Rugby Betting Sites

Rugby is a game known for its brutal violence, with players launching themselves at each other at full speed as they plow over the try line. It is like football but without the pads and constant breaks.

There is always an age old discussion over here when rugby gets mentioned. Which is the more violent, brutal sport, rugby or football? Of course, those from the UK will claim rugby is the more physical sport, with no helmets or padding meaning the players are tougher. Here, we will always roll with football, citing the sheer physical prowess of modern day NFL players. People shouldn’t be that big and that fast, right?

If you are looking for a new exciting sport to follow, or you are already rugby-obsessed and want to enhance your viewing experience with a little betting action, you are in the right place.

Check out our list of the 10 best rugby betting sites in America and learn everything you need to know to win your first wager!

Best Rugby Betting Sites in the US – Ultimate Comparison

Rugby Betting Promo Codes

With rugby betting bonuses, you can use the sportsbook’s cash to boost your stake and payout. Here are the best promos and betting promo codes from our recommended rugby betting sites available now:

Sportsbook bonuses come in all shapes and sizes. To get you up to speed on the latest industry jargon, these are the most common promos:

• Bonus Bet – With a bonus bet, you receive a credit that you can use to wager on different sporting events. Whatever you win minus the stake is yours! For example, if you use a $100 bonus bet to wager on Wales to beat New Zealand at +300, you keep $300.
• Insurance – With an insurance bonus, the betting site will refund your stake if your wager loses. FanDuel offers this promo on your first bet and will top up your account with bonus funds.
• No Deposit Bonus – With a no-deposit bonus, you simply need to sign up, and the sportsbook will credit your account with the bonus. No deposit bonuses are usually small betting credits or bonus bets that you can use on specific events. For example, a $5 bet on the All Blacks against the Springboks.
• Deposit Bonus – If you need to add funds to your account to access a particular promo, it is considered a deposit bonus. Common deposit offers include bonus bets, insurance, and bonus cash.
• Welcome Offer – This promo is exclusively for new sports bettors. Typically you will need to make a deposit to access these deals, and they tend to be the biggest! Welcome offers can include bonus bets, bonus cash, insurance, and cashback.
• Cashback – With this promo, a sportsbook will return a portion of your losses. Let’s say you bet $300 on England to beat Scotland, but the Scots cause the upset with a 20% cashback deal – you would receive $60 back. The funds can either be withdrawable cash or bonus money.

How to Find the Best Rugby Betting Sites

All of the rugby betting sites we recommend have been thoroughly tested by our team. We put every site we review through the same stringent testing process, which allows us to accurately and confidently spot the top rugby betting sites. This is the methodology we use to rate rugby sportsbooks:

Player Safety

To ensure we promote safe and secure rugby betting sites, every sportsbook on our list holds a valid US license. Licensed US sportsbooks must comply with strict state gaming regulations, which cover all aspects of betting, including protecting bettors’ personal and banking information, separating players’ funds, and offering legitimate odds and promotions. Licensed US sportsbooks are regularly audited, and if they are found to be in breach of their license face serious fines, loss of license, and even criminal action.

We take it a step further by studying real player reviews and ensuring the site has a strong reputation. The sportsbooks we recommend have strong reputations in the gaming community and are connected with legendary brick-and-mortar casinos that have been operating for 50 + years. To further protect yourself, you should not leave large amounts of cash in your sportsbook account and don’t save your payment details. While unlikely, sportsbooks are not 100% hack proof!

Rugby Betting Markets and Odds

After making sure the sportsbook is fully licensed and safe, we then open up the rugby markets and see exactly what you can bet on. All of our recommended sites let you bet on world-class matches from across the world. You can bet on every match from the French Top 14 and English Premiership, as well as international competitions like the World Cup, 6 Nations, and the Rugby Championship.

We also study the different bet types on offer and the odds. All our recommended sportsbooks feature competitive odds and give you the freedom to make a range of wagers. You can enjoy moneyline, handicap, totals, and over/under wagers.

Rugby Live Betting

Live betting is a great way to take your rugby viewing experience to new heights. At our recommended sportsbooks, you can bet live on hundreds of rugby matches all year round. Our sportsbooks have live markets for every major game and offer virtually the same bet types that you find in the pre-match markets.

The cool thing about live betting is dynamic odds. This means the odds are constantly shifting depending on the action of the field. For example, the Wallabies could be a large underdog against the All Blacks, but after two quick tries, they are suddenly the favorite. These odds swings present tons of exciting opportunities which is why we recommend players to familiarize themselves with live betting.

Rugby Bonuses For New & Existing Players

To get your bankroll looking healthy, we only recommend rugby betting sites that offer a variety of high-value bonuses for new and existing sports bettors. As rugby is a niche sport in the US, betting sites rarely have rugby-specific bonuses, but you can use their general bonuses to boost your winnings.

At the recommended sportsbooks, you can find deposit match offers, bonus bets, insurance, reload offers, cashback, and odds boosts. These bonuses come with fair terms and conditions, including zero or low wagering requirements and limited betting restrictions. Before claiming a promo, go to the site’s promotions page and read the terms and conditions closely!

Payment Options

Being able to deposit and withdraw quickly is very important! Nobody wants their winnings locked up for weeks. At our top rugby sportsbooks, you can add funds to your account instantly and for free. Withdrawals also don’t have any fees and are processed between 24 and 48 hours at fast payout sportsbooks.

The listed sportsbooks offer a variety of secure payment methods, including Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, Skrill, Venmo, and online bank transfers. We recommend using e-wallets due to the additional layer of security, cashback/points benefits, and fast cash-out times.

Site Design and Interface

You don’t need to be a tech whizz to use any of the top rugby betting sites. They all have mobile-optimized sites with excellent navigation and modern, sleek themes. At the tap of a button, you can deposit, explore extensive rugby markets and place bets with ease.

All our rugby sportsbooks also come loaded with exciting features like same-game parlays, odds boosts on parlays, edit-placed bets, live streams, and early cashout. These features give you total control over your bets!

Rugby Betting Online 101 – How to Get Started?

Do you have a spare 5 minutes? Then you can sign up at any of our recommended rugby union betting sites and place your first wager now! Here is how to get started:

Create a Rugby Betting Account

1. Open DraftKing’s homepage (or any of our recommended sportsbooks, they all have a similar sign-up process)
2. Hit the Sign-Up button in the top right-hand corner
3. Enter your email address, create a username & password, type in your phone number, and agree to the site’s T&C’s
4. Type in your full name, DOB, address, and last 4 digits of your SSN

Make a Deposit

1. Log in to your DraftKings account
2. Head to the account section
3. Tap the Deposit button
4. Select your payment method
5. Type in the amount you want to deposit
6. Type in your payment information
7. Confirm the transaction

Place a Rugby Bet

1. Sign into your DraftKings account (or any sportsbook you pick)
2. Find rugby in the betting markets list and tap
3. Tap on a particular game
4. Choose a team or outcome
5. Type in your stake
6. Submit your bet

When making a bet, you need to pay extra attention to your odds selection. Odds are the numbers you will see next to a bet. Odds reveal your potential payout and the likelihood of an event happening based on the sportsbook’s handicapping. For example, if you bet $100 on France to beat England at +200 odds, your potential profit is $200, and your implied probability is 33.33%. You can use an odds calculator to do the math for you!

Don’t just chase the highest odds because then you end up buying lottery tickets. The trick is finding a bet that has a decent payout but also a strong chance of winning; easier said than done!

After confirming your rugby bet, it will be accepted by the sportsbook, and you won’t be able to cancel it, so ensure you are satisfied with it before you hit that Place Bet button. Then you can sit back and relax. After the result of your bet has been 100% determined, the sportsbook will settle your wager, and if you win, they will credit your account with your stake + winnings. Bets are usually settled within 1 hour of the rugby game finishing.

Different Rugby Betting Types

In Rugby union betting you need to correctly predict the result of a match or some event taking place within a match, including total points scored or wagering on a player to score a try. Sportsbooks are constantly adding new bet types allowing you to make all sorts of prop bets. Here are the most widespread rugby bet types:

• Match Winner
• Outright Winner
• Total Points
• Handicap Betting
• Parlays
• First Team to Score
• First Half Winner
• First Try Scorer
• Winning Margin

Best Rugby Bets for Beginners

Are you still trying to figure out who the All Blacks are? Then stick to these beginner-friendly rugby bets:

• Match Winner – AKA a moneyline wager. Just place cash on the team you think will win, and if they do, you get a nice payday! For example, bet on Wales to beat England during a 6 Nations match. Before you start match betting it is important to look at the odds. Ideally, you want to find an underdog that the sportsbooks have underestimated. If they can cause an upset, you can triple or double your stake. For example, you would have made a killing if you bet on Italy to beat Australia in Nov 2022.
• Outright Winner – With outright betting, you don’t care about the result of a single game but are trying to predict which team is going to win a competition. For example, place cash on New Zealand to lift the Webb Ellis Cup. A good strategy is to bet a small amount on some underdogs to win the World Cup, like Ireland, Australia, and Wales, and then bet most of your money on New Zealand or South Africa.
• Total Points – With this wager, you need to guess how many points will be scored in total by both teams in a match. Don’t worry, the sportsbook makes it easier by turning into an over/under bet. For example, they might set the line at 36.5 then you have to figure out if the total will be over or under 36.5. Don’t just blindly guess, look up some stats and see how many points on average the two teams score and look at the total score the last few times the teams played each other.

Betting Options for Rugby Experts

Do you remember Johnny Wilkinson breaking the collective hearts of Australian rugby fans back in 2003? Then you can handle these slightly more advanced rugby bet types:

• Handicap – Sportsbooks place an imaginary +/- points handicap on each team. You then need to predict which team will win, taking the handicap into consideration. For example, if you bet on England to beat Scotland with a – 8.5 points handicap, your wager only pays out if England wins by 9 points or more. Handicap betting is a great way to boost your payouts on favorites. For example, the All Blacks might be +300 against New Zealand in the moneyline market but -110 with a -10.5 points handicap.
• Parlays – This is where you combine multiple rugby wagers into one betting slip. For example, you bet on Wales to beat Ireland, take the over on 35.5 points being scored in the match between New Zealand and Scotland and then bet on France to beat Italy by 15 points. Parlays have combined odds, and they only payout if all your individual wagers win. You can win massive amounts from small stakes!
• First Team to Score – Will Ireland score first, or will Wales punish them with a lovely line break down the touchline? Simply predict which rugby team will score the first try to win! You can get good odds on the underdog to score the first try but make sure you look at previous game stats and see how often each team crosses the try line first.

Rugby Live Betting

Rugby live betting allows you to gamble on matches throughout the 80 minutes of on-field action. You can continue betting until the ref blows his final whistle! Here are the best rugby live betting types present on most in-game betting apps and sites:

• First Half Winner – Are you in a hurry? With this bet, you only need to tune into the first half. If your team is up when the ref blows the end of half whistle, you win! A good strategy is to bet on Pacific Islander teams like Samoa, Fiji, and Tonga to be winning at half-time. These teams tend to start fast and then fade going down the stretch.
• First Try Scorer – Bet on your favorite rugby player to score the first try of the match and walk away with a big payout! For example, bet on Michael Hooper to score the first try in Australia’s match against Fiji. Wingers score the most tries by far, so they are a safe bet. Or if you want to chase a long shot, bet on a big prop to stampede over the line for the game’s first try.
• Winning Margin – Will your favorite rugby team win a nail-biter by 3 points, or will it be a blow out as they put up a cricket score? With this wager, you need to predict how many points the winning team will win by. To improve your win percentage, spend the first half watching both teams and pay special close attention to the team’s attacking plays, defensive structure, and the conditioning of the players.

Why You Need to Find the Right Rugby Betting Site

Your rugby union betting experience is intimately linked with the betting site you choose! If you select a poor sportsbook, you will be lucky to receive a welcome bonus and be stuck making boring match-winner bets on limited rugby games.

Luckily, all of our recommended rugby betting sites have juicy welcome bonuses and popular betting markets featuring hundreds of rugby games over the course of the season, and they always offer competitive odds.

Our top pick for the best rugby betting site is DraftKings. Sign up now and enjoy their huge 20% first deposit match offer of up to $1000. Don’t forget to try out our other recommended sportsbooks and go on a little bonus hunt!