Plenty of casinos bolt a sportsbook onto the side of the lobby, fill it with the Premier League and a handful of tennis matches, and hope nobody looks too closely. I look closely, and the first thing I do is scroll the sports list to the bottom.
At National, the bottom of that list has bandy, kabaddi, Gaelic hurling and billiards on it. That tells you the sportsbook isn't decoration. It's a proper book with more than thirty sports, a live section that usually has around a hundred events running at once, and a football section deep enough to reach the Bhutan Premier League on a quiet Tuesday.
This page covers how the sportsbook works: signing up and placing a first bet, reading the odds, what's covered sport by sport, esports, in-play betting and the tools around the betslip. The licence and safety details live on the main National page, and the full terms of every offer are on the Promotions page, so I'll point you there rather than repeat them. One thing that applies everywhere: you need to be 19 (18 in Alberta, Manitoba and Quebec) or over, and some offers aren't available in every country.
The Sportsbook at a Glance
| Sports covered | More than 30, from football and tennis to bandy, kabaddi and billiards |
|---|---|
| Football depth | Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga, Ligue 1, MLS, cups and lower divisions |
| Esports | Counter-Strike, Dota 2, League of Legends, Valorant, Rainbow Six, plus eSoccer and eBasketball |
| Bet types | Singles and multi bets, built in the same betslip |
| Common markets | 1X2, double chance, totals, handicaps, half-time lines and more |
| Market depth | Hundreds of markets on a big match, and over a thousand on the biggest |
| Live betting | Usually around 100 events in play, with live scores and streams on many |
| Boosted odds | A rotating set of enhanced prices on selected matches |
| Payments | Cards, e-wallets and crypto, as on the casino side |
| Mobile | The same sportsbook in the app or a mobile browser |
Signing Up and Placing Your First Bet
If you already have a National account, you're done. There's no separate sportsbook registration, and your casino balance is the same balance you bet with.
If you're starting from scratch, it takes a couple of minutes:
- Select Register now at the top of the page.
- Give an email address and set a password.
- Fill in your details and choose the currency you'll bet in.
- Tick to confirm you're old enough to gamble and agree to the terms.
- Head for the cashier and fund the account.
Then the bet itself:
- Pick a sport from the left-hand sidebar, or use the search box if you know the match you want.
- Choose your event from the list.
- Tap the odds on the market you fancy. Your selection drops into the betslip on the right.
- Type your stake into the betslip.
- Check the potential return the betslip shows you, then confirm.
Two things worth knowing before you get going. Your identity check happens before your first withdrawal rather than at sign-up, and I'd deal with it early, so it isn't standing between you and your winnings later. And if you deposit in crypto to grab the casino welcome offer, remember that offer is built around slots. The Promotions page sets out what each bonus is for.
Reading the Odds
National shows odds in decimal by default, which I think is the friendliest format going, because the number already includes your stake. Odds of 2.50 on a C$50 bet return C$125 in total: C$75 profit plus the tenner you put in. Multiply stake by odds and you have your return. If you prefer fractional or American odds, the settings icon above the betslip is where you change it.
Low numbers mean a likely outcome and a small return. High numbers mean the opposite. A 1.07 favourite in a tennis match is the bookmaker saying "this is almost certain", and it'll pay you 70 cents on a tenner for the privilege.
The Bet Types
A single is one selection, standing on its own. It wins or it loses, and nothing else affects it. This is where I'd start, and frankly where most of my own betting stays.
A multi bet, which you'll also hear called an accumulator or a combo, puts several selections on one slip. The odds multiply together, so four modest favourites can turn into a tempting price. The catch is that every leg has to win. One late equaliser in a match you'd almost forgotten about takes the whole thing down. Multis are good fun and they can pay beautifully, but treat them as the lottery ticket of the betting world rather than your bread and butter.
The Markets You'll See Most
Across the top of each event you'll find columns labelled 1, X and 2. That's the classic three-way market: home win, draw, away win. Next to them sit 1X, 12 and 2X, which are double chance bets covering two of those three outcomes at shorter odds.
Then come totals, shown as a number with O and U beside it. Bet over or under the listed number of goals, points or games. Handicap markets give one side a virtual head start, which is how you get a sensible price on a mismatch. H1 and H2 cover the first and second half separately.
That's the surface. Open any big match and the market count in the corner tells you how much more is inside, whether that's corners, cards, individual players or minute-by-minute lines.
Sport by Sport
Football leads, as it does almost everywhere. The Premier League, La Liga, Serie A, Bundesliga and Ligue 1 all carry big market counts, with the Champions League, the Nations League, the Africa Cup of Nations and international friendlies alongside them. What impresses me more is the second tier of coverage: the Spanish Segunda División, the Dutch KNVB Beker, MLS, the Arabian Gulf Cup and the women's Champions League all get proper attention, and the live list reaches leagues most books don't bother with.
Tennis is the other pillar. ATP and WTA main draws are always there, and so are Challenger events from Saint-Tropez to Plovdiv, along with the World Tennis tournaments in Monastir. If you follow the sport beyond the top fifty players, you'll find plenty to bet on.
Basketball spans the Euroleague, the NBA G League, the FIBA Intercontinental Cup and the WNBA. American sports are well served through the NFL and MLB, with ice hockey, volleyball, handball, rugby and MMA all holding their own sections. Boxing, snooker, darts, futsal, table tennis, baseball and water polo fill in the rest.
And then there's the far end of the list, which is my favourite part. Bandy, floorball, Gaelic football, Gaelic hurling, kabaddi and billiards are all bookable. Nobody builds those sections for the traffic. They're there because somebody wanted the book to be complete.
Esports
Esports gets treated as a sport here rather than as a novelty, with its own entries in the sidebar for Counter-Strike, Dota 2, League of Legends, Valorant and Rainbow Six.
On the big tournaments you'll find match winners, map winners and handicap lines, with prices moving in play as the series unfolds. If you follow a scene closely, that's where the value of a deep esports book shows up, because the odds have to react to a meta you might understand better than most.
The sidebar also lists eSoccer and eBasketball. These are worth understanding before you bet on them, because they're a different product: simulated matches that run continuously rather than real fixtures on a schedule. They suit anyone who wants a result every few minutes, and they behave far more like a virtual game than a sporting event. Go in knowing that and they're good fun.
Live Betting and Streaming
The Live betting tab is where the sportsbook feels most alive. There are usually about a hundred events running at any moment, and the counter at the top of the sidebar tells you exactly how many.
Each live event carries the score, the period or set, and in tennis the point-by-point state of the current game, with the odds shifting as the match moves. A small play icon marks the events you can watch, and when a stream is available, it sits inside the betting panel so you're not juggling tabs.
Streaming doesn't cover everything, and that's normal across the industry, since rights vary by competition. Look for the icon before you plan an evening around a particular match. Live odds change quickly, too, so give yourself a second to check the price on the slip before you confirm.
The Betslip and the Tools Around It
The betslip lives on the right of the screen and has two tabs: Singles, where each selection is its own bet, and Multi Bet, where they combine. Adding a selection is a matter of tapping the odds, and the slip updates as you go.
Around it are the touches that make a busy book manageable. Boosted Odds, at the top of the sports page, collects enhanced prices on selected matches. Hot Combo, in the sidebar, offers ready-made multi bets for anyone who'd rather not build one from scratch. The Top Championships list on the left lets you tick the leagues you care about so the centre column shows only those, and the search box will find a single fixture faster than any amount of scrolling.
Promotions, and What Betting Doesn't Do
National's promotions live on their own page, and the Promotions and Tournaments tabs in the top menu show what's running at any moment. Installing the app also carries a small no-deposit reward, which is the same offer whether you came for the casino or the sportsbook.
One thing is worth stating plainly, because it surprises people. The VIP programme's Comp Points are earned on slots only. Bets you place in the sportsbook don't add to your VIP level.
If climbing the ladder matters to you, that's simply a reason to keep the two sides of your account separate in your head. Bet because you enjoy the sport, and let your slot sessions do the VIP work. The VIP page explains how the points build up.
Finding Your Way Around
The sportsbook uses the familiar three-panel layout: sports and leagues on the left, events in the middle, betslip on the right. On a big screen, that means a lot of information at once, and the first visit can feel busy.
It settles quickly, though, because the layout never changes. Sports stay in the sidebar, markets stay in the same columns, and the betslip stays where you left it. Give it one session and you'll stop noticing the density. There's also a casino panel tucked beside the betslip, with a handful of slots for anyone who wants a spin between matches.
Betting on Your Phone
Nothing is stripped out on mobile. Whether you use the installed app or just a browser tab, with the same markets, the same live events and the same betslip, laid out in a single column instead of three.
In-play betting suits a phone particularly well, since it's the kind of thing you do from the sofa with the match on. Just keep an eye on your connection if you're streaming, because video needs more of it than odds do. The App page covers installation.