SI Sportsbook Review

Sports Illustrated is a household name in American sports. For over 60 years, they’ve been one of the most cherished sports brands in the country. While their prestige may not be what it once was, the Sports Illustrated name still means a lot to many.

In recent years, they’ve taken a turn towards the digital landscape. Ignited by an acquisition Authentic Brands Group (ABG) in 2019, Sports Illustrated has attempted to turn from old media to new media.

Recently, the next step in their evolution was announced: SI Sportsbook. Launching in September 2021, SI Sportsbook looks to be the next evolution of the iconic brand.

Sports Illustrated has teamed up with 888, an online gambling company that features casino, poker, and their own sports betting platform.

Other media brands have followed this territory before. TV powerhouse FOX Sports and digital media darling Barstool Sports have launched their own betting sites, with FOX Bet and Barstool Sportsbook. Sports Illustrated hopes to have a success story similar to its competitors.

Sports Illustrated's latest evolution has the chance to become a major player in the world of online sports betting, if it can continue to grow and add more features over time

It's still early yet, but SI Sportsbook leaves a little something to be desired. The overall experience and feel of the website seem outdated, which is a disappointment for a new sportsbook. While the mobile app is an improvement, that experience is still not perfect either.

The cupboard is also a bit bare in terms of some basic sportsbook features at the moment. A Casino betting option and an eye-catching signature bet type or game are missing, meaning SI Sportsbook feels a bit less polished than some competitors. It's still early days, and these features could be added in the future, but it's a bit deflating to not be able to utilize these functions.

Despite these drawbacks, SI Sportsbook is still shaping up to be a solid addition to the tapestry of online sportsbooks in the US. While the offering has started out barebones, the project already offers some fun features and should become more fleshed out as the sportsbook continues to grow.

• Plenty of promotions for existing customers
• Nice sign up bonus
• Single game parly options for creative bettors

• No casino or poker gambling options
• Lacks polish and finish compared to more experienced online sportsbooks
• No PayPal payment options

SI Sportsbook Promo

SI Sportsbook offers new users in a generous Bet $20, Get $200 bonus upon registration.

How it works is fairly simple. All you have to do is sign up with SI Sportsbook - no promo code required. Then, place a qualifying wager of at least $20. From there, you will receive $200 in bonus bets whether your qualifying wager wins or loses! You'll have six $50 bonus bet tokens in your account within 72 hours of your qualifying wager settling.

While the dollar amount may not be eye-popping compared to other bookmakers, we believe this is a very strong bonus offer, simply because you get your bets whether you win or lose. Many sportsbooks ply you with so-called risk free bets, that only see you reap the reward if you lose. SI Sportsbook's welcome bonus grants you your bonus bets if you win or lose!

In addition to its sign up bonus, SI Sportsbook also employs a number of existing customer promotions to keep players coming back for more.

SI Sportsbook existing customer promotions include:

• SI Sportsbook Perfect 10 - During football season, guess the winner of 10 NFL games each week. You get a $1 bonus bet for each game you predict correctly.
• SI Sportsbook Three & Win - From Friday-Sunday, get a $20 bonus bet token if a 3+ leg parlay wager of $25 or more wins.
• SI Specials - SI Sportsbook offers daily odds boosts on parlays, special bets, and enhanced wincasts every day. Check out their SI Specials page for new promotions.

These promotions are great ways to keep users coming back for more, and they will assuredly add more in the future.

As always, these individual promotions will have their own terms and conditions, so check each offer's T's & C's.

For now, Sports Illustrated Sportsbook is only live in Colorado and Virginia.

However, SI’s partners at 888 have licenses to operate in New Jersey, Indiana, and Iowa. 888 Sport was only operational in New Jersey, but it’s possible they’ve held off on launching in Indiana and Iowa until they had a strong partnership to boost their brand.

By the end of 2022, we expect SI Sportsbook will be available in:

• Colorado (live now)
• Michigan (live now)
• Virginia (live now)
• New Jersey (888 Sport is licensed and was live)
• Indiana (888 is licensed, but hasn’t launched)
• Iowa (888 is licensed, but hasn’t launched)

Of course, we will update this list as SI Sportsbook makes its expansion plans official.

Once SI Sportsbook was announced, it was clear to everyone that they would be launching with a mobile app right out of the gate.

So, it was no surprise when apps for iPhone and Android devices were made available to Colorado users in September 2021.

SI Sportsbook is best experienced through its mobile app

888 Sport has a great sports betting app, expectations for SI Sportsbook's app were high. We're pleased to report that SI Sportsbook does not disappoint in this regard.

In fact, the mobile experience is actually a far better way to play than the desktop site.

On the SI Sportsbook App, you get all the functionality and features of the desktop site in a much sleeker package. The app runs smoothly, experiences very little lag, and is supremely easy to navigate.

If you want to try out SI Sportsbook, we recommend using the mobile app. The SI Sportsbook App is available on Google Play for Android users and App Store for iPhone users, where it currently holds a 4.5/5 star rating.

One area where SI Sportsbook could stand to improve is payment options. There are a number of ways to deposit and withdraw your funds with this new sportsbook, and PayPal has just been added as a payment option.

Unfortunately, that is the only e-wallet available on SI Sportsbook at the moment.

While only one e-wallets is supported, there are many other options at your disposal to fill up your betting account. You can utilize the following methods to deposit funds into your SI Sportsbook account

• MasterCard, VISA, and Discover Debit/Credit Card
• Play+ Card
• ACH Bank Transfer
• Instant Bank Transfer
• PayNearMe
• PayPal

Most deposits are available in your account instantly. The minimum deposit is $10.

Because many deposit methods don't accept positive charges (no sportsbook will ever allow you to withdraw to a card, for instance), you are left with three options: PayPal, ACH Bank Transfer and Play+.

Play+ is a card from Discover that allows you to deposit and withdraw from your online betting accounts seamlessly. While it's a very convenient option, and worth looking into if you're a serious bettor, few people actually have a Play+ card. ACH Bank Transfers are also quick and convenient, but many others feel uncomfortable directly linking their bank account to an online betting site. This is where e-wallet support is badly needed, so it's huge that PayPal support has finally been added.

SI Sportsbook withdrawals usually take 1-3 days and the minimum withdrawal amount is $10.

A new addition to the stable of payment options available at SI Sportsbook is PayPal.

We were a bit shocked that PayPal or another e-wallet was not supported by SI Sportsbook at launch. As we've said numerous times already, PayPal makes sportsbook payment options secure and convenient for users, so this is a fantastic addition.

Adding support for PayPal and other e-wallets has made using SI Sportsbook a much smoother experience overall.

In our opinion, it was a substantial oversight on Sports Illustrated’s part to not include PayPal, Skrill, or other e-wallet support on day one. The addition of PayPal is massive, but other e-wallets like Skrill should be added in the future

In terms of the variety of sports betting markets offered on the platform, SI Sportsbook covers all the bases for sports bettors.

For starters, SI Sportsbook offers these popular betting markets:

• Football
• Basketball
• Soccer
• Hockey
• Baseball
• MMA
• Boxing
• Golf
• Tennis

They've also gone a bit deeper and offer betting on more niche sports like table tennis and competitive darts.

Sports Illustrated Sportsbook also features a variety of ways to bet on these sports.

One of the cooler features available to users at launch is SI Sportsbook's Bet Recommendations. This feature is exactly what it sounds like - the sportsbook will recommend bets to you based on a variety of factors.

When placing a bet in your betslip, you'll get an 'Other people who bet on this also bet on...' carousel that you can swipe through to see if any of the suggested bets pique your interest. There is also a solo recommendations tab on the SI Sportsbook app that recommends wagers to you based on a number of factors, including:

• What bets you've placed recently
• Recently won bets
• What's trending on the sportsbook

Bet Recommendations is a super-interesting feature that is perfect for parlay creation.

Unfortunately, at this moment SI Sportsbook does not offer casino or poker functionality.

A bit disappointing, considering that Sports Illustrated partnered with the online gambling experts at 888 to build this platform. Since 888's technology makes up the backbone of this betting site, we hope that eventually casino and poker games will be added to the site's interface to allowed for a more varied betting experience.

One area where SI Sportsbook has knocked it out of the park from the jump is customer support. Sports Illustrated's sportsbook offering allows users access to a litany of options if they're experiencing issues with their account.

On their website, SI Sportsbook features a live chat and contact form. If you want or need to handle matters offline, email and phone support options are open from 8am to 11pm MST.

There's also an extensive FAQ section in the betting site's support center, that is searchable and allows users to easily locate answers to common issues.

Before launch, we were a bit skeptical about how SI Sportsbook would deliver in this regard. In our 888 Sport review, we dinged them for their lack of customer support options. At the time we reviewed the sportsbook, the only way to get direct support was to fill out a contact form. Since Sports Illustrated was using 888's platforms, we feared this would be an area where the new betting site was deficient.

We're thrilled to confirm that SI Sportsbook has improved upon 888’s offerings in this regard, even surpassing our highest expectations.