Describing itself as the country’s premiere legal wagering destination, BetAmerica is a New Jersey online sportsbook owned by Churchill Downs Incorporated. The sportsbook launched online in early 2019, although BetAmerica has been operating legal online horse betting for several years. BetAmerica promises 1000s of sports betting markets and lots of sports promotions, including doubling your first deposit with up to $500 bonus cash. 

Bet America’s parent company, Churchill Downs Incorporated, has a history stretching all the way back to the 19th Century with the founding of Churchill Downs racetrack – home of the Kentucky Derby. It has grown to become one of the biggest gaming companies in the US, listed on the NASDAQ and operating several casinos, racetracks and sportsbooks. Churchill Downs Incorporated purchased BetAmerica in 2017. BetAmerica itself was founded in 2008 as a subsidiary of BAM Software & Services. 

BetAmerica is listed as an authorized gaming site by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement (NJDGE). The New Jersey authorities require online sportsbooks to have a land-based gaming operation to receive a license, and BetAmerica has partnered up with the Golden Nugget Atlantic City Casino. BetAmerica uses a Secure Socket Layer (SSL) to ensure transactions involving personal and financial information are kept private. In the short time it has been operating online in New Jersey, BetAmerica has received a mainly positive reception from bettors and industry experts, with the range of betting markets and selection of payment options (with fast withdrawal times) cited among the high points. 

There are numerous payment options available at BetAmerica, including the option to deposit and withdraw cash at the Golden Nugget Atlantic City with Cash at Cage. Withdrawals are processed within 24 hours, with verification sometimes required before making a withdrawal for the first time.

BetAmerica offers a mobile betting app for your handheld device, both for iPhones and Androids. The app, which is available to download from the Apple App store, is compatible with iOS 10.0 versions or later and can be downloaded for betting on iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch handsets. 

You cannot download the BetAmerica Android app from Google Play, but you can install it directly from the BetAmerica site. Simply use your smartphone or tablet to access the BetAmerica mobile site, where you will be automatically prompted to follow a couple of easy steps to download the official Android app to your cellphone or tablet. 

The app mimics the desktop site in style and navigation, which, as you will see below, should be considered a good thing. The app is slick and functional, allowing you to quickly access betting markets, in-play events, promotions and stats. We found no issues with bugginess, and the app takes up less than 50MB and thus won’t eat up your battery life. We should also point that, regardless if you are a new customer or not, BetAmerica has a special mobile betting promotion that offers a $20 matched bonus to your first wager placed on mobile. 

BetAmerica’s welcome offer will match your first deposit 100%, adding up to $500 of bonus funds to your wallet. So, it you make a first deposit of $300, BetAmerica will add a further $300 to your account. It’s important to realize that this is bonus money, and therefore like most new bettor offers, it comes with some restrictions before it becomes withdrawable cash. In fact, BetAmerica’s bonus terms are quite tough. The main terms are: 

• The combined value of the bonus and deposit must be wagered six times before it becomes real cash, e.g., $3,000 of wagers must be placed to turnover a bonus of $250 + $250 initial deposit. 
• Your real money balance and bonus balance are layered, with real money used first in any wagering. 
• Bonus funds wagered act like a free bet, by excluding the initial stake on return of winnings. 
• Sports wagers with bonus funds can be used on most types of bets, but the odds must be 1.67 (-150) or above. 
• Unlike the majority of sportsbooks, BetAmerica gives a full year to meet these bonus terms. 

You can contact customer service to remove the bonus (and any bonus winnings) from your account if you like, leaving the initial deposit money as real cash. In our view, the terms and conditions are too tough here, and we would much prefer the welcome offers at rival NJ sportsbooks, such as playMGM’s $100 real cash back offer on your first bet. 

Thankfully, BetAmerica has a handful of promotions that we feel are fairer for new players. Placing your first $5 wager will activate a $20 bonus. The wagering requirement for this $20 bonus before withdrawal is to simply wager $20 again, with odds being 1.67 or above. A similar matched bonus of $20 is offered on your first in-play bet. Again, you just need to wager the $20 bonus once and the winnings will become real cash. Both of these promotions exclude the stake amount in returns, effectively making them free bets, and we think the terms are pretty decent here. BetAmerica has other sports betting promos worth a look – we especially like the MLB Parlay Boost which gives enhanced odds on every MLB parlay bet. 

In terms of betting bonuses and promotions, we think you’ll agree that it’s a mixed performance from BetAmerica here. The headline welcome offer is mired in terms and conditions, making it unattractive to us. However, we do like those other promos, which are set up to give you a small taste of each type of betting product. Our advice is to skip the welcome bonus (which you can do simply by not entering the promo code GET500 on the deposit page) and instead snap up the smaller, but, in our view, fairer betting bonuses. 

The design of BetAmerica’s desktop site is simple but effective. You’ll notice red, white and blue color schemes that tie in with the company’s branding, but it’s actually quite subtle. Indeed, the layout of the sportsbook is excellent, with BetAmerica clearly putting a lot of thought into site navigation. Many online sportsbooks fall into the trap of putting too much information on screen, listing betting line after betting line on the homepage. This can get overwhelming. BetAmerica has catalogued its sportsbook in a methodical and clever way. We were especially impressed with the dedicated sections for statistics and live results feed. BetAmerica uses its own betting software – BAM Software – and there are no complaints about functionality when it comes to things like cashing out bets. 

Before looking at the range of betting markets and odds quality, it’s important to address one important issue; namely, BetAmerica does not offer NBA betting. The reason it doesn’t offer betting on one of the top sports leagues in the US? BetAmerica’s licensing partner, the Golden Nugget, owns the Houston Rockets through its parent company, Fertitta. BetAmerica’s other excluded markets include horse betting and betting on New Jersey college sports teams, although these restrictions apply to all NJ online sportsbooks. 

BetAmerica covers all other major sports and top leagues around the globe. So, you will find betting options for NFL, MLB, NHL, Champions League, ATP tennis and so on. We found the depth of coverage within each sport to be very good: 50+ betting markets for a typical MLB game; 45 betting markets for a men’s tennis game and over 100 markets for the majority of soccer games. Moneyline, props, handicaps, totals, futures and teasers are all covered.  

To test the quality of the odds we randomly picked the market for the winner of the 2020 Stanley Cup Finals, comparing BetAmerica’s odds against three rival NJ sportsbooks – William Hill, 888sport and playMGM. In the betting line for the favorite, Tampa Bay Lightning, BetAmerica had a price of 8.00, which was less generous than those other three sportsbooks (playMGM and William Hill had Lightning at 8.50, 888sport at 9.0). However, for fairness, we decided to pick another random market – the Rugby World Cup 2019 – and found that BetAmerica had the joint-best price of 2.10 on the favorite, New Zealand. The margins of difference aren’t huge here, so we can’t say that BetAmerica is uncompetitive. Moreover, we should point out that BetAmerica has an extensive Super Odds section, which offers enhanced odds on a wide range of sports. 

A final note should go on the access given to BetAmerica’s other gaming products. BetAmerica has been operating an online horse racing book for over a decade, but a separate account is needed to access it and New Jersey’s online horse betting restrictions will apply. However, you can instantly access BetAmerica’s online casino, which offers over 150 games. A separate deposit bonus is awarded when you access the casino for the first time.

BetAmerica has a live betting section, covering almost every sport listed on the site. We were impressed with the structure of the console, which provides quick access to live betting markets and provides a wealth of statistics on each live event. The latter is particularly impressive, with crucial data even offered for obscure events. For example, we looked at a (relatively low-key) ITF tennis match between Marco Miceli and Manuel Pena Lopez and found BetAmerica supplied bettors with a treasure trove of data and other information crucial to smart betting, all updated in real time. 

We should also bring attention to the separate Fast Markets section. Here, the software used updates markets extremely quickly, allowing for bets to be placed, for example, on individual points in tennis or basketball. It’s difficult to find any fault with the live betting experience at BetAmerica, and it’s arguably one of the best in-play betting providers operating online.