The Best Rugby Betting Sites in the UK

Even though our home nations are some of the world’s best rugby teams, the betting markets don’t always reflect this — especially when you compare rugby to football.

The good news is, there are still opportunities to be had with rugby betting in the UK. There are some great rugby betting sites out there and some great bets to be had.

Rugby bonuses and promotions definitely feature across the UK’s best online bookies, especially when the major events are on. We’re mainly talking about the Six Nations and the Rugby World Cup; however, you may also find some pre-match and in-play opportunities exist throughout the season.

Why not come and find out which bookies are great for rugby betting, as well as an insight into the different bet types and options?

Top 9 Rugby Betting Sites

The Best Rugby Betting Bonuses and Promotions

Even if you know a thing or two about rugby, that doesn’t mean the knowledge transfers into getting value out of the market. Nor does it mean that you know which bonuses are worth your time and effort.

These are common types of bonuses and promotions available to you:

• The welcome bonus
• Free bets
• No deposit bonuses
• Matched deposit bonuses
• Enhanced odds
• Best odds guaranteed

Rugby Betting Sites — The Welcome Bonus

Most bookies worth your time offer some form of welcome bonus. While doing this, the most important part of taking up their offers is to check the fine print.

If you’re a UK resident, then that’s a huge box ticked. You also need to check to see which sports the welcome bonus covers. Football tends to be a given across all bookies, and if rugby is excluded, then it’ll be mentioned in the terms and conditions. If you’re in any doubt, jump on to live chat, and they’ll be able to confirm this with you.

For welcome bonuses linked to sports betting, this can often be in the form of free bets. Popular welcome bonuses are:

Note that the above types of promotions aren’t just attributed to signing up with a bookie. They’re also offered throughout the season and will be marketed by the online bookie at major sporting events.

Rugby Free Bets

How do these work? Well, all you need to do is place a bet with your own money, at the minimum odds requirements. Once that bet is settled, the bookie will credit your account with the free bet. You then place your free bet on the event and market of your choice.

Pay very close attention to the terms and conditions with free bets. Usually, there are minimum odds and market restrictions for these.

Minimum Odds in Rugby Betting

As a working example, Paddy Power is known to run a “Bet £10 Get £30″ offer for sports markets at the time of writing. The minimum odds requirement for this tends to be at least 1/2 (1.5).

Your step process to meet the conditions are:

1. Register with Paddy Power using its promo code, if required.
2. Deposit a minimum of £10 (usually by debit card or PayPal).
3. Place a bet on a rugby market of your choosing (since Paddy Power doesn’t exclude rugby from its t’s and c’s) at minimum odds of 1/2 (1.5). This is known as the qualifying bet.
4. When the qualifying bet has settled, check your account for the free bet.
5. Place your free bet on another rugby market, again at minimum odds of 1/2 (1.5).

Rugby Betting Sites – Matched Deposit Bonus

A 100% matched bonus is a generous one — we have seen, on occasion, a 150% matched bonus, but the wagering requirements were excessive, and the market options were heavily restricted. Sometimes a 50% bonus is worth it if you’re happy to take the time to sit through the potential wagering.

How Matched Deposit Bonuses Work at Rugby Betting Sites

The key aspect to focus on here is the terms for the matched amount. Most bookmakers will have a deposit range to be awarded the bonus. For example, if you deposit anything between £50 and £99, you’ll be awarded a bonus of £50 for a 100% matched deposit bonus and £25 for a 50% matched deposit bonus.

As an example, you log in to William Hill and notice they’re doing a 50% matched deposit bonus, up to £100. England is about to face France in the quarter-finals of the Rugby World Cup.These are the steps to ensure you get value out of the bet:

1. Accept the offer from the bookmaker.
2. Check the terms of the minimum in each deposit range.
3. Deposit into your account.
4. Check the terms for any market and sports restrictions, as well as minimum odds.
5. Place your bet in the “Match Odds” market for England to win.
6. When the bet has settled, you’ll be awarded the matched deposit bonus.
7. Again, check the minimum odds and market restrictions, and place your bonus bets accordingly.
8. Keep an eye out for time restrictions on when the wagering needs to be completed by. 14 days is common here.
9. Note: you may need to fulfil specific wagering requirements of the bonus amount before any potential winnings can be withdrawn.

Rugby Bets – Wagering Requirements

A wagering requirement is the number of times you need to spend any bonus funds. For example, say you deposit £20 and are granted a bonus of £20, with a wagering requirement of 5x. You need to place bets of £100 to withdraw any winnings from the matched bonus. Generally speaking, the higher the wagering requirement, the less worthwhile the offer is.

Enhanced Rugby Odds

Enhanced odds can offer excellent value, but you won’t see them regularly during league matches. Betting on enhanced odds is more of an advanced style of betting strategy since you need to know what the value of that bet holds. Newbies shouldn’t blindly place bets on all enhanced odds in rugby.

Does Best Odds Guaranteed Apply to Rugby Betting?

Bookmakers are offering BOG (best odds guaranteed) almost as a standard feature. It’s more prevalent in football and horse racing than it is rugby, but we have seen it on offer when the major rugby events are in action.

Keep an eye out for rugby union and rugby league offers of best odds guaranteed during the following tournaments for rugby union:

• Premiership (currently, the Gallagher Premiership)
• Six Nations
• World Cup
• The Rugby Championship (featuring Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa)

For Rugby league, the major tournaments for BOG might be:

• Super League
• NRL (Australian league)
• Challenge Cup
• World Cup

Why Choose William Hill for Rugby Betting?

For starters, William Hill features both variations of rugby on its main sport listing. This is a great sign that it’s actively encouraging customers to venture into these areas of the sportsbook. Additionally, this might mean that bonuses and promotions will occur for these sports.

An initial glance at the rugby league page shows us enhanced odds for the latest Super League and NRL games. Remember, though, from our information above, that doesn’t mean you should take these types of bets all the time.

For rugby union, gone are the days of you being able to back Jonny Wilkinson to be the first to score a drop goal. But, William Hill is well-known for offering competitive odds and excellent bonuses, and so is worth opening an account with. It covers rugby events throughout the year, across the globe, including the major European tournaments, the Gaelic Pro 14, Super Rugby and even the British and Irish Lions tours, in addition to the ones we mentioned above.

With a responsive website, extremely polite and helpful customer support, and some exciting betting market options, we recommend William Hill as one of the go-to rugby betting sites.

Rugby Betting with Paddy Power

Paddy Power is known for the comedic and no-holds-barred social media posts, but how does its rugby betting options compare to the rest of the market?

It offers prices for the major tournaments well in advance of their kick-off. For example, during the summer you can place bets for the next winter’s Six Nations tournament.

We really like how the site is laid out; it’s very easy to navigate, and placing and confirming bets is fast and simple. This is a testament to its partnership with world-class iGaming software houses such as Playtech, NetEnt and Microgaming.

Rugby union and rugby league are promoted well by Paddy Power, offering a depth of markets for both variations of the sport. It also has in-play betting, which is something more and more punters are looking for in their favourite online bookmaker.

Paddy’s current welcome bonus is available for both union and league. They’re one of the best rugby betting sites around.

A Comparison Between Pre-Match and In-Play Rugby Betting

The most popular online bookmakers offer both pre-match and in-play options for rugby betting.

Pre-Match Rugby Betting

Right up until the kick-off whistle, pre-match bets can be placed across all standard rugby betting markets. Since the sport isn’t as sensitive to external and market conditions like horse racing, the odds will move slowly. This allows you time to do your research for the best bets to place — see our next section on the huge range of different bets types.

In-Play Rugby Betting

As soon as that whistle goes and the game comes alive, the rugby markets seamlessly switch from pre-match to in-play betting. Since the game is now live, the prices will move much faster. Live betting on Rugby is rising in popularity all the time.

If you’re not able to watch the game, the top bookies have live data feeds from the matches. These offer you in-play stats to help guide your judgment as to which bets to place. Some of the more fun ones you can bet on are:

• Next team to score
• Top try scorer
• The number of penalties conceded
• Handicap betting — this is a big focus for many in-play bettors

Live Stream Rugby with Bet UK

That’s right, rugby live streaming is available at LeoVegas owned Bet UK. They have a feature called Watch & Bet on all Premiership rugby matches. If you see the little icon with the arrow in, a bit like the YouTube logo, next to a match as shown in the image above, you’re able to live stream the game. It’s absolutely free to use too.

So if you fancy a bet on Saracens, Sale, or Harlequins, for example, you can bet at Bet UK whilst watching the action live onsite!

What Are the Most Popular Rugby Bets?

Sadly, rugby union and league don’t have as many markets to bet on as football does. The good news is that there’s still a wide range of rugby bets for you to choose from:

• Match odds
• Handicaps
• Winning margins
• Points
• Tries
• Half markets

Of course, keep it fun. Bet responsibly, and if you find yourself needing help, feel free to reach out to the likes of GamCare or BeGambleAware.

Match Odds

Match odds markets are simply three options for you to bet on; being the only three possible outcomes of the match:

1. Home win.
2. Draw.
3. Away win.

Draws are much less common in rugby than they are in football, so the prices of these tend to be bigger. These markets are on offer pre-match and in-play.

Handicap Betting in Rugby

As an example, let’s say Argentina is hosting South Africa in a pre-World Cup “friendly”. Usually, South Africa would be favourites to win this match. However, the handicap market will offer a points difference between the two, levelling the playing field a bit more.

In betting odds terms, the bookie will offer a handicap swing, for example, +6 for Argentina and -6 for South Africa. So, if Argentina loses but within 6 points, and you’ve bet on their handicap bet, you win. Similarly, if you’ve backed South Africa to win, and they do so by less than 6 points, your bet loses.

Other handicap options to look out for are:

• No draw handicaps.
• 1st half match odds handicaps.
• 2nd half match odds handicaps.

Winning Margins

Winning margins bets are very common across the top rugby betting sites. They’re simply bets for how much your chosen team will win by and are usually in a range of 5. For example:

• Argentina to win by between 1 and 5 points. Example odds: 13/2 (7.5)
• Argentina to win by between 6 and 10 points. Example odds 9/1 (10.0)
• Etc.

The depth here is vast since some bets can be placed for a difference of up to 150 points. The larger the points difference, the larger the odds, usually.

Points Markets

Some of the options available here are:

• Odds or even total for the final score, first and second half.
• First team to score points — this is usually weighted toward the favourite.
• Last team to score.
• First team to score 10 or more points

Number of Tries

Although the number of tries in a game is a popular bet, there aren’t many options on offer here:

• First team to score a try.
• Last team to score a try.
• No try scored.
• Odd or even total number of tries scored.

Half Markets

These markets split the game into two separate matches, which is excellent diversification from the bookie. Options can be somewhat limited here to:

• Match odds for half-time — this mirrors the full-time market to a point but will change in-play considerably.
• Highest scoring half.
• Odd or even options for the first and second half.
• Whether a team will win both halves or not.

Do All Rugby Betting Sites Offer a Cash-Out Option?

Cashing out a rugby bet is not a common feature that rugby betting sites offer. A good time to do this is when you’ve backed an underdog, and they’ve started better than the market predicted.

Perhaps we’ll see a cash-out feature for rugby betting sites more in the future as the sport becomes more popular online. Even the most popular sports of football and horse racing don’t always have a cash-out option attached to them.

The Top 3 Rugby Betting Mobile Apps

Mobile betting is huge! As mobile chip technology and data connections get better, this makes it easier for gaming markets to transition online. For this to continue, we need the following factors to be present:

1. Reliability
2. Easy navigation
3. High speed
4. Betting options

The best rugby betting mobile apps that feature these options are:

Reliability

We ideally need the apps to not crash and available to us whenever we need them. Sometimes an app not loading is due to the phone’s hardware rather anything to do with the bookmaker. To avoid this, always keep your phone and apps updated.

Easy Navigation

With rugby betting sites, we expect to be able to find rugby union and league from the front page, or at least from a simple menu on the front page. Wasting time, fumbling around navigation menus to find the sport and then the betting markets is no good. If we’re betting in-play, we need simple navigation so we can get our rugby bets placed efficiently.

High Speed

For a betting app to be considered one of the best, it needs to load quickly. Once logged in, the app needs to either have the account already logged in or modern enough to require the thumbprint authorisation.

Also, navigating across menus and markets needs to be seamless. Mobile betting is becoming a staple of many punters.

Rugby Betting Sites – Betting Options

Market restrictions sometimes occur when comparing desktops sites to apps and mobile betting sites.

If you’re using a bookmaker that doesn’t have the same markets on desktop and mobile, consider using an alternative app; maybe one we’ve mentioned, since they’ve been vetted already.