BetMGM Sportsbook Review - 2024

One of the oldest names in the business, the MGM brand is a historic powerhouse in the world of brick-and-mortar gambling – and now with BetMGM, they are trying to transfer their brand equity onto the Internet. A completely different channel with a very different user base, there are things that impact a gambling website in a much more different way than it would a physical gambling location.

The BetMGM website also had something unique happen to us that has never happened with any other betting website – the site went down and refused to reload. We had to come back later to complete our review.

That said, if advertising is anything to go by, the BetMGM ads reflect the kind of thought process that drives a brick-and-mortar establishment – which is very different from how the Internet gaming public might think. How well that translates into the digital world, let’s find out.

BetMGM has primarily kept the sports betting experience clean and crisp – as simple as it can be. They have focused on the one thing that matters the most when betting on sports – bets! Unlike most websites that look to offer a dark coloured experience, BetMGM has a relatively clean, white interface that makes for pleasant viewing.

They have all the live games listed up below the main menu, while all the sports are listed on the left side-bar. You have quick-access buttons for your favourite sports or teams, while you can also view all available sports in alphabetical order, if you’d prefer that. Amongst the usual sports betting options, BetMGM also offers:

They may not have live streaming on all their sports and games, they do have a few games that are streamed live but unlike some of the bigger brand names from the digital world, you won’t find as many games being streamed live. You will see animated versions to varying degrees of detail but that’s never good enough, is it?

When you are viewing all their available live games, you have the option of viewing their entire events list or filtering by an interesting little flag-selector that works as a nice filter. The Live Events tab also shows upcoming games that are soon-to-be-live.

BetMGM has a wide range of markets that range from the traditional Canadian betting markets – Hockey, Football, Basketball, Baseball, Soccer and Golf, amongst others – and goes all the way into some of the less-popular markets like Gaelic Games and political markets. In the lesser markets, the number of events might not be as wide as some of the European betting brands but these are nice markets to have, nonetheless.

Somewhat hidden away into the corner of their promotions’ ribbon is 8-bit Barry, a Free-to-Play game that BetMGM seem to want to push, but not so much, at their customers. You stand to win, amongst other things, free spins on some casino games, same game parlay insurance tokens, parlay boost tokens and more.

And that’s about it – they have the basics up and running at BetMGM and there doesn’t seem to be any of the flash and bang that some of the more modern, Internet-age modern sportsbooks seem to have.

There is nothing to complain about here with BetMGM – their UI/UX is one of the cleanest versions you will find online. They have a white background with black font, so all the markets and odds are quite easy to read. While everything looks like it is black or white, and with the odd share of dark gold thrown in for good measure, the bonus and promotion banners on BetMGM are quite bright and vivid – which makes them hard to miss.

They aren’t too large, so they take up minimal screen acreage but there is a distinct look that makes them hard to miss and easy to read. They have a list of mini-games on the right sidebar, under the betting slip, as well as a link to “Media”, which shows any events that they are offering live-streaming for – however, nothing was available for the entire time that we tested out their website so we don’t really know if that works.

All in all, the site is cleaner than most other websites, with less clutter and a great touch with every team’s logo being displayed right next to their on the betting events’ lists.

The entire list of games and sports on BetMGM is not visible at all times – you can only see the events that are running live or are available to bet on within the next 48-hrs or as part of their futures. However, the collection of betting markets is quite exhaustive and whether you are looking for some of the top markets like MMA or Football, or some of the less-known ones like Gaelic Games, you will find plenty of events to bet on.

They have separate sections for Rugby Union and Rugby League, which is rare, as well as a market for politics, which is rarer. However, they cover all the basis with their market-list and nothing to complain about here for this veteran of the betting industry – BetMGM.

This is quite a standardized format amongst all sportsbooks that all the leagues – NFL, CFL, college sports, etc. – are covered from end-to-end. The games can be picked out from the professional leagues, individually, or from the college leagues – all of which appear in neat little filters above the odds. BetMGM does not get this wrong!

When you switch to a more global sport like Hockey, the left-sidebar changes to a country-selector while all the events are listed in the middle section. As you select options from the left, you keep adding or removing from the filters available to you, which makes it easier to find the games you want. Plenty of domestic leagues alongside NFL make Hockey one of the best sports to bet on, on BetMGM.

Basketball is very similar to hockey on BetMGM because they too have the same country-selector on the left sidebar while the markets to bet on range from the NBA and EuroLeague to Iraq, Poland or Uruguay. You have a lot of options available here and again – the options displayed are only the ones that have games running at the moment – others appear as they come online.

While the sport selector on the top of the site – near the top menu, separately identifies NCAAM or NCAAF as a way to jump to college sports, the sport-specific sidebar only lists college sports as one of the filter options under each sporting market (football, baseball, etc.).

The markets, however, are quite packed with options and you get as good a betting experience with these college games as you would with pro games.

BetMGM is an American sports betting brand and historically, American brands have never been that good at Soccer markets. However, seeing how big the Canadian market scene is on Soccer, it’s no wonder that sportsbooks have had to catch up real quick, and BetMGM has done much the same.

They have all the country-specific leagues available through the side bar, and on the markets’ section, you have the option of filtering out games from the leagues that are running live at the moment. You have a whole bunch of props available even for the smaller leagues, but there’s still some room to catch up on, for BetMGM.

BetMGM have historically been the trend setters when it comes to markets and odds, but with the influx of a bunch of sports betting companies, they suddenly find themselves no longer the biggest player in the market.

They create their own odds and that means, they are likely to offer you something different from all the other sportsbooks who are probably buying data from them to create their odds.

As far as BetMGM is concerned, they do lead the way with their odds and having full control of the process makes it easier for them to set the pace here for others to follow.

BetMGM offers multiple promotions at any given point of time – especially with Parlays. Known for their parlay options, BetMGM allows you to boost your parlays or provides special boosted parlay offers almost every gameday. They have a massive $1500 hockey cashback bet for your first ever bet on BetMGM, or a free $25 live bet option that you get if you place a $50 or more pre-game stake on the NFL.

There’s the option of boosting your same-game parlay by using the boost token or you could just win 2-tickets to the Super Bowl if you get the picks right. At the time of writing this review, they had 9-different promotions running on their website and in terms of creativity, they are some of the most interesting and creative uses of promotions that we’ve seen across the board.

We did see some users get confused by their promos because the conditions just seemed too complicated to understand – not too many complaints though!

There are a number of easy and simple deposit options available at BetMGM:

When it comes to withdrawals, BetMGM offers the following options:

All deposit methods on BetMGM are almost instantaneous in getting the money into your account. When it comes to withdrawals, most formats take between 2-5 days, although Interac takes less than 8hrs to get the money into your bank account while PayPal gets the money within 24hrs.

BetMGM employs a cutting-edge system that stands out as one of the most secure online platforms. Shielded by a top-tier global firewall, the entire system undergoes continuous enhancement through collaboration with highly qualified security advisors worldwide.

Having the cash-out security feature is a valuable addition as it introduces an additional layer of validation during cash-out transactions. When you choose to enable this feature, the system prompts you to respond to your security questions when initiating a cash-out request.

This serves as an effective measure to enhance the overall security of the cash-out process, ensuring that only authorized individuals can complete these transactions.

The layout of the mobile app is quite the same as the website as it is a progressive web app, except that the left side-bar gets rolled up into the hamburger menu on the top. You start with all the live games and the top sports menu with the side-scrolling bar helps you run through the sports you want to filter out of the main display.

Adding things to your betting slip is easy – and it shows up as a little overlay bar at the bottom of the screen – perfect for usage and with the lighter screen, makes for a pleasant change from all the darker-background apps out there. That said, if you crave that dark mode, you will be left disappointed!

There have been some complaints though about going back to the previous page/section, which does not seem to be working – doesn’t seem to be a problem across the board, however.

BetMGM has one of the most comprehensive help portals that we’ve seen amongst all the sports betting brands. They have a detailed FAQ section that lists out all the different sections of the site, and then lists out all the FAQs under each section separately.

They single out features, promotions, rewards, legal matters and everything else that you can think of, into neat little piles with their questions lined up right next to each section.

Should none of that help you, you can always contact customer care via chat or email and if you are asking questions about your account, please be prepared to upload documents to verify your identity. All-in-all, they have one of the best support centres you could possibly think of.

BetMGM has a strong rating on the Apple App Store with a 4.7 rating out of 5. The most common complaints tend to be about the app being slow or about issues with withdrawal, but since the app was updated in August 2022, complaints seem to have gone down considering they do have almost 7k reviews.

On the Google Play Store, they have fewer overall reviews with just 3.74k reviews – however, the score is still strong at 4.3 out of 5. The nature of the complaints is pretty much the same as you see for the Apple App Store.

BetMGM is one of the oldest names in gambling and when Ontario decided to open up their market to the sports betting public, BetMGM was one of the first to make their entry. They have, since then, undergone plenty of changes as the app, the look and feel, the quality of the odds and the markets they offer – all of them have undergone significant upgrades.

They do remain one of the simpler sportsbooks out there and tend to stick to the basics and do them well. You may find other sportsbooks that run more promotions or flashier promos, but BetMGM knows what it can do and does it well, over and over again.

This is, again, a must-have account if you’re into sports betting because anytime the world of sports betting sees a change, you can bet that BetMGM will be one of the driving forces behind it.