Where to bet on curling online and what each site actually charges for the privilege

Updated October 2026

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Curling sits in an odd corner of the British betting market. Every operator with a remote licence from the Gambling Commission can offer it — there is no statutory list of permitted sports — and most do, at least during the Winter Olympics and the World Championships. Yet few of them build a proper curling section. Fixtures are thin between November and February, the in-play product is narrower than for football or tennis, and bookmakers price what they do publish conservatively, because liquidity is shallow and a wrong line costs them.

The costs show up first in the odds, then in the welcome offers and the small print that sits behind them. A £20 qualifying bet does not return £40 even when the marketing says it does, a “100% bonus” requires turnover measured in tens of the bonus amount, and a free bet paid back as a free bet does not give back the stake on a win. This page is the angle the reader cares about: what does each site cost in practice, and where does the offer genuinely meet the headline or quietly fall short of it?

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

Safer gambling and the law behind every curl bet

The thing every curling punter pays for first is the right to bet in the first place. A licence from the Gambling Commission costs the operator money, and that license bought the customer something concrete: it bought the rules that govern every bet, withdrawal and bonus dispute on this page. The legal frame applies before any sport is discussed because it explains why an unlicensed site is more expensive than a licensed one, even when the odds look better.

Who regulates betting in Great Britain

The Gambling Commission regulates commercial betting in Great Britain under the Gambling Act 2005, and since the Gambling (Licensing and Advertising) Act 2014 a remote operator needs a Commission licence wherever it is based if its facilities are used in Great Britain. A Gibraltar or Malta licence is not enough. Three licence types matter for the betting side: remote general betting standard, the licence that covers most sports including curling; remote general betting limited, a smaller-scope version of the same idea; and remote betting intermediary, the licence that covers betting exchanges. Curling sits under general betting standard; nothing about it crosses into the exchange category unless a punter chooses to lay it on an exchange.

The Commission’s public register is the whole test of who holds a licence. It lists every licensee, every trading name under that licence and every domain the licence covers. A bookmaker can run a .com domain and still be GB-licensed, so a .co.uk suffix is not proof of anything. Searchable by business name, domain or account number, the register is the only place to settle whether a brand actually carries a Great Britain licence.

What every GB-licensed bookmaker must do

Minimum age 18, verified before the first bet. Name, address and date of birth are confirmed before a customer can deposit or stake a penny, and that check applies equally to free bets and bonus credits. GAMSTOP is a mandatory licence condition for online operators since 31 March 2020: a self-exclusion registered with GAMSTOP blocks the account across every licensed online bookmaker for the chosen period, and the period is six months, one year, five years or a five-year block 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. Every operator in the ranking below is a GAMSTOP member because every one of them holds a remote licence.

Since 30 August 2024 a financial vulnerability check applies when deposits minus withdrawals exceed £150 in a rolling 30 days (from 28 February 2025): a public-record check for bankruptcy, county court judgments or similar markers. It is a different thing from a credit reference or an affordability check. Separately, financial risk assessments were announced in a staged plan (Commission article of 7 July 2026) with no start date set. Deposit limits are the customer’s choice, not a state ceiling: each operator offers a gross deposit limit on a fixed time frame, with the latest RTS 12 changes applied from 31 October 2025 and a second phase due on 30 September 2026. Help is available through GamCare’s National Gambling Helpline, GambleAware, the NHS gambling clinics network and Gamblers Anonymous.

Credit cards are banned for gambling (since 14 April 2020), including an e-wallet funded from a credit card. Debit cards, bank transfers and the e-wallets those can fund are not covered by the ban. There is no state list of permitted payment methods and no rule for or against cryptocurrency at licensed operators.

What this frame costs the punter, in practice

Licensed means checks, limits, GAMSTOP coverage, a complaint route to an approved dispute-resolution body, and the 10x cap on bonus wagering that took effect on 19 January 2026. It also means verification before the first bet and an exchange of privacy for the right to play. Unlicensed means none of those protections and no British consumer redress if funds are withheld. Neither is “the safe choice” by default, because the licensed option has its own costs and the unlicensed option has its own risks. The honest framing is the one that lists both, which is what each operator’s own terms section does in the table further down.

The sport underneath the bet

Curling is built on stones, ends and the hammer. A reader who knows those three things reads the markets faster than one who knows the rules in full, and the markets are all the punter actually pays for at the moment of the bet. The cost angle lives in how the game is scored, how short the calendar is, and how few events the bookmaker gets to see.

The fundamentals

A curling team has four players in the team game, two in mixed doubles, and each player throws two of the team’s eight stones. Games run eight ends in some domestic competition and ten ends in the international game, including the Olympics and World Championships. After all sixteen stones of an end have been thrown, the team with the stone closest to the button scores one point for each of its own stones sitting closer than the opponent’s nearest stone; only stones inside the house count. A blanked end lets the team with the hammer keep it; the hammer is the last stone of an end, and the side that did not score in the previous end takes it. Stones are heavy by design, between 17.24 and 19.96 kilograms, which is one reason the sport does not suffer from interruption the way a contact sport does. Tied games go to extra ends.

How the curling calendar shapes the betting calendar

Curling has a season that runs from October to May, with the World Championships in the spring and the European Championships in the autumn. The Winter Olympics have been the highest-profile event on the calendar since curling became an official Olympic medal sport in 1998, and mixed doubles joined the Olympic programme in 2018. Between the major championships, the tour calendar thins out, and bookmakers publish fewer markets: the lines between the November Swiss Cup and the World Championships in March are usually limited to outrights and the occasional match winner.

This matters because thin markets carry wider margins. A two-way match winner on a curling game at a quiet moment can sit at 1.83 / 1.83, which implies a margin of nearly 9%; the same sport two weeks before a World Championship final can be tighter. The bookmaker is not padding the line: there is barely any way to lay off the risk on a quiet week, so the margin widens to compensate. The punter pays for that, and the page will return to the arithmetic below.

The sport bettors actually pay for

Curling at this depth of market is mostly a winner-market sport: match winner on the day, including the standard two-way and any handicap line the operator publishes. Outrights on tournament winner are a staple of the bigger brands during the Worlds and the Olympics. Frame totals are sometimes offered, sometimes not, and in-play betting is patchy: a small number of operators offer in-play prices on a curling game and most do not. Each restricted market is one more place the operator did not bother to build a line, and one more place the punter is buying the operator’s match-winner quote instead of a market the operator was confident enough to price.

The ten reviewed bookmakers

These are ten operators currently on the Commission’s register with a remote general betting standard licence. The order is the order of the ranking. A higher position does not mean a “better” bookmaker for every reader, because the question is what each brand does well and the answer differs. The angle is cost: what does each brand charge the punter, what does it give back, and where does the headline price stop matching the small print?

The brands are reviewed in this order: Fitzdares, BetMGM, Kwiff, Lottoland, Midnite, Octobet, Unibet, Fafabet, Bet600, BetGoodwin.

Fitzdares — premium brand, niche reach

Fitzdares runs under licence number 400, with the licence held by Fitzdares Limited. The pitch is premium: a curated sportsbook with specials and antepost markets, Lucky 15s, accumulators, cash out and in-play odds across the major sports. Horse racing, football, tennis, rugby, cricket, golf and American football all show up on the app, but the operator’s wider sports list is short, and curling is not the centrepiece.

What it costs the punter is the typical premium-brand cost: a relatively narrow selection of sports and markets, priced with what looks like tighter margins than the mass-market books on the marquee events, and a sparser spread on the events the bookmaker does not prioritise. A reader who wants a curated, acca-shaped product with horseracing as the centre of gravity will find the price worth it; a reader who came for live curling lines will not, because the curling coverage is narrow and the price on what is published is well above the wider market.

Verdict: Fitzdares is for the punter who treats betting as much like a small-stakes membership as a market. Curling is on the app, but it is a quiet corner of it, and the cost of that quiet corner is a thinner line than the bigger books can offer on the same day.

BetMGM — mass-market offer, large welcome bundle

BetMGM’s UK sportsbook sits under licence 39198, held by LeoVegas Gaming PLC. The welcome offer is four £10 free bets to a new UK customer who deposits £10 or more and places a sports bet within seven days: two free bets usable on football accumulators of four selections or more, two on sports multiples of two selections or more, all valid for seven days, opt-in required and a minimum-odds rule on the qualifying bet. The breakdown matters because each free bet is locked to a specific shape, and that shape changes what it can be turned into: a football acca free bet costs the punter each-way flexibility and limits the book to one product, and the seven-day expiry hurts anyone who intended to wait for an event.

Curling itself is on the app’s sports list because BetMGM holds a general betting licence, but the in-play product on curling is light. The brand’s strength is its welcome bundle’s headline value: four free bets with a headline worth of £40 against a £10 qualifying bet looks generous, and inside the bundle the real-world value depends on whether the punter’s account handles use all four bets within seven days. The smaller print is the seven-day clock and the football-specific lock on two of the four free bets.

Verdict: BetMGM rewards the punter who places a £10 bet on the day of joining and uses every free bet in the week. A reader who lets one of the four expire is treated to the same welcome terms and ends up with three free bets, and the headline value falls in proportion.

Kwiff — “surprise bet” mechanic, narrow product

Kwiff holds licence 44448, and the operator behind it is Spryme Ltd (Eaton Gate Gaming Limited is the licence holder). The headline feature is a “super-charge” or “surprise” bet: a stake placed at standard odds is randomly upgraded to a higher price, and the bet is settled at the upgraded price when it lands. The mechanics appeal to readers who like a price boost mechanic; they also reduce what a regular punter can do with the rest of Kwiff’s market, because the operator does not pretend to be a comprehensive sportsbook.

The cost is narrower product and lower depth on individual events. Curling is on Kwiff’s sports list in a generic sense, but the operator does not publish deep markets and the in-play product on niche sports is minimal. A reader looking for a curling-specific price is paying for the surprise-bet mechanic in lost depth on the event itself.

Verdict: Kwiff is a price-boost product wrapped in a sportsbook. It suits a punter who places single bets at small stakes and finds the surprise element worth the loss of in-play depth; it does not suit a reader who came for a curling market that the operator builds out.

Lottoland — lottery heritage, general betting added on

Lottoland’s UK app combines a casino, lottery betting, scratchcards and sports betting under licence 38991, held by EU Lotto Limited. The heritage is lottery: a player bets on the outcome of a lottery draw held outside Britain, and the operator pays out on the result. The sportsbook is an add-on, and the add-on is functional but not the centre of the product.

Curling is on Lottoland’s sports list, but the operator was not built for the sport. A punter who came for a curling match winner at a competitive price will find what is published; a reader who came for any of curling’s deeper markets will not, because Lottoland’s sportsbook is a convenience rather than a destination. The cost of mixing lottery and sports is product confusion: a single account covers both, and a customer service request about a curling bet may route through the same team that handles lottery stakes.

Verdict: Lottoland suits a reader who already uses the brand for lottery betting and treats the sportsbook as a side product. It does not suit a reader whose main reason for opening the account is curling, because the sportsbook is not the operator’s centre of gravity.

Midnite — modern product, in-play and acca focus

Midnite’s licence is 101839, held by Midnite Limited. The product reads modern in the App Store description: in-play events, an acca builder, popular accas and price boosts with maximum-stake limits clearly stated at the bet level. The welcome offer is £25 in free bets plus 50 free spins to a new customer who bets £5 or more on pre-match odds of EVS (2.0) or greater within 14 days of sign-up, free bets valid for seven days.

The acca-heavy product suits curling’s tournaments: any World Championship or Olympic line on Midnite tends to be match-winner driven, and the acca builder lets a punter string together curling, snooker and darts selections into one slip. The cost is the seven-day expiry on the free bets and the EVS minimum on the qualifying bet. A reader who plans to place a sports bet soon after joining will use the qualifying bet straightforwardly; a reader who intended to wait fourteen days will find the bonus gone.

Verdict: Midnite is for the reader who already bets on accas and wants to add curling legs to a slip. The price on curling itself sits inside a wider acca-style product, and a punter who uses the welcome offer as designed comes out better than one who lets the free bets expire.

Octobet — 50%-back welcome, heavy rollover

Octobet’s licence is 62545, held by Octopus Game Limited. The headline offer is 50% back as a free bet up to £50, with a £10 casino bonus on top. A £100 deposit that wins back the maximum produces a £50 free bet and a £10 casino bonus; a £50 deposit produces a £25 free bet and the £10 casino bonus. The free-bet stake is not returned on a win, so a £50 free bet at evens pays out £50 profit, not £100, and the underlying bet has cleared its qualifying role the moment the wager is placed.

Curling’s coverage on Octobet is general: match-winner markets during tournament windows, in-play where the operator can build a line. The cost of this welcome offer is the deposit-relative cap and the typical free-bet-only settlement; the £10 casino bonus is a separate product with its own turnover, and a punter who wants both sides needs to bet both.

Verdict: Octobet suits a reader who wants a free bet and a casino bonus together. The cost is the deposit-relative cap and the dual turnover, which is what makes the offer feel generous on the headline and behave like an ordinary welcome deal in practice.

Unibet — established brand, standard welcome

Unibet has been operating since 1999, and the UK site runs under licence 45322, with the licence held by Platinum Gaming Limited, Gibraltar. The welcome offer is “Get £40 in Free Bets when you bet £20”: a deposit plus a sports bet of £20 or more at minimum odds of 2.0 (1/1), with the free bets expiring within seven days of issue, for new GB customers using a debit card or instant bank transfer. The terms are simpler than most: a clear £20 stake at minimum evens unlocks the full £40 in free bets, and the rules on deposit method (debit card or instant bank transfer) keep e-wallet depositors out of the offer.

Curling’s coverage on Unibet benefits from the operator’s broader sportsbook. Match-winner prices are usually published during the World Championships and the Olympics, with outright winner markets on the main tournament winners. The cost is the seven-day clock on the free bets and the minimum-odds floor on the qualifying bet, both of which are standard for this market.

Verdict: Unibet is for the reader who wants a familiar sportsbook with a clear welcome offer. A punter who places a £20 qualifying bet at minimum evens in the week after joining takes the full £40; the same punter who lets the free bets expire comes out with £20 of cancelled bonus.

Fafabet — BOG on racing, general sports around it

Fafabet holds licence 57385, held by Taichi Tech Limited. The marquee 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. For horse racing punters this is the headline, but curling is on the sportsbook as part of a general offering rather than a curated product.

The welcome offer is described as Fafabet’s own terms state it; a reader who wants the current welcome terms reads them on the operator’s site. The cost of the racing focus is a sportsbook that is not built for curling specifically: match-winner lines exist, deeper markets are thinner.

Verdict: Fafabet is for the reader who races horses as a primary interest and treats curling as a side market. A punter whose primary sport is curling finds the wider racing focus irrelevant and pays for it in the form of a less developed curling product.

Bet600 — another BOG brand, similar shape

Bet600 holds licence 44731, held by Tyche Tech Limited. The shape of the product is similar to Fafabet: Best Odds Guaranteed on horse racing, where if the starting price is bigger than the early or show price taken, the bet is paid at the SP. Sports betting around the racing product is general: football and the major sports are well covered, curling is on the list during the major championships.

Curling match winners on Bet600 are usually published at competitive margins relative to the wider market, in part because Bet600’s product is a smaller book on a tight set of sports. The cost is depth: the in-play product on curling is short, and outrights on smaller tournaments are not always available. A reader who wants a single straightforward match-winner price will find it; a reader who wants curling-specific markets will not.

Verdict: Bet600 suits a reader who wants a smaller book with racing as the centre and curling as a side product. The price on what is published is competitive; the cost is depth on niche markets.

BetGoodwin — flat welcome, small stable

BetGoodwin runs under licence 2927, with the licence held by Goodwin Racing Limited. The welcome offer is “Bet £10 & Get £15 in Free Bets”, structured as a £5 sports bet, a £5 acca and a £5 Sub-Cover bet. The free bets are split across three products rather than one £15 credit, and the smaller stakes push each free bet into a territory where the punter needs every one of them to land to break even on the bonus value.

Curling appears in BetGoodwin’s sportsbook in line with the operator’s general betting licence. The product is not built around curling, and the in-play product during the bigger championships is functional rather than deep. The cost of the welcome offer is the three-way split, which dilutes the headline value of “Bet £10 Get £15” into three smaller bets that the punter must place inside the bonus window.

Verdict: BetGoodwin is for the reader who wants a welcome offer with three distinct free bet types. A punter who uses all three inside the window takes the headline value; a punter who lets one slip sees the bonus shrink proportionally.

Comparing the licence and the small print

This is the place to set the licence and the operator’s own terms side by side. The licence is the regulator’s statement about who is allowed to take a bet; the operator’s own terms are the statement about what a customer can and cannot do once the bet is taken. The two read together tell the punter what protection the customer has and where that protection stops.

The format below pairs each brand with its Gambling Commission licence number and licence holder, then quotes the operator’s own terms on curling coverage where those terms are stated, or marks the cell where the operator’s terms page does not state a curling-specific position. The em dash in the table marks a single gap, not a pattern; cells the table cannot fill honestly are filled with the no-data marker the article uses throughout this site.

The licence number is the verification a reader should run before staking. The Commission’s public register confirms the licence, the licence holder and the trading names under that licence. Several of these brands run under a parent licence operator rather than the brand name itself, which is normal: Unibet and BetMGM, for example, sit under larger licence holders whose other brands may also be on the register. The register is where the relationship is set out, in line with each operator’s account status.

How the bookmaker’s margin sits inside the odds

A bookmaker’s margin is the cut the operator takes off every market, expressed as a percentage of the total amount bet on that market. The customer pays it on every bet, on every market, on every operator; it sits inside the prices more cleanly than any welcome offer.

For a two-way market at decimal odds 1.90 and 1.90, the calculation runs like this: the implied probability of each side is 1 / 1.90, which is about 0.5263, and the two implied probabilities sum to about 1.0526. The payout share — the share of every pound bet on this market that returns to the customer when the bet wins — is the reciprocal of that sum, about 0.9506, or 95.06%. The margin is one minus the payout share, which is roughly 4.94%. The condition that bounds this is the assumption that the operator takes balanced action on both sides; in a thinly traded market, a one-sided book widens the margin in the prices it has published, because the operator is taking on more risk than it would otherwise.

The position the punter needs is conservative: 4.94% is the tight end of what curling actually clears in the quieter weeks, when the two-way match winner at 1.83 / 1.83 yields a margin closer to 9%. A punter who bets during a World Championship final can find margins of 3.5 to 4.5% on the marquee games; the same operator two weeks before the event sits 1.5 to 2 percentage points wider. None of this is invented in the odds: it is the operator’s pricing reflecting how much it expects to lose if it gets the line wrong.

What this means for the punter

The headline price on a curling match winner is between 4% and 9% inside the operator’s edge, before any other cost is added. A welcome offer with a 10x wagering cap lowers the operator’s edge on the bonus itself but does not change the edge on the qualifying bet. A free-bet welcome offer that pays back only the winnings, not the stake, means the free-bet value on a 2.0 line is about half the headline: the punter sees “£50 in free bets” but takes about £25 of expected value, depending on which market the free bet is used on. A £20 free bet at 5/1 has a higher expected value than the same free bet at evens, because the odds are higher relative to the implied probability and the book’s margin is the same.

For the matched small print: a free bet paid back as a free bet has no stake on a win, so £20 at 5/1 returns £100, not £120. A cash bonus at 10x turnover needs £100 of qualifying bets at minimum evens to clear a £10 bonus. A welcome offer with a seven-day clock is partly a test of how quickly the punter places the qualifying bet and partly a test of how quickly the free bets are used. The numbers come from the calculation above and from each operator’s terms; the comparison a punter makes before claiming is the one that converts all of these into a single cost line.

The offer, the rule, the cost: what to check before claiming

Three things decide what a welcome offer really costs the customer, and all three of them live in the operator’s terms rather than in the headline. The minimum odds on the qualifying bet, the wagering requirement on any bonus (capped at 10x for licensed operators since 19 January 2026, which means a £10 bonus needs no more than £100 of qualifying bets), and the expiry on free bets are the three lines that change the headline value of an offer from “good” to “ordinary” or from “ordinary” to “bad”.

The bookmaker’s margin also carries through to the welcome offer, and the way it does is worth naming. A £40 free-bet bundle at minimum evens, cleared on football accumulators of four selections or more, has a tighter margin than the same bundle on singles. The bookmaker chose the shape of the offer for a reason, and that reason lives in the per-market margin the bookmaker expects to keep. The punter pays for that choice with the higher effective margin on each bet. A free bet that can only be used on accumulator bets is not a £40 free bet; it is a £40 free bet used on a market the bookmaker prices wider than a single, and the punter’s expected return is correspondingly lower.

The rule this section sums up is one the rest of the page returns to: every offer is a price, and the price is in the terms. The headline is the marketing; the terms are the cost.

Frequently asked questions

How does a bet on curling actually work?

A curling bet starts as a stake on an outcome the operator offers: usually match winner on a specific game, sometimes outright winner on a tournament. The stake multiplies by the decimal odds shown to give the return on a winning bet; the profit is the return minus the stake. A two-way match winner at 1.90 means a £10 stake returns £19 on a win and loses the £10 stake on a loss. Combination bets multiply the odds of each leg into one price, and a four-fold acca at 2.0 per leg is a single bet at odds of 16.00. The bookmaker’s margin sits inside every price, including the prices on combination bets.

Can a bookmaker in Great Britain take bets on curling?

Yes. The Gambling Commission does not maintain a list of permitted sports, and a remote general betting licence covers curling under the operator’s standard sports offering. Most licensed bookmakers publish a curling line during the World Championships and the Winter Olympics; some publish one year-round; a smaller number run an in-play product on the sport. The list of operators on this page is restricted to those with a remote general betting standard licence currently active on the Commission’s public register, and every one of them may offer curling under that licence.

How can the licence be checked on the public register?

The Commission’s public register is searchable by business name, trading name, domain or account number. A reader types the brand name into the search field and confirms that the listed licence holder and account number match the operator. Several licensed brands sit under a parent licence holder: a single search of the parent business may return more than one trading name. The register lists every licence category the licensee holds, and remote general betting standard (real events) is the category that covers curling for retail sportsbooks. The register is the whole test of who holds a licence; a brand’s own statement that it is licensed is a starting point, not a verification.

What is the return on a bet from stake and odds?

Return is the stake multiplied by the decimal odds: a £10 stake at 3.50 returns £35, of which £25 is profit and £10 is the original stake returned. The decimal price already includes the stake, so dividing the return by the stake gives back the price. For a combination bet, the price of the bet is the product of the prices of each leg: a double with legs priced 2.50 and 3.00 carries a combined price of 7.50. The margin of the market sits inside the prices; the return is calculated from the price the operator shows at the moment the bet is placed, which is the price that counts in the betting settlement.

What is the bookmaker’s margin, and how is it visible in the odds?

The margin is the share of every pound bet on a market the bookmaker keeps. It is calculated as one minus the payout share, where the payout share is the reciprocal of the sum of one divided by each price in the market. A two-way market at 1.90 and 1.90 sums to 1.0526, so the payout share is about 95.06% and the margin is about 4.94%. The narrower the sum above one, the smaller the margin. The margin is what every other cost in this article is measured against: the welcome offer’s headline value, the free bet’s effective worth, the welcome offer’s wagering requirement are all read against the margin of the market the qualifying bet sits in.

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

Fractional odds of 5/1 mean a £1 stake returns £6 in total (£5 profit plus the £1 stake). The decimal price is the fractional price plus one: 5 divided by 1 plus 1 is 6.00. For 11/4, the calculation is 11 divided by 4 plus 1, which is 2.75 plus 1, or 3.75. Evens (1/1) converts to 2.0. The conversion works for any fractional price; the rule of thumb is divide the first number by the second and add one, with the answer being the decimal odds the punter sees on the betting slip.

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