Marcel Desailly is the currently "face" of Betclic and the company was started in 2005 by Nicolas Beraud in France. In 2008 it was sold to Mangas Gaming and now falls under the Betclic Everest Group. The group owns Betclic, bet-at-home, Expekt and Everest Gaming and has a combined 12 million customers in over 100 countries and customer service facilities available in 25 languages.

Betclic itself retains a French and European focus and is growing quickly in Spain, Portugal and Poland. They have sponsorship deals with Juventus, Marseille and can count Desailly, Arrigo Sacchi and many other prominent names among their sporting ambassadors. With a full suite of sports book, poker, games and casino they aim to compete with Europe's biggest gaming companies.

Football is the biggest focus for Betclic and at the time of writing they had 67 different leagues and competitions covered. For the major leagues they also offer a good variety of markets on each match. Their odds tend on the cautious side, although in the French football leagues they will often offer standout prices.

For a European bookmaker they offer a good range of sports popular in the lucrative UK market, including cricket, snooker and darts, whilst rugby union is also well covered, as one might expect with a French-facing firm.

Betclic do not currently offer any "welcome bonus" for UK users but have in the past had a very good 30 GBP risk-free bet. If your first bet lost it was refunded in full with no further wagering required. It may be worth waiting for a new promotion to come up if you are a fan of free bets (and who isn't?).

Other than the intermittent opening offer they do not have too many promotions available as standard, however, they do frequently run competitions and offer no-risk bets and they are also one of the better bookies in offering free bets to dormant accounts. They also offer the usual freebies in the poker, casino and games sections of the site.

The option to list events either by sport, date or in-play is a nice touch and makes finding the live offering very easy. The console has improved dramatically in the last 18 months and is now a pleasure to use.

There is a good range of events covered and a number of markets for most events. In-play is accessed by clicking "Bet Live" and these events are clearly marked in green and stats relevant to the match being viewed are just one click away.

Betclic are looking to expand their mobile betting apps to cover a wider range of phones. At present, users of the iphone, Android systems, Blackberry and Windows 7 can access the system by typing m.Betclic.com into their browser. Currently there is no specific mobile bonus.

Telephone: n/a
Email: support@betclic.com
Address: Suite 7.3.1, Europort, Europort Road, Gibraltar
Other contact methods: Live chat, online form, fax (+44 207 692 5508)

Customer service is good at Betclic, our only real gripe being that live chat is only available between 10.00-19.00. Our test "calls" were answered quickly and the live chat system tells you where you are in the queue and an estimated wait time (we didn't have to wait as long as they said on any of three tests). Although there is no option to email the transcript to yourself, when asked the agent offered to email it to my registered address.

The service on live chat and by email is prompt and polite although knowledge of some sports rules was a little shaky. In addition there is an excellent FAQ and help section with in-depth information on things like live streaming and how to place a bet.

Betclic are a good European bookmaker that caters to many different tastes. They specialise, as do many of their rivals, in football and the number of leagues and markets there is excellent. What edges them ahead of some of their European competitors is the fact that they cover plenty of other "UK" sports too.

The website, like the in-play console, has been improved a lot over the last couple of years and now both are easy to use and look smart to boot. Last minute bets, in-play and "top bets" are all shown on the home page which makes navigation a piece of cake.

The customer service is good, although the lack of 24/7 live chat is a striking negative and the absence of a phone contact is a little strange to say the least.

The fact there is currently no sign-up bonus is probably reason to wait and prevents them from scoring more highly but on the whole Betclic are a bookmaker well worth joining.