Review Methodology
At Lines64, we are committed to providing our readers with accurate and unbiased reviews. While we do earn money from affiliate deals, we have no hesitation in breaking those deals if the product does not meet our standards.
We understand that reader trust is paramount, and we will always act in the best interest of the sports bettor.
People behind the Service / Betting App
Let’s start with something that most “reviewers” skip, but is actually somewhat important information: who is actually running this betting service? Is this kind of information even available to the public? Do they own multiple betting apps? Could there be a connection to a bookmaker?
Here is an example from our BetBurger review;
BetBurger is owned by Aspira Limited, a company that also manages two similar services: BetWasp, which targets the US market, and AllBestBets, which focuses on the CIS market. Additionally, Aspira Limited owns OddsFan, an odds comparison website, and OddsMarket, a B2B platform dedicated to offering risk management software and additional services to bookmakers.
Bookmaker & Sports Coverage
Under the coverage section, we take a look at how many sports and bookmakers the service supports.
For the bookmakers section, we explore if they support US, UK, CA and AUS betting sites, to see if they are available for people from those countries. As a starting benchmark, we will use top five most popular bookmakers in the country/region.
We also look at the betting exchanges and sharp bookmakers – for sharps, we check for Pinnacle, Betcris, Bookmaker.eu, Heritage, Circa and BetOnline. As for the exchanges, we check for Betfair, Matchbook, Betdaq, Smarkets and SX.bet.
- We have compiled a massive database of over 900 bookmakers. This spreadsheet will serve as the primary resource for determining ratings based on bookmaker coverage.
As for the sports coverage, we check the amount of sports they cover. We also investigate if they support popular US sports (NFL, NBA and NHL), AUS sports (AFL, NRL and cricket) and niche sports like darts, snooker and winter sports. We also inspect if they have coverage for esports and horse racing.
Every service should at the minimum support bet365 and Unibet, a couple of US and AUS bookies and at least one or two sharp bookmakers and betting exchanges. Of course, some betting tools will focus on different geographical locations, which is fine and we will make sure to mention the target region in our review.
Below you can check out an bookmaker coverage example from our Bet Hero review;
Speed & Reliability
This is the section that will most likely need a revamp in the future, as it is very hard to compare betting tools based on the speed of their scanners (at least without some custom software, like a betting bot that would place bets automatically, the use of which is forbidden by most betting tools and bookmakers).
For this iteration of the review methodology, we will focus on how hard it is to get a bet on with the recommended odds immediately after you receive the alert. Do the odds drop immediately or do you have enough time to place a bet comfortably?
We will also take a look at a couple of subjects like if the data provider is known, do they use an in-house scrapper and if they are using the official Pinnacle API for getting the Pinnacle odds.
There is no getting around odds dropping if you run a successful betting system, but at least the notification about odds should be as accurate as possible. As for the in-play stats, they should be at least on par with what you see on bookmakers’ in-play section.
Design & User Experience
In the Design & User Experience section we take a look at how the website or app functions.
- Is the website/app visually appealing? Is it mobile friendly? Or does it look like it is from 2005?
- Is navigating the tool intuitive, with a well-organised layout that makes it easy to find key features?
- Can new users quickly grasp how to use the tool, thanks to the straightforward interface and helpful tooltips? Is there a “new-user guide” they can take a look at?
Some parts of this are obviously going to be more subjective than others (especially design stuff) but we will try to be as objective as possible.
In this day and age every web-based app should be mobile-friendly.
Bet Tracking
Does the service support in-app tracking of bets?
If the service supports bet management, can you add custom bookmakers to the tracker? Something like this would be useful if you want to focus on smaller bookmakers like locals or PPH. We also take a look at how many filters does the tracker support, can you filter by bookmakers, by sport or by bet type.
In-short; is the in-app bet tracker feature-rich enough to be usable without any external bet tracking software? If not, can you export your bets and analyse them in Excel or Google Sheets?
Customer Service
Is there a self-service option, like a FAQ, knowledge base or a community forum? Do they have a Discord server?
Apart from email support, every service should have a short FAQ or a knowledge base. Stuff like live chat directly in the web app or a Discord server are also nice additions.
Review Methodology Changelog
- No significant changes to the review methodology yet