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Ladbrokes Mobile Sports Betting App Review

If you live in Europe, Ladbrokes probably needs no introduction. If you used to bet in real world bookmakers, it’s likely you’ve lost money there in the past!

But that’s old news. These days, most people choose online or mobile betting. That gives us all a choice and means we don’t have to put up with poor service or stingy odds any more. Which brings me nicely on to this Ladbrokes betting app review.

Our Rating: 1.4 out of 5 stars (1.4 / 5)

UK high street bookmaker known for poor service and terrible odds.

As you can tell from the rating, I wouldn’t recommend the Ladbrokes online betting app to anybody. Just in case you came to this page because you were thinking of joining them, I want to help you dodge that particular bullet.

Today I’ll share the results of our testing with you, and explain why Ladbrokes mobile betting is probably even worse than they are on the high street. The good news is that there are plenty of better alternatives when it comes to mobile sports betting. So I’ll start by showing you some top rated betting apps that you can download instead.

Alternatives To The Ladbrokes App

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Overview & Key Features

In the past, Ladbrokes have generally relied on their size and brand name to get customers. They’re a fixture on UK high streets, a household name with over 2,000 betting shops in the UK, Ireland, Belgium and Spain.

There’s also the fact that for many punters there really wasn’t much choice, as Ladbrokes was either their closest bookmaker or the only one in town.

Now that we have mobile betting, we get a choice of hundreds of different online bookies, all with betting apps and all competing for our business. We don’t have to settle for a third rate service any more. Now we get to choose where to bet based on who’s offering us the best features, best odds and best bonuses and promotions.

Ladbrokes does none of this. They don’t seem to have evolved or moved with the times at all. Yes they have a mobile product, but all the Ladbrokes app does is bring the same old crappy service and low, low odds direct to your mobile device.

I’ve installed the app on our test devices in order to compile this Ladbrokes review, and I’ve done my best to write an unbiased review and started with an open mind. But it’s been deleted now and this is one I definitely won’t be installing on my own phone any time soon.

Ladbrokes Free Bet

If you’re dead set on joining Ladbrokes, then they do offer a new customer bonus when you join. At the time of writing, this is Bet £5 Get £20 (4 x £5 free bets). This is subject to change though.

I’m not recommending this because I advise anyone not to bet at Ladbrokes, so I am not going to include a link to the bonus here.

Terms and Conditions do apply to the offer, so if you do open an account then make sure you read them carefully and watch out for things like minimum odds, wagering requirements and a time limit on using the free bets.

Ladbrokes App Design / Usability

Ladbrokes mobile on Android I’d have expected a company with the resources and deep pockets of Ladbrokes to have developed a fast, slick and cutting edge app. Unfortunately, somewhat typically of their attitude, they haven’t bothered.

The latest versions are buggy and very, very slow – particularly the Ladbrokes Android app. It runs so slowly that it can take several minutes just to load up a betting market and odds. That’s just ridiculous and simply should not happen in 2023 when there are so many good Android apps that run like lightning.

This wasn’t a live betting market, so there was no reason or excuse for how slow it ran. We tried it several times on different markets over a period of a few days, and every time the performance was awful.

Needless to say, if it takes this long to even load the odds, you’ll really struggle to actually place a bet. And if you wanted to try cash out or to watch their (limited) live streaming, you can forget about doing that via the app. There are many better places to watch live sport than Ladbrokes.

This may well be fixed in later versions and I’ll keep an eye on it and update this review if anything changes. But right now, the December 2023 version of the Ladbrokes app is terrible.

if you really wanted to bet with Ladbrokes, you could of course try their responsive mobile website instead. Except that it isn’t really responsive. Much of the site hangs off the edge of the small screen, meaning you have to keep scrolling left and right to see anything. It’s incredibly annoying.

It’s really up to you whether you want to bother with this or not.

Choice of Markets

Because the app performs so badly, I had to use the desktop website to review the choice of markets. Trying to navigate my way round them all on the Ladbrokes app would have taken hours if not days.

As you’d expect, Ladbrokes do have quite a wide variety of betting markets, covering all major sports including the big football & horse racing events, and several minor ones as well. There can be no criticisms in this area. There’s plenty of choice of what to bet on.

What you can criticise, as I’ve mentioned before, are the odds. Ladbrokes have always had a reputation for being very stingy with their odds, and this has spilled over into their online and mobile platforms. Overall, they just always seem to offer lower odds than their competitors on average.

That means if you decide to bet with them, there will end up being more money in their pockets, and less in yours.

Banking – Deposit/Withdrawal Options

Deposits & Withdrawals Ladbrokes accept Debit Card, Bank Transfer, Neteller, Skrill, PayPal and WorldPay for both deposits and withdrawals. You can make withdrawals via the Ladbrokes app or their website.

They don’t charge fees, and the withdrawal times range between 3 hours for e-wallet payments, to 1-2 “banking days” (i.e. Monday to Friday) for card and bank withdrawals.

All of this is fair enough, so I don’t have any complaints about the banking.

Customer Service/Support

support I didn’t like the help section on the Ladbrokes app at all. It’s very poorly designed, with no “back” button, so if you end up on a page which doesn’t answer your question, you have to go all the way back to the start and search for your question again.

On their mobile site, the browser back button just closes the help section altogether and returns you to the main screen.

If you try to use their live chat instead, the customer experience is just as bad. It looks like they don’t want you to contact them, as the site takes every possible step to try to divert you back to those hard to navigate help pages instead of connecting you to someone.

I wanted to test the quality of their customer support agents though, so I persevered and eventually got through to someone. As usual, I posed as a new user and asked a couple of basic questions. Their response? I was directed back to a page in their help section, which didn’t answer the question I asked.

It was a very poor, frustrating experience and I’d hate to have to rely on their support for real if I had a genuine issue.

Safety and Security

security Ladbrokes hold a license from the UKGC (UK Gambling Commission) which covers punters in the United Kingdom.

In 2019, they were fined a total of £5.9 million for past failings in anti-money laundering and social responsibility. This comprised:

  • Continual breaches of Licence condition 12.1 to comply with Money Laundering Regulations 2007
  • Continual breaches of social responsibility code provision 3.4.1 (customer interaction)

“These were systemic failings at a large operator which resulted in consumers being harmed and stolen money flowing though the business and this is unacceptable.”

Source: UKGC

It’s up to you how you feel about betting with a company who has been found guilty of these types of practices. Some people won’t mind, and that’s fair enough, but personally it does bother me, a lot.

They have a separate license from the Government of Gibraltar which allows them to offer online betting services to players from the EU and the rest of the world.

Their website has a valid SSL certificate and it seems they have taken standard precautions to ensure the security of any transactions on their site. Therefore I don’t have any particular concerns about Ladbrokes from a security perspective.

Ladbrokes Betting App – Final Word

For me, the two best things about online and particularly mobile betting are convenience and choice. You are no longer limited to betting with the bookie that happens to be closest to where you live. Now, you have the choice of hundreds of betting sites in the palm of your hand. So there is no need to settle for low odds and bad service any more.

Ladbrokes really need to embrace the 21st Century, recognise the competition, and up their game.

But they haven’t done that.

The fact is that Ladbrokes mobile betting product is no better than they are on the high street. Their app offers nothing special, and is actually really frustrating to use.

But the good news is, you can avoid all this. Do yourself a favour and bet somewhere else instead.

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David Graham

Last Updated on April 15, 2021