Sister Sites Guide
AK Bets is an unusual British bookie by modern standards. It started on the racecourse, built its name there offering serious prices to serious punters, and came online in 2023 with its “Big Prices and Big Limits” identity intact. The brand’s personality is rooted in its founder’s background, and it shows in how the site behaves: a Trader Chat function staffed by real traders, generous limit tolerance, and a sportsbook that keeps horse and greyhound racing in the spotlight. As a standalone UKGC-licensed operator, it doesn’t have sister sites in the formal sense, but dig into the regulatory record and the technology infrastructure, and there’s more of a story to tell.
The AK Bets sister sites in a nutshell
AK Bets has no formal sister sites. Its UKGC licence account (66030, held by Akbo Limited) lists a single active domain: akbets.bet. There’s no companion brand, no shared licence network and no white-label family. What does exist is a historical link to Star Racing Limited, whose own UKGC account previously listed akbets.bet as a domain, and whose company number still appears in the footer of the AK Bets website. On top of that, AK Bets runs on the Playbook Gaming technology platform, which it shares with a handful of other independently licensed UK bookmakers. That means there are some close connections, even if they’re not official sister sites.
At a glance
Brand reviewed
AK Bets
UKGC licence holder
Akbo Limited
UKGC account
66030
UK status
Licensed for Great Britain (from March 2025)
Sister sites
None
Connected brands
Star Sports Bet (Star Racing); London Bet and BetWright (Playbook Gaming platform)
Welcome offer
25% profit boost up to £100 on winning first acca (3+ legs, min odds Evens)
Last checked
22 April 2026
The AK Bets connections that matter
The UKGC record for account 66030 is unambiguous: one licence holder, one active domain. AK Bets isn’t part of a network and doesn’t share ownership with any other UK-facing brand. What it does have is a few loosely-connected brands, which we can think of as cousins. The first runs through Star Racing Limited, an established UK bookmaker whose company number still appears in the AK Bets site footer and whose own UKGC account once listed akbets.bet. The second runs through the Playbook Gaming platform, whose technology powers AK Bets’ sportsbook and which underpins several other independently licensed UK brands. The three brands below are the most directly connected ones worth knowing about.
Star Sports Bet
My take: This is the most direct link. Star Sports Bet is a long-established bookmaker, dating to the Star Racing brand’s 1999 origins, with a strong horse racing focus and a reputation for being trustworthy.
Best for: Horse racing punters who want the closest available brand connection to AK Bets. The two share an origin in traditional racecourse bookmaking, a focus on value pricing for serious bettors, and a similar card-based payments approach.
What feels similar: Both are rooted in racecourse heritage rather than digital-first bookmaking culture. Both carry a genuine focus on horse racing depth. Both are limited to debit card payments with no e-wallet options.
What feels different: Star Sports Bet has been live since 1999 and carries considerably more history, including a telephone betting service and physical premises. It’s also a much more recognised name among on-course racing punters. The important caveat here is that Star Racing Limited received a £594,000 UKGC fine in April 2023 for AML and social responsibility failings. That’s on Star Sports’ own regulatory record, not AK Bets’, but it’s worth knowing before deciding how the connection sits with you.
The angle: The most historically connected brand, and the best match for the horse racing angle, but one whose parent operator carries a significant regulatory sanction that’s worth taking into account.
London Bet
My take: London Bet (operated by Thistle Bet Limited, with its own UKGC licence) runs on the Playbook Gaming platform, the same technology infrastructure that powers AK Bets. The connection doesn’t run any deeper than that: different operator, different licence, different ownership entirely. But if you find the AK Bets sportsbook interface familiar and easy to use, London Bet will feel immediately recognisable, because the layout and navigation mechanics trace back to the same underlying platform.
Best for: Bettors who want a platform-familiar alternative to AK Bets from a separately licensed and independently operated UK bookmaker, particularly those who prefer a city-branded identity to AK Bets’ racecourse character.
What feels similar: The Playbook Gaming platform means the sportsbook architecture, market structure and betting slip design will feel much like AK Bets at the functional level. Both are relatively new UK entrants, building their reputation rather than relying on decades of brand familiarity.
What feels different: London Bet is a purely separate business. Different operator, different licence, completely unrelated ownership. The connection is software only, not structural.
The angle: Worth considering as a platform-familiar alternative if you want to try a different UKGC-licensed operator without learning a completely new interface from scratch.
BetWright
My take: BetWright (operated by Onyx Gaming Limited, with its own UKGC licence) is another independently licensed bookmaker built on the Playbook Gaming platform. Like London Bet, the operator relationship with AK Bets is zero, but the sportsbook technology runs on the same engine. BetWright launched in December 2024 and positions itself as a modern alternative to the established big names, which is a pitch AK Bets would recognise.
Best for: Punters who respond to AK Bets’ “alternative to the old guard” positioning and want to explore other newer UKGC-licensed bookmakers with a similar challenger outlook and broadly familiar platform experience.
What feels similar: Same underlying Playbook Gaming sportsbook infrastructure. Both brands are relatively new to the online UK market and share a challenger-brand philosophy rather than resting on decades of retail heritage. Both focus on price and market depth rather than flashy novelty features.
What feels different: BetWright’s operator is completely separate from anything in the AK Bets structure. No shared ownership, no shared licence. The platform is the only genuine common ground.
The angle: The best choice for an AK Bets player who wants a platform-familiar experience from a newer, separately licensed bookmaker with a similar spirit.
So what exactly is the relationship here?
The Star Racing link is a structural and historical one. The AK Bets footer names Star Racing Ltd (company number 06475105) against UKGC licence number 66030, but the UKGC public register for account 66030 names Akbo Limited as the licence holder. Star Racing Limited holds its own entirely separate UKGC account (9177) for the starsports.bet brand. The reason for this is simple – AK Bets began life running under the Star Racing Limited licence before migrating to its own. Whether Star Racing Ltd remains operationally involved behind the scenes at AK Bets or not isn’t known, but it’s likely.
The Playbook Gaming link is a pure technology one. AK Bets’ sportsbook runs on Playbook Gaming’s platform. Other independently licensed UK bookmakers run on the same platform, including London Bet (Thistle Bet Limited) and BetWright (Onyx Gaming Limited). That makes the interface and navigation familiar across those brands, but it doesn’t create any shared ownership, shared licensing or formal family relationship between them. Think of it like any group of bookmakers running on the same white-label engine: similar to look at, completely separate in every regulatory and commercial sense.
What’s worth noting is that Playbook Gaming itself was fined £250,000 by the UKGC in November 2025 for AML and social responsibility failings, and subsequently surrendered six of its own operating licences. The B2B platform side of the business continues to operate, and the operators who licence the platform (like London Bet, BetWright and AK Bets) hold their own separate UKGC licences. A regulatory finding against a technology provider doesn’t automatically carry over to the operators that use its software, but it’s part of the picture that a careful player will want to know.
Best picks by player type
If horse racing and the Big Prices approach are why you’re at AK Bets
Star Sports Bet is the closest match. Same racecourse DNA, same serious pricing philosophy, same card-only payments approach. The Star Racing AML fine is the caveat you’ll want to weigh, but the brand connection is solid.
If you want a familiar alternative with a different UKGC licence
London Bet is worth a look. It runs on the same Playbook Gaming engine, is fully UKGC-licensed under Thistle Bet Limited, and launched in 2025 with a clean record.
If you want the challenger-brand spirit of AK Bets in another UK bookmaker
BetWright is the best match. Same Playbook Gaming platform, similar new-entrant positioning, independently licensed under Onyx Gaming Limited. For the player who went to AK Bets specifically because they wanted something other than the same ten bookmakers everyone else recommends.
Ownership and licensing
AK Bets’ UKGC licence (account 66030) is held by Akbo Limited, a company registered in Ireland with its registered office at 186 Harolds Cross Road, Terenure, Dublin 6W. The three licence types (Casino, General Betting Standard for Real Events and Virtual Events) all became active on 27 March 2025. Happily, it has no fines or sanctions on record.
The footer of the AK Bets website, however, names “Star Racing Ltd (06475105)” as the operator against licence number 66030. Star Racing Limited is a UK-registered company based in Hove, East Sussex, which holds its own separate UKGC account (9177) and operates the starsports.bet brand. The AK Bets footer’s reference to Star Racing Ltd reflects an earlier licensing arrangement, and it’s odd that it hasn’t been updated.
For UK players, here’s the definitive version: Akbo Limited is the company responsible for AK Bets’ UK operations, and the relevant UKGC account is 66030. Any formal complaint or regulatory question runs through that account and that company. The discrepancy in the footer is worth noting, but doesn’t affect the fundamental legality of the operation, which is UKGC licensed and current.
It’s also worth me saying that Star Racing Limited’s own UKGC record isn’t entirely clean. Its account (9177) carries a financial penalty of £594,000 imposed in April 2023 for breaches of AML licence conditions and social responsibility requirements, covering a period between March 2020 and May 2021. Conditions were attached to the licence, a formal warning was issued, and the fine was imposed. That sanction is on Star Racing’s account, not on Akbo Limited’s, and it relates to a different time period. But given the footer still associates Star Racing with AK Bets, it’s a fact that players deserve to know.
The welcome offer is clever, but it only pays if you win
The AK Bets sign-up offer doesn’t follow the standard free bet playbook. There’s no guaranteed payout regardless of result. Instead, you place your first qualifying bet as an accumulator of three or more selections, each at Evens (2.0) or higher, with a minimum stake of £10. If it wins, AK Bets will add 25% of your net profit as a free bet, up to a maximum of £100. If it loses, you receive nothing. You’ll need to register using the promo code AKACCA100 to qualify.
The free bet is credited within 24 hours of the qualifying bet settling and expires after seven days. The free bet stake is not returned with any winnings, which is standard. Build-a-bets don’t count as qualifying bets, and the qualifying bet cannot be cashed out or voided. One claim per household or IP address.
Whether this is a good offer depends entirely on what kind of player you are. If you’re a regular accumulator punter who’d be placing that opening acca anyway, the 25% boost is genuinely worthwhile. If you want a guaranteed free bet just for showing up and depositing, this isn’t the right offer. The ceiling of £100 is generous relative to comparable sportsbooks, and the acca mechanism suits AK Bets’ character as a bookmaker that wants proper punters, not bonus hunters chasing guaranteed cash.
There’s no dedicated casino welcome offer, which is consistent with a brand that’s a sportsbook first and a casino second. For existing casino players, the AK’s Casino Club rewards staking £250 or more on selected slots in a week with 50 free spins on Big Bass Splash the following Monday, with any winnings paid in cash and no wagering requirement attached. The qualifying stake is high, but the no-wagering element makes it one of the cleaner casino loyalty promotions around.
Beyond the welcome offer, the daily free bet clubs are worth knowing about. Staking £50 or more in a single day on greyhound racing (Kennel Club), US horse racing, in-play accumulators or virtual sports each earns a free bet the following day. These suit the type of player who bets regularly in one category rather than skimming across every sport on the menu.
Deposits and withdrawals
AK Bets is a debit card and bank transfer betting site. Accepted deposit and withdrawal methods are Visa, Mastercard, Maestro, Revolut, Monzo and bank transfer. There are no e-wallets, no PayPal, no Skrill, no Neteller. Deposits in GBP and EUR only, with no credit cards accepted in line with UKGC rules.
Withdrawals via debit card are instant up to £20,000. Any single withdrawal above £20,000 requires specialist authorisation, which adds processing time. Bank transfers run to two to five business days. There are no withdrawal fees on AK Bets’ end.
The limited payment range is the most commonly cited shortcoming of the platform, and it’s a fair criticism. Revolut and Monzo are included, which widens the field a little beyond traditional debit cards, and the instant debit card withdrawal is genuinely fast. But the absence of any e-wallet option will rule the site out for a number of UK players before they even look at the odds. If you use PayPal or Skrill as your primary betting payment method, this isn’t the right platform for you.
The Trader Chat: why it actually matters
Most online bookmaker customer support is identical: a chat widget, a generic first response from a bot, then an agent who knows roughly as much about horse racing as I know about maritime law. AK Bets does things differently. The Trader Chat function connects you to actual traders rather than a general customer service team, which means when you have a question about a market, a price or a bet you’ve just placed, the person answering is someone who knows the book from the inside rather than reading from a script.
This is a meaningful distinction for a certain type of punter. A serious horse racing or football bettor who wants to discuss a price, query a settlement or understand why a market moved a particular way is going to get a much more useful response from a trader than from a customer service generalist. The response times are fast, typically under five minutes during business hours, and the quality of the answers reflects genuine product knowledge rather than FAQ copy.
It’s one of the features that most clearly reflects AK Bets’ racecourse origins. On the rails, the bookmaker and the punter have a direct, honest conversation. The Trader Chat is the online equivalent of that, and it sets the brand apart from the dozens of operators where support is a cost to be minimised rather than a service to be proud of.
Support and complaints
Live Trader Chat is the primary route in, accessible directly from the site and app. Response times run to five minutes or less during active hours. There’s an FAQ section on the site, though it’s relatively lean and won’t answer every question that a more developed help centre would.
Support email: support@akbets.bet
Phone number: No player-facing phone line.
For unresolved disputes, AK Bets is a UKGC-licensed operator under Akbo Limited’s account 66030, which means the standard UK complaints framework applies and access to an approved Alternative Dispute Resolution service is available to UK players. The Irish operation runs under a separate licence, and dispute resolution for Irish customers would follow a different path. UK players dealing with AK Bets’ GB product are firmly within the UKGC’s jurisdiction, and the licensed status matters in practice when disputes arise.
What I like, and what I don’t
What I like
- The Trader Chat is a genuinely original support model and one of the best arguments for the brand over its competitors at a similar level.
- The racecourse heritage is tangible. Anthony Kaminskas bet on courses before he built this site, and you can feel that in the product’s pricing philosophy.
- Akbo Limited’s own UKGC record is clean. Zero regulatory actions since the licence was granted in March 2025.
- The no-wagering Casino Club promotion, once you’ve hit the qualifying threshold, is a fair reward structure in a market full of unfair ones.
- Instant debit card withdrawals up to £20,000 with no fees is a genuinely strong practical offer.
What I don’t
- The footer discrepancy between Akbo Limited (the actual UKGC licence holder) and Star Racing Ltd (named in the footer) is untidy and needs fixing.
- No e-wallets. Full stop. The inclusion of Revolut and Monzo helps, but the absence of PayPal excludes a portion of UK bettors before they’ve even looked at a market.
- The Star Racing connection brings with it the shadow of a £594,000 AML fine. It’s on a different licence and a different entity, but it’s part of the story and can’t be ignored.
- The welcome offer only pays out if you win. That’s a genuinely different approach, and I respect it, but players who want guaranteed value just for signing up will find better options elsewhere.
- The live in-play football coverage is limited compared with more established bookmakers. Multiple reviewers have noted it, and it’s a real gap for football-first punters.
My final verdict on AK Bets and its connections
AK Bets has no formal sister sites. The UKGC record for Akbo Limited lists one domain and one brand. What it does have are two loose but documentable connections: a historical and structural tie to Star Racing Limited, whose company number is still in the footer and whose UKGC account once listed akbets.bet; and a technology relationship with Playbook Gaming’s sportsbook platform, which links it informally to London Bet, BetWright and a handful of other independently licensed UK bookmakers.
The Star Racing connection comes with the caveat of that company’s 2023 AML fine, which should be part of anyone’s thinking when they decide how comfortable they are with the full picture. The Playbook Gaming connection is cleaner, but even there, the platform provider has its own regulatory difficulties. None of this compromises the legality of AK Bets’ own UK operation, which sits on a clean licence with a clean record. But it does mean this isn’t quite the simple, standalone independent it might appear at first glance. For horse racing and serious sports punters who want something with genuine character and real prices, AK Bets is worth their time. For players who want to look at the full picture before committing, I’d recommend reading both the Star Racing and Playbook Gaming records before you deposit.
FAQs about AK Bets and its connections
Does AK Bets have any sister sites?
No. Akbo Limited holds UKGC account 66030 with a single active domain, akbets.bet, and no shared licence with any other brand. AK Bets has no formal sister sites.
What is the connection between AK Bets and Star Racing Limited?
Star Racing Limited’s company number (06475105) appears in the AK Bets site footer, and akbets.bet appears as an inactive domain on Star Racing’s own UKGC account (9177). AK Bets previously operated under Star Racing’s regulatory umbrella before the current Akbo Limited licence was granted in March 2025. The two companies are separate legal entities with separate UKGC accounts. They are not sister sites but have a documented historical and structural connection.
What is the Playbook Gaming connection?
AK Bets’ sportsbook runs on the Playbook Gaming technology platform. Several other independently licensed UK bookmakers, including London Bet and BetWright, also use the Playbook Gaming platform. This means the interface and navigation feel broadly similar across those brands, but they share no ownership, no UKGC licence and no formal operator relationship. The connection is technology only.
Who is the UKGC licence holder for AK Bets?
Akbo Limited holds the UKGC licence for AK Bets in Great Britain under account number 66030. The licence covers Casino, General Betting Standard for Real Events and General Betting Standard for Virtual Events, all active from 27 March 2025.
What is AK Bets’ welcome offer?
New customers who register with promo code AKACCA100 and place their first bet as an accumulator of three or more selections at combined odds of Evens (2.0) or greater, with a minimum stake of £10, will receive a free bet worth 25% of their net profit if the bet wins, up to a maximum of £100. The free bet is credited within 24 hours of settlement and expires after seven days. There is no guaranteed payout: the offer only triggers if the qualifying acca wins.
Is the Star Racing AML fine relevant to AK Bets?
The £594,000 AML fine was imposed on Star Racing Limited under its own UKGC account (9177) in April 2023, and covers a period between March 2020 and May 2021. It is not on Akbo Limited’s account (66030), which carries no regulatory actions. However, given that Star Racing’s company number still appears in the AK Bets site footer, players have a legitimate reason to factor it into their assessment of the brand.