What is social sports betting?
Social sports betting is a big deal in the US, so it’s worth making sure you understand how it all works. Instead of placing bets using real money from your bank account and creating the risk of losing money from an unsuccessful bet, social sports betting doesn’t use real money at all.
Instead of using real-world money, social sportsbooks operate using virtual currencies. These are usually called Gold Coins and Sweepstakes Coins, but some platforms change the names. Even with different names, these virtual currencies tend to operate the same way across all platforms.
- Gold Coins are designed just for making social bets for fun. These Gold Coins can be used to make sports picks and if you win, you’ll win more Gold Coins to use on the platform. These can never be redeemed for prizes but instead stay in your balance to be used for future predictions.
- Gold Coins packages can be purchased if your balance gets low, but this is totally optional. To place social bets at social sportsbooks, you don’t need to make any purchases and you can often receive free virtual currencies as a bonus.
- Sweepstakes Coins, on the other hand, can never be bought, but if you amass enough eligible Sweepstakes Coins, you can redeem them for prizes. These prizes are often gift cards or cash prizes.
Since Sweepstakes Coins can’t be purchased, it’s worth knowing they can be obtained through bonuses and promotions. Some Gold Coins packages might have free SCs thrown in as a bonus, or ongoing promotions on the platform might give you more for performing tasks.
While each social betting site will have its quirks, they should usually just function like regular online sportsbooks, only that you play at them with virtual currencies.
This means that you will see a range of social betting lines for major sports like football, basketball, hockey, baseball and so on. You can then browse the odds for the social moneyline, spread, totals and props and just make a social bet with your virtual credit, rather than your own real cash.
How to Redeem Real Money Prizes at Social Sportsbooks
Redeeming real money prizes from social sportsbooks is quite straightforward. Certain brands might have slightly different criteria, but most operate as follows:
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Make sure your account is fully verified as this is essential for making a redemption request.
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Use your Sweepstakes Coins for social bets at least once to meet the platform’s minimum playthrough requirement.
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Collect enough eligible Sweepstakes Coins to meet the minimum redemption threshold. This is usually around 100SC, and they need to have been played through at least once.
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Select your redemption method (you’ll usually have a choice of gift card or bank transfer) ad confirm the amount of SC you’d like to redeem.
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After you’ve confirmed your redemption, your prize will be with you after the recommended processing period.
Best social betting apps up close
Thee are a lot of really good social betting apps available, each has their own strong points. Some cover a wide range of sports including the major leagues and eSports, while other offer more in-depth options for social picks on a smaller range of sports.
Most social sportsbooks offer a strong welcome bonus that rewards members just for signing up and gives them some virtual currencies to start making picks with.
We’ve summarized some of the key points you need to know about the social sportsbooks we recommend in the table
below.
| Brand | Welcome Bonus | Number of Sports Covered | Best Feature |
| Sportzino | Up to 170,000 GC + 7 SC | 40+ | Responsive mobile app |
| Thrillzz | 3,000 Thrillzz Coins + 3 Thrillzz Sweeps | 40+ | Up to 400% first purchase bonus |
| Legendz | 500 GC + 3 SC | 30+ | Easy to navigate |
| Bracco | 10,000 Bracco Coins + 5 Bracco Cash | 11+ | Caters to high-stake players |
| ProphetX | Up to 200 Prophet Cash in the first 30 days | 7+ | Generous welcome bonus |
| Onyx Odds | Up to 100 in bonus picks | 60+ | Large variety of sports markets |
Keep reading for some more in-depth information on our favorite social betting apps:
Thrillzz – Brand new social betting app
Pros and cons of Thrillzz
- Useful welcome offer
- Good range of betting lines
- Cash prizes redeemable
- Includes college sports
- No desktop social betting
This app gives you a great way to enjoy social betting on pre-match and live odds for anything from the NFL and NBA through to college sports, soccer and even UFC fighting. You’ll find a familiar range of points spreads here alongside player props and a whole lot more.
Sign up to Thrillzz for the first time and you could $3 in free Coins as well as a 100% first purchase bonus that is optional. Plus with the ability to pick up loyalty points and redeem cash prizes, we can imagine many more sports fans signing up here.
Thrillzz Social Casino Promo
High Roller Exclusive – Get 500 FREE SC & 100 FREE Spins
Fliff – Market leading social sportsbook
Pros and cons of Fliff
- Redeem cash prizes
- Vast range of betting lines
- Free coins every two hours
- User-friendly app
- Only available in certain states
Everyone knows that Fliff is one of the
best sweeps coins casinos
and pioneering social sportsbooks, and so it’s no surprise that you can get its app and enjoy quality betting on dozens of sports. Not only that, but it looks like Fliff serves up well over 100 betting lines for elite-level sporting events.
The brand has conjured up a decent welcome offer that will give you $500 in Fliff Coins for spending $100 and you will also get up to $5 in free credit each day. Plus with XP leaderboard challenges and free coins every two hours, you should have plenty of fun here.
Stake.us Social Casino Promo
25 SC and 25K GC signup bonus
How to bet with social betting apps
Social sports betting is just like the real thing, only that you use virtual currencies rather than your own cash. But just in case you have never made an online bet before, here is how you can use a social betting app to bet on your favorite sports:
- Pick one of the social sportsbooks listed here
- Download their social betting app from the Google Play store or the App Store
- Create an account by filling in the registration form with your personal information
- Get your free credit via the welcome offer
- Browse the social betting odds by swiping your way through the lines
- Tap on the odds to have them added to your bet slip
- Select whether you want to bet with either Gold Coins or Sweepstakes Coins
- Enter your virtual stake and submit your bet
Can you win real money on social betting apps?
No, you cannot directly win money when using a social betting app. This is because members use virtual currencies to make social bets, so if those bets win, you win more of that virtual currency.
If you play with the Sweepstakes Coins form of virtual currency and win enough back, you may be able to redeem them for a variety of real-world prizes.
Since most platforms use Gold Coins and Sweepstakes Coins for their virtual currency system, it’s important to know the difference between the two. Sweepstakes Coins can be redeemed for prizes – providing you meet the playthrough requirements and the minimum redemption threshold.
Just note that the Gold Coins form of virtual currency can only be used to play for fun, meaning that no prizes can be redeemed. Gold Coins can be purchased in Gold Coins packages too, which is also something that doesn’t apply to Sweepstakes Coins. Sweepstake Coins can only be collected for free from bonuses and promotions.
If you manage to collect enough eligible Sweepstakes Coins for redemption, you can usually choose from cash prizes, gift cards and sometimes brand merch, depending on which platform you are using.
Social betting vs real money betting
Of course, there might be some people who aren’t convinced about all that social sports betting has to offer in comparison to betting with real money. So here is a quick rundown of the pros of social betting rather than its real money counterpart:
Pros and cons of social sports betting
- Legal in most states
- Free to play
- Less risk involved
- Redeem cash prizes
What special features do social betting apps offer?
There is so much more to social betting apps than just giving you the ability to bet on sports for free. Here are some of the other things that you can enjoy doing from the convenience of your smartphone or tablet:
- PvP betting: A growing number of social betting apps will now let you set your own odds for any sporting encounter and then challenge a friend to a one-versus-one showdown.
- Community chats: Here you can chat alongside other players as you enjoy social sports betting. While it can get fiery, it’s a great way to add an extra dimension to the action.
- Tournaments: Most social betting apps will also have their own tournaments where you just have to make more successful predictions than anyone else to get a share of a big prize pool.
How we rate social betting apps
You’ll find nearly as many social betting apps out there as
social casino apps, and that’s saying something. So here are the key criteria we used when judging a social betting app before recommending it to you:
Obviously any good social betting app will have odds for the NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL, but we expect much more than that. This is why we look for odds for soccer, golf, boxing, tennis, UFC and pretty much any other major or minor sports.
You will want a lot of flexibility in how you bet on your favorite sports. So we’d expect prematch and live odds for the money line, spread, totals, and all of those promos. Plus there’s nothing like a parlay social bet for adding a few fireworks.
We will be checking to see what kinds of promos you can get for downloading that social betting app. Plus we’ll see what kinds of deals you can get as an existing customer. After all, you should always be able to play those sweepstakes with no purchase required.
Your social betting will get a whole lot more fun when you know that you can redeem some prizes at the end. This is why we will see what the prize redemption process is like and reveal whether you can redeem cash prizes, gift cards, cryptos or even some fancy branded merchandise.
We will obviously take a good long look at which states the social sportsbook is allowed to operate in. Plus we will outline what steps the brand takes to keep your personal information and payments under lock and key.
Conclusion – Enjoy using a social betting app
After reading this guide, you’ll know that the process of finding the right social sports betting app doesn’t have to be a long and drawn-out process, full of trial and error and frustration. This is because you can use the reviews and comparisons on this site to do the hard work for you and save you from wasting your time downloading apps that are not fit for purpose.
You’ll also know that some of the best ways to place social sports bets might not be on apps at all and that some social casinos have websites that work so well on mobile devices they don’t need an app. Finally, you will have seen how using the resources here at thegruelingtruth.com can help you, and there are plenty more guides like this one available.
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Social betting apps FAQ
💡 Which is the best social betting app?
We’d recommend starting out with some of the brands featured in our guide like Fliff, Thrillzz and Sportzino. Each of these sites have something unique to offer and they even offer you rewards just like those
social casinos that pay real money
redeemable prizes.
💰 Do social betting apps have welcome bonuses?
Yes, they do. Each of the social sports betting apps featured in our guide have welcome offers that give you plenty of virtual credit to make your predictions with.
📲 Where do I download the best social betting apps?
We have found that all of the best social betting apps can be downloaded for free from either the Apple App Store or the Google Play store.
