PlayUp Review November 2024

PlayUp is a newcomer to the Australian sports betting landscape, having only joined the fun as recently as 2019. However, in this short time we have seen them make great headway, managing to position themselves as the best in the industry with regards a variety of important areas.

In my experience, the most notable among these are the website and mobile app that PlayUp offer, both of which appear as clean, and easy to navigate through. As well as this, I believe their customer service is of a very high standard, namely due to availability and accessibility as they are operational 24 hours, 7 days a week. As with all companies, they are with their flaws too, but overall I view this as a high-quality bookmaker that should continue to improve and grow with experienced gained in the coming years.

PlayUp is a high-quality bookmaker with a variety of important strengths, but as is the case with every ‘bookie’, they aren’t perfect. Below, we’ve taken a look at some of their most significant strengths and weaknesses:

✔️PlayUp Strengths

• High-quality website: The PlayUp website is one of the best in the industry, offering an efficient and streamlined experience which lays out all the important components of a betting website in a logical, clean fashion, while also providing users with a fast-functioning interface to place their punts.
• Elite mobile app: Like the website, the PlayUp mobile app is among the best in the industry. The layout of the app is slightly different to the online site, and this is so that content is positioned comfortably onto a smaller mobile screen, however, the app functions every bit as efficiently, making it easy to use PlayUp on the go.
• Great customer service: The customer service offered by PlayUp is about as good as you could hope for! They are contactable through live chat, phone and email – the three most efficient ways to get in touch with any bookie – and importantly, these customer service features are available 24 hours a day, every day of the week.

❌PlayUp Weaknesses

• Scope for more sports: PlayUp offers markets on all of the most common sports and has numerous novelty markets such as ‘entertainment’ and ‘politics’. However, they do have room to improve in terms of featuring more niche sports and categories on their platform.
• Lack of markets on popular events: It’s often the case with newer bookies that there aren’t as many markets even for the biggest events, and while PlayUp does fairly well for a group with as little experience as they have, there are plenty of competitors who offer a wider range of markets.
• More payment methods could be added: This might not be an issue for everyone, particularly if you keep it simple with debit card as your deposit and withdrawal method, but there is certainly room for PlayUp to add a few more payment methods to their arsenal.

👨‍⚖️Playup Final Verdict

For most people, the strengths mentioned above will likely be more relevant than the weaknesses, though those who like to dig deep for value in less common places might be put off by the fairly limited number of sports and markets. However, I can confidently say that PlayUp are with a great website, app and customer service platform, all of which makes for a high-quality overall betting experience, and if this is what is most important to you then PlayUp may be worth checking out.

Betting Variety ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Almost evey market that you’ll neet to find they will have available with PlayUp.

Banking Options ⭐⭐⭐⭐
The banking options available should be sufficient for most, but there are less payment methods offered versus that of some of their big competitors.

Mobile experience ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Excellent. The mobile app is available for both iOS and Android users, and it is easy to use in terms of its functionality and user interface.

Payout Speed ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
PlayUp is generally quite punctual in terms of their payouts.

Security ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
No problems with the security; PlayUp is licensed and regulated by the NT Racing Commission.

Betting Experience ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Courtesy of a fantastic website, the betting experience with PlayUp is very good.

Customer Support ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Among the best in the industry. They offer live chat, phone and email, and importantly, they are available 24/7 for customer support.

PlayUp only entered the betting industry in 2019, and this makes them one of the ‘less experienced’ bookies going around. However, I don’t feel as though this lack of experience is so apparent, and this is because, on the whole, PlayUp provides a high-quality betting experience as you’ll see throughout the course of this review.

Let’s start with the website and mobile experience. The online site is up there with the easiest betting sites to navigate through. I have found that the layout follows most other bookies, but the loading times are extremely quick, making it easy to get to where you need to go, in a fast and effective manner. I also believe the mobile app to be every bit as good in this regard.

In my opinion, playup’s betting app is one of the best on the market, mimicking the online website with some subtle adjustments in order to fit onto the smaller mobile screen. It is also very easy to navigate through, and quick to load – something which can’t be said about all bookie’s mobile apps. I honestly feel that the mobile app is so efficient to use that one could quite easily opt to do all their PlayUp activities on the mobile rather than the site, which also can’t be said for all bookies.

Another area in which PlayUp excels is its customer service. Punters can contact PlayUp support via three different options; live chat, phone and email. The first two of these are almost certainly the best options a bookie can offer, while email offers an outlet for more extended questions or for those who need to send through files. On top of this, it is also the availability of these options for users that make for a positive customer support experience. These support functions are available 24/7, something which many competitors don’t offer, and this helps to position PlayUp’s customer support among the best in the industry.

As always, there are a couple of areas in which PlayUp could improve, though they aren’t exactly likely to be dealbreakers for most potential users. One of these is the variety of markets that they have on offer. While there are sufficient sports for most people, there are fewer than that many of their competitors. On top of this, there aren’t a huge number of markets available for individual games, even within the most popular sports. You’ll find all of the common markets as well as a handful of niche player props on offer, but the number of overall markets lags a little in comparison to some of the more established bookmakers in the industry.

Plenty of competitors also offer more payment methods than PlayUp, though I don’t view this is as too much of a problem for most persons. Debit card methods are available, and this should cater for the bulk of users, while bank transfer as a withdrawal method and BPay along with a couple of others as deposit options are also available.

Overall, for a bookmaker who has not been around for nearly as long as many others in the industry, I feel as though PlayUp has done an extremely good job of becoming competitive. I feel as though they have a great foundation to work off, namely due to the quality and functionality of their online site and mobile app, as well as the great customer service that they offer. If they can add a few more sports and markets, I believe PlayUp can easily position itself as one of, if not the best bookie in the industry.

If you’ve got a particular question that you want answered about PlayUp, check out our answers to some of the most frequently asked questions we receive about this bookmaker:

A lot of what makes PlayUp an attractive bookmaker for many punters is the quality of their website, so it’s little surprise that they have developed a mobile betting app which I consider to be equally easy to use. Having a good mobile betting app is essential in the betting industry, and many bookmakers have developed their own versions which are every bit as easy to use as the website itself, and in some cases even easier. PlayUp is no exception.

I have found that the app follows a similar format to the website. Upcoming races and sports are listed across the home screen, while the various different sports can be scrolled through at the top of the screen and clicked on to access the markets for the relevant sport. Logging in and out is also simple – these options are available just above the aforementioned sports near the top of the screen – while a drop-down menu is available at the top left-hand part of the screen if you need to access deposits, withdrawals and various other in-app functions.

Typically, the most important thing to consider when evaluating a mobile app is how efficiently it functions, as this is often the area platforms will decline or fail due to inferior functionality. Poorly designed and developed apps can take a very long time to load, often lag and sometimes even crash and close completely as a result. Fortunately, the PlayUp betting app is not with these issues. Like the website, it’s extremely responsive and easy to navigate through, and as well as this, you’ll be able to get from Point A to Point B with relative ease.

The app is available for download on iOS and Android devices. For iOS devices, simply head to the App Store to download it; for Android, however, the easiest way to install the app is to head to the PlayUp mobile site (incidentally another functional way to use PlayUp on your mobile) and click on the appropriate link on the mobile section of their website.

Overall, I believe the user experience with PlayUp to be an extremely positive one. They have one of the most functional betting apps of all bookmakers. This enables users to do all the things they could do on the website, but on their phone instead, with as much, if not more, ease.

Like many of the areas we will cover in this review, the racing component of PlayUp is comprehensive, yet easy to navigate through. I have found that you can access the markets in a couple of different methods. So, what are these methods? Well, the upcoming events in the three different forms of racing can all be accessed via PlayUp’s home page, and as well as this, a list of the most significant future races is available to users immediately below this section.

Going into more detail, if you wish to take a look at every available race, simply click the racing tab on the left-hand side and select the type of racing that you want to explore. If, for example, you select ‘thoroughbred racing’, you’ll be taken to a page which lists every Australian race from that day at the top, with international races from the same day underneath. You can also click through to view results from previous days, or view scheduled races that are set to jump in the next two days, as well as futures on offer.

So, once you have found the race you are looking for, what’s next? Well, you’ll be greeted with a fairly simple and clean page, which shows all runners and their win/place odds in that race. If you wish to access exotics such as ‘quinellas’ you can click through to these at the top of the page.

I have found that another area in which PlayUp could improve is through the addition of some race information on each individual race page; where, in this context, we see many other bookies offer something of a preview and tips for the race, or at least information about each individual runner. PlayUp’s offering is fairly limited in this area.

In terms of the odds offered, I believe that PlayUp sits somewhere in the middle of the pack relative to other Australian bookmakers. When the gates open for an Australian race, their margin is generally around 120% – what this means is that the cumulative probability of each horse winning is 120%. If, for example, a horse jumps at $2, it should theoretically be a 50% chance of winning. If we did this maths for every horse, the total should be 100% if bookmakers made no profit, but they do and so a horse with a 50% chance of winning would be paying closer to $1.80. A 120% margin at the jump is around the middle of the pack; some get closer to 116-117%, while others are in the high 120s, so PlayUp neither excels nor falters in this area.

Overall, I feel that the racing component of the website is a relatively good one. It’s easy to navigate through, the odds are solid, and the only significant area in which they could improve is through the addition of more race information on each race page.

Most decent bookies have a number of features which are only offered by a handful of competitors, while some even have certain elements which are completely unique to them. Below are what I believe to be the best features offered by PlayUp:

24/7 Customer Service

Every bookie features a customer service platform, and the vast majority of the decent ones offer a variety of differing, easy-to-use options. PlayUp separates themselves from the vast majority of competitors in this regard, and this is because their support options (live chat, phone and email) operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This ensures that you can get in touch day or night, and typically when you do, the customer service agents at PlayUp are seemingly quite helpful.

PlayUp Playbook

The PlayUp Playbook is essentially a blog offered by the bookmaker, which provides reviews, previews and tips on a variety of different sports and racing. This is offered by a handful of different bookies, though the PlayUp version is among the best in the industry, both in terms of the quantity of resources they offer as well as the overall quality. However, despite this, the tips provided through the bookie should not necessarily be used without consultation of tips from other, external sources.

PlayUp Client Manager

How useful the client manager really is can be up for debate, though it does highlight the commitment to customer service that PlayUp has. A client manager is essentially a personalised customer support agent with whom you can easily get in contact with, and who has specific information about your account. This isn’t entirely different to the customer service platform itself, but as mentioned it does show that they are committed to providing a good service for users wishing to punt.

PlayUp Live Betting

Live betting is an increasingly popular way to punt on sports and racing, but it’s not yet offered on all betting sites. Fortunately, we can see that PlayUp has added this feature to their arsenal. Though they don’t offer markets on the widest range of live sports, they do have a few, meaning you can call up and place a bet, as per Australian regulations, on an event as it’s unfolding.

So, we know about PlayUp’s racing coverage and the features that they offer, but what about their sports coverage? Do they offer only the basics, or do they branch out into some of the more obscure, niche sports played around the globe?

At the time of writing, there were 22 different sports available on PlayUp. This isn’t a huge number and it falls behind many other bookies, though they do cover the major sports and there are a handful of less common events thrown in there that aren’t available with all competitors. In fact, PlayUp offers a host of markets for both ‘Entertainment’ as well as ‘Elections’, so TV fans and the politically-passionate can put their money where their mouth is. There are also a number of markets for the increasingly popular E-Sports genre.

Outside of this, it’s the most popular sports which take centre stage on the PlayUp platform, and this is where users can find the vast majority of PlayUp markets. Sports like Australian rules football, rugby league, cricket and soccer are all available. And with this, odds for virtually every event of any interest – and plenty of those which won’t generate much interest at all – can be found on PlayUp.

PlayUp could, however, improve by having a few more markets available on some of the biggest matches in the biggest sports. For example, while every AFL game is available and each of them does have a decent array of differing markets, they fall a little behind some of the biggest bookies with regards to how many different markets and props you can bet on in these individual matches.

Overall, the sports coverage offered by PlayUp is reasonable, but I would not call it outstanding. The number of different sporting codes offered by PlayUp is a little less than some of their major competitors, but they do cover the major sports and have a handful of novelties which also generates niche interest. I think PlayUp can benefit from offering a few more markets and props on some of the more popular games, though there are still enough to satisfy the majority of punters.

Now that we’ve discussed PlayUp sports coverage, and briefly touched on how many markets are available across different sports, we can now take a look at what the specific markets are that PlayUp offer!

PlayUp Different Betting Markets

• Moneyline
• Line
• Total points
• Player props
• Quarter/half time markets
• Big win/little win

PlayUp  Different Types of Bets Available

• Single/fixed win
• Multis
• System bets (doubles, trebles etc.)

An important step in the punting process is, of course, depositing and withdrawing. Whether a bookmaker has the methods that you would prefer to use, or not, can make or break whether you want to sign up. Typically, the most straightforward way to go about it is by using your debit card, and virtually every betting site will offer this, so if that’s your preferred method then it won’t bother you too much what else is available. If, however, you have another way that you prefer to deposit and withdraw, then the availability of the more niche payment options is far more important.

PlayUp falls into the extensive aforementioned category of bookies with whom you can use your debit card, but they have a multitude of other options too. The majority of those are related to deposits, with many more options to get money into your PlayUp account than to take money out of it.

Probably the most common way to deposit is debit card, but you can also use paysafecard, or deposit money into PlayUp’s bank account and then let them know using BPay Notification or EFT Notification. Debit card and paysafecard will typically see funds arrive in your account almost immediately, while the latter two might take a little longer.

For withdrawals, your only option aside from debit card is bank transfer. As is often the case with bookmakers, you’ll need to verify your card and/or bank account before you can make withdrawals, and you will also need to wait a few days before the money arrives back in your bank account. Typically, with PlayUp, you can expect it to reach your bank account within 2-5 days of your withdrawal, though it does depend on your bank. 

Overall, PlayUp doesn’t have the most exhaustive range of deposit and withdrawal options available, but there is likely enough here to give most punters at least one method which they can use without too much hassle.

Yes, it is! PlayUp is licensed in the Northern Territory by the NT Racing Commission, and bets are accepted on behalf of PlayUp Interactive Pty Ltd. Furthering their legitimacy, they also have a number of responsible gambling initiatives which can be viewed via the links under the ‘Responsible Gambling’ heading at the bottom of the page. Here, PlayUp provide some advice of their own while also linking through to a few more developed gambling help websites.

If you use a bookmaker for long enough it’s almost inevitable that you will, at some point, need to get into contact with them, and it’s for this reason that customer service is such an integral component of any bookie’s offering. The worst customer support platforms offer minimal ways to get into touch, limited hours and unhelpful agents, while the best make it easy to get in touch in a variety of different ways and company representatives are willing and able to help once you do. PlayUp falls into the latter category.

In my experience, the easiest way to get in touch with PlayUp is via live chat, which is readily available via a small bubble in the bottom left-hand corner of whatever page you’re on while scrolling through the PlayUp website. Simply click on the button, type in your question and you’ll be able to converse almost immediately – aside from when there is significant traffic – with a customer service agent. Alternatively, you can give PlayUp’s customer service team a call on 1800 752 987.

Already these options – in particular the live chat – make for a good and effective customer support platform, but what makes PlayUp’s support stand out from the rest is the fact that both of these two methods of contact are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This is in stark contrast to most other bookies, whose customer support platforms are available for only a limited time during the day. A 24/7 platform ensures that you can be confident you’ll be able to get in touch anywhere, anytime with PlayUp.

As well as what has been mentioned above, a final method of contact users can use if they need assistance from PlayUp is email. Simply send the team an email at  support@playup.com.au and you can expect a resolution within a couple of days. This is definitely the slowest way in which to have your query resolved, however, if you have a particularly complex issue or something which isn’t urgent per se, then this can be relevant to you.

Rounding out what is an excellent part of this PlayUp offering is the fact that the customer service agents are typically quite friendly and helpful. Overall, this makes for a great customer support platform, one which operates at all hours of the day and has a range of contact methods which make it easy to get in touch with them. And I believe it is these features that help to position PlayUp among the top bookmakers in terms of customer service.

Need some more in-depth help on how to do certain things with PlayUp? Check out our list below, in which we run you step-by-step through some of the processes on the website.

How to open an account with PlayUp

Opening an account with PlayUp is, as it is with most bookies, a pretty simple process, and once you head to the website you should be able to get it done within a couple of minutes!

• Click the ‘Join Now’ button in the top right-hand corner of your screen.
• Enter some basic personal information on the page that then pops up, including your name, address and contact details.
• Click ‘Next’ and fill in your account information, which includes a Username, password, date of birth and any deposit limits that you wish to set.
• Once you’ve done this, simply click on ‘Create Account’ and you’re all done.
• The final step to complete before your account is fully functional is to verify your account, which must be done within 14 days of opening it. To do so, head to your ‘My Account’ page (accessible via the drop-down tab in the top right of your page) and use one of the various available methods to verify.

How to place a bet

Now that you’ve signed up, you’re going to want to know how to actually place a bet. Fortunately, it’s pretty simple following the below steps.

• Locate the market that you wish to bet on – the easiest way to do this is by using the menu on the left-hand side of the home page.
• Click on the odds which correspond the market on which you wish to bet.
• The bet will then appear in your betslip on the right-hand side of your page.
• An empty box within the betslip is where you input the monetary amount you wish to place on your bet, and once you put a number in this box your potential winnings if the bet gets up will be shown below.
• Click on the ‘Confirm’ button at the bottom of your betslip, and your bet will be placed provided you have sufficient funds in your account.

How to deposit money into your PlayUp account

If you’re looking to place a bet but don’t have enough funds in your account, you may need to deposit more cash – assuming, of course, you’re betting within your financial means. Follow the below steps to do so:

• Click on the top right corner of your screen, either on your name, the small piece of paper or the number which represents your account funds.
• A drop-down menu will appear; click on ‘Deposit’.
• You’ll then be taken to a page which lists all of the available deposit methods, starting with debit card.
• Either input your relevant card numbers to the debit card option, or click on one of the other deposit methods and follow the prompts.

Features: 24/7 customer service, elite mobile app, client manager, great website

Sports covered: Aussie rules football, cricket, tennis, golf, rugby league, soccer

Apps: Yes, available on all iOS and Android devices

Payment options: Debit card, bank transfer, paysafecard, BPay notification, EFT notification

Contact information: Live chat, phone, email – available 24/7