As two behemoths in the online gambling world, bet365 and Sky may be familiar to many of you already. Even if you’re completely new to the world of online sports betting, casino or poker, you can hardly miss these two brands. But who wins in the battle of bet365 vs Sky?
Let’s do a deep dive into both brands and figure out their similarities and differences. Afterward, you can make an informed decision about which site suits your style of play and interests the best.
Correct at time of writing, 17th January, 2022
Let’s rewind for a second and go back to the very start of bet365 vs Sky. Sky is a giant on the media landscape in Britain. A longstanding TV, internet and phone provider, it moved into the sports betting arena when it bought Sports Internet Group in 2000. A couple of years later, the existing Surrey Sports brand was relaunched as Sky Bet.
Sky Bet’s parent company is Sky Betting & Gaming. Through a number of mergers and sales in the last decade (involving, Sky, CVC and The Stars Group), ownership of the group now lies with Flutter Entertainment. Does that name ring a bell? That’s the company that was created by the merger of Paddy Power and Betfair.
Like Sky Bet, bet365 is a British company whose origins stretch back to 2000. However, that’s where the origin story similarities stop. Founder of the company Denise Coates comes from a betting background. Her father started a chain of bookmakers in the 1970s. When she decided to start the online venture, Coates borrowed £15 million against the family business.
In 2005, the family said goodbye to their bricks and mortar shops for good when they sold the chain to Coral. Since then, they’ve focused solely on the booming online market. The rest, as they say, is history.
| Betting Type | bet365 | Sky |
| Poker | ✔ | ✔ |
| Sports | ✔ | ✔ |
|
✔ | ✔ |
|
✖ | ✔ |
| Casino | ✔ | ✔ |
|
✔ | ✔ |
|
✔ | ✔ |
|
✔ | ✔ |
|
✔ | ✔ |
| Live Casino | ✔ | ✔ |
| Bingo | ✔ | ✔ |
First things first, let’s talk technology. The bet365 Poker software is provided by the iPoker Network. This giant force in the industry is composed of 23 different sites. That means shared resources and big player pools. At the time of writing, it ranks comfortably in the top 10 for poker traffic.
Meanwhile, Sky Poker is out on its own. Of course, that comes with some advantages, perhaps making it more agile to respond to a smaller customer base’s needs. But the fact that it’s solo has implications for its traffic. It’s more like in the top 25 of the world’s busiest poker sites.
Now for navigation. Sky Poker might look a little more familiar to longtime poker players than bet365. That’s because it’s got a very traditional, if slightly old-fashioned, layout. There are lots of tabs, where you can easily find what you’re looking for.
Meanwhile, over at bet365, everything you need is located in a carousel. As soon as you realise you’ve got to click through the carousel to find what you want, things are a cinch. But it’s not a layout the average player might expect from an online poker room.
The bet365 Poker layout is really big and graphic. For that reason, it’s ideal to play on smaller screens. You can very quickly and easily set your minimum buy-in or stake level, depending on what you want to play. Then simply hit Play Poker and you’re good to go.
The layout at Sky Poker is probably quite familiar to people who’ve been playing online for a number of years. It’s effectively a big long list. There are ways to filter for your buy-in, stake level, game preference, etc., but it’s not quite as intuitive as bet365.
In terms of games offered, the cash game tables and tournaments are pretty comparable at bet365 vs Sky. Where the two sites diverge a little is when it comes to non-traditional poker variants.
Over at bet365 Poker, there’s a heavy focus on Twister tournaments, which are 3-Max lottery sit & go tournaments, where your prize pool is randomly determined when you sit down. The prize pool is a multiple of your buy-in and can reach up to 1,000x (other multiples are 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 10, 10, 50 or 100). You can also play Age of the Gods Twister, where you have a shot at hitting a progressive jackpot too in addition to 2, 4, 10, 20, 50 and 100 multiples, or Wild Twister Sit & Gos, where all players go all-in on every hand. These games feature the same prize pool multiples of the Age of Gods (minus the progressive prize). They've also have the super-fast Premium Steps tournaments, where the buy-ins start small, but you can grind your way up to big prize pools.
Note that the prize pool for Twister Sit and Gos is displayed after you have entered the SNG but before you begin playing.
Over at Sky Poker, the main out-of-the-ordinary variant is Spin Up Cash Poker, available with Hold'em or Omaha options. This cash game type sees players buy-in for between three and 10 big blinds. This leads to a fast-paced, high-variance and fun game.
Both bet365 and Sky offer different rewards schemes for their poker customers than the rest of their customer base. But when you compare bet365 vs Sky, who comes out on top?
At bet365, you’ve got the Loyalty Club. Quite simply, you can get bet365 Coins when you pay a poker fee (at cash games or tournaments) or by completing Loyalty Missions. Then you can swap bet365 Coins for items in the Store, like bonus cash or tickets. There are also several levels to progress through as you play poker at bet365. The more poker you play, the higher your level and the more rewards you can receive. Rewards include entry to exclusive freerolls and promotions.
The equivalent loyalty scheme at Sky is called Sky Poker Rewards. Similar to bet365, you get Poker Points for playing real-money poker on the site. There are several different levels here, all of whom have access to weekly freerolls. But the big incentive here is the fact that if you’re a high enough volume player, you can get a certain percentage of rakeback, which ranges from 10% up to 20%. Keep in mind that to get to the rakeback stage, you’ve got to be paying a minimum of £1,000 in fees each month. So for the casual player, rakeback isn’t going to be attainable.
Both bet365 and Sky Bet are arguably best known for their sportsbooks. If you’re a sports fan, you’re going to need a reliable sportsbook. Hence, this is one major area where the fight of bet365 vs Sky really heats up.
At the time of writing, bet365 Sport was offering a whopping 48 different areas to bet on. Most of these are sports, with a focus on major events happening over the next few days in the world of soccer, rugby, tennis, etc. But there are also opportunities to bet on different types of markets, like politics and even TV shows.
Over at Sky Bet, they’ve got marginally fewer categories. Having said that, all the major sports are there, plus fun special markets too. As we’ve come to expect with any major sportsbook, they both offer in-play wagers.
Sky Bet also offers a sports loyalty scheme where you can choose your reward every week. Basically, if you bet a certain amount of cash, you get an extra something or other. At the time of writing, that was either free spins or free bets. There is no similar loyalty scheme at bet365. However, what bet365 lacks in a loyalty scheme for sports bettors, they make up for with a juicy set of promotions. Sky Bet has a bevy of promotions too, but in our opinion, bet365’s options are just a shade more compelling.
Another interesting offering at Sky is the weekly predictor game Sky Super 6, plus its Fantasy Football brand. Now they’re not straight wagering but you can get some pretty sweet prizes for taking part.
To be honest, we’re big fans of the casino offerings at both sites which makes it kind of difficult to compare bet365 vs Sky. Plus as they both partner with Playtech, they share more similarities than not.
Over at bet365, there are over 240 slots to choose from, whereas Sky have a slightly more modest, but still impressive, stable just shy of 160 games. When it comes to card, table and video poker options, both sites are pretty easily comparable with a relatively decent selection. The same goes for Live Casino games, you’re going to find all the big hitters on both sites.
Promotions are one area where these two online casinos differ slightly. Sky Casino tends to have fewer promotions on the go at any given time than bet365, sometimes almost half the amount. However, Sky also has a loyalty scheme called Players Club. Much like the poker loyalty scheme, it rewards you as you spend real money playing casino games. Then when you rack up enough points, you can convert them to cash.
Playtech also provides the technology behind both the bingo brands at bet365 and Sky. There are a handful of exclusive bingo rooms at Sky, but otherwise, the two brands share quite a lot.
In our opinion, it’s slightly easier to navigate your way around the bingo rooms at bet365 vs Sky, but there’s really not much in it. The promotions are different on both sites and, at the time of writing, Sky was offering a few more.
So after all that, who should you choose to be your main online gambling provider? Both brands do share a lot of similarities, particularly in the casino, live casino and bingo brands, thanks to their partnerships with Playtech.
But their differences really shine when you compare their poker and sports offerings. Due to the fact that bet365 is on the iPoker Network, their online poker room is definitely stronger. There’s more action, more players, bigger prize pools, the lot.
Things are a little bit closer in the online sportsbooks arena. We do love Sky Bet’s Players Club and also the superbly fun Super 6. But we think that the markets at bet365, as well as their really fantastic promotions, make them a slightly more compelling choice for us.
In the battle of bet365 vs Sky, we think bet365 edges it as a better overall brand for us on the basis of the sportsbook and poker offerings.
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