the world! In the form (that is a single page) you enter all of your private information and submit it. That’s about it to start with one of the Ladbrokes bonuses or welcome bets bonus! Also you must be at least 18 years old of age and enter a valid payment method.

PAYMENTS

Speaking of payments, the array of payment services available for the consumer its solid. We must say that it’s one of the vastest in this field. Offering the public with options is one of the best methods possible to reduce friction (reduce struggle in popular terms) in the withdrawal or deposit process. You can use the credit card, Visa, Mastercard, Maestro. Or use popular online payment solutions like Trustly, Sofort, iDeal, GiroPay, PaySafeCard and others. And don’t you worry, the good old bank transfer is available here also. But one thing to note is the fact that some of the services have a fee for withdrawing.

PRIVACY

The company takes information security very seriously in order to guard the client. It constantly verifies transactions to avoid any unpleasant surprises for them or the consumer and the information shared with them is safe and encrypted. Ladbrokes uses SSL as a encryption method for the website. All the connections to the website are locked in order to protect the company’s assets and also the user’s sensitive data. On their website you can find a very nice laid out terms of service and privacy polity that is easy to read. They make public the way of protecting your identity and how your info is used for commercial porpoises. Cookies are present for marketing and consumer behavior purposes by the company and payments are processed by 3rd parties with experience in the field.An extremely well done user agreement and data policy agreement, thumbs up!

How is Ladbrokes holding up against the younger competition in the betting industry?

Being old is not that easy. This rule applies to the grand majority of the companies. If you are in a niche for decades, it’s hard sometimes to adapt to the new trends that are coming. Well…it’s hard if you don’t constantly innovate to outdone yourself and the competition. If this explanation it’s hard co comprehend, let us put it this way: Ladbrokes it’s like a middle age guy. He went through a lot in its live and gathered tons of experience on the way. Not it has most of its life sorted and lives very well with his family and also he goes to the gym. Ladbrokes offers an extensive list of sports that you can bet on with Live and Virtuals subsections, all the popular table games, cards games, casual games are present and for those who like numbers Lotto and Bingo are extremely well optimized. The experience and attention to detail really speaks out loud in their case and makes it was easier to consider them your number one decision when you want to have a bit of fun.

We analyzed the site in detail and we hope that our opinions helped you understand the mechanics better for Ladbrokes. In conclusion Ladbrokes it’s one of the top 3 sites that we really enjoy here at BettingViews and we’d like also to hear from you. What do you think about betting view? Leave a comment below and share with us you position regarding them.

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