How to Evaluate Sportsbooks

1. Payment
Timely payment from your sportsbook is crucial. Unfortunately, there are online sportsbooks that operate as scam sites and never intend to pay winners. Others go out of business without ever paying out players' balances. Also, some less serious sportsbooks have restrictions as far as the maximum amount that can be withdrawn in a given period of time. Obviously we do not feature any sportsbooks that do this on Point Spread News.

2. Reputation
It is always a good idea to visit different online forums to see what other gamblers say about the sportsbooks you are interested in.

3. Regulation
Sportsbooks under jurisdictions, such as Australia and the United Kingdom, are heavily regulated while sportsbooks under certain Caribbean jurisdictions are not.

4. Customer Service
Of course you want a prompt response by email, telephone or live chat to any questions you might have for your sportsbook. A good customer service usually indicates that the sportsbook is serious about other aspects of its business as well.

5. Selection
Some sportsbooks specialize in certain sports or offer exclusive wagering opportunities.

6. Bonuses
Because of the fierce competition among sportsbooks, most of them offer plenty of lucrative incentives for players such as deposit/reload bonuses, reduced juice, etc.

7. Limits
If you are a high roller you should make sure that the sportsbook you are interested in offers bets at the level you want. Conversely, if you are a recreational player and you don’t want to bet very much each time you should make sure that the sportsbook accepts $1 bets.