The Pools betting site has a lot to offer and in this guide, we’re going to take you through everything that they provide. Whether you’re interested in the Pools Sports betting offering, or The Pools casino, our comprehensive article has all the information you need. Read The Pools betting review below.
Deposit & Stake £10, Get £30 In Free Bets
Deposit & Stake £10, Get £30 In Free Bets
- Great offers for existing users
- Play traditional pools games
- Slick mobile sportsbook app
What is The Pools Betting?
It’s fair to say that The Pools sports betting site has had a more interesting evolution than that of most gaming firms. 
The was once a time when for the average person in the UK, winning the football pools was the most realistic route to becoming a millionaire. Playing the pools was incredibly popular. You were tasked with picking out score draws from the Saturday football fixture list and if you got enough right, there was the opportunity to win huge sums of money.
It remained popular until the launch of the National Lottery in the UK in 1994. Quicker and easier to play, with larger jackpots, the football pools could not compete with the lottery. Jackpots reduced, giving people less reason to play the pools and while the game continued to be available, it quickly slipped out of the national consciousness.
The Football Pools moved online and in 2017 the company was bought by a private equity firm. In 2018, The Pools was launched, at thepools.com. While various pools games were part of the package, there was also an online sportsbook and The Pools casino. It was a unique offering and over the last few years it’s become a major player in the gaming industry.
How Safe is The Pools Betting Site?
Safety is a natural concern when opening an account with an online betting site. Everyone wants to know that any money that they deposit is in a safe place.
We only recommend sites that are safe and fully regulated. The Pools betting site is regulated by the UK Gambling Commission, which insists on very high standards of safety to be maintained. In addition, they are also signed up to IBAS, the independent body that moderates in any disputes between bookmakers and customers.
Your personal details should be safe at The Pools, as they use Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption technology. In an era when online fraud is rife, having such protection is reassuring.
All customers have to submit personal documents when they sign up to verify their identity and address. This ensures that users are old enough to legally gamble and helps The Pools to guard against criminal activities such as money laundering.
The Pools betting company also takes a very responsible attitude to problem gambling. Their responsible gambling section on the Frequent Asked Questions page, features a lot of information that helps users to self-diagnose any problems and also highlights measures such as deposit limits, time outs and self-exclusion, that can be applied to your account. If you were to need further support, The Pools betting website is affiliated with the likes of GAMSTOP and Gamcare.
The Pools Sign Up Offer
Online bookies like to offer welcome bonuses to attract new customers and The Pools betting website is no exception. There are two welcome offers available, with The Pools sports betting site offering a different sign up bonus to The Pools casino section.
The Pools new customer offer for its sportsbook users is a good one. Deposit and bet £10 and they will give you £10 in free bets. These are 2x £5 free bets – one for use on any sports market and the other for Virtual sports betting.
You must stick to those parameters. If you use the sports free bet on football, then the other cannot be placed on horse racing, unless it is on virtual markets. It’s an unusual restriction and will put some people off, who may only be interested in betting on football, for example.
With The Pools casino sign up offer, you get 250 free spins when you deposit and bet £10. There are no wagering requirements on those free spins, which is pretty unusual and makes this a more generous offer than it might first appear.
You can choose either of these offers when you sign up for an account, but not both. There is no The Pools promo code to enter, in order to receive these offers.
| The Pools Welcome Offer | Details | Minimum Odds | Offer Expires After | Wagering Requirements | Minimum Deposit |
| The Pools sportsbook | Deposit and bet £10, get £10 in free bets | Evens or greater | 7 days | None | £10 |
| The Pools casino | Deposit and bet £10, get 250 free spins | N/A | 7 days | None | £10 |
The Pools Sports Ongoing Promotions
Once you’ve received and enjoyed The Pools welcome offer, you’ll be pleased to discover that there are further promotions in store for you. In this section we’re going to go through some of the ongoing promotions and bonuses that you can expect to receive when you use The Pools betting website.
- Daily Bet Bundle – The Pools select a certain bet each day with a boosted price. Back it with £5 and you’ll get access to two further offers. With this being a daily promotion, there’s bound to be a bet that tempts you before long.
- Loyalty Club – With their Loyalty Club, The Pools betting website will give you a £5 free bet, every time you make ten bets of £5 or more. It’s a great way to get a The Pools free bet on a regular basis.
- Acca Boost – If you place a £10 acca where each selection has odds of 1/3 or greater, you will get a cash bonus boost if your bet is successful. The more legs there are in your qualifying acca, the most cash The Pools will give you. Five legs will give you a 5% bonus, six will pay 10%, building up to the maximum 50% bonus for a twelve-leg acca.
- Free Bet Grabber – Each day a question is posed by the Free Bet Grabber. Answer it correctly and the following day you’ll be rewarded with either a free bet, free spins, or a The Pools casino no deposit bonus.
- Extra Place Races/Golf – The Pools regularly offers an extra place on racing and golf events. So a race which would normally pays out on the top four finishers, will be expanded to the top five.
- Best Odds Guaranteed – The Pools offers Best Odds Guaranteed on all of their UK and Irish horse racing markets. Whenever you place your bet, if the starting price ends up being bigger, than The Pools will pay out at those odds.
- Horse Racing Free Bets – Another generous horse racing promotion from The Pools. Bet £20 on a particular race and if certain conditions are met, you’ll get a £5 free bet. If you bet a smaller stake, you get a smaller free bet. A £10 qualifying bet could give you a £2 free bet, while a £5 bet could give you a £1 bonus.
The Pools Free Bet
As you’ll have seen from the previous two sections, there are a lot of opportunities to gain free bets at The Pools. That’s true whether you’re a new customer or an existing user of The Pools betting website.
The Pools betting company can obviously see the upside of offering free bets to their customers, despite the costs. Free bets help to attract new users and then to retain them.
If you’re reading any The Pools review, you’ll see that its free bets offers are generally lauded. We’re not going to disagree. There might be more generous deals around than The Pools sign up offer, but the array of free bet offers that then come to existing customers, is pretty impressive.
How to Claim The Pools Free Bet
Later on in this article we’re going to detail how you sign up for a The Pools betting account. This will show you exactly how to get your welcome bet.
The Daily Bet Bundle from The Pools is a nice addition, but a bit of a lottery. The same is true of the horse racing free bets offered by The Pools. If everything works out right and the conditions are met, it can make for a lovely surprise, but it’s not something that can be relied upon.
With the Free Bet Grabber, there is more skill involved, as you need to answer a question to qualify. Yet while that part of the equation is within your own control, you still don’t know exactly what your reward will be for a free answer. On any given day it could be a a free bet, free spins, or a The Pools casino no deposit bonus.
The most reliable of free bets options from The Pools, comes from their Loyalty Club. It’s very plain and simple, delivering exactly what you expect every time. Just to make it easier, here are some step-by-step instructions, as to how to land this free bet bonus regularly with a The Pools betting account, as there are some restrictions.
- Open an account with The Pools betting website.
- Deposit funds into your account
- Place ten cash bets (other free bets don’t count) with a stake of £5 or more
- Receive a £5 free bet the following day after your tenth qualifying bet
- Only bets made at odds of evens or above count towards this offer
- Bets on horse racing singles do not count
- Cashed out, draw no bet or void wagers do not qualify
- Offer is available once per day, up to a maximum of seven per week
The Pools Sports Betting Options
In this part of our The Pools review, we’re going to examine what the sportsbook has to offer. The Pools betting website is about to be put through its paces…
Odds
With 27 different sports listed in the A-Z section that can be found on the left of the website, there’s plenty to bet on. We’ve compared the odds available at The Pools with those found at other betting companies. In our opinion, The Pools betting odds stand up against their competitors, so you can be assured that you’ll be getting good value.
Live In-Play Betting
There are a huge range of in-play betting options at The Pools. At the top of The Pools betting website there is a menu bar which contains an In-Play button. Click on it and you’ll go to a section with every in-play event taking place, which can be filtered by sport.
Extra Features
The obvious extra feature that separates The Pools from their competitors, is of course their pools games, which offer some huge jackpots. There’s also cash out and bet builder options. If there’s something that The Pools lacks at the moment, it’s live streaming. Hopefully that will be a feature that is added when The Pools betting company becomes more established.
Customer Support
One way that The Pools could improve is by offering 24/7 customer service. Currently they only operate between 08:30 to 22:00 Monday to Saturday and 12:00 to 22:00 on Sunday. However, the live chat that operates between these hours is pretty fast and you can also contact by email or post. The detailed FAQ page will solve plenty of problems before you need to get customer services involved.
Bet Limits
You can place a bet for as little as 10p on The Pools betting website. Maximum bets can vary. The most that you can win in one day is £50,000, which is a total that is less than you’ll find at other bookies. We should remember though that The Pools is a relative newcomer to the betting industry and you can still win millions playing their pools games.
The Pools Casino Review
This section is devoted to a The Pools casino review. As previously mentioned, there is a specific casino welcome offer at The Pools, where if you bet £10, you get 250 free spins, with no wagering requirements. There is no need to enter any The Pools casino promo code in order to access this offer.
The offers don’t stop coming once you’ve signed up. There is a different promotion for existing customers, each and every day. Each specific day of the week has its own regular promotion, while there’s also a midweek and a weekend tournament.
For a relatively new operation, the casino has plenty of titles available. There’s over 900 casino games to play in total, which includes 50+ live dealer games. The Pools use a wide range of software providers, so there’s a nice mix that includes progressive slot games with huge jackpots.
Presentation is very clear and crisp. If there’s something that The Pools might look to add its some ability to filter the titles. While there’s a menu system that breaks up the different games into categories, for the categories that include a lot of games such as Slots, you have to scroll through a lot of titles to find the one you want.
Overall, The Pools has done a good job with their casino section and it will be interesting to see how it grows and improves, as the company develops.
Signing up to The Pools Sports
Signing up for a The Pools betting account is a straightforward affair. Just to make it even easier, we’re going to take you through the process, step-by-step.
Step 1: Visit The Pools
You can visit The Pools via the above link. We’d recommend using the desktop website for the sign up process, as it’s clearer, but you could use the mobile site or app.
Step 2: Sign Up at The Pools
On the top right of the page is a ‘Sign Up’ button. Click on it and you’ll be asked to enter your email address and select a password.
Then click on ‘Next’ which not only takes you through to the next stage, but also confirms the terms and conditions. In this section you enter your personal details and pick a username.
Step 3: Deposit Funds
Once registered, it’s time to add some money to your account. Click on the green deposit button at top of the page and select your payment type.
Enter your details, how much you want to deposit and check that the automatically processed billing address is the same as your home address. You can store payment details on The Pools betting website, making future deposits/withdrawals quicker.
Step 4: Place Bets
Now for the fun part. It’s time to place some bets. You’ll want your first bet to be at least £10 and at odds over evens, in order that you qualify for your £20 of free bets.
The list of sports available is on the left-side of the screen. Choose your event and market, before clicking on the price of the bet you want to make. This will add the bet to a bet slip which will appear on the right of the page. Enter your stakes, which will result in you being shown your potential winnings. Once happy with your selection, click on the ‘ Bet Now’ button to confirm.
The Pools Sports Betting App
These days people want to bet on the go and The Pools helps you do this with their betting app, which is available for iOS and Android devices.
While the website works perfectly well on mobile devices, the app makes things even clearer and easier to use. The most popular in-play markets are displayed on the main page and you can find everything else, very easily.
As well as the sportsbook, you can also play pools games on the app.
Payment Options for The Pools Betting
Payment options are a little slim at The Pools. There’s no support for eWallets of any kind, nor bank transfers. With credit cards no longer being accepted as a payment method by UK gaming firms, this just leaves debit cards such as Visa, Mastercard and Maestro, as deposit and withdrawal options.
| Banking Methods | Fees | Minimum Deposit | Minimum Withdrawal | Withdrawal Times |
| Debit Card | None | £5 | £10 | 2-5 Days |
The Pools Review Pros & Cons
Within our The Pools review, we’ve tried to highlight the things that we like and the areas where we think they can improve. Here’s the main strengths and weaknesses of The Pools.
What We Like:
- Offers For Existing Customers – Whether it’s the sportsbook or the casino that you want to use at The Pools, you’ll gain access to a wide range of regular offers.
- Pools Games – The presence of the traditional pools games is a great difference maker. It’s a unique selling point for The Pools.
- Mobile App – We really liked the mobile app and think that The Pools have done a really good job in its development.
What We Don’t:
- Welcome Offer Restrictions – The welcome offer is spoilt somewhat by the £10 of free bets, being broken up into separate £5 bets, which have to be used on sports and Virtual sports respectively.
- Limited Payment Options – Most online bookies let you use eWallets for deposits and withdrawals. At The Pools, you’re limited to using debit cards.
- Lack of Live Streaming – Most UK-centric betting sites offer live streaming, particularly for horse racing and greyhounds. We hope The Pools adds this soon, or it will always be at a disadvantage.
Conclusion
We hope that you have enjoyed our The Pools review. In our opinion, The Pools already has a lot to offer, despite being a relative newcomer to the industry.
The issues we had with The Pools, such as the lack of payment options, complexity of the welcome offer and no live streaming, can be easily fixed. They also aren’t that big of an issue to overshadow the benefits of a The Pools betting account.
The Pools has got off to a great start and we expect their product to get better and better.
Deposit & Stake £10, Get £30 In Free Bets
Deposit & Stake £10, Get £30 In Free Bets
- Great offers for existing users
- Play traditional pools games
- Slick mobile sportsbook app
