RedStar

Bonus

No classic welcome bonus

If you study our sports betting bonus comparison, you will find bonus offers for first-time depositors almost everywhere. Red Star does not do this, but still has some offers for you. The highest Red Star Sports bonus is currently a freebet up to $20, if you have deposited the corresponding amount and played a bet of this amount. For example, if you confirm a bet for $5, you will be allowed to place another bet for $5 without placing your own bet.

Other options for freebets

For a deposit of $10 or more, you will receive a freebet of $5 in a separate promotion, which you can only place on a combination bet with at least three games. Another freebet offer of $10 is valid only for the specified top events of the week. Red Star Sports changes its bonuses on a regular basis and advertises them conspicuously in way too cluttered graphics. On Wednesdays, you’ll get 20% more profit in selected matches, and in another promotion you can currently win a GoPro. We like the variability, but a big welcome bonus would have suited the site well.

More details about the bonus system

Are there any additional conditions? As always, there are a few things to keep in mind with any bonus. For example, the $20 freebet can only be used with odds of 1.80 or higher. There is a detailed overview of the conditions for each bonus.
Do you need bonus codes? Yes, you have to activate every Red Star Sports bonus by yourself. However, the respective codes are always included and it is worth checking the promotions page regularly anyway.
Are the promotions limited? Some bonuses expire after a few weeks. Always pay close attention to the rules.
Are there more bonuses? Red Star also has some bonus offers for the casino and poker section. According to our first impression, they seem to be even more worthwhile than the betting bonuses.

Betting offer

Everything at Red Star Sports

In our betting provider guide, we first look at the general betting offer, as always, and are impressed by its breadth, but not always depth. German soccer is covered with bets up to the regional league, international soccer covers the entire globe, but with slightly fewer betting options than elsewhere. The major leagues and important games, however, are usually covered with over 300 bets, which is almost too much of a good thing again.

Hardly any sport is missing

After soccer as the king category, you can find practically every relevant sport at Red Star. You can bet on chess as well as on rally, petanque or snooker. However, the good offer on ice hockey, basketball, Formula 1 and co. will provide enough depth for most people. Even eSports is not neglected with about a dozen titles. If you’ve had enough of sports, bets on politics, the ESC or cinema franchises are available for wagers. The betting offer also meets higher demands, especially since you are of course also offered systems or chains. The indispensable betting calculator facilitates your planning, and with the quick-bet slider you can place your bets within seconds. The heart of Red Star Sports is right, even if we have to make some criticisms in the following.

Live bets

Good offer, but no showcase performance

You can play many sports events as live bets and always find them in the Live Overview. In Live MultiView, you can then create your own broadcast and are always kept up to date. In games like the Champions League final, you will find almost an overabundance of detailed single bets, in leagues outside the mainstream it often goes down to about 20. Overall, our Red Star Sports experiences then show that we are offered the expected, but few outliers upwards take place. Even the cash-out function is now part of the standard. Red Star does not surprise us with the live bets, but is also far from disappointing.

A slight antiquatedness shows

What rather disturbs us, besides the otherwise dusty design, is a slight backwardness. The live bets could be presented more clearly, the statistics are limited to the absolute hull and somehow everything seems a bit too uninviting. The comparatively moderately animated playfield clarifies the rough course of the game, but is not as helpful as one would like to imagine. In addition, we sometimes had the impression that the update was a bit sluggish and that valuable seconds could possibly be lost as a result.

Odds

We also recognize good average odds

Your positive profit expectation stands and falls with the level of the odds. The less a bookmaker keeps for itself, the bigger your payout will be. For Red Star Sports, we calculated an average odds ratio of 95%. This means that Red Star will deduct around 5% from each bet as a fee. This is an absolute standard in the industry and cannot be considered particularly good or particularly bad. Note, however, that the more unprominent the sporting event is, the worse the odds will be for you. Here, Red Star is around 92%.

Deposits & Withdrawals

Much to choose from, little in the way of information

Red Star Sports has decided to provide you with the full payment information only after registration. On the page itself, however, you can find a list of all options, albeit without terms, limits or additional costs. Here, however, the live chat was able to help us at least partially and tell us, for example, that withdrawals are not carried out at night and take up to eight hours on weekdays and up to 24 hours on weekends. That is already quite a long time. Deposits are always free of charge.

These are the deposit and withdrawal options:

For some withdrawal options, we were listed the mentioned costs per transaction.
VISA (2,5 %)
WebMoney (0,8 %)
Skrill (1,5 %)
NETELLER (1.5%)
Moneta.ru
Yandex.Money
ecoPayz
Bank Wire Transfer (withdrawal only)

Additionally you can deposit with

Mastercard
MTC Money
TELE2
paysafecard
Rapid Transfer
AdvCash
SafetyPay

Reputation & Security

Overall reputable and safe

Like so many bookies in our betting provider comparison, Red Star Sports is also equipped with a license from Curacao. This is one of the standards on the market and guarantees a very good state supervision of the site. This means that you can play legally and securely from Germany, even though Red Star is not explicitly geared towards the German market. Red Star Sports advertises with various other certificates and seems to us to be a reputable partner. However, we have minor doubts about it according to our Red Star Sports experiences.

A bit too opaque and maybe passing the taxman

We do not want to put Red Star in the wrong light. The provider has been on the market for a very long time and has convincing partners. However, we notice, for example, that while there is a sufficiently detailed privacy statement, the link to the very important information on responsible gaming is just as much a missing page as the “About us” section. Serious providers often use the latter to build trust with you as a customer and to reveal their own philosophy. However, we are skeptical about the statements regarding the payment of the betting tax, which suggest that Red Star Sports simply does not care about it.

Service & Support

Live chat not quite around the clock

In the Red Star Sports test, we had to use the live chat several times, as some important information could not be found elsewhere. The chat is available between 7 am and midnight, which is almost always sufficient, but nowadays seven hours is simply too little. Red Star Sports operates worldwide (although as stated in the T&Cs with very many exceptions) and offers explicit language support for Argentina (not Spain in general) on the home page. So there the live chat is no longer available with the start of the cozy betting evening. The other language options besides English and Spanish are Hebrew, Ukrainian and Russian.

E-mail, telephone, but no FAQ

Instead, you can write an email at any time, which, according to their own information, will be answered within 24 hours. There is additionally a telephone customer service, but it does not fulfill its main task: fast availability. Thus, Red Star Sports has decided to only give you the option of a callback upon request via mail. The FAQ is linked, but again it only gives us a 404 error code. However, you can at least find the important questions about the actual betting under “Rules and terms”.

Functions & Design

Red Star looks like it’s from 2010

Everything gets old quickly on the Internet, and so does the look in the Red Star Sports test. We don’t like much here, but at least experienced betting fans will find their way around right away. Everything looks slightly old-fashioned, individual sports have a colorful background and although there is an unnecessary fourth column with the individual bets of the selected game, the tip option and odds are much too far apart. Above the selection are five buttons with the logos of the most important leagues. While this is handy for quick retrieval, it sets us back another ten years.

Two additional designs to choose from

If you look really closely, you’ll find a small drop-down menu on the right side of the betting slip where you can swap the “Classic” design for a “Modern” or “Combo” one. The modern version is indeed reminiscent of today’s websites, but is not yet the measure of all things. What is quite charming here, however, are the backgrounds that correspond to the sport during mouseover.

Bet tax

Possibly no tax levy

First of all, the legal situation in Germany: Every bet placed is taxable at 5% and the betting provider must pay the corresponding amount to the tax office after the bet. Reputable providers adhere to the tax, especially with the Curacao license, but often let you pay the money. At Red Star Sports, we did not find any information about German tax issues in the terms and conditions, so we asked in the live chat. Here, they didn’t know the answer at first, but when we asked the finance department, the following (translated) statement came: “We don’t pass on any information to tax authorities. It is solely up to you to communicate your affairs to the authorities or not”. Presumably, this rather means the income tax, but possibly Red Star Sports does not cede the betting tax by itself either. We hope for a misunderstanding, but in any case find fault with the lack of concrete information.

Other offers

Variety in the casino and poker

Our Red Star Sports experience would not be complete without the other offers. Here we are convinced by the large casino section, which every new sports betting provider should have today. Here you can find the generally usual games up to Virtual Sports, where you can place sports bets without real sports. There are many live games and always fresh bonus promotions. You can also find them in the poker section of the site, where you need to download and install a client. There are regular tournaments and freerolls at Red Star.