Sky Bet App Review
Well, DON’T DO IT!
Actually, I’m really glad you came here first, because it gives me the chance to save you making a big mistake.
Our Rating:
(0.5 / 5)
Sky betting app used to be popular once upon a time, but it’s gone completely off the rails since being sold off to the highest bidder. Now this is an app to avoid at all costs.
In this detailed Sky Bet App review, I’ll tell you all about what’s happened over the last few years. You’ll learn why I no longer trust them with my money, and why I wouldn’t install their mobile app if it was the last one on Earth.
Don’t get me wrong. There was a time when Sky Bet used to be one of my favourite places to bet online. But that all seems a long time ago now.
These days, Sky Bet is no longer owned by Sky. Things have gone completely downhill since Sky sold out the brand, and these days it is, in my opinion, one of the worst online betting sites out there.
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Sky Bet Overview & History
But that was then and this is now. Unfortunately, they decided to put profit over their customers. In 2014, Sky decided to sell the majority stake in Sky Bet (which includes Sky Vegas and Sky Bingo) to a private venture capital group called CVC Capital Partners. This was good news for their shareholders, but bad news for their business partners, and most importantly, their millions of punters.
From that point on, Sky still had a minority share in the business, but they were no longer in control. CVC were making all the decisions, and typically venture capitalists only care about one thing – profit.
How Sky Bet Went Bad
Things didn’t change immediately, but over time punters, myself included, began to notice that things were changing. As someone who looks for value bets, I saw the odds getting progressively worse. Others noticed the standard of customer service going downhill. The Sky Bet app listings on Google Play and App Store started getting filled with tons of very positive reviews which were obviously fake.
In 2015 and then 2017, Sky Bet made moves to completely shaft the hundreds of marketing partners who they had made deals with to promote the brand.
In case you think this review is just sour grapes – it’s not. I dodged that particular bullet, and Mobile Betting Site has never carried any ads for Sky Bet. Others did however, and were cheated out of millions of pounds.
Then in 2018, Sky Bet were fined £1 Million by the UK Gambling Commission for failing to protect vulnerable customers. This included deliberately marketing to, and accepting bets from problem gamblers who’d self excluded.
The action against Sky Bet, which is listed on their UKGC license, states that (and I quote):
- 736 self-excluded customers were able to open and use duplicate accounts to gamble
- Around 50,000 self-excluded customers received marketing material by email, mobile text or a push notification within a mobile app
- 36,748 self-excluded customers did not have their account balance funds returned to them on account closure.
Not good at all, and that is a massive understatement.
Selling Out Again
A few weeks later, Sky Bet was sold again, this time to Stars Group. That’d be the same Stars Group that was fined $731 Million by the US Government for illegal activity including fraudulent payment processing.
Does that fill you full of confidence? Me neither.
So even though they’re still allowed to keep using the brand name, and even though you see the likes of Jeff Stelling advertising them, Sky now don’t own any stake in Sky Bet at all. Both they and CVC have made a nice fat profit from shafting their partners, marketing to vulnerable problem gamblers and then selling out to a company with a dubious history.
Now you know why I’m advising you not to join Sky Bet!
Sky Bet Complaints
So what do actual Sky Bet customers think? Not a lot, by the sounds of it.
- A massive 82% of Sky Bet reviews on TrustPilot rate them as Poor or Bad.
- Gambling forums, communities and Facebook groups are full of complaints from disgruntled customers, far too many to list here.
- Punters Rights campaigner Paul Fairhead claims Sky Bet ‘think they are beyond the law’ due to their predatory Ts & Cs.
This is why I really urge you to think twice before deciding to join Sky Bet. It will give me no pleasure at all to say “told you so” after the event – I’d much rather you avoided having an issue in the first place.
Is The Sky Bet App Any Good?
The latest versions of both the Sky Bet Android app and it’s iOS counterpart were installed and tested by our team in 2023 and they worked OK. There was no particular performance degradation, and in general they were fairly easy to use.
I am very suspicious about some of the reviews of the Sky Bet app on Google Play and App Store. I’ve been doing this a while, and I’m able to spot a fake review fairly easily.
I’m not saying all their reviews are definitely fake, because I obviously can’t prove that. But when an app gets a bunch of 5* reviews all at once from users that had never previously posted anything, it does raise suspicions.
I’ll leave you to make up your own mind on that. But as for me, my very low Sky Bet review rating is based more upon them as a company than the quality of the app itself.
Final World: Is The Sky Bet App A Scam?
I’m certainly not telling you that Sky Bet is a scam, so any lawyers reading this, you can put your pens down and shove your threatening letters where they belong. What I am doing is giving you factual evidence, linked with appropriate citations, which shows you what has happened to the brand between 2014 and today.
My personal opinion, which I am allowed to share, is that in 2023 Sky Bet is a brand which I do not trust, and never will do again. This is down to my own experience betting with them, as much as the other factors described above.
Our Rating: (0.5 / 5)
My advice is do not bet here. There are plenty of better alternatives, so choose one of them instead.
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Last Updated on April 15, 2021