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SugarHouse was one of the first sportsbooks to offer online sports betting in New Jersey when the state legalized in 2018. The company has had great success with its sportsbook and online casino app in the Garden State and neighboring Pennsylvania, where its parent company operates a successful online casino and retail casinos in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.
SugarHouse is owned by Rush Street Interactive (RSI), a large, publicly traded gaming company that also owns the BetRivers brand. RSI owns and operates several casinos, including Rivers Casino Philadelphia (formerly known as SugarHouse Casino), Rivers Casino Pittsburgh, Rivers Casino Des Plaines (Illinois), and Rivers Casino Schenectady (New York). This is relevant because the BetRivers sportsbook brand also operates online in those states (aside from NY) along with several others, including Tennessee, Colorado, Virginia, Indiana, Michigan, Iowa, and West Virginia.
SugarHouse and BetRivers look almost identical. Both sportsbooks are powered by Kambi technology. Today however, the SugarHouse brand only continues to operate in the state of Pennsylvania, after RSI rebranded its New Jersey product to BetRivers in August 2022.
SugarHouse is one of the original online sportsbook brands. Does its product still hold up compared to the competition? The answer is yes. What makes the SugarHouse app worthy of a spot on your phone? We will answer that question and also go over the company’s great promotions, review its mobile app and browser version, and discuss states in which SugarHouse is live. Additionally, we will find out more about which markets and sports are offered along with which banking options are available, and dive a little deeper into RSI and what makes it such a successful company. Away we go.
SugarHouse Deposit Match Bonus
Sportsbook promotions are the life preservers that save sportsbooks from drowning in a sea of sameness. Most sportsbooks have the same layout and events available for wagering. Some even have the same prices. Their individuality often comes from their promotions. The most common promotions include odds boosts, bonus bets, and deposit matches. Odds boosts are nice if you are interested in the event being offered, but provide little value otherwise. Bonus bets are great, but what if you lose two bets in a row? You might end up risking more than you normally would because of the first bonus bet. There is no bonus second or third bet.
Deposit match offers, also known as deposit bonuses, are arguably the best new customer promotions. Your first deposit, up to a certain amount, is matched by the sportsbook and immediately available for wagering. Free money! But there’s always a small catch. SugarHouse offers a great deposit match with the least onerous “catch” in the industry. Let’s go over the details now.
SugarHouse $250 deposit match play-through requirement
The value of a deposit match bonus depends on the clearance rate. All sportsbooks, or online casinos for that matter, that offer a deposit match require customers to bet, or “play through” a certain amount before being able to withdraw the bonus amount. Sometimes this is a high number, like 10x+, which would mean that a bettor would have to wager $2500 to earn a $250 bonus. SugarHouse has the lowest play-through requirement in the industry, letting you cash out a $250 deposit match after wagering that same amount, just $250.
This 1x play-through requirement is a breath of fresh air, frankly. Once you sign up for an account and make your first deposit, which can be any amount but will only be matched up to $250, the bonus is credited to your account. Wager $250 on anything you like, and whatever is left, which is hopefully more than $250, is yours to withdraw if you so choose. Simple and straightforward.
Where is PlaySugarHouse Sportsbook live?
The SugarHouse Sportsbook brand is currently active in one state, which is Pennsylvania. Moving forward, RSI has elected to put forward BetRivers in its other areas of operation.
Pennsylvania
SugarHouse Sportsbook and online casino continues to solely operate in Pennsylvania, with an affiliation to the Rivers Casino in Philadelphia.
Signing up for a SugarHouse sportsbook account
Signing up for a SugarHouse sportsbook account is easy. It only takes a few minutes to be signed up, signed in, have your account funded (with a deposit bonus) and ready to wager. Let’s go over how to sign up for an account.
First you click on the Join Now button at the top right corner of the screen. After that you have to pick a state. If you live in Pennsylvania, you can pick that state for a SugarHouse account. If you live in another state where BetRivers is live, you can pick that state to create a BetRivers account. If you live in a state without online sports betting like Texas but you know you will be visiting your brother in PA for Thanksgiving, go ahead and pick Pennsylvania. You won’t be able to make any bets until you are actually in PA, but you can still sign up for an account and make a deposit so you’ll be ready to wager the moment you step off the plane at the airport.
Additional information required to create SugarHouse account
From there you create a username and password and also provide an email address. After that, you need to add some personal information, including your full name, address, and date of birth. This information is necessary for SugarHouse to verify that you are indeed who you say you are. All information is kept safe and confidential using state of the art security software, so there is no need to worry about your personal information being disclosed.
Once that information is entered, you have to enter a bit more security information to make sure your account is as secure as possible. This includes two security questions, your cell phone number, and the last 4 digits of your social security number. After that, you’re ready to make a deposit and start wagering.
PlaySugarHouse browser review
Let’s just get this out of the way first. The “Real Winners” running list on the right side of the browser page is irritating and serves no purpose. It makes no sense to feature a running list of casino winners on a sportsbook page. If we could change anything about the SugarHouse sportsbook page, it would be to immediately remove that entire section of the browser page. Thankfully PA bettors won’t know this struggle, as SugarHouse only offers sports betting in the state.
The sportsbook is pretty good. There are often hundreds of different bets available for upcoming games. About 250 different bets offered for a Monday Night Football game makes sense because it is the biggest game of the week, but 220 for a low-profile MLS soccer game was a bit more surprising. This is good news for bettors because whatever you want to bet on is available and competitively priced.
Every major sport and most lesser-known sports are available, and they are all easy to find on the home page. Every sport can be found on the left side of the page and also on a banner toward the top of the page. In case you don’t see your team or sport right away, which can happen when looking for futures bets, for example, you can just search for whatever you want in the search bar.
Another useful feature of the SugarHouse browser version is the tabs available on the page of each sport. If you pull up the NFL page, for example, there are three tabs at the top of the page: Live Now, Upcoming, and Futures. The Futures tab is especially helpful because many sportsbooks make it hard to find futures for each sport. The futures tab on SugarHouse brings up all the futures for each sport updated in real-time. For the NFL tab, each division winner has updated odds along with individual awards like MVP, which is both useful and intuitive. A nice touch.
SugarHouse App review
The app is similar to the browser version in many ways, but is even better in a few ways, most notably by not including the ridiculous Real Winners section. The available sports tab is not included on the left side of the screen due to a lack of space, but all the sports are listed as a banner on top of the screen. The search button is also available, which is very helpful. The betslip is conveniently hidden until you are ready to make your wagers, and all the upcoming games are easily found on the home screen.
Similar to the browser version, the online casino is easily accessible, just one click away. Promotions, rewards, and support can also be found on the bottom part of the screen. The prices are easy to view and everything is laid out in a way that makes sense. This is a very good sportsbook app.
Banking options
Once you sign up for an account, you might be asked to provide additional information to confirm your identity. This could include taking a picture of your ID and submitting it through their secure portal. It’s your choice whether to do this, but if you don’t, SugarHouse severely limits your banking options, focusing more on cash deposits than credit. This is unusual among sportsbooks, but it seems that SugarHouse wants to know more about you before allowing you to fund your account on credit. Once you fully confirm your identity, you have many more banking options at your disposal. They include:
A wager available on a sportsbook is often called a market. Here are all the markets available on SugarHouse:
Spread
Moneyline
Teaser
Parlay
Futures
Prop bets
Over/Under
Sports
For sportsbooks and bettors, the more sports offered, the better. There has to be someone out there who is really into Swiss hockey and wants to bet on it. That person would be excited to learn that SugarHouse offers betting on every Swiss hockey game and even has a live video feed available on its website. Excited about the upcoming Congo-Togo World Cup qualifier? Someone out there is, and they can wager on the spread or prop bets on the number of goals scored by either team. If a sport is being played somewhere in the world, chances are it is available for wagering on SugarHouse. Here are all the sports available on SugarHouse:
Football (NCAA and NFL)
Baseball
Soccer
Golf
Basketball (NCAA, NBA, and worldwide leagues)
Hockey
Tennis
MMA
Australian Rules Football
Badminton
Boxing
Cricket
Cycling
Darts
Motorsports
Handball
Rugby
Snooker
Table Tennis
Volleyball
SugarHouse sportsbook rewards program
Most online casinos, similar to their retail casino cousins, have a rewards program for their loyal customers. The programs are all set up the same way: if you wager on certain online casino games, you earn a certain amount of points, which can be redeemed for free play or other benefits like a hotel stay at the casino hotel. Online sportsbooks, many of which are owned by companies that own casinos, have been getting on the rewards bandwagon in order to increase brand loyalty.
SugarHouse sportsbook has a rewards program, but sadly the rewards aren’t very rewarding unless you bet a lot of money each month on sports. You can earn bonus money awarded as site credit and you can also progress through the 10 tiers depending on how much you wager. But the bummer is that you have to keep up a certain amount of wagering or else you will lose points each month. So if you wagered $600 on sports in July, assuming you are only betting on single-event wagers (no parlays), you would have earned 100 points, which isn’t even enough to get you to the second tier. If you took a vacation in August and only wagered $200, a fraction of your points would be deducted once a day (!) from the 100 you earned in July. This is a long way of saying that the Rewards program is not a good deal unless you bet very regularly each month without taking any months off.
Customer service
SugarHouse has great customer service. The FAQ section is extensive and easy to navigate and the chat function, the function upon which all sportsbook customer service is judged, is excellent. During testing, we were able to immediately chat with a real person who quickly answered our questions. If you run into any trouble while using SugarHouse, you can rest assured that someone will be available to help you get back on track.
SugarHouse got its start in New Jersey in 2018, but is only available now in Pennsylvania. Rush Street kept SugarHouse in NJ until August ’22, but eventually flipped the switch to BetRivers.
In a surprise move, the Connecticut Lottery announced that they will no longer offer SugarHouse in CT as of March 31, 2023.
SugarHouse has an excellent promotion for new customers. The sportsbook offers a $250 deposit bonus with a very low 1x play-through requirement. That means that if you deposit $250, you only have to wager the original $250 within 30 days in order to be able to withdraw the $250 bonus amount. This is very favorable for the bettor. Most sportsbooks have much more onerous requirements that must be met before bonus funds are available for withdrawal.
Two things separate SugarHouse from the pack: The 1x deposit bonus play-through requirement and the ease of use. A $250 deposit bonus is pretty good, but the real bonus is the fact that you only have to wager it through 1x in order to withdraw the entire bonus. Few, if any, sportsbooks offer such a low play-through requirement. Additionally, the sportsbook is super easy to navigate. All the upcoming events are listed on the home page of the browser and app version and other bets like futures or prop bets are easy to find. Prices are competitive and easy to read and the sportsbook is fast and responsive. It is a great sportsbook for beginner and experts alike.
SugarHouse Sportsbook Review Summary
Bottom Line
SugarHouse sportsbook is only live in PA. Bettors in PA will enjoy the easy to use interface, wide variety of sports to bet on, and a top-notch new customer promotion. SugarHouse is a solid option that should be checked out, particularly for the deposit bonus promotion.
