MARATHON

 “Marathon”, a renowned bookmaking company, has been found in Russia in 1997 and rapidly established itself as the most prominent bookmaker in the CIS thereafter. Lately, the company’s development is aimed towards the Western audience, which is evident by Marathon’s activity, especially on the English and Spanish markets. In the 2016/2017 season, Marathon has been the general sponsor of Scottish “FC Hibernian”, Spanish “Malaga” and also the official betting-partner of “Manchester United”. Previously the bookmaker has worked with such clubs as “Tottenham”, “Middlesbrough”, “Derby”, “Fulham”, “Dinamo Kiev”, “West Ham” and “Liverpool”. Since 2017 Marathon is an official partner of “Dinamo Moscow” and is a state-licensed bookmaker in the Russian Federation.

LEGAL INFORMATION

Marathon is a licensed bookmaker in five jurisdictions: Curacao, Alderney, Spain, Russia and the United Kingdom. In 2017 this bookmaker obtained the Russian license for online betting and therefore stopped to being blocked by the Russian authorities as an illegal betting website. Its activity on the territory of the Russian Federation is regulated by the Russian Federal Tax Service’s license #14, issued on 12.03.2014.

WEBSITE’S DESIGN AND NAVIGATION

Marathon’s website supports whopping twenty-six languages: from English and Russian to Indonesian and Vietnamese. The website is prone to unstable work during the peak hours, however, not even close to the extent when the website was actively blocked by the Russian authorities.

The design is simple with mellow colours. However, it is often times being redesigned, including the color patterns, which sometimes naturally displeases the clients. Additionally, the bookmaker is not reluctant to change the statistics design (quite successfully so), the main page and some other functions.

The main page is somewhat dense with information and links. Accessing some key functions, such as ‘payments’, might be problematic due to the aforementioned abundance of links. Furthermore, accessing the mobile version without knowing how exactly to do so is challenging as the icon is tiny and not obvious.

The website’s filters are very convenient as the bookmaker spent some time and effort in order to optimize them. The ‘coupon’ is excellent – it calculates the whole sum of a bet, the potential winning amount and also allows scripting an action in case the coefficient is changed. During the navigation, the ‘coupon’ can be closed, but all the changes will be conveniently saved.

FUNDS DEPOSIT AND WITHDRAWAL

Marathon accepts deposits in forty-one national currency! A potential client can view the list of available payment methods when registering an account.

The bookmaker offers its clients a wide array of methods to deposit and withdraw money, which is generally divided into unilateral and bilateral. The former allows only depositing (via mobile phone payments, payment kiosks, etc.), while the latter allow both depositing and withdrawing (credit cards, Webmoney, QIWI or Moneta). Each account can use only one bilateral method, which can be changed either when an account has no active bets or available funds, or through the customer service ticket.

The bookmaker had issues with a withdrawal of funds through QIWI system, which would take up to a week sometimes. While the issue is being worked on, it persists.

BETTING LINES AND DESCRIPTIONS

Marathon offers its clients the largest choice of bets among all Russian bookmaking companies, which solidifies the company’s reputation as the most renowned Russian bookmaker. Not only the company provides its clients with a decent choice of pre-match events, it also offers a variety of long-term bets and special bets for various political and cultural occasions. The inclusion of horse and dog races among the bets suggests the company’s increasing affiliation towards the Western public.

The descriptions are elaborately written: even the insignificant events or matches will have a coherent and structured description that allows checking the relevant factors such as “totals”, “goals”, “handicaps”, etc. However, the match statistics are lacking in user-friendliness and comprehensiveness.

An original and fascinating function called “Constructor” is worth mentioning as well. Using this constructor, a client can select some football or tennis players, form two teams from the chosen players and make them “play” against each other. For instance, one could have bet on the goal victory of “Copenhagen” and “Porto” against “Bruges” and “Leicester” with the 1.34 odd. The constructor calculates the outcome in each instance taking into account various parameters of the selected players.

COEFFICIENTS

The bookmaker’s margin will please even the most experienced customers. Odds on the main matches, which are accessible without entering into a match’s description, are comparable with the best Asian and European bookmakers. Other matches’ coefficients are lower, but insignificantly so.

LIVE BETS

Live bets is a developed part of Marathon’s business as the company spares a lot of resources to hire the needed staff in order to maintain high volume, quality, and diversity of live matches’ descriptions. The program is constantly updated: for instance, if a client’s balance is positive, he or she can access the live stream. Also, in 2016 a curious matches’ infographics became available to the public. All this allows claiming that in this regard Marathon is a leader among Russian bookmakers.

BONUSES AND PROMOTIONS

Marathon’s work in this field is non-existent. The company currently does have any ongoing promotional campaigns neither for the domestic nor for the foreign clients.

The bookmaker claims that its top promotional product is so-called “Advance Bets”. However, according to the clients’ feedback, it is uncertain whether the program works at all. The company’s representatives were not able to confirm or deny this information.

THE MOBILE APP

The mobile-friendly website version is compatible with Chrome, Safari, Opera, and Yandex.Browser. Also, an Android app is available, which can be accessed by clicking the mobile phone icon in the main menu (once the mouse is on the icon, word 'Mobile' pops up). The app, however, is limited in many aspects: for instance, the only payment method is Visa and the minimum bet is 1€. The app itself is heavily criticized by clients and seems to be underwhelming compared to the other bookmakers' mobile apps.

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

One can reach Marathon's customer service via the following:

Via phone: +44 1273 852 352 (for international calls); 8 10800 290 340 11 (calls from Russia).

Via online support chat through the bookmaker's website.

Via email: [email protected]

Customer service is among the weakest Marathon's traits: one would need some truly gambling luck in order to get a qualified answer. If a customer is assigned to an experienced support officer, a problem would be fast and successfully resolved. However, the service typically makes unnecessary documents requests and generally takes too long to provide feedback. The best way to resolve a problem is through a phone call.

There is no mandatory personal verification, but the administration may undertake such verification at any moment since a customer account is created. The response time after the documents are provided is 72 hours, which can be extended due to the staff overload.

MAXIMUM BET LIMIT

The top limit of a bet is not formally regulated by Marathon's set of rules. Instead, each match has bet limits. However, in general, the bookmaker provides a decently high level of bets maximum. Only 'Express' bets are limited with a maximum coefficient of 2000.

CONCLUSION

The bookmaking company 'Marathon' is the most experienced and successful bookmaker in the Russian-speaking Internet and has a large staff in order to fulfill all its functionality. Technically the bookmaker is quite decent, provides generous coefficients and maximum bets. The main disadvantage of the company is its attitude towards successful players, whom are typically neglected. While the company does not forfeit such players' accounts, it undertakes steps to make such players' experience uncomfortable, even borderline impossible. This is achieved by frequent suspensions due to arbitrary reasons and decreasing the maximum bet limit for such players. Furthermore, it is unlikely that the company exhibits such attitude towards the Western clients, as those are traditionally prone to leaving for a different bookmaker if a company's attitude seems inappropriate. Additionally, the bookmaker experiences problems with keeping their clients due to inexperienced customer service crew and total lack of bonuses and other kinds of promotion.