Fitzdares review: a racing-first bookmaker and its small print

Licence and who it is for

Fitzdares Limited holds remote licences on the Gambling Commission register under account number 400, with betting, casino and pool betting among them. The company is based in London and the register lists one trading name, fitzdares. Its Irish sportsbook is licensed separately in Ireland, so the page you are on and the terms it shows tell you which regime applies to you.

The site describes itself as a bookmaker for members. Horse racing is called one of its most popular options, and the rest of the product follows from that: a smaller menu than the largest groups, with a clear lean towards the turf.

Ways to bet

Fitzdares says racing bets can be placed through its iPhone app, the website, by text or by phone. Telephone and text betting are rare now, and for a bettor who dislikes screens or wants to talk to a person at a big meeting, they are a real point of difference. The older pages describe live chat inside the app, and support by phone, text, chat or email.

Streaming

The current homepage advertises free streaming of UK, Irish and international racing, and an older page promised free live streaming on all UK and Irish races throughout the season. We did not read the conditions that sit behind that offer, and they may include an active account or a recent bet, as at other bookmakers. Check the racing page and the terms before relying on it.

Cash-out, boosts and in-play

The site lists cash-out, price boosts and in-play odds as features. The promotions we read say cashed-out bets generally do not count towards them, a rule common across the industry. We did not find a rule page setting out which bets can be cashed out, so we describe it only as a feature that appears on some bets.

Best Odds Guaranteed: not for everyone

Fitzdares’ rules say its Best Odds Guaranteed applies to UK and Irish races, but only to selected accounts, with a cap of £1,000 on the extra payout per bet, and only for bets placed after 9am on race day. The rules page we read carries no recent date, so check the live terms. It does not apply to Enhanced Race Winner markets or to betting-without markets. That is why our table shows “No” for this feature: it is not a promotion open to every customer.

If you hold an account where it is switched on, the 9am start is later than the 8am start that several larger bookmakers use, so early-morning prices fall outside it.

To see what a price move or a withdrawn horse does to a winning bet at Fitzdares, step through our explainers: how Best Odds Guaranteed pays on a racing bet and how a Rule 4 deduction cuts a winning bet.

Offers we saw, and the typical terms

Past racing promotions have included money back as a free bet when a horse loses by a length or less, and doubled winnings on a first Cheltenham bet. The terms attached to those offers are worth knowing as a pattern: free bets cannot be withdrawn as cash, qualifying bets are pre-race win singles, minimum odds are evens, the matched free bet is capped at £10, and some offers allow one per person, household or IP address. Several pages that carried those offers are years old, so none is a current deal.

Safer gambling

Fitzdares says it monitors accounts so that members bet within their means and offers tools to limit spending, which members can set in the app or online. We did not read the list of tools or the self-exclusion steps, so check them in the account area. GamStop covers all licensed UK sites in any case.

Payments: what we could not confirm

We found no current list of payment methods, minimum deposits or withdrawal times. Look at the banking tab of an account.

How Fitzdares compares with the other bookmakers on the card

On our card, Fitzdares is one of two bookmakers, with Midnite, whose Best Odds Guaranteed is restricted. It is also the only one we found that advertises betting by text and by phone. Where the six larger names win is the open guarantee and the volume of published rules, and Fitzdares wins on personal service for racing.

If the guarantee is what you want, the racing page lists the six that offer it generally.

A worked example of an evens minimum

A typical racing promotion with minimum odds of evens means a qualifying bet at 4/6 does not count, while one at evens or longer does. A ten-pound win single at 5/2 that qualifies for a money-back-if-beaten-by-a-length offer, and finishes second by half a length, would be refunded as a free bet of up to the £10 cap. The free bet is not cash, so it must be staked and cannot be withdrawn.

Three things to look up before your first bet

Check whether your account has Best Odds Guaranteed switched on. Check the conditions on streaming and on any offer you are tempted by. And check how to reach a person by phone or text, since that is the point of choosing a smaller bookmaker.

Who Fitzdares suits, and where it falls short

Fitzdares suits a racing bettor who values a personal service and wants to bet by phone or text as well as in an app. The racing offers have a long record of structure: clear minimum odds and caps.

Its limits are the guarantee for selected accounts only, a later 9am start, and thin public information on payments and tools.