StarSports
StarSports sister sites include AK Bets, PricedUp, Planet Sport Bet and Proper Bet.
StarSports (starsports.bet) is operated by Star Racing Limited of Star House, 255 Old Shoreham Road, Hove, BN3 7ED.
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StarSports Sister Sites 2026
Star Racing Limited used to operate two StarSports sister sites, but there’s a fundamental difference between the StarSports sister sites and StarSports itself. StarSports (sometimes known as StarSports Bet because of its URL) is the only betting site that Star Racing Limited owns and operates directly. The two others, McBookie and AK Bets, ran on a white-label basis, and both have since moved to licences of their own. That leaves StarSports on its own on Star Racing’s licence, but it doesn’t mean the brand is short of relatives. Several other UK bookmakers run on exactly the same betting software, and one of them, PricedUp, is run from the very same building in Hove. Click on the link to Star Racing Limited to find out more about the operator, or stay here to discover the StarSports sister sites.
AK Bets
AK Bets is a name that might be familiar to a few of you as a real-world brand. It started life at Killarney as an on-track bookmaker in 2021. As is often the case with first-day bookies, the owners of AK Bet lost more than £1000 more than they took, but they weren’t put off. The next day went better, and just eighteen months later, the AK Bets website was born. AK Bets went live as the newest of the StarSports sister sites at the beginning of 2023, and launched a series of apps just as soon as the website went live. It’s since moved to a UK licence of its own, held by AKBO Limited, but it still runs on the same software as StarSports, and you can tell, because the menus, betslip and racecards are laid out exactly the same way. The difference is in the extras. AK Bets has a sign-up offer of up to £100 in free bets, five bet clubs that pay out free bets to regular customers, and a trader chat service that lets you speak to a human between 8am and 10pm, which is more than StarSports offers.
PricedUp
PricedUp is the closest thing StarSports has to a sibling. Its licence is held by a different company, Off Course Bookmakers Limited, but the address on the register is Star House, 255 Old Shoreham Road, Hove, which is where you’ll find Star Racing, too. The software is identical, right down to the racecards and the price boosts, so the real difference is how the two brands treat new customers. StarSports doesn’t have a welcome offer at all, while PricedUp gives you 100 free spins on Big Bass Splash, worth 10p each, when you wager £10 on that slot. The winnings carry 10x wagering, which is the most that UK rules allow. PricedUp is also an official partner of West Bromwich Albion, which gives it a profile that StarSports doesn’t try to match. If you like the StarSports layout but want something in return for signing up, PricedUp is the StarSports sister site to try.
Planet Sport Bet
Launch the same software into orbit, and you get Planet Sport Bet. The layout is unmistakably shared with StarSports, but it’s been given a space-age makeover in navy and hot pink, and the price boosts have been renamed Rocket Boosts, complete with a cartoon rocket. Planet Bet Ltd runs it from Harrogate under its own UK licence, and it’s a more sports-minded site than PricedUp, with Football and Horses given their own tabs in the main menu. Its welcome offer is aimed squarely at punters rather than slots players. Place a £10 double or bigger, and you’ll get a £10 free bet to use on another double once you’ve signed up with the code ROCKET1010. That’s more than StarSports offers new customers, although the free bet has to go on multiples, which won’t suit everyone. Of the StarSports sister sites, it’s the one with the most personality.
Proper Bet
Proper Bet is so closely modelled on StarSports that even its page titles follow the same template. “Bet with Star Sports” becomes “Bet with Proper Bet,” and the rest of the line barely changes. The site itself swaps navy and gold for a crisp teal and white, and it’s run from York by Proper Bet Limited under its own UK licence. The boosts are called Proper Boosts, and they’re the first thing you see on the homepage, ahead of the racing. New customers who wager £20 on Big Bass Vegas 1000 get 100 free spins, and there’s a free bet for regular acca players, too. Like the other StarSports sister sites, it has a casino, live casino and virtual sports alongside the sportsbook. It hasn’t been around long enough to build much of a reputation either way, so if you’re thinking of joining, we’d keep an eye on how its first few withdrawals go.
McBookie
While the name of McBookie might lead some of you to believe that McDonald’s has finally branched out into gambling, that isn’t (yet) the case. Instead, McBookie is exactly what you think it is. You don’t need to be an expert in the terminology and parlance of the British Isles to work out that McBookie is a betting site with Scottish origins. The brand has been online since 2009, so it’s demonstrated some considerable staying power to keep on ticking in such a competitive market. While McBookie isn’t exclusive to Scottish players, you get the feeling from its website that it would prefer to be. The wording of the “about us” section makes reference to betting on Scottish sporting triumphs, so if you’ve taken leave of your senses and you think Scotland might be a viable bet to win the next World Cup (it could be the World Cup of any sport – they’re all just as unlikely), McBookie is the site to place your wager at. It’s a former StarSports sister site rather than a current one, though, as it’s moved to a London company, Playquarry Ltd, and onto different software.
Can Star Sports Be Trusted?
★★★★★
Star Sports is a 3-star trusted betting site.
StarSports Review 2026
StarSports has been around since 1999 and describes itself as “the UK’s leading luxury bookmaker.” Like a couple of the current and former StarSports sister sites, the brand began at the side of a racecourse before finding its way online. The company says that it relocated to Brighton in 2009 after acquiring other family-run bookmaking brands like Vickers, although Vickers and the other brands that StarSports cites ownership of actually belong to other operators in the eyes of the UK Gambling Commission. Another of the sentences of praise that StarSports heaps upon itself is “the most exclusive private bookmaker in the world.” It talks the talk, but can it walk the walk?
The StarSports homepage puts the day’s football, golf and racing in front of any offers.
StarSports Welcome Promotions
We’ve reviewed StarSports a few times now, and the brand can’t seem to make its mind up about whether it wants to offer up a welcome bonus to new players or not. It had no welcome bonus the first time we reviewed it, a small matched deposit bonus the second time, and no bonus again the third time, and although it’s offered money back on losing first bets since then, there’s no welcome offer at all as we return once more, just a promo code box on the sign-up form. That instantly weakens the brand because players have come to expect a freebie when registering with a new bookie for the first time, but fear not – based on past form, we’re sure StarSports will start handing out bonuses again at some point in the next six months.
Other Promotions
Quite a lot of the promotions you may or may not come across at StarSports will depend on what sporting events are happening that day or week. You’ll always find special bets attached to the day’s football action if there are big games happening, and there are sub-sections of small promotions for the afternoon’s greyhound or horse racing. In other words, the promotions section of StarSports is live and constantly updated. Among these temporary promotions are a few that hang around for longer. If you lose your bet on the first goalscorer in a football match, for example, StarSports will refund fifty per cent of your stake if your chosen player scores second instead. On the day we visited, a £10 Build-A-Bet on one Champions League match earned a £5 free Build-A-Bet on another, and the Star Boosts section in the A-Z menu has enhanced prices every day.
There will be some – not many, but some – players who come to StarSports to play its casino games rather than to bet on sports. A limited number of promotions at the casino are available, but the terms aren’t all that inviting. The biggest ongoing promotion at the StarSports Casino is Star Casino Club. It offers one hundred free spins per week with no wagering requirements attached, but only to players who’ve spent £500 or more on slots during the previous week. That’s a lot of spending for not a lot of bonus action.
What are the Pros and Cons of StarSports?
Pros: This is a very comprehensive sports betting website operated by a brand that’s been around for a long time and is seen as trustworthy. The combination of telephone and social media customer support that it offers means that there’s always someone to speak to if you need assistance.
Cons: StarSports doesn’t offer many promotions, and those that it does offer aren’t particularly attractive. Worse than that, the site seems to be stuck in the past when it comes to banking. There aren’t many options to choose from and no way to get an instant or even a same-day withdrawal of your funds.
Top Games at StarSports
To ask us what the top games at StarSports are would be to fundamentally misunderstand the site. This is a sports betting site, and the fact that it also offers casino games is more of a nicety than an attraction. If you really want to know, the most popular slots in the StarSports Casino are Book of Dead, Gold Gold Gold Hold and Win and Fangtastic Freespins. For 99% of players, though, the top games are the top sporting fixtures that StarSports offers odds on.
Every betting site on the Star Racing Limited platform leads with horse racing, and StarSports itself is no exception. Football takes second billing on the homepage, followed by tennis, golf, and cricket. There’s also more coverage of American Football at StarSports than you’ll find at most UK-facing sports betting websites. For enhanced odds, look under “Star Boosts” in the A-Z menu. There are unconventional betting opportunities, too, which could include anything from odds on the next Prime Minister to odds on the next winner of Britain’s Got Talent.
If you do venture into the casino, check the small print on the game tiles. A lot of the slots in the lobby, including Temple Tumble Megaways, 3 Pigs of Olympus 2 and Money Train 5, are labelled as 92% RTP versions, which is a long way below what most of those games pay at other UK casinos. The bingo section that used to sit in the main menu has gone, too, although you’ll still find Slingo, crash games and a live casino.
Withdrawal Processing & Support
If you were paying attention when we ran through the pros and cons of StarSports a few moments ago, you’ll remember us saying that payment processing was a major weakness of the site. If you want to conduct transactions with StarSports, you’ll have to do so via debit cards, Apple Pay or bank transfers, including instant bank payments through Yaspa. There’s no support for e-wallets such as PayPal, and the FAQs still list cheques as a payment method. One of the consequences of that old-school approach is that you won’t get your money quickly. Debit card withdrawals will take between two and five business days, and while the turnaround time for bank transfers isn’t quoted, it’s probably safe to assume that they take even longer. To cut a long story short, don’t expect fast withdrawals from StarSports – it’s not going to happen.
Customer Services & Licensing
The fastest and easiest way to get in contact with StarSports is to give the team a call on 01273 936840. That’s the dedicated customer service line, but you could also call the betting line on 08000 521321 if you’d rather place bets over the phone than over the internet. Your other option is to contact StarSports via Twitter/X.com, where you’ll find them under the handle “StarSports_Bet.”
The UK Gambling Commission licence that covers StarSports is number 9177 and is held by Star Racing Limited. Its entry on the regulator’s public register currently shows no regulatory actions, so the licence is clean, but it no longer covers any StarSports sister sites. McBookie and AK Bets are both listed as inactive on it, having moved to licences of their own. Star Racing also holds a remote betting licence from the Gambling Regulatory Authority of Ireland.
StarSports – The Verdict
StarSports makes some very bold claims about itself in the “about us” section of its website, including a suggestion that it’s the UK’s biggest luxury bookmaker and the most exclusive bookmaker in the world. We’re all for a little hyperbole, but we think StarSports went a little too far there – it’s nowhere near being able to back the statements up. Its sportsbook is fine, and there’s plenty to bet on, but until it offers a suite of payment options fit for the 2020s and upgrades its promotions, it’s not going to reach the level that it believes itself to be on.
On mobile, StarSports keeps racing and football one tap away in the bottom menu.
What are players saying about StarSports?
Here are our condensed summaries of recent Star Sports reviews from real players.
- 16-Sep-2026 by Harry: I deposited and lost £40, then deposited £60 more and tried to withdraw the £40 I had left. It never reached my bank, and when I called, I was asked for screenshots of my bank account and more besides. If you win, I doubt you’ll ever see your money. – source: Trustpilot
- 14-Sep-2026 by Brendan: My account was suspended for verification straight after I deposited. They claimed another customer had my card details but wouldn’t tell me anything more. There are plenty of established sites, so I’d avoid this one. – source: Trustpilot
- 12-Sep-2026 by Korky1873: I set deposit limits and haven’t deposited since, yet apparently I’m over my limit. Customer care was horrendous. They told me to email, which takes ages, and blamed me for setting the wrong limit. – source: Trustpilot
- 27-Aug-2026 by Paul: My limit was £500 a month, and they cut it to £100 without telling me. No customer service skills at all. Avoid. – source: Trustpilot
- 19-Aug-2026 by DJ: I opened an account, won two bets, and that was that. Every bet after that was refused except at tiny stakes. For a firm that boasts about taking real bets, that’s pathetic. – source: Trustpilot
- 09-Aug-2026 by Daniel: A shocking experience. There’s no welcome bonus, and the casino games lag a lot. Just look at the other reviews. – source: Trustpilot
- 05-Aug-2026 by Mrs M: I won £1,400, and they blocked my account, saying I was on GamStop, which I’m not, even after I’d sent everything they asked for. I’ve reported them to the Gambling Commission. – source: Trustpilot
- 05-Aug-2026 by Craig: A very poor choice of markets and slow withdrawals. One of the worst sites I’ve used. – source: Trustpilot
- 23-Jul-2026 by Kordo: They accepted my deposit, then blocked my withdrawal and asked for lots of paperwork. Avoid. – source: Trustpilot
- 21-Jul-2026 by Mo: They blocked my deposit and wouldn’t even pay my own money back. Avoid. – source: Trustpilot