Sporting Index Betting Review (2024)

Intro

Most UK-based bookies will limit you to fixed-odds betting, which is the dominant format. Very few will allow you to place spread bets instead. Fewer still will let you pick and choose between these two types of gambling, switching at will while maintaining the same betting account on the same platform. Sporting Index is a rare example of a sportsbook which does just that.

Read on to learn everything you need to learn about the current state of Sporting Index. We’ll analyse its special offers, betting markets, customer service and more, all in an effort to help you decide whether it’s a suitable betting platform for your needs. 

Sporting Index Sign Up Offer

Most betting sites give you one valuable welcome offer, to try and tempt you in. Sporting Index has two such deals. One is for fixed odds betting, and the other is for spread betting. You can only choose one when joining here. 

The fixed odds welcome offer is a Bet £10, Get £20 deal. 

Notable terms and conditions

Here are the main T&Cs for the first offer:

• First bet must be £10 or more, at odds of 1/2 or greater
• Qualifying bet can’t be in-play, and can’t be cashed out early
• Receive £10 free bet when qualifying bet settles
• Receive second £10 free bet the next day
• Must use your free bets within 28 days of receiving them
• Free bet stakes not returned with winnings

Overall, we like this deal a lot. It’s not the biggest, but the underlying value is significantly enhanced by the forgiving nature of the T&Cs. Getting a full 28 days to use your free bets, rather than the usual 7 days, is particularly generous. 

The spread betting welcome offer is something completely different. It’s a cashback deal, in which – within your first month after joining – your total stakes of up to £300 will be matched.

Here are the most important terms and conditions:

• Applies to selected sports spread betting markets (see offer page for full details)
• Applies to first 28 days after signing up
• If you bet £300 or above, receive £300 cashback
• Any amount below £300 will be matched 1:1 (e.g. £100 wagered = £100 cashback)
• No rollover requirement

This is one of the best welcome offers on the market right now. The £300 maximum amount dwarfs what you’d expect to get from even the biggest sportsbooks. Plenty of markets are eligible too, and – best of all – your rebate comes as cash, meaning there’s no rollover requirement, nor any time restriction on when you use it again. 

Of the two welcome offers, that for spread betting is far superior. If you want to stick purely to fixed odds betting, though, that promo is also perfectly fine. 

How to Sign Up to Sporting Index

Generally speaking, Sporting Index is an extremely easy platform to use, even if you’re not an experienced bettor in general. This applies from the very start, with these being the few steps you must take to sign up and claim your welcome bonus.

• Head to Sporting Index
  Generally speaking, Sporting Index is an extremely easy platform to use, even if you’re not an experienced bettor in general. This applies from the very start, with these being the few steps you must take to sign up and claim your welcome bonus.
  

  Your very first step is to load up Sporting Index. For the purposes of this guide, we’ll assume you’re doing so on a computer, but the process is almost identical if you’re using a mobile device.

• Create Your Account
  Bring up the home page, then click on the blue Join button towards the top-right of your screen. You can now begin creating your account, which involves two steps. First, you must provide some basic personal information, set your username and password, and agree to the T&Cs. After, you must provide some more detailed information, including your full address. Once all that’s done, hit the Join Sporting Index button to finish creating your account.
  
• Make a Deposit
  With your account created, it’s high time to fund it. Log in, then click the My Account button towards the top-right. A pop-up window will now appear. Select the Deposit Funds option, then pick one of the available payment methods. You must also choose whether you’re going to be pursuing fixed odds or spread betting. Fill in the necessary payment details, enter a monetary amount, then confirm your deposit.
  
• Place A Qualifying Bet
  In this guide, we’re assuming you’re claiming the fixed odds promo. In this case, all you must do to claim your bonus is head to the sportsbook and place a fixed odds wager. Remember that the odds must be 1/2 or higher, and your stake should be at least £10.
  
• Receive and Use Your BonusOnce your qualifying bet settles, you should receive your first free bet quickly, then your second free bet the following day. If either fails to arrive, we’d recommend reaching out to the support team. With both bonuses, remember that you must use them within 28 days, or they’ll simply expire.

Ongoing Sporting Index Promotions

In addition to the two welcome offers, Sporting Index has a highly respectable selection of ongoing promotions. There are five at the time of writing, divided neatly between fixed odds and spread betting. Let’s take a quick look at each deal in turn.

Acca Boost

The acca boost is one of the most famous promo types, and Sporting Index’s version is excellent. As usual, it boosts your winnings on successful accas, with the size of that boost depending on the number of selections. You get an extra 3% here with three selections, 10% with four, 15% with five, and so on, all the way up to 75% for 16. The maximum bonus you can receive is a mighty £25,000.

Spread-Free Bets

Normally in spread betting, you must wager on the top or bottom of the spread. With Sporting Index, if you place three of those bets on eligible markets within 10 minutes of each other, you can then place a fourth wager spread-free. If the spread was 1.0-2.0, for example, you could actually bet the mid-point at 1.5 with your spread-free bet. This deal can be repeated as many times as you please.

First Past the Post

There are few bigger frustrations in horse racing betting than your horse winning, only for victory to subsequently be chalked-off. This can happen through the race being voided, your runner causing interference, and so on. Regardless, Sporting Index’s First Past the Post deal does away with all this, paying out on your winner if it finishes first, regardless of the rulings which come afterwards.

‘2nd to a Rag’

This is an interesting and unusual horse racing promo, which kicks in if your chosen horse loses to a significant underdog. If you back a runner, and it finishes second to a winner whose starting price was 33/1 or greater, your stake will actually be refunded up to a maximum of £25.

Lucky Double Odds

Some experienced horse racing bettors like to go beyond simple Race Winner or Each Way bets, and gamble on exotic multiples instead. Lucky Double Odds is the perfect promo for these punters. It applies to Lucky 15’s, Lucky 31’s, and Lucky 61’s. If any of your wagers in these formats settle with only one winner, Sporting Index will double your winnings, no questions asked. Better yet, there’s no maximum cap on your bonus here.

Sporting Index Betting Markets and bet types

There are some areas in which Sporting Index truly excels, including – as we’ve seen – in its special offers. It doesn’t quite reach these heady heights with its betting market selection, but you’ve definitely still got a respectable amount of choice here.

There are 22 different markets in total here, which is right around what you’d expect from a sizable sportsbook. Crucially, those include not only football, but horse racing too. In fact, racing gets its very own section here, complete with live streaming and coverage of international racecourses.

Here are the main bet types you can use for some of Sporting Index’s biggest markets:

On top of these big hitters, Sporting Index provides plenty more betting opportunities. Those include greyhound racing, cricket, virtual sports, golf, and boxing to name just a few. Sporting Index also performs particularly well when it comes to eSports, with most of the top titles being covered.

It’s worth noting too that Sporting Index’s ‘two in one’ approach also applies to its betting markets. Although you might be wagering on the same overall sport, you’ll actually find significantly different bet types in place depending on whether you’re betting using fixed odds or spreads.

Sporting Index Betting Odds

We’ve touched on this several times already, but now it’s time to tackle it head on. With Sporting Index, you’re perfectly welcome to place regular, fixed odds bets, just as you would on a normal sportsbook. You wager £10 on Team A to beat Team B at 2/1, for example, and – if they do – you win £20. You also have another, very different option, though – spread betting.

In spread betting, your returns basically depend on ‘how right’ or ‘how wrong’ you are. You’re given a spread (a range of values) – let’s say 2.5-3.5 goals in a football match. If you ‘buy’ that market, you’re taking the over, and your profits will increase as more goals are scored. If you ‘sell’, you’re taking the under, and your losses will increase depending on how many fewer goals than 2.5 are scored.

In short, with Sporting Index, you’re not only getting access to highly competitive normal odds. You’re also being given the opportunity to wager in a whole other fascinating, and potentially lucrative, way.

Sporting Index Betting Features

In addition to offering a whole different way to wager, Sporting Index also has a few other special features to enhance your betting experience. Let’s run through some of the main examples in turn.

Live Streaming

Live streaming is normally only found on the very biggest sportsbooks around, so we were pleased to find it in place on Sporting Index.

At the time of writing, it’s only available for two markets: horse racing, and eSports. Still, this is obviously preferable to having no streaming at all. In both cases, accessing the streams when you’re logged in is extremely easy, and the streams themselves load quickly and play smoothly.

In-Play Betting

Like all respectable sportsbooks, Sporting Index doesn’t limit you to only betting pre-game, also letting you place wagers while the action is ongoing. This feature is available for all sports, even – very unusually – for horse racing. The tool itself is also highly-responsive, allowing you to capitalise quickly on any opportunities you spot, and the live odds you’re given tend to be extremely fair.

More about in-play betting >>

Cash Out

In addition to placing live wagers, you can also cash them out here with ease. As with in-play betting, the cash out tool is extremely responsive, meaning that you can normally bail on a bet when you judge the time to be right. Again, you’re also offered a fair price for doing so too.

More about cash out >>

Training Centre

If you’re not experienced in spread betting, don’t worry – Sporting Index has you covered. Its excellent Training Centre is designed specifically to ease newcomers into this very different form of gambling. It features not only a general introduction to spread betting, but also individual articles on how spread betting works on a range of top sports, including football, tennis, golf, and more.

Bet Builder

The Sporting Index bet builder makes crafting same-game multiples a breeze. Simply load the markets for an upcoming football match, hit the Bet Builder button near the top, and the tool will load for you. You can then add and remove selections with ease, with your odds updating as you do so, before confirming your final wager.

Price Boosts

As noted, Sporting Index’s prices are already very good by default. The Price Boosts feature, however, makes them even better. In short, this involves Sporting Index artificially inflating the prices on certain markets. In turn, your profits on any successful wagers on those markets will also increase.

Sporting Index Mobile App

Any sportsbook worth its salt needs to cater for mobile bettors nowadays. We’re pleased to say that Sporting Index ticks this box with aplomb.

Most importantly, Sporting Index provides a downloadable sports betting app. This is available on both iOS and Android devices, and can be acquired directly from the App Store and Google Play respectively.

The quality of this app is outstanding. It contains all the same fixed odds and spread betting markets as the desktop version, and you can also manage your account, make deposits and withdrawals, and so on. The same special features are included too, such as live streaming, a bet builder, and more. The UI has also been brilliantly adapted to smaller screen sizes, and we found the performance levels – in terms of loading speeds and overall stability – to be excellent.

If you don’t want to download the app, you can simply use the mobile version of the main website instead. Both the performance levels and interface are slightly inferior to those on the app, but it’s certainly still usable.

For more info on downloading betting apps, visit our mobile betting app page.

Sporting Index Customer Support

Even with the very best sportsbooks, you’ll eventually encounter an issue you can’t solve alone. In this case, it’s imperative that the bookie provides you with responsive and helpful support.

For the most part, Sporting Index does a good job here. It provides three contact options – live chat, phone, and email – thus ensuring everyone has a way to get in touch, whatever their preferences. During our testing, we were impressed by both the speed of the response to our test enquiry, and the helpful nature of the response.

The coverage hours here are 730am-10pm every day except Sunday, when they begin at 830am. 24/7 coverage is obviously preferable, but this should still suit the vast majority of punters.

Sporting Index excels when it comes to indirect support too. In addition to the aforementioned Training Centre, you’ll also find plenty of other resources. Those include three separate FAQ sections, plus a glossary which explains all the spread betting terminology you need to know.

Deposit/Withdrawal Options

Generally speaking, we’ve been extremely positive throughout our Sporting Index review. Here we find one area, however, in which this sportsbook comes up short.

Sporting Index simply hasn’t moved with the times when it comes to payment options. Right now, the only online payment methods you can use are debit card and bank transfer. There are absolutely no newer choices, like eWallets. Technically you can also pay by cheque, if you really want to.

In fairness, the conditions surrounding the two payment methods which are accepted are excellent. There’s no minimum deposit amount, for example, nor is there any minimum withdrawal. In the latter case, there’s a slight difference between withdrawing under and over £50, but it’s nothing major. The payout times are also fantastic, with two hours being exceptionally fast for debit card, and even bank transfers processed quicker than usual.

Overall then, Sporting Index does a great job with the payment methods it does support, but really needs to add more options.

Sporting Index in the Media

Sporting Index has an outstanding track record, dating all the way back to 1992. It went online in 2001, and has gone from strength to strength ever since. One of its biggest moves was definitely to add fixed odds markets to their spread betting options in 2019, and – in 2021 – these were added to the extremely popular odds aggregator Oddschecker.

Since launching, Sporting Index has been the subject of various deals and takeovers. Most recently, and most importantly, it was acquired by its biggest rival – Spreadex – in November 2023.

On the surface, this wasn’t great news for spread bettors wanting at least some choice in who they wagered with, since there are already so few brands offering this service. As of now, however, the deal doesn’t appear to have adversely affected Sporting Index’s offering.