Like many aspiring writers, Jarin focuses on bringing life to the text for her readers. She is an avid sports lover, growing up in a family obsessed with bookies. She is an expert in the iGaming niche and has secondary obsessions with Gardening and cooking.
India is one of the countries in Southeast Asia that still sticks to the British-era legislation in many aspects. Gambling is one of them. You can only participate in land-based gambling from Daman, Sikkim, and Goa. For the rest of the country, gambling is strictly prohibited.
However, there’s no legislation regarding online gambling. As a result, India has become a part of the “de facto illegal” region. It simply means you can participate in online gambling as long as the operator is based outside of India. We have one such operator for review today. Powbet.
Background on Powbet
Powbet claims that the platform has been designed for a “better betting experience”. Owned and operated by Rabidi N.V., Powbet accepts punters from a lot of different countries, including India. You’d be glad to know that the entire platform has been localized to make it more user-friendly.
As Rabidi N.V. is based in Curacao, its license is also sanctioned by the Curacao government. Antillephone N.V., to be precise. It’s a valid license in India as the government doesn’t put any restrictions on participating in gambling activities on offshore bookmakers.
Powbet also offers a lot of local payment methods and accepts INR as the native currency. Overall, you can expect a fantastic betting experience in Powbet India. In our Powbet review, we’re going to cover all of the basic components of the bookmaker that are going to come in handy for you.
The Powbet Betting Components
Sports betting is what Powbet is primarily known for. But you’d be glad to know that it also offers an online casino for users. Powbet is not an “online sportsbook” that happens to offer a casino component. Rather, it’s an “online betting” site that offers both a sportsbook and a casino.
But our focus for this Powbet review is the sportsbook. So, let’s take a look at what that section is all about.
Sportsbook
The homepage of Powbet India is not designed for any of the betting features. You have to manually navigate to the page you want to access. On the top navigation bar, there’s a tab labeled “Sports”. It’s a floating menu where the options are displayed when you hover your cursor over it.
The first of the 3 components is the “Sportsbook”. It’s where all of the traditional sports options along with all the markets are listed. The Powbet Indian sportsbook gives you the option to bet on Cricket, Soccer, eSoccer, Tennis, Table Tennis, Basketball, E-Basketball, Volleyball, Ice Hockey, Esports, Motorsports, MMA, Basketball 3×3, American Football, Cycling, Biathlon, Darts, Field Hockey, Golf, Futsal, and Ruby, and plenty of other sports.
As an Indian punter, you’re surely familiar with how crazy the people of India are about Cricket. Hence, Cricket is the first listed sport among all. When you click on the option, it lets you choose between England, Ireland, Italy, or any other country. You may also choose an option labeled “International”.
These are nothing but your gateway to getting to actual matches. If you choose England, it means you’ll be redirected to English cricket leagues. Similarly, for any other country that’s listed, you can pick a tournament from that menu.
The same pattern goes for all other listed sports too. You click on a listing, you get further sorting options, and then, you can get to the actual match.
Racebook
Although this section is listed as “Horse Racing” on the floating menu, it’s actually the racebook section of the Powbet India website. A racebook is simply a platform where you can bet on race-related options. The most common example of such an option is horse racing. Needless to say, Powbet offers plenty of horse racing opportunities for Indian punters.
You can sort the events between Gallops, Harness, Greys, and so on. Races from all over the world are listed on this page. You can even see the flag of the host country.
Virtual Sports
The last option under the “Sports” menu is virtual sports. These are computer simulations of real sports that you can bet on. It looks like a video game on your screen but there are no real people playing these games. Rather, these follow the “simulated reality” algorithm which allows the matches to progress on their own.
Powbet India offers virtual betting options for football, cricket, tennis, baseball, motorsports, dog races, etc. sports. Just pick one and start going at it!
Live Betting at Powbet
Live betting is a very important part of the overall betting experience for any punter. It’s understandable because live betting offers far more markets when compared to pre-match bets. Also, it allows you to recoup previous losses along by betting on live matches and live odds.
Powbet has dedicated a section on the website for live betting purposes only. It’s the “Live” tab right beside the “Sport” tab on the main navigation bar. Once on that page, you can sort your sports options between cricket, soccer, tennis, table tennis, baseball, basketball, ice hockey, and lots of other ones.
Betting Markets
Betting markets are ultimately what you should be concerned about when you’re betting at an online bookmaker. Because the odds are offered for the markets and you bet on them. They vary a lot between sports because every single sport in the world is different in terms of rules and scoring systems.
As cricket is the most popular sport for betting as well as viewing in India, let’s take a look at a few markets you can find on Powbet India.
Winner (Including Super Over)
If you’re not aware, a “super over” is an extra over both teams play after the main match in case of a draw. So, the match-winner market on Powbet automatically eliminates that possibility of a draw. As a result, you get odds for the 2 participating teams only.
1×2
If you want a draw to be a viable betting option, you have to go for the 1×2 market. It offers separate odds for the draw (x) while offering usual odds for the home team (1) and the away team (2).
Innings Markets
On Powbet, you’ll find the option to go to the “innings” tab for a cricket match. This section houses all the markets that relate to the innings of the match. “First dismissal method for a team”, “total runs for a team”, etc. are some markets in this section.
Specials
Special markets are unique to each bookmaker. In Powbet, it’s marked as “Player Specials” which means these are player-generated markets. At the time of writing, most of the markets in this section were associated with the players.
Bonuses & Promotions at Powbet India
There’s no way to deny that bonuses are one of the major attractions in the iGaming industry. These are very popular among punters as they let them increase their bankroll quite easily. Powbet offers an amazing set of sportsbook bonuses for Indian punters. Let’s go over them very briefly in our review.
The Sports Welcome Bonus
This is a classic first deposit match bonus for the Indian punters. Powbet will match your first deposit by 100%, up to ₹8,000. The minimum deposit required to qualify for this bonus is ₹1,600 only.
Just like all other gambling bonuses in the world, this welcome bonus from Powbet is also subject to wager. You must wager the bonus amount 6 times on sports events to unlock the amount for withdrawal. Luckily, you get 30 days to complete the process which is more than enough considering the tiny wagering requirements.
Just keep in mind that your deposits via Neteller and Skrill will not qualify for this bonus. So, use any of the other offered methods for your first deposit.
VIP Free Bet Daily
Just like free spins are the most popular casino bonus, free bets are the most popular sportsbook bonus. Powbet knows that very well. And so, it offers free bets for the VIP players where you can win up to ₹40,000 worth of betting credits.
The rollover requirement for the winnings is only 3x and you need to stick to 1.50 minimum odds for all selections.
VIP Program
One of the reasons we like Powbet so much is its VIP program. It’s a fantastic opportunity for high rollers to get additional returns on their deposits. There are 5 levels to the program. Rookie, Semi-Pro, Expert, Master, and Champion. The VIP free bets bonus we discussed in the previous section is only for players in Master and Champion levels.
Mobile Compatibility & Usability
While Powbet India has excellent mobile compatibility for all devices in circulation, it doesn’t have any apps that you can download. Rather, you’ll have to stick to the mobile site for all of your adventures.
Instead of focusing on the drawbacks, let’s focus on the positives here. The mobile site is amazingly optimized. We tested it on both Android and iOS devices, using various browsers both operating systems have to offer. We had an identical experience across all of them.
It goes to show that no matter what device you’re using, you can expect a top-notch online betting experience from Powbet. The pages adapt to your screen size automatically thanks to HTML5.
You are also free to claim all the offered bonuses as well as use all the offered payment methods for your deposits and withdrawals.
Payment methods You May Use at Powbet India
If it was the USA, you could hope for a casino cage near your house where you could walk in and deposit cash. But it’s not possible in India so you’ll always need to use online payment methods for online betting.
Powbet has done an amazing job of including all the major payment methods for Indian punters. In fact, it has a dedicated payments page where all the available methods are listed along with their corresponding limits. You’d be glad to know that Indian punters get plenty of options to choose from!
UPI, PayTM, AstroPay, Neteller, Skrill, Skrill 1-Tap, MuchBetter, Payz, Visa, Mastercard, eZeeWallet, CashtoCode, and MiFinity are your fiat currency options. “Fiat” currency is simply the paper money we use all the time.
The reason we’re explicitly mentioning the fiat currencies is that Powbet India also offers cryptocurrency methods for both deposits and withdrawals! You’re free to use Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ripple, and Ethereum for your real money transactions.
For all the e-wallets, meaning Neteller, Skrill, MuchBetter, and Payz, you can deposit between ₹900 and ₹400,000 in a single transaction. For UPI, the range is between ₹900 and ₹99,000. With PayTM, you can deposit as little as ₹500 and as high as ₹100,000!
Visa and Mastercard allow you to deposit between ₹900 and ₹180,000. For the crypto methods, the minimum and maximum deposit limits vary.
For real money withdrawals, you can use all of the stated methods except for the prepaid ones. The ranges are identical to the deposits for most of the methods.
As for the withdrawal processing time, Powbet India promises to process all of your requests instantly. It means there’s no time lost from the bookmaker’s end. And if you use an e-wallet or a crypto method, you can get your money immediately!
Customer Support
Last but not least, let’s cover the customer support channels for Powbet India. It’s very important for any country in the world because you never know when you might face a problem regarding your betting experience. Not having good customer support in those cases means added hassle on top of the problem.
At Powbet, you can reach out via live chat and email. Both of these channels run 24/7 so you don’t have to wait for the support team to wake up. Just click on the chat icon on the bottom right corner of the website. Or, visit the “contact” us page and trigger the chat from there.
If you’re contacting via email, put support@powbet.com as the receiver. You can expect a response within 24 hours.
The Powbet website also has a fantastic FAQ section where all many of the common punter questions are listed. In case of a problem, this is the first section you should look at because there’s a good chance you can find the answer to your query.