There is a common misconception in football betting that you have to deposit at least £10 in order to get up and running with an online bookmaker. But that’s not true, because many mainstream betting sites will let you deposit as little as £5 into your new account to get started – with minimum bet stakes of just £0.10 too, there’s a chance for people of all budgets to have a flutter or two on the weekend’s games. When you factor in welcome bonuses as well, which offer bet credits and bonus funds that effectively top up your initial deposit, it’s fair to say that £5 is an ample starting point in your football betting endeavours.
In this guide, we’ll take a look at the best bookmakers that welcome deposits starting at £5, as well as the safest payment methods to use to deposit your £5 into your new betting account – and to, hopefully, withdraw your winnings a little further down the line. We’ll also take a look at the best bet types for those wanting to maximise their £5 bankroll – we’ve got ‘slow and steady’ options, as well as those that are high risk but offer a potentially high reward into the bargain.
Bet £5 Get £20/£30 Offers
Plenty of betting sites that offer a £5 minimum deposit also have a sign up offer that can be claimed with a small deposit. Some of them are very generous, offering £20 or £30 in bonuses for your initial £5 deposit.
The Best Payment Methods for Betting
If you intend on depositing £5 into your betting account, the first thing to note is that some payment methods have a minimum requirement of £10 – so these are clearly not an option for lower stakes punters.
Debit Cards
The good news is that one of the most popular payment methods in football betting – debit cards – do allow you to deposit a minimum of £5 into your account. So, if you have any common branded debit card from the likes of Visa or Mastercard, you’re in luck.
The beauty of using Visa or Mastercard is that these are ultra-secure, globally recognised online payment methods, and if a transaction doesn’t go to plan there is often some recourse available at your bank that provided the card – useful in the very rare case that you might have a dispute with your betting site over a deposit or withdrawal.
Paypal & Skrill
You can also use the most popular forms of e-wallet to deposit £5 or more into your account. PayPal and Skrill are two of the most notables here along with paysafecard and Apple Pay, although of course this will depend upon the minimum deposit accepted by your bookmaker as well – some firms, including Bet365, have a £10 minimum in place for e-wallets.
Pay by Bank App
If you hold a bank account with either Barclays or HSBC, you may already use their Pay by Bank app – if you do, you’ll be delighted to hear that this has a £5 minimum when depositing with many different betting operators.
Those bookmakers with high street betting shops also offer an ingenious service where you can deposit cash into your online account via a cashier over the counter – the likes of Betfair (via Paddy Power) and Coral offer this service, which allows you to deposit a minimum of £5.
Bank Transfer & Crypto a No Go
Unfortunately, some popular payment methods don’t make the grade. Typically speaking, you will need a minimum deposit of £10 (and often even more) in order for a bank transfer to be accepted, while the equivalent of £10 is usually the minimum from which a cryptocurrency deposit can be made. So, as long as you have one of the payment methods listed above – and stick to the bookies listed on this page that welcome £5 deposits – you will be fine and dandy.
What Are the Minimum Withdrawal Limits at Betting Sites?
We know that you can deposit as little as £5 into your football betting account, but what’s the minimum when it comes to withdrawing your winnings? You will find many betting sites that allow you to withdraw a minimum of £5 from your account – this isn’t a universal rule, so you will need to check with your shortlisted bookmakers before signing up for an account.
Some betting sites even let you withdraw less than £5, and with zero fees applied (in the vast majority of cases) to these transactions you can expect your cash to be in your bank account within a matter of hours (e-wallets like PayPal) or days (Visa, Mastercard etc).
Here’s another thing to consider: many betting sites will only allow you to withdraw funds using the same payment method that you deposited with. Be clear which option you want to deposit and withdraw your £5 with before taking the plunge and carrying out the transaction.
What Is the Minimum That You Can Bet?
If you are depositing £5 into your betting account, you will necessarily want to keep your staking to a minimum as well to ensure that bankroll size has longevity. But what is the minimum that you can stake per bet? That will, once again, depend upon the bookmaker you choose to buddy up with.
In some cases, this can be as low as just 1-5 pence per bet – rare though that is, you can still find betting sites that allow for such a small stake size. For the most part, the minimum bet size allowed is 10p – that enables you to place 50 bets from your £5 deposit, which is an excellent volume that should (hopefully!) allow for a number of winners to be enjoyed. If you want to try out the Betfair Exchange, it’s worth noting that the minimum stake there is £1.
What Are the Best Football Bets for Low Stakes?
If you are depositing £5 into your football betting account, you will want to make this last as long as possible – and hopefully grow your bankroll thanks to a series of winning bets. But in the first instance, you will want to stake small amounts per bet – that way, you can maximise your enjoyment from that initial fiver. So, what are the best football bets for small stakes punters? That will depend upon your mindset and what you want to achieve, but one option is try to grind out more wins than losses by backing short odds favourites whose odds reflect their likelihood of the bet winning.
Accumulators
In theory, this strategy should work because short odds reflect a higher probability of winning. But it usually takes a small handful of winners at short prices to make up for one loss, so if you embark on a losing streak then your £5 bankroll could soon disappear even when using small stakes. If that sounds like too much of a grind for you, why not try a higher risk option like an accumulator? This bet type multiplies the odds of each of the teams you pick together, so if you combine five or six selections in an ‘acca’ your cumulative odds can soon stack up. That’s good when you win, but remember it only takes one leg of an accumulator to lose for your whole bet to be downed.
The rewards of accumulator betting speak for themselves, but punters have to be aware that this is a negative expectancy bet type – as well as multiplying odds, you’re also multiplying the bookmakers’ margin with each extra pick you make too. Which small stakes betting strategy will you follow? Your personality type will probably determine the answer as much as your bankroll.
Cover Bets
There are a couple of bet types that you should avoid when using small stakes, which can loosely be termed ‘cover bets’. Each way punts, for example, require you to strike two bets – one on the win and one on the place part. With the place returns on small stakes each way bets so miniscule, there really is little value in wagering in this way. So, if you want to back a team to win a league or cup in an outright market, taking them ‘on the nose’, i.e. win only, is the smarter option. Other cover bets, such as Lucky 15, Yankee and Heinz should also be avoided. These require multiple bets to be placed, and even with a £0.05 minimum stake these can soon rack up.
Low Deposit Betting
As we’ve learned, you can deposit a minimum of £5 and you can bet as little as a few pence per bet – so you can wager on the football, horse racing and your other favourite sports using your loose change. The limits are different at each bookmaker, and so you will need to do your homework to ensure that the betting sites you join have those lower deposit and stake amounts – you can use the information on this very page as a useful starting point.
