NRL betting 2025
NRL betting can be done all year round, with most international betting sites featuring odds on Australia’s top-flight rugby league competition. Obviously NRL betting is prominent in Australia but most bookmakers worldwide will have both match betting and outright odds for things such as the premiership and making the finals. Below we will break down how to bet on the NRL from outside Australia, plus link you to tips and rugby league betting previews, team news, odds updates and much more. You can navigate our international NRL betting guide via the links above.
NRL betting – Australia’s top rugby league competition
The National Rugby League of Australia is the top rugby league competition in the world, with the 2025 season starting on March 1, with the Las Vegas fixtures.
The NRL is contested by 17 teams with 10 based in NSW, four in Queensland and one each in the ACT, Victoria and New Zealand. The Perth Bears will join the NRL for the 2027 season, while Papua New Guinea is slated to join the competition in 2028.
The season in a normal year runs from March to October, with three State of Origin matches between NSW and Queensland among the most popular fixtures.
The NRL is the premier rugby league competition globally, with the only comparable league being Britain’s Super League competition.
The defending NRL champions in 2025 are the Ivan Cleary-coached Penrith Panthers, who defeated the Melbourne Storm 14-6 in the 2024 NRL grand final.
Best NRL betting sites
Betway review
All of our recommended NRL betting sites will offer extensive markets on National Rugby League matches, as well as on season-long outcomes such as which team will win the NRL title and which player will score the most tries.
NRL betting is highly regulated and widely televised sport, making it a good product to bet on wherever you are in the world. Obviously being an Australian domestic sport, the NRL is covered extensively by Australian betting sites, and it is illegal for Aussies to bet with overseas bookmakers that are unlicensed in Australia.
The top NRL bookmakers will feature extensive betting markets on many different aspects of the game, including top match-day markets, such as try scorers, converted tries scored, total points scored, winner and much more.
The best NRL betting will also look further ahead, offering betting markets on things like Premiership winner, best and fairest awards, which teams will make the finals and even awards like the league best and fairest — the Dally M Medal. It’s worth noting that NRL bookmakers will only have Dally M medal betting available before the season, because up until a certain point in the home and away season the points tally is open to the public.
Some overseas NRL betting sites will allow you to bet live online, with this banned in Australia via the internet, which stops most forms of in-play bets. This means, many rugby league fans betting on the NRL from outside Australia, will be able to wager, even after a match has started.
NRL betting apps
NRL betting is commonly done via bookmaker apps, with most betting sites featuring software downloads, although some jurisdictions globally can be more restrictive.
Places like England, Scotland, Ireland, South Africa and New Zealand, where the NRL has fans, tend to have regulated sports betting, meaning there are a plethora of betting apps that you can wager on the NRL with.
The most common NRL betting app types include Android, iOS and Huawei smartphones and tablets, with these all having slightly different ways of accessing them.
Android NRL betting apps can either be downloaded directly from a bookmaker or via the Google Play store, although for the latter you will need to turn on non-market apps.
iOS betting apps with NRL markets can be downloaded directly from the App Store after you have created an account at your chosen bookmaker.
Huawei users can download betting apps via the AppGallery, which is the Chinese company’s answer to the App Store and Google Play.
History of the National Rugby League
The National Rugby League held its inaugural season in 1998 after being formed in the aftermath of the Super League war of the mid-1990s when for a year there were two opposing competitions: the Australian Rugby League and News Corps’ Super League.
Most of the clubs which played in the long-standing NSW Rugby League competition (founded in 1904) now compete in the NRL. In the NRL the wealthy Sydney Roosters have been the most successful club with four titles.
In modern times, the Penrith Panthers have rattled off four successive NRL premiership (2021-24), with the Ivan Clearly-lead outfit gunning for a fifth in 2025.
NRL bet types
Our leading internatioanl NRL betting sites will offer all of the following markets and many more.
Many of the leading sportsbooks in the world will offer hundreds of markets on each game. But if you are serious about finding a winner in a rugby league game, many of the markets can be safely ignored without compromising your objective.
We will provide a rundown of the major markets while the ones we personally avoid are those which rely more on guesswork than skill; bookies likes to tempt you into trying “same-game multipliers’’ and the like which generally swing the odds well into their favour.
Some of the most popular NRL bet types at overseas bookmakers include:
- Head to head NRL betting: As the name suggests this is simply backing Team A to beat Team B, with no points spread. You will see some extremely short prices in this market as powerhouse such as Melbourne host minnows like the Wests Tigers. Upsets, though, are not uncommon in this sport.
- Line betting or handicap betting: The NRL bookmakers will handicap the teams to make the dividend as close to an even bet as possible. For example, their $1.90 offering may be Melbourne Storm (-17.5 points) v Gold Coast Titans (+17.5 points). This means if you want to bet on the Storm they must win by 18 points or more for your bet to be a winner.
- Match total points over/under: This is a good option if you are unsure which team will win. You can bet on whether it will be a high-scoring contest or a low-scoring contest. For example, the NRL betting site may set the mark at 40.5 points, leaving you to decide whether the total scores of both teams added together will exceed that mark or fall short. A good bet for the neutral fan.
- First try-scorer betting: This is a simple bet in which you simply bet on the player you think will score the first try but given the 13 players a side that are on the field at any one time, it’s pretty difficult to find a winner.
Can you bet legally on the NRL?
That will depend where you are based and if online betting is legal there. But the NRL itself is a betting partner to many of the biggest bookies in the world and the Australian gambling industry is heavily regulated. Betting on the NRL you can be sure it is always a fair contest with nothing underhanded going on from a betting perspective.
Where can I watch the NRL?
In Australia and New Zealand you can watch all matches on Fox Sports and streaming service KAYO and many of the matches on free to air television. This is also the case the many of the rugby league-mad Pacific Islands. A large percentage of the NRL’s player base is made up of players from Pacific islands such as Fiji and Samoa; they are perfectly suited to a game which demands large and explosive athletes capable of great endurance.
Outside Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific islands, matches can be watch on the NRL’s Watch NRL streaming service available from watchnrl.co
