Over time, bookmakers have made depositing and withdrawing money much easier for punters. There used to be fees involved, but this is rarely the case nowadays, and deposit minimums are lower than ever too.
Now, you can find quite a few bookmakers who accept a minimum £5 deposit, and that is what we are looking at in this article.
Anyone who gambles knows that you should only spend what you can afford to lose, and what you can live with losing too for that matter.
You might be able to afford losing £1,000 if you are well off, but will it take you a month to get over it if it happens? If so, bet less, or don’t bet at all.
The point is, betting should be recreational, and lots of people only have small amounts of spare cash to spend on recreational pursuits, so it stands to reason they will be looking to make that money stretch.
Therefore, for people who like a punt but who are also on a tight budget, bookmakers who accept low £5 minimum deposits are a welcome find.
Bettors who deposit much more than this might be wondering why anyone would want to find a bookmaker with a £5 minimum deposit, and this page will answer that question, as well as offering a few tips on how to make a £5 deposit last at the bookmaker you choose to bet with.
Betting Sites With a £5 Minimum Deposit
*Please note – the bookmakers listed here all have a five pound minimum deposit, however some of the sign up bonuses may require a larger deposit. We have a separate page that lists offers that can be claimed with a £5 deposit.
Why Would Someone Only Deposit £5 at an Online Bookmaker?
As we touched on in the intro, not everyone who likes betting has stacks of spare cash on hand, but that doesn’t mean they need to be excluded from enjoying it.
Luckily, betting is a very flexible hobby and with online betting especially, minimum bet sizes are tiny – you can bet a few pennies on lots of markets if that’s all you have in your account.
Coupled with a bookmaker that accepts £5 deposits, this means those with less money to spend have the opportunity for just as much fun and enjoyment as those who are better off.
A fiver can go a long way on a betting site if you want it to, it just depends on the way you like to do it – are you a one bet a week kind of person or do you like to make a few bets a day? Perhaps you wait for the weekend and make a series of live bets.
It’s true that £5 is not a lot of money, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get lots of entertainment value out of it.
You can break £5 down in loads of different ways at an online bookmaker:
- 1 x £1 bet, 2 x 50p bets, 10 x 20p bets, 10 x 10p bets
- 5 x £1 bets
- 6 x 50p bets, 10 x 20p bets
- 50 x 10p bets
- 30 x 20p bets, 10 x 10p bets, 20 x 5p bets
The list is almost endless, and sure, some of those bets are ridiculously small, but if someone enjoys the act of betting for what it is, doesn’t have much money but wants to make a lot of bets, they might be perfectly happy betting so small.
Depositing £5 a time is also a good way to keep your gambling responsible, and to keep as much of your cash in your pocket rather than in your online bookie account where it is more likely to get spent.
Even if you bet £5 several times a week, making a new deposit each time reduces the risk of making impulsive decisions, as you have to go through the deposit process each time, which gives you a chance to think.
Really then, the reasoning behind making smaller deposits comes down to affordability, and control.
So a bookmaker with a £5 minimum deposit can only be a good thing, because it means the customers have that option if they want it.
However, there are a few things to be aware of if you do intend to deposit as low as £5.
Payment Methods
While many online bookies do indeed accept minimum £5 deposits, the payment methods you are allowed to use to make them are not always expansive.
The one deposit method you will always be allowed to use to make £5 deposits is a debit card, whatever bank you may use.
This is usually the bookie’s payment method of choice because it is the cheapest for them to use.
It costs online bookmakers money to accept electronic payments of any kind, they have to pay the payment provider, but this is usually built into their pricing structure these days, although one or two smaller bookies do still charge a small fee for transactions.
Well, the more the payment provider charges the bookie, the less likely it is that they will accept £5 deposits using that payment method.
Paypal is where this causes the most problems, because it is one of the most popular ewallets, but also one of the most expensive payment providers from the bookies point of view.
For this reason, £5 deposits are not usually allowed using Paypal, with higher minimums being in place. Other ewallets like Skrill might also have similar issues.
All bookmakers are different with their minimum deposit levels for the various payment methods, and they change semi-regularly too, so you will have to check their banking terms for accurate details. Just be aware that this might be something you run into if you want to deposit as little as £5.
Bonus and Promotion Exclusion
Another area where lower deposits might cause you problems, are with bonuses and promotions.
Now this will be different everywhere you go, and the offers are constantly changing too so there is no hard and fast rule here, but it’s something you need to check before depositing if you are doing so as part of an offer.
While lots of online bookies will allow you to deposit a minimum of £5, that amount may fall outside of their qualifying boundaries when it comes to promotions.
For example, a new customer offer might be “Bet £10 get £20 in Free Bets” – that’s £30 worth of bets for a tenner if you are a new customer. Great.
However, only your first deposit will count towards this deal, so if you sign up and mistakenly deposit £5 instead of £10, you miss out on the offer entirely.
Equally, existing customer offers are sometimes along the same lines, perhaps matching the deposit amount from £10 upwards. Again, if you deposit under this minimum amount then you would miss out on the offer.
Other schemes to be affected might be a free bet club, whereby the punter must make say 2 x £10 bets during the week to get a £5 free bet the next week; or an offer specific to a sport or competition, such as “Bet £10 on the US Open and get a £10 free bet to use on Golf”.
The reason bookies set the levels for these offers where they do is to make them worthwhile running in the first place, and there are plenty that apply to £5 bets too so just depositing £5 won’t necessarily stop you getting involved, but it might.
How to Get Good Value from a £5 Deposit
If you deposit £5 and immediately bet £5, then your money is spent and gone very quickly indeed… unless you win, but even that depends on when the event you have bet on takes place.
For anyone wanting that £5 deposit to last them the week for example, you will need to be a bit more savvy about how much you bet and what you bet on.
An easy win to begin with, would be to take part in whatever free games and/or competitions the bookmaker has running.
Most of the big names have a daily free game of some sort, where you can win £1 free bets or 50p in bonus money etc. You just need to be signed up to take part, so this is an obvious place to start if you are working on a limited budget.
When it comes to actually making bets, aside from managing your bank roll, the sort of bets you make will have an impact in the value you get from them.
Goals Galore is an excellent example of this.
It’s a coupon that Betfred came up with, whereby the punter picks at least 3 football matches in which both teams need to score, with the odds and payout based on how many selections you make.
It’s good value because a small stake can deliver comparatively big returns, and you also add a bit of extra excitement to 3 or more football matches you might otherwise have had no interest in.
There are a few different options with this bet too, such as Goals Galore No Draw, and Goals Galore 1st Half/Second Half; so you can still find ways to get the risk/reward balance you are happy with.
Traditional accas are another option, although of course the chances of these coming in are incredibly low, but the potential returns can dwarf the stake regardless.
The tote jackpot and placepot type bets are also fun and can end up running all day if you aren’t knocked out early.
These bets are where you select 6 horses from the first 6 races at a specified meeting, and they must then win or place (depending on the bet you have chosen) for you to get a share of the prize pot once all the results are in.
The fewer winning bets there are, the more of the pot each winner is entitled to.
As you can probably tell, they are very difficult to win, but if you end up making 6 correct selections, and not many other people have managed to do the same, then your payout can be staggering.
Something else to look out for are bet bundles.
Effectively, the bookie has packaged a bunch of bets together and is selling them at a ‘discount’.
You might pay £5 and get a £10 bet bundle containing 5 x £2 bets – so you now have double the amount to bet with.
These bets have a shelf life though, and are void if not used in time, and if any of your bets win the stake is not returned like it would be with a regular bet, so it’s not quite as good as it sounds.
Still, it can’t be denied that there is extra entertainment value in this sort of thing.
When Small Bets Return Large Payouts
As a bit of a follow on from the above, it’s worth noting that there have been many occasions when a seemingly insignificantly small bet has ended up returning celebration party worthy amounts of money.
These have most usually come from unbelievably unlikely acca wins it’s true, but it just goes to show that it can happen.
Numerous times a £5 acca has come in to return £250k or more, and once a 50p acca even returned £1 million!
We have a list of some of the most impressive acca wins from small bets below: