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Coral Casino Review
Anyone whom has ever walked down the high street of any UK town will be familiar with the name Coral, and the Coral branding. Coral have been a sports betting concern in the UK since 1926, and now form part of the immense Gala Coral Group, with interests in bingo, real-world casinos and of course, the virtual gambling world. As of 2015 the Gala Coral Group was the UK’s third largest bookmakers and the largest bingo operator.
The online Coral Casino has been around since 2002, running under a Gibraltar licence and now includes a UK licence due to changes in the UK gambling laws. The Coral Casino has established itself an excellent reputation with an immense number of online gaming options from a superb range of software providers.
You’re more or less assured of a very decent casino experience when you are in the hands of the Coral Casino, and this article will explain just how well you are likely to be treated.
Promotions and Bonuses
As the Gala Coral Group is such an enormous and successful company (revenues of just under $2,000 million in 2013) you’d expect them to be pretty free and easy with their welcome bonus offers, and that, within reason, seems to be the case here.
The welcome bonus isn’t very sizeable at £50 but you only have to deposit £10 in order to receive it, and it’s provided instantly. That is, in effect, a 500 percent first deposit bonus, which surely is something to celebrate.
Are the wagering requirements something to celebrate as well? Well, they are actually not too unpleasant at 24x, which means you have to wager £1,200 before you can evolve that £50 of bonus cash into £50 of real money. It’s certainly not hard to wager £1,200 at an online casino, and you have a nice time limit – 28 days – in order to do so.
Game contributions are as follows:
- Slots (not including ‘double’ options), arcade, scratch cards, fixed odds games – 100%
- Roulette, blackjack (most varieties), sic bo, keno, craps – 20%
- Red dog, spin-a-win/lucky wheel, casino war, casino hold’em, wild viking, let them ride, stravaganza, pai gow and 60 seconds – 5%
- All other games – 0%
You can also receive an additional £10 bonus simply by registering a credit or debit card with the site and depositing £5. The same wagering requirements and T&Cs apply as with the £50 bonus.
The Coral Casino also runs a number of promos on a regular basis, including a ‘game of the week’ where whichever member whom plays on the selected game on a Sunday and wins the most cash gets a nice £500 bonus.
The site runs a Comp Points scheme. You receive one Comp Point for every £10 you bet at the casino, although this is doubled if you are playing slots. You can then exchange every 100 Comp Points you earn for £1 of real cash. There’s a VIP scheme as well with five levels: Club, Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum. The more Comp Points you earn, the higher you rise through the scheme, and you receive a huge number of extra benefits including more favourable Comp Point exchange rates and weekly casino match bonuses of up to £200.
Games
Coral really do push the boat out when it comes to gaming options, with well over 300 different gaming titles to choose from. The providers are a good selection, but there are three glaring omissions: Microgaming, NetEnt and Betsoft.
Most of the slots are provided by Playtech, which puts Coral Casino’s slots at the simpler end of the market. The best slots are the Marvel Comic themed slots such as Iron Man, X-Men, Blade and Daredevil. All these slots have progressive jackpots, as do a few others, and sometimes the jackpot value can spiral up into £1 million and beyond.
Moving on to the table games, the array of options is pretty stunning. There are 19 versions of roulette, 14 versions of blackjack (including pontoon) and 15 versions of video poker. You’ll also find baccarat, casino poker, craps, sic bo and red dog.
Rounding off this impressive gaming portfolio are a few online scratch cards, and other little quirky gaming options such as darts and rock, paper, scissors.
The Coral Live Casino offers roulette, blackjack, baccarat and casino hold’em.
Software
The main software providers at Coral Casino are Playtech, IGT/WagerWorks and Amaya/Chartwell, with a few contributions from less well-known software companies such as Electracade and Jadestone.
You do not need to download and install any software if you wish to use the Coral Casino – all games should work in your favourite internet browser. There is a download version of the live casino, though.
Coral Casino Mobile Casino
The Coral Casino offers no less than six mobile apps for iPad, iPhone, Android and Blackberry users:
- Coral Mobile – the complete app for casino fun (over 50 gaming titles) plus sports betting. New mobile customers can claim a free £20 bet.
- Coral iPad – the Coral Mobile app optimised for iPad users.
- Coral Live Casino – play at the Live Casino on your iPad or iPhone.
- Spin Casino – play six “hyper-real” casino games, including roulette and blackjack (iOS only)
- Coral Radio – commentary on top sporting events (not available for Blackberry)
- Coral Football Jackpot – especially for football fans (not available for Blackberry)
Banking and Customer Support
Cashier options are pretty snazzy at the Coral Casino. In terms of plastic you have Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, Visa Electron and Visa Debit. Other possibles include PayPal, Skrill, Neteller and Ukash. There is a minimum deposit of £5, and all deposits are dealt with instantly and there are no charges.
You can also withdraw to most of the same methods as you will be depositing to, and the minimum withdrawal is a very titchy £5. E-Wallets transfers are credited instantly, while debit cards, credit cards and bank transfers take two to five days. There are no charges or withdrawal limits.
Support at the Coral Casino is provided by a very extensive and useful FAQs section, plus live chat, telephone support and email. Support at Coral is available from 7am until midnight, GMT.
Conclusion
You would kind of expect a casino that is run but such a well-known, public facing company as Coral to be pretty nifty, and that is very much the case here. There are hardly any downsides to be found – the only one really is the lack of the very best in ‘3D’ slots, the kind created by providers such as NetEnt and Betsoft.
Everything else is very much tickety-boo, and the excellent range of mobile options including specialist apps for iPad users and live casino lovers is another plus point.
The Coral Casino will really excite online casino fans, from nervous newcomers to established experts, and really does deserve its excellent reputation.
