TonyBet Review

TonyBet Sportsbook Summary

If you followed poker shortly after the much-publicized boom of the early 2000s, then you likely know the guy behind the TonyBet sportsbook and gaming brand.

Antanas Guogo, known world-wide as Tony G, bought the fledgling product in 2009 and named it after himself; it has since grown into a well-known international brand and made a triumphant arrival into Canada in 2021. But while Tony G’s poker skills are second-to-none, his sportsbook is more like 2-5 unsuited against a K-10-9 rainbow flop. And that, folks, is not good.

TonyBet Locations

TonyBet is live and legal in Ontario, having been approved by both the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario and iGaming Ontario.

Sports Leagues to Bet On

The Estonian-based TonyBet isn’t going to wow you with its selection of sports, as it falls short of what the majority of Ontario sportsbooks are offering. At least the main sports are all here, along with tennis, soccer, boxing, cricket, MMA and auto racing.

From there, it gets a bit weird. There were zero golf markets available during our search (no major futures?), while sports like biathlon and ski jumping were represented. And the “Favourites” menu bore no resemblance to what Ontario sports fans would actually prefer, with the list featuring table tennis, volleyball and handball.

Working in TonyBet’s favour is the inclusion of esports, though they aren’t listed as esports in the side menu. You’ll have to know which form of egaming you’re looking for, be it League of Legends, Counter-Strike, Dota 2, esport FIFA or otherwise.

NFL Betting

TonyBet offers a wide range of betting options for NFL wagers, including moneylines, spreads, totals, quarter- and half-specific betting options, in-game wagers and a decent selection of player props each Sunday during the season.

NBA Betting

There’s no shortage of betting options for the NBA fans out there, as TonyBet offers moneyline, spread and total plays for every game on the schedule. You can also wager on quarterly or halftime options, along with daily player props.

College Football

If it’s NCAA football markets you seek, you’ve come to the right place. TonyBet offers moneyline, spread and total plays for the majority of Division I games on any given Saturday during the season, along with a large assortment of quarter-by-quarter or halftime plays. You can also wager on team props, though player props aren’t available.

College Basketball

While you won’t see as robust a market for NCAA basketball as you would find on larger sites like FanDuel or DraftKings, TonyBet does have a presence here. Marquee games during the regular season are covered, while TonyBet follows the lead of the majority of Ontario sportsbooks by ramping up the betting markets ahead of March Madness.

NHL Betting

TonyBet does well to appeal to the puckheads that preside in Canada’s most populous province, offering a healthy number of hockey markets every day during the season and into the Stanley Cup playoffs. In addition to moneyline, puckline and total plays, bettors have access to team and player props, along with period-specific betting markets.

MLB Betting

How do you make a summer afternoon even better? By firing up your TonyBet account and placing some baseball wagers. TonyBet offers comprehensive MLB markets, both for pre-game bets (moneyline, runline, total) and in-game action (five innings moneyline/run line, player props, team props).

Other Sports Leagues

TonyBet has an incredibly strong esports foundation. Bettors will find markets across every major esports competition, with odds available well in advance of the start of the actual events.

Online Betting Experience

TonyBet doesn’t yet offer an iOS or Android app for its Ontario product, so sports bettors are forced to use either the desktop version or the mobile web iteration.

Website Experience

Both versions greet players with an absolute deluge of betting options and numbers upon sign-in. TonyBet arranges its betting options in one long line on the main screen, with headers like “1”, “X”, “2”, “1X”, “12” and so on. More experienced bettors know what’s up, but if you’re new to the game, you’ll have no idea what these headers mean, and how they correspond to the bet you’d like to make.

Making matters worse is the insistence on TonyBet to add two decimal points to its American odds – so instead of seeing -115, you’ll see -115.00. Or you’ll see -114.68. We get it, you want to show how precise you are. But again, it comes across to a new sports bettor as intimidating, or over-the-top, or simply one more reason to go somewhere else.

There’s also the issue of every new sports or matchup page taking time to load. Thankfully, most of these load times are short – but if you’re trying to access a longer list of bet options, it can take 5-10 seconds for the entire menu to appear. And that can get annoying, as well.

Mobile Betting and Betting App

You won’t find TonyBet on either the App Store or Google Play – at least, not yet.

Live Betting

If and when you can get accustomed to TonyBet’s messy interface, the resulting live betting product is actually quite strong. Click the “Live Betting” tab at the top of the screen and you’ll be taken to a master list of events going on in real time, sorted automatically by sport.

Below the games going on at that moment, you’ll find a list of everything with a live betting market coming up over the next 12 hours. This is a handy feature for planning out the rest of your betting plan – and if it’s too much for you, you can simply minimize the list.

Clicking into a matchup provides you instant access to all of the available bets for that event, along with the option to arrange the live bets into one, two or three columns. You’ll also get a “virtual field” in the top right where you can follow the event (if the option is available).

Unfortunately, TonyBet doesn’t yet offer live streaming for Ontario bettors.

Casino, Poker, & Other Gaming Options

While the sportsbook experience might not be the most satisfying for Ontario residents and visitors, TonyBet’s casino offerings are among the best in the province, period.

Clicking into the “Casino” section along the top nav takes the player to TonyBet’s vault of slot machines; you can either sift through the more than 4,600 slot options from the main Slots header, or you can sort the machines through a variety of categories like “Most Popular”, New”, or “Bonus Buy” (where you can skip right to the bonus spins option for a specific slot.)

The “Live Casino” section of the site is also robust, with nearly 120 tables available to those looking for some cards or roulette action. Games covered here include Baccarat, blackjack, game show-style options, and poker, all featuring live dealers or spinners.

Head over to our TonyBet Casino review for even more details.

TonyBet History

The company was founded under the name OmniBet in 2003. It had established itself as a force in the European iGaming scene before being taken over by Tony G and promptly rebranded.

TonyBet continued to grow in scale and influence, and made even bigger waves in 2016 by becoming one of the first gaming sites in the world to begin accepting Bitcoin as a deposit method. TonyBet converted Bitcoin into regular currencies while being used on the site, but also allowed those who deposited via cryptocurrency to withdraw using the same method.

The overwhelming success of the brand allowed Tony G. to sell off the Lithuanian side of the business to Betsson AB for approximately six million Euros in 2016.

TonyBet made its first appearance in Canada in 2021, and spent millions in promotion and advertising in hopes of making an immediate impact. It had first expressed no interest in operating in Ontario’s legal sports betting landscape, but eventually changed course.

Customer Ratings & Reputation

There is a common theme among second- and third-tier sportsbooks operating in Ontario – and it’s a major concern for players looking to get the most value out of their bets.

TonyBet’s odds are mostly below the industry standard, and not by a little bit. While major sports see decent pre-game odds that are usually only 1-2 cents off, pre-game odds for non-major sports and in-game odds for just about every market can be 10 cents off – or more.

It’s not unusual, for example, to see totals carry odds anywhere from -117/-117 to -120/-120, well off the standard of -110/-110. And the odds get worse as you veer further away from 50/50 results: Consider examples of -180/+125 or -170/+115, which each feature 35 cents of vig.

TonyBet does deserve full credit for not only responding to every negative Trustpilot review it has received, but doing so in a professional manner, offering help to anyone with a complaint. And with a 2.5 rating out of 5, you can imagine how many people fall into that bucket.  

It’s also notable that TonyBet offers some nice player perks that other sites don’t offer. You can participate in sports betting tournaments that pay out cash prizes, and there’s also a contest called “Forecasts” where you win money for nailing the outcomes of 8, 9 or 10 straight matches.

Customer Service

As mentioned earlier, TonyBet takes pride in providing a strong customer service experience – and that dedication to putting out fires on Trustpilot carries over to its on-side CS approach. Agents are available via chat 24-7; they respond quickly to inquiries and are quite pleasant to deal with despite what is obviously a difficult job.

Unfortunately, there aren't many other ways to get in touch with TonyBet. You can try the email ([email protected]), but the response time there is a bit on the delayed side. And there’s no dedicated phone line for customer service, so if you don’t like live chat, you’re out of luck.

TonyBet Contact

• 24/7 Live Chat
• Email: [email protected]

TonyBet Legal Betting

TonyBet is regulated in Ontario by the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario and iGaming Ontario.

Responsible Gambling

All legal and regulated sportsbooks in Ontario are required to register with the Responsible Gambling Council, a leader in the prevention of problem gambling in Canada and globally for over 35 years.

TonyBet Review Conclusion

If you’re a gaming aficionado, you probably aren’t going to find a more immersive experience than the one you get from TonyBet.

Unfortunately, this is a sportsbook review, not a casino analysis. And when it comes to the sports betting experience, there’s plenty sorely lacking here. From the vig-heavy odds to the strangely complicated interface to the list of sports with a more European audience in mind, it stands to wonder whether TonyBet truly cares about its Canadian audience.

Whether they do or don’t is ultimately of no consequence. The product is below-average overall, and it won’t take Ontario bettors long to see they have much better options at their disposal.