Online Curling Betting in Great Britain — Where It Is Offered, How the Odds Are Built

Updated October 2026

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Current as of 27 October 2026 and verified against the Gambling Commission’s public register.

Curling is one of the smaller sports on a UK betting slip, but it has a feature that bigger sports do not: every meaningful match happens on a known date, in a known tournament, and the calendar is short. The sport has a regular World Curling Championship, a European Curling Championship, the Winter Olympics, and a World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship; outside those windows, a bettor hunting curling lines usually finds the betting slip bare. That is the first thing to know before sizing up the market — the volume is the volume, and a bookmaker that offers curling at all is offering it because of those four or five events on the calendar, not because of weekly league play.

The second thing is who may offer it. The Gambling Commission’s public register is the whole test of who holds a remote betting licence for Great Britain, and the ten bookmakers reviewed below all sit on it. That is the only thing that puts them in the same group: a licence on a register is a permission to take bets, not a recommendation, and the differences between them on price, on market depth, on the welcome offer, and on which features of an in-running match are actually bettable are what the comparison is built from.

The third thing, which is harder to see but matters most, is the margin. Every decimal price on a curling match carries a margin inside it, and the margin is the difference between what the bookmaker pays out and what was staked across all outcomes. Where the margin sits, the rest of this page goes.

The Top 10 Bookmakers for Curling in Great Britain

The ten names below are arranged in the order the comparison takes them, not by a quality score. A brand’s position is not a verdict, and a position higher on the list is not a licence or a guarantee. What it is, is the order in which the table and the individual reviews walk through them.

The table covers four matters that recur across any assessment of a UK-licensed bookmaker: the Gambling Commission licence number and the name of the licence holder as it appears on the register, and the operator’s own statement of what its terms say about the relevant subject for a curling punter. The latter column does not restate the welcome offer — the offer is described under each operator below — but the matter the bookmaker’s own terms speak to.

Three things to read off this table before going further. First, the licence numbers and holder names are taken from the Commission’s public register and are the only durable test of who is licensed. Second, none of these brands is “the only” licensed operator; the register lists more, and a curated list of ten is just a curated list of ten. Third, the right-hand column is what each operator’s own terms say on the matter that matters most for a curling bettor — for some it is the welcome offer, for others it is a feature like Best Odds Guaranteed, and for one it is the licence itself. The different matters are deliberate: the comparison is in the difference.

Fitzdares — premium pricing, a deep horse-racing book, and curling as a small add-on

Fitzdares holds remote general betting standard (real events) licence 000400-R-103839-030 under Fitzdares Limited, and the brand has been positioning itself as a premium book for several years. Its app offers cash out, accumulators, Lucky 15s, specials and antepost markets across horse racing, football, tennis, rugby, cricket, golf and American football, and the same app carries in-play odds across the same list. Curling is not the first sport a Fitzdares customer opens the app for; the welcome offer and the headlining features are around racing and football. What a curling bettor gets here is a tidy in-play product on a deep sportsbook, and the price of a curling line when the line appears is the price Fitzdares chooses to post on a small sport.

For the punter who already has a Fitzdares account and bets on racing and football in equal measure, curling is a clean add-on: a price on the World Curling Championship is a price on the same slip as a Premier League match, the cash out button works the same way on both, and there is no separate account to fund. For a bettor whose interest in the brand starts and ends with curling, the welcome offer is built for a different reader — the value is in the racing and football features, not in the curling line.

The verdict, in one line: a brand worth opening only if the welcome offer’s racing and football depth is already what the punter wants; the curling line is a bonus, not a reason.

BetMGM — a four-part free-bet welcome and a curling line that lands when the calendar turns

BetMGM is the UK-facing sportsbook of LeoVegas Gaming PLC, on the register under remote general betting standard (real events) licence 039198-R-319450-029. The brand’s sports welcome offer for new UK customers who deposit £10 or more and place a sports bet within 7 days is four £10 free bets: two of them are football accumulators of 4+ selections, two are sports multiples of 2+ selections, and the free bets are valid for 7 days with minimum odds and an opt-in. The “free bet” line is the marketing word for a stake that is not paid back with a win: a winning £10 free bet at evens returns £10, not £20. That distinction is the entire economics of the offer, and it is the only place a £10 free bet is “worth” its face value.

The four free bets are not all-purpose — two of them are football accumulators, and an accumulator by definition needs every leg to win. A curling bettor is using these free bets on curling lines if the operator has those lines at the time, and a curling punter who has no interest in football is leaving two of the four free bets on the floor. A punter with one foot in football and one in curling is using the full bundle; a punter with only curling on the slip is using half of it.

Verdict: the offer is built for the multi-sport punter, and the curling line is solid when it appears; for a curling-only bettor, only two of the four free bets are usable, and the welcome is worth half of its face.

Kwiff — a small-app brand, a clean licence, and a price the slip does not advertise in advance

Kwiff holds remote general betting standard (real events) licence 044448-R-323408-017, issued to Eaton Gate Gaming Limited; the brand operates as a trademark of Spryme Ltd. The app carries a 17+ age rating in the UK App Store, and the brand has built its reputation on “surprise” odds — a price the customer does not see until the bet is confirmed, in which case the price can be much larger than the headline. For a curling punter this is the live question: is the surprise a better price than the posted line on a bigger brand, and is the answer knowable before the bet is on? Usually no.

A curling punter choosing Kwiff is choosing the surprise-price model rather than a known free-bet bundle. That is a real choice: a known free bet is worth its expected value in cold arithmetic, a surprise price is a lottery ticket with the operator’s margin inside it. A punter who likes surprises and has a small bankroll is in the right place. A punter who wants to know the price before the bet is confirmed is reading the wrong terms.

Verdict: 4/5. A brand for the punter who prefers the surprise-price mechanic to a known bonus; curling coverage rides the same calendar as the bigger operators, and the choice is between a fixed free-bet model and this variable return.

Lottoland — a sportsbook bolted to a lottery and a casino, and curling as one tab of several

Lottoland UK is operated by EU Lotto Limited under remote general betting standard (real events) licence 038991-R-319408-020, and the app combines casino, lottery betting, sports betting and scratchcards. For a curling punter, the relevant tab is the sportsbook, and the rest of the app is irrelevant — except that the brand’s customer base is built around the lottery and scratchcards products, with sports a smaller share of the offering. A punter who already plays the Lottoland lottery is using a familiar wallet on a familiar app; a punter who only wants a sportsbook is using a heavier app than necessary.

The mixed-product offer is the relevant regulatory point. Under the rules in force since 19 January 2026, mixed-product promotions — an offer that requires gambling on two or more product types, for example “bet on football to get free spins” — are banned. A welcome offer that touches a sportsbook alone is fine; a welcome offer that needs the punter to play the casino or the lottery to clear it is not.

Verdict: 3/5. A functional sportsbook for the punter with an existing Lottoland habit; the curling lines mirror the broader market, and the welcome terms are the first check for the sports bettor.

Midnite — a free-bet welcome tied to a pre-match bet, and curling as part of the sportsbook

Midnite holds remote general betting standard (real events) licence 101839-R-342850-001 under Midnite Limited, and the site carries in-play events, an acca builder, popular accas and price boosts with maximum-stake limits. The sports welcome offer is £25 in free bets and 50 free spins for new customers who bet £5 or more on pre-match odds of EVS (2.0) or greater within 14 days of sign-up, with the free bets valid for 7 days. The minimum price is a real condition: a £5 bet at 1.8 does not qualify, a £5 bet at 2.0 does. The 14-day window is the qualifier on the welcome, and a punter who does not place a qualifying bet inside that window is not getting £25 in free bets at all.

A curling line at EVS (2.0) is the kind of price a bookmaker posts on a heavy favourite in a long tournament, and a curling punter betting on the outright favourite in a Worlds match is a credible qualifying bet. The 7-day free-bet life is the second window: 7 days from issue, not 14 from sign-up, and a curling match on day 8 of the free-bet life is not a bet the punter wants to take with a free bet. A punter timing the welcome to a World Curling Championship is using both windows cleanly; a punter who signs up between championships is leaving the welcome on the floor.

Verdict: a tidy welcome for a curling punter who can place a qualifying bet inside 14 days and use the free bet inside 7, and a brand that has acca builder, price boosts and in-play as standard features across the sportsbook.

Octobet — a 50% back-as-free-bet welcome, and a curling line on the calendar

Octobet runs under remote general betting standard (real events) licence 062545-R-337248-006, held by Octopus Game Limited. The sportsbook welcome is 50% back as a free bet up to £50, plus a £10 casino bonus for new customers. The “back as a free bet” is the operative phrase: the punter is not getting 50% of the stake back in cash, the punter is getting a free bet whose face value is 50% of the qualifying stake. A £100 first bet at minimum odds that loses gets the punter a £50 free bet, not £50 in cash, and a winning £50 free bet at evens returns £50, not £100.

The £10 casino bonus is the second half of the welcome, and a curling-only punter is not using it. The relevant point is whether the casino bonus is a separate opt-in, an automatic credit, or a free-bet that needs to be cleared on casino games with a wagering requirement; whatever the answer, the curling punter reads the offer as a 50% back-as-free-bet up to £50 and treats the casino side as separate.

Verdict: a fair back-as-free-bet welcome for the curling punter who expects the first bet to lose, and a brand to weigh against Midnite’s £25 in free bets on a smaller qualifying bet.

Unibet — a £40 free-bet welcome on a £20 bet, the longest track record in the pack, and curling on a deep sportsbook

Unibet has operated since 1999, and the UK site runs under remote general betting standard (real events) licence 045322-R-324275-019, held by Platinum Gaming Limited in Gibraltar. The sports welcome is £40 in free bets when the punter bets £20, with a minimum price of 2.0 (1/1) and free bets expiring within 7 days of issue, for new GB customers using a debit card or instant bank transfer. The 7-day expiry is the same window as Midnite’s free bets, and the qualifying condition is a £20 bet rather than £5; a punter weighing Unibet against Midnite is weighing £40 in free bets on a £20 qualifying bet against £25 in free bets on a £5 qualifying bet, and the answer depends on the punter’s bankroll and on which free bet the punter is more likely to convert.

A curling punter on Unibet is on a sportsbook with 25 years of history and a deep in-play product, and the brand’s price-boost and acca features extend to curling when curling is on the calendar. The £40 in free bets is the largest face value in the table, and the price for that is the £20 qualifying bet; a punter with a small bankroll is on Midnite, a punter with a £20 bet they were going to place anyway is on Unibet.

Verdict: the largest free-bet face value in the pack on a £20 qualifying bet, the longest track record, and curling as one sport on a deep sportsbook — the natural choice for the punter with a £20 bet already in mind.

Fafabet — Best Odds Guaranteed on horse racing and a sportsbook built around it

Fafabet runs under remote general betting standard (real events) licence 057385-R-333191-006, held by Taichi Tech Limited. The headline feature is Best Odds Guaranteed on UK and Irish horse racing win and each-way bets from 9am on race days: if the starting price is bigger than the original price, the bigger odds are paid. The feature is racing-specific and does not extend to curling, and a curling punter reading Fafabet’s terms for the BOG offer is reading the wrong paragraph.

The sportsbook carries curling when the calendar has curling, and the welcome is the relevant comparison point. The BOG offer is the brand’s reason for being; a curling punter who also bets on racing is using a real feature, a curling-only punter is using a sportsbook that is built around something else.

Verdict: 3/5. A dedicated racing bookmaker that offers curling as a minor event; punters focused solely on curling might prefer a more specialist sportsbook.

Bet600 — BOG on horse racing and a sportsbook the size of the calendar

Bet600 is licensed under remote general betting standard (real events) licence 044731-R-323941-016, held by Tyche Tech Limited, and its headline feature is Best Odds Guaranteed on horse racing: if the starting price is bigger than the early or show price taken, the bet is paid at the SP. As with Fafabet, the feature is racing-specific. The two brands are not identical: the welcome offers, the in-play products and the price-boost mechanics differ, and a punter who wants BOG is comparing the two on the rest of the terms.

A curling punter on Bet600 is on a sportsbook that puts its best foot forward on horse racing, with curling as a calendar event. The brand is a credible second choice to Fafabet for the punter who wants BOG, and a credible first choice if the welcome or the in-play product happens to be better.

Verdict: a BOG brand for the punter with a racing habit, and a closer comparison with Fafabet than with the rest of the pack.

BetGoodwin — a “Bet £10 & Get £15” welcome in three free bets, and a curling line that turns up on the calendar

BetGoodwin holds remote general betting standard (real events) licence 002927-R-327985-008, held by Goodwin Racing Limited. The sports welcome is “Bet £10 & Get £15 in Free Bets”, made up of a £5 sports bet, a £5 acca and a £5 Sub-Cover bet. Three free bets for the price of one qualifying bet is a real bundle, and the Sub-Cover bet is the differentiating piece: it is a free bet on a specific market, and the terms state which market and which conditions apply. A curling punter reading the welcome reads three free bets and asks whether the Sub-Cover bet applies to a curling line; the answer is in the terms, and the punter checks the terms before claiming.

A £5 acca is an accumulator that needs every leg to win, and a curling punter placing a £5 acca is taking a multi-leg bet on a sport with a small number of daily matches. The bundle is built for a multi-sport punter who can place the £5 acca on football, horse racing or any other sport with a deep daily card; a curling-only punter is using the £5 sports bet and the £5 Sub-Cover bet, and reading the £5 acca as a market the punter may or may not have.

Verdict: a tidy three-part welcome for the multi-sport punter with a curling leg, and a brand to weigh against Midnite and Unibet on the size of the free-bet bundle and the size of the qualifying bet.

Curling as a Betting Market — the Shape of the Slip

Curling on a UK sportsbook looks different from football, tennis or horse racing, and the difference is not in the betting mechanics — a single, an accumulator, an in-play bet and a cash out are the same buttons on a curling match that they are on a Premier League game — but in the calendar. The professional curling season runs from autumn to spring, with the World Curling Championship, the European Curling Championship, the World Mixed Doubles Championship and the Winter Olympics as the four tournaments that draw meaningful betting volume. Outside those windows, the curling line is empty or close to it, and a punter opening the app in July is finding the curling tab near-empty.

The shape of a curling match is the second thing a punter needs to know. A team has 4 players (or 2 in doubles), each player throws two of the team’s eight stones, and a game usually lasts 8 or 10 ends — international competitive games are generally 10 ends. After all 16 stones of an end are thrown, the team with the stone closest to the button scores one point for each of its stones closer than the opponent’s nearest stone, and only stones in the house count. Tied games go to extra ends. The hammer — the last stone of an end — goes to the team that did not score in the previous end, and if an end is blanked (no score), the hammer stays with the same team. The hammer is the single most important tactical fact in curling, and a market like “team with the hammer to win the end” is a market a punter reads against the end-by-end score.

Curling stones weigh between 17.24 and 19.96 kg (38 to 44 lb) under World Curling Federation rules, a fact the betting slip does not carry, and the betting slip does not need to carry. What it carries, in a typical match, is a moneyline (who wins the match), a few totals (over/under on the number of ends, occasionally on the total stones scored), a handicap market, and — at the bigger tournaments — an outright on the tournament winner. The depth of the markets grows with the tournament: the Winter Olympics and the Worlds have the deepest books, the European Championship has a thinner one, and the smaller tour events are sometimes offered only as a moneyline.

The bookmaker’s margin sits inside every one of these prices, and it is the next section’s subject.

The Margin, the Overround, and What a Decimal Price Is Actually Saying

Every decimal price on a curling match is the inverse of an implied probability, and the implied probabilities of all outcomes on a market add up to more than 100% — the surplus is the overround, and 1 minus the payout share is the bookmaker’s margin. Take a two-way market priced at 1.90 and 1.90 (fractional 9/10 on each side): the implied probability of each outcome is 1 ÷ 1.90, which is 0.5263, and the two probabilities together sum to 1.0526. The punter’s payout share is 1 divided by the sum, which is 1 ÷ 1.0526 = 0.9500, and the bookmaker’s margin is 1 minus 0.9500, which is 0.0500, or 5.00% of every unit staked on this market. The math is the same on every two-way curling market the punter opens, and the only thing that changes is the size of the margin.

The band on a competitive two-way curling market is roughly 4% to 6% in a liquid match at a major tournament, with a heavy favourite on one side pushing the margin lower (a 1.40 / 3.00 line has a smaller margin than a 1.90 / 1.90 line) and a closely matched underdog (a 2.20 / 1.70 line) pushing it higher. The band widens on smaller tournaments and on less popular markets, and the wider the band, the more the bookmaker keeps of every unit the punter stakes on the match.

The punter’s first move is to compare margins across bookmakers on the same match, and the comparison is only as good as the prices the punter has in front of them. The bettor who reads 1.90 / 1.90 on one book and 1.95 / 1.85 on another is reading a difference of roughly 1 percentage point in margin, and over a season of curling bets the difference is a real number in the punter’s wallet. The audit that follows is not a fixed cost: it is a percentage of every bet, taken every time, and the percentage compounds.

The overround is the same fact seen from the other side. The 1.90 / 1.90 example carries a 5.26% overround, meaning the bookmaker’s prices imply a 5.26% chance that does not exist. The 5.00% margin is the bookmaker’s edge on the same market, and the 0.26% difference is the rounding. The two are the same number, not two different ones, and a punter who has both in mind is reading the slip correctly.

The fractional-to-decimal conversion is its own small fact. A fractional price of 5/1 — the punter wins £5 for every £1 staked — converts to decimal odds of 5 ÷ 1 + 1 = 6.00, and the punter’s return on a winning £10 stake at 5/1 is £10 × 6.00 = £60, which is the £10 stake plus £50 of profit. A 9/10 price (a 90p profit on a £1 stake, the price the example above carried) converts to 9 ÷ 10 + 1 = 1.90, and the punter’s return on a winning £10 stake at 9/10 is £10 × 1.90 = £19, of which £9 is profit. The conversion is mechanical, and the punter who knows the conversion is reading both the British fractional price and the European decimal price as the same number.

The Law in Great Britain — Who Is Allowed to Take the Bet

A bookmaker taking bets from customers in Great Britain needs a Gambling Commission licence, and the Commission’s public register is the only place to check who holds one. The register can be searched by business name, trading name, domain or account number, and a brand that appears on the register is a brand that holds a remote betting licence for the categories the register lists. A brand that does not appear on the register is not licensed to take bets from customers in Great Britain, and the punter’s recourse against an unlicensed brand is not the Commission’s complaints route.

The licence types matter because the type is the scope. A remote general betting standard (real events) licence covers betting on real sporting events; a remote general betting standard (virtual events) licence covers computer-generated events; a remote pool betting licence covers pool betting on horse or dog racing; a remote betting intermediary licence covers betting exchanges. The ten brands above all hold a remote general betting standard (real events) licence, which is the licence that covers curling. A brand holding a different licence type is not in the same group, and the punter reads the licence line on the register before reading the brand’s terms.

The Gambling Act 2005 covers Great Britain — England, Scotland and Wales. Northern Ireland is outside the Act and has its own older law, and a GB licence is not a Northern Ireland licence. The punter in Belfast is reading a different regulatory frame from the punter in Birmingham, and the same brand can be licensed in one and not the other. A “GB-licensed” bookmaker is licensed for Great Britain, and the punter checks where the punter sits before checking the licence.

Since the Gambling (Licensing and Advertising) Act 2014 an operator whose remote facilities are used in Great Britain needs a Commission licence wherever it is based, and a Curaçao, Maltese or Gibraltar licence is not a substitute. The licence holder of a UK-facing brand is often based in Gibraltar, Malta or another European jurisdiction — Unibet is held by Platinum Gaming Limited in Gibraltar, for example — and the relevant test is whether the brand appears on the Commission’s register, not where the licence holder sits. A Gibraltar-registered company on the register is a GB-licensed brand; a Gibraltar-registered company not on the register is not.

Minimum age 18, and name, address and date of birth are verified before the customer can deposit or gamble, including with a free bet or bonus. The verification is the punter’s first interaction with a licensed brand, and the punter who has not completed verification is not betting on the brand. Financial spread betting is regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority rather than the Commission, and a financial spread bet is a different product from a fixed-odds sports bet. Spreadex is regulated by the FCA for spread betting and by the Gambling Commission for fixed-odds betting, and spread betting losses can exceed deposits — a fact the brand’s own homepage carries. A curling punter is not a spread bettor, but a curling punter on a brand that also offers spread betting reads the brand’s homepage for the FCA line.

What may be bet on is not on a statutory list. The Commission licenses a category, and the operator offers markets under its own terms and the LCCP (Licence Conditions and Codes of Practice). A curling market at a licensed bookmaker is a market the operator has chosen to offer, and the operator may restrict the punter, cap stakes, or pull the market at any time. In-play betting is offered by GB bookmakers under the same licence, and the controls are the operator’s licence conditions, not a statute. Esports are treated like any other event; virtual events are a separate licence category; bets on politics, novelty markets and television shows are offered by some GB bookmakers.

Bonuses are capped. Since 19 January 2026, wagering requirements on bonuses are capped at 10x — a £10 bonus at 50x wagering is no longer permitted, and the maximum wagering a £10 bonus can carry is £100 of qualifying bets. Mixed-product promotions — an offer that requires gambling on two or more product types, for example “bet on football to get free spins” — are banned. The cap is on wagering, not on the face value of the bonus, and a £50 free bet with no wagering condition is not affected. The free bets above are mostly free bets with no wagering condition, and the cap is a backstop rather than a day-to-day rule.

Advertising is regulated by the ASA under the CAP Code (non-broadcast) and BCAP Code (broadcast), and the LCCP marketing conditions sit alongside them. CAP Code section 16 requires marketing to be socially responsible, not of strong appeal to under-18s, and no one who is or seems to be under 25 may be featured gambling in an advertisement, with an exception for marketing placed where a bet can be made directly. The rule is about who appears in the advertisement, not who may bet. The “whistle-to-whistle” rule on TV advertising is an industry code, not a statute: since 1 August 2019 betting ads are not shown on TV from five minutes before a live sporting event to five minutes after it, before the 9pm watershed, with horse and greyhound racing excluded. The Premier League clubs’ withdrawal of gambling sponsorship from the front of matchday shirts from 2026/27 is voluntary, not law.

Tax is the operator’s, not the punter’s. General Betting Duty is the operator’s tax on gross profits, currently 15%, and from 1 April 2027 a new remote betting rate of 25% applies within it, with remote bets on UK horse racing, self-service betting terminal bets, pool betting and in-person betting staying at 15%. The player pays no tax on betting winnings in Great Britain — a general statement, not tax advice, and a professional gambler is asking HMRC or an adviser. The punter is not charged duty at the betting slip, and the duty does not change the price the punter sees.

Credit cards have been banned for gambling in Great Britain since 14 April 2020, including credit-card-funded payments through an e-wallet, and the LCCP condition that carries the ban is 6.1.2. Debit cards and bank-based payments are not covered by the ban. The punter funding a curling bet with a Visa debit card is funding it normally; the punter funding it with a Visa credit card is not. A British named-account rule, a state list of permitted payment methods, and any rule for or against cryptocurrency deposits at licensed operators are not established in the rules reviewed here, and the punter reads the operator’s own terms for what counts.

Offshore is the other side. A GB licence is compulsory at the point of consumption, and providing gambling facilities in Great Britain without the licence the Act requires is an offence under section 33 of the Gambling Act 2005, aimed at the operator. No offence aimed at the customer who merely bets on an unlicensed site was found, and a punter on an unlicensed site is not committing a criminal offence — the punter is giving up British consumer protections. No GAMSTOP coverage, no Commission complaints route, no approved dispute-resolution body, no British consumer redress if funds are withheld, not bound by the 10x bonus cap, not subject to the £150 vulnerability check. Enforcement is disruption rather than blocking: cease-and-desist notices, search-engine referrals, work with registrars, hosts and payment providers, and court-order DNS blocking powers the Commission has been given or is about to receive. The honest framing is that a licensed brand is checked, limited, GAMSTOP-covered, and bonus-capped, but also verified before the first bet, and an unlicensed brand is none of those things and may also withhold funds.

Safer Gambling — The Frame Around the Bet

GAMSTOP is the national multi-operator online self-exclusion scheme, and it is a mandatory licence condition for online operators since 31 March 2020. Every GB-licensed online operator takes part, and the ten brands above are all in. A punter who has self-excluded through GAMSTOP is blocked at the sign-up stage on every licensed brand, and the exclusion periods are six months, one year, five years, or five years with auto-renewal. After the minimum period the exclusion stays in place for a further seven years unless the customer asks GAMSTOP to remove it. GAMSTOP covers online sites and apps; betting shops use a separate service. A self-exclusion is not a pause, and a punter coming to the end of a six-month exclusion is not automatically back betting; the seven-year tail is the long part of the rule.

The financial vulnerability check is the next layer. LCCP condition 3.4.4, in force since 30 August 2024, applies to licensed remote betting when a customer’s deposits minus withdrawals exceed £150 in a rolling 30 days (since 28 February 2025). The check is a public-record check — bankruptcy, county court judgments, similar registers — not an income check and not a credit reference check. A punter crossing the £150 threshold is asked questions the punter is obliged to answer, and the operator is obliged to ask them. A punter with a clean public record passes the check; a punter with a public record of insolvency triggers a different conversation. The check is the lightest of the customer-protection measures, and the heavier “financial risk assessments” have been announced in a staged plan with no start date. The punter does not yet face affordability checks, and a punter reading that they do is reading ahead of the rule.

Deposit limits are the punter’s own tool. Operators must offer a gross deposit limit on a fixed time frame, and the first changes have applied since 31 October 2025, with a second phase postponed to 30 September 2026 — whether the second phase is live is not established. There is no state-set deposit or loss ceiling for betting; limits are the customer’s choice, and the punter who wants a daily, weekly or monthly limit sets it on the brand’s responsible-gambling page. The punter who does not set a limit is betting without one.

Help is at the end of the line. GamCare runs the National Gambling Helpline, GambleAware funds treatment and research, the NHS runs gambling clinics, and Gamblers Anonymous runs peer-support meetings. Fitzwilliam Sports’ homepage, for example, links to GambleAware, GamStop and Gamblers Anonymous in the same place, and the same three are the standard footer on most GB-licensed bookmakers. The punter who needs help is not a punter on a winning streak, and the help is there before the punter asks for it.

The Calendar of Curling

The four tournaments that carry meaningful curling betting volume are the World Curling Championship, the European Curling Championship, the World Mixed Doubles Curling Championship, and the Winter Olympics. The World Curling Championship is the season’s anchor event — the men’s and women’s World Championships run annually, and the books on them are the deepest of the curling calendar. The European Championship runs alongside the men’s and women’s fields and the books on it are thinner, with the home nations and the Nordic teams drawing the most handle. The World Mixed Doubles Championship is the mixed-doubles anchor, and the books on it are smaller than the men’s or women’s Worlds.

The Winter Olympics is the second anchor. Curling became an official Olympic medal sport at the 1998 Winter Olympics, and mixed doubles was first held at the Olympics in 2018, which is the only Olympic Games at which mixed doubles has been part of the curling programme. The next Winter Olympics carries the deepest book of the cycle, and the four-year gap between Games is the gap between deep books on the marquee event. A punter who bets curling once a year is betting on the Worlds or the Olympics; a punter who bets curling once an Olympiad is betting on the Olympics alone.

Outside the four anchors, the curling line is thin. Continental cups, Grand Slam of Curling events, and the world tour carry betting lines at some operators, and the prices are the operator’s own. A punter on the smaller events is reading a thinner book against a smaller field, and the punter is checking the operator’s terms before placing the bet, because the operator may restrict the market or pull it mid-event.

A calendar-led reading of the market yields a useful rule: the punter who plans curling bets around the four anchors is reading deep books against deep fields, and the punter who chases the smaller events is reading thinner books against thinner fields. The margin in the deep books is the lower margin, and the margin in the thin books is the higher. The two are not the same bet, and the punter who treats them as the same is paying the wider margin on a smaller event.

What a Welcome Offer Is Worth

A welcome offer is a free bet, a deposit match, a refund-if-losing offer, a price boost, or some combination of the four, and the difference between the four is the difference between how the punter reads it. A free bet is a stake the operator gives the punter, and the stake is usually not paid back with a win: a winning £10 free bet at evens returns £10, not £20, and a winning £10 free bet at 3.00 returns £20 (a £10 profit at 2.00, multiplied by the £10 free bet stake), not £30. The expected value of a free bet is the free-bet amount × (odds − 1) ÷ odds × payout share of that market, and the expected value is what the free bet is worth on average, never what it wins on a single bet.

A deposit match is a percentage of the punter’s deposit credited as bonus, and the bonus carries a wagering requirement. A 100% deposit match up to £100 with a 10x wagering requirement on the bonus means the punter is wagering £1,000 in qualifying bets to clear a £100 bonus, and the punter is clearing the bonus at the operator’s margin on the markets the punter plays. The 10x cap on wagering since 19 January 2026 is the upper limit, and a 50x requirement is no longer permitted. A punter clearing a £100 bonus at a 5% margin on a market with a £10 average stake is paying £50 in expected cost against a £100 face value, and the bonus is worth roughly £50 in cold arithmetic before the punter’s time and the punter’s discipline are priced in.

A risk-free bet is a stake the operator refunds as a free bet if it loses, and the refund is in the free-bet form, not in cash. A £10 risk-free bet at 2.0 that loses returns £10 in free bets, and the £10 free bet is worth the same expected value as any other free bet, not £10 in cash. The marketing word “risk-free” is the operator’s framing, and the punter reads the term as “free bet if I lose” and prices the free bet accordingly.

A price boost is a temporary increase in the price of a specific market, and the boost is the punter’s edge over the un-boosted price. A boosted price of 3.00 on a market priced at 2.50 elsewhere is a 20% edge before the operator’s margin, and the punter checks the un-boosted price before claiming the boost.

The four forms are not interchangeable, and a punter who treats them as the same is reading the offer wrong. The arithmetic above is the arithmetic of the form, and the punter who applies the wrong arithmetic to the wrong form is overpaying for the offer or declining an offer the punter should have taken.

The In-Play Curling Match

In-play on a curling match is a smaller product than in-play on a football match, and the difference is the cadence. A football match has a goal every few minutes and a curling match has an end every 20 to 30 minutes, and the in-play book on a curling match is updated at the end of each end, not on every stone. The bookmaker’s in-play price reflects the running score, the hammer, and the number of ends remaining, and the punter reading the in-play book is reading a market that moves slowly.

The markets the punter sees in-play are the same markets the punter sees pre-match — moneyline, handicap, occasional totals — and the in-play book carries the same margin. The punter is paying the same percentage of every unit staked in-play that the punter is paying pre-match, and the difference is timing: in-play, the punter has seen the first half of the match, and the price the punter sees reflects what the punter has seen.

Cash out is the in-play feature that closes the bet early, and the cash out price is the operator’s estimate of the bet’s current value. A curling punter with a winning moneyline bet at 1.90 and a current score of 6-2 with two ends remaining is offered a cash out at less than the full return and more than the stake, and the punter decides whether to take the cash out or let the bet ride. The cash out is the operator’s price, and the operator’s price carries a margin inside it, and the margin is the punter’s cost of closing the bet early. A punter who cashes out at the same moment on the same match across two operators is comparing two margins, and the smaller margin is the better cash out.

The Bet Builder feature is on the bigger sportsbooks. Bet Builder+ on bet365 combines markets from one event into a single bet, available pre-match and in-play, and the same feature is on Midnite, Unibet and others. A curling Bet Builder is a multi-leg bet on a single curling match, and the legs multiply into a single price. A two-leg curling Bet Builder at 1.50 and 1.80 carries a combined price of 2.70, and the margin on the combined bet is larger than the margin on either leg. A punter reading a Bet Builder is reading a higher margin than the punter would on a single, and the punter is paying for the convenience of the combined bet.

Choosing Among the Ten

The right bookmaker is the one that fits the punter’s habits, and the punter’s habits are the deciding factor, not the brand’s position in a list. A punter who already has a Lottoland lottery account is using Lottoland; a punter who bets on UK and Irish racing is using Fafabet or Bet600 for the BOG offer; a punter with a £20 bet to place and a longer memory is using Unibet. The punter with a £5 bet to place and a curling line to play is using Midnite; a punter who likes surprise prices is using Kwiff; a punter who wants the largest free-bet bundle is using Unibet; a punter who bets on football and curling in equal measure is using BetMGM.

The welcome offer is the entry point, but the offer is not the brand. The brand is the price the punter sees on a curling line, the depth of the curling book, the in-play product, the cash out, and the Bet Builder, and these are not the same across the ten. A punter who places one curling bet a year is using the brand with the deepest book and the lowest margin on the tournament the punter is betting; a punter who places a curling bet every month is using the brand with the deepest calendar coverage and the best in-play product.

The licensed status is the floor, not the ceiling. Every brand above is on the register, and the punter does not need to compare them on licence. The punter compares them on price, on book depth, on the welcome, and on the in-play product, and the comparison is the punter’s own.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I bet on curling?

Pick a licensed bookmaker from the register, open an account, complete the verification (name, address, date of birth), deposit with a debit card or bank transfer — credit cards are banned for gambling in Great Britain — and place a single, an accumulator or an in-play bet on a curling match from the World Curling Championship, the European Championship, the World Mixed Doubles, or the Winter Olympics. The bet settles when the match settles, at the decimal price the punter took. The free bet, if the punter has one, is staked separately and the stake is not paid back with a win.

Can I bet on curling?

Yes, at any GB-licensed bookmaker that offers curling, which is most of the major brands on the register during the World Championships, the European Championships, the World Mixed Doubles, and the Winter Olympics. The market is calendar-driven, and outside those four windows the curling line is thin or empty. The punter’s first check is the operator’s sportsbook tab in the week of a tournament.

How do I check that a bookmaker holds a Gambling Commission licence?

Search the Commission’s public register by business name, trading name, domain, or Commission account number. A brand on the register holds a remote betting licence for the categories the register lists. The register is the only place the check is made, and the punter is reading the register, not the brand’s marketing. A brand on the register is licensed; a brand not on the register is not.

How is the return on a bet worked out from the stake and the odds?

For a single bet, return = stake × decimal odds, and net profit = stake × (decimal odds − 1). A £10 stake at 2.50 returns £25, of which £15 is profit. For an accumulator the odds of the legs multiply into a single price — three legs at 2.00, 3.00 and 1.50 combine to 9.00 — and the punter’s return is the stake multiplied by the combined price. The profit is the return minus the stake.

What is the bookmaker’s margin, and how do I see it in the odds?

The margin is 1 minus the payout share, and the payout share is 1 divided by the sum of the implied probabilities of all outcomes on a market. For a two-way market at 1.90 and 1.90, the implied probabilities are 1 ÷ 1.90 each, summing to 1.0526, and the payout share is 1 ÷ 1.0526 = 0.9500, so the margin is 5.00%. The margin is the bookmaker’s edge on the market, and the punter sees it by adding the implied probabilities and subtracting from 100%.

How do fractional odds such as 5/1 convert to decimal odds such as 6.00?

A fractional price a/b converts to decimal odds of a ÷ b + 1. A 5/1 price is 5 ÷ 1 + 1 = 6.00, and a 9/10 price is 9 ÷ 10 + 1 = 1.90. The return on a £10 stake at 5/1 is £60 (the £10 stake plus £50 profit), and the return on a £10 stake at 9/10 is £19 (the £10 stake plus £9 profit). Fractional and decimal prices are the same bet, written two different ways, and the punter who knows the conversion is reading both forms as the same number.

Content created by the «Bookies Trust» team