Sports Betting in Northern Ireland
Football in N. Ireland
Betting on sports, as in the rest of the United Kingdom, is popular in Northern Ireland.
The Northern Irish residents rarely see their football (soccer) team qualify for major international tournaments such as the World Cup or Euro Football Championships. The population of this small territory is below two million and the Northern Irish just haven’t been able to assemble a good enough team to pass the qualification groups.
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a unified country, however, it doesn’t have its own national team. Instead, there are four football federations- those of England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland- and each of them has its own team competing separately in the international competitions.
No other country is known for that as the football betting news report. Each of the members also has its own league. Thus, the English Premier League doesn’t contain teams from places such as Scotland.
When it comes to sports betting, the residents of Northern Ireland like to bet on sports. Despite the rise of online sportsbooks, most of the wagering takes place at traditional bricks-and mortal outlets that populate the small land. In fact, there are over 300 of licensed land-based bookmaking shops.
But, this is changing due to rise of online and mobile sports betting, recession, and smoking ban at bookmaking shops. No longer punters can stay in the shop, watch the game, and have a cigarette. This is becoming a challenge for some bookmakers, although the stronger ones such as William Hill or Ladbrokes have their own well-established online sportsbooks.
The rest of the Northern Irish, those not into sports, likes to gamble as well but through very traditional means such as the lottery or scratch cards. These are also coming online. Indeed, some of the online casinos offer web-based scratch cards.
