Bonus Money

Imagine being given £4140 for the year in bonus money, well if you take advantage of all the opportunities available to you at Betfair that’s how much you could accumulate over a year.  This is by far one of the most generous bonus packages in the business.

No Deposit Bonus

Betfair are very bountiful in their bonus scheme but unfortunately you have to match it with your own funds before they will give you any, this shouldn’t be a problem if you’re serious about converting bonus cash.

Welcome Bonus

The welcome bonus is tiered based on how much you want your initial deposit to be.  They will give you a 100% bonus on deposits up to £100 meaning if you deposit £100 you get £200 to play with.  However…

If you’re a high roller and are prepared to make an initial deposit of £1,000 you can benefit from joining the VIP club and receiving a 50% matched bonus, meaning you will get £1,500 to play with, not too shabby at all!  Alternatively…

If you’re a slots fan, and who can resist them now and again you can benefit from a 200% bonus up to £500!  Meaning if you deposit £250 you would have £750 to play with.  Definitely the top offer for slots players.

Monthly Bonus

Betfair don’t think that giving you a monthly bonus is good enough, they give their bonuses weekly in the form of a 50% matched bonus of up to £50 every Friday.  So deposit £100 a week and receive £150 to play with.  If you take advantage of this every week you could pocket an extra £2600 a year in bonuses.

Bonus Score: 10/10

One of the best in the business.

Promotions

Taking lead from their fantastic bonus program Betfair’s promotions are just as lucrative.  With a new promotion every week day there is sure to be something you will enjoy, more on this in a moment.

The cornerstone of any casino’s promotion scheme is the Comp Points program and Betfairs is pretty standard, however it can be combined with other promotions to be transformed into a just above average comp points scheme.  As with the industry standard 100 comp points can be converted to £1, however the way you earn points differs depending the games you play if you’re a card, table or video poker player for every £100 you stake you get 10 comp points.  If you’re a slots player you get 30 comp points per £100 wagered.  So for every £1,000 spent on slots you get £3 back and if you spent it on table, card or video poker you would get £1.

In addition to this there are twice monthly targets for earning Comp points, if you hit them you are awarded an additional bonus.  For example, earn 50 comp points and Betfair will credit you with £5, earn 5000 comp points and receive £500 in bonuses!  There are of course levels in between and each has a catchy name such as Las Vegas or Monaco.

Moving on to the Betfair weekly calendar:

The Monday Kick Start – At the moment this is for slots players, listed on the website are a variety of slots games, should you play them and end up more than £200 in profit or with a more than £200 loss Betfair will give you a £20 bonus.  Compounds your winnings if you’re lucky, but also gives you a small boost should you not have done so well.  Shame being this bonus only kicks in if youre £200 up or down, there’s no middle ground!

Community Tuesdays – There’s £500 to be shared out to everyone in the casino, the catch is that it could be at any point during the day and if it’s a point where there are 1000 people in the casino your share would be a paltry 50p!  However as it is a random time, you could be the only one logged in and in this case you would walk away with it all!

Winning Wednesdays – If you’re a slots player then Betfair really know how to look after you as their Winning Wednesday promotion is aimed at players who win the £1,000 jackpots on a selection of their slots games.  Should you be lucky enough to hit the jackpot, betfair will DOUBLE your win, but only for the first three winners each day, so be quick.

Fill Up Thursdays – If you’re going to have a bad day at the tables, make sure it’s a Thursday as you will receive 20% of your losses back as a bonus on Thursdays, think of it as a helping hand for when things aren’t going too well.

50% Friday – As mentioned in the bonus section your first deposit on a Friday will be matched to a value of 50%.

Not content with all of the above promotions?  Then each month there is a new promotion such as double comp points on certain games which can help you earn extra cash a lot quicker, check the website each month for new promotions.

Promotions Score: 9/10

Something for everyone, especially if slots are you’re game!

Choice of Games

Betfair have 192 games listed on download casino and 151 on their instant play casino, this is far more than the average person would every play but it’s nice to have a choice isn’t it!  There are the classic casino games like Roulette and Blackjack and of course the modern slots such as Marvel Superheroes but what really sets Betfair Casino out from the crowd is the Zero Lounge.

Zero Lounge

As mentioned at the top of the article the phrase “The house always wins” is no longer relevant!  The entire house edge has been eradicated, this can easily be seen in games such as Roulette where the Zero (0) has been eliminated and instead of the traditional Red and black you now have blue and white.  The Zero Lounge pays out 100% of all money coming into it and Betfair make no profit at all.  In fact in some territories they have actually made a loss due to savvy players who know how to take advantage of this system.

Betfair may be very generous, but they’re not stupid, they realise that with unlimited funds you could never lose with a zero house edge.  So they introduced table limits, the minimum outside bet is £1 and the maximum is £10, so no complex martingale systems can be used here.  As always though there are systems and strategies that can be used to capitalize on the situations.

The games in the Zero lounge as stated have no edge, the ways in which this is achieved are outlined below:

• Zero Baccarat - In Zero Blackjack the commission taken on winning banker bets is only 2.75% instead of the standard 5% commission rate on the game resulting in a 100.0% (correct to one decimal place) expected return on Banker bets in the game.
• Zero Blackjack – Instead of the industry standard 1.5x payout for blackjacks in Zero Lounge you earn 2x payout!  You can also construct a “Five Card Charlie” where a 5 card 21 will be paid at a rate of 2x.  So using Blackjack Basic Strategy you should over time receive a 100% return on investment.
• Zero Jacks or Better – Not quite as good as Blackjack or Roulette however the payout for a Royal Flush with 5 coins is 4880, which is 22% higher than the standard Jacks or Better payout of 4000. Expected player return on zero Jacks or Better (using perfect strategy) is 100.0%
• Zero Roulette – As stated above the zero is gone! Which makes outside bets truly 50/50!

Choice Score: 10/10

Truly excellent choice, plus the addition of the Zero Lounge makes for full marks.

Free Play

Most of the games in the casino you can “Try before you buy” and you can even try before joining up by entering your email address and date of birth, Betfair will then send you a verification email which you need to click on before being allowed to play for fun.

Free Play Score: 10/10

Ability to test the games before signing up to the casino.

Deposit Options

	DEPOSITS			WITHDRAWALS
Method	Minimum	Processing	Fees	Minimum	Processing	Fees
	£10	Instant	Free	Any	2-5 working days	Free
	£10	Instant	1.5%	Any	2-5 working days	Free
	£10	Instant	1.5%	Any	2-5 working days	Free
	£10	Instant	Free (if issued in U.K.)	Any	2-5 working days	Free
	£5	Instant	1.5%	£1	Max 24 hours	Free
	£12	Instant	Free (promo period)	£2	Max 24 hours	Free
	£10	Instant	Free	Any	Max 24 hours	Free
	£10	Max 1 hour	Free (promo period)	n/a	n/a	n/a
	£10	same day	Ask your bank	£10	next day	£6
	£10	3 working days	Ask your bank	£10	3-5 working days	Free
	£10	Max 16 hours	Vary	n/a	n/a	n/a
	£10	7-10 working days	Free	£10	Sent next day	Issued Free

Deposit Options score: 8/10

All the big options are there, although Betfair lose points for charging fees on Credit Cards an Paypal!

Player Support

Extensive searchable FAQ section, and if you can’t find the options you need there you can use the contact form on the website.  There is also a very active friendly (usually!) community where other users and Betfair customer services can answer any questions you may have.  You can also chat to others in real time whilst playing casino.  The obvious way to make the player support better would be to offer a freephone customer service helpline.

Player support score: 7/10

Fairly comprehensive and the community is a good added extra.

Security

Betfair take player security seriously and  use internationally recognised ISO and PCI-DSS security standards to ensure your details are safe.  Betfair also advertise that your money once deposited is always kept separate from the accounts which payouts are made from, so should some shrewd bettor take them to the cleaners your cash is never at risk.

Security score: 7/10

More information on the integrity of games would have made for a higher score.

Summary

In summary Betfair Casino impressed me most with the Zero lounge when it was introduced years ago, and I have been playing Blackjack there for small stakes (because of the table limits) ever since.  To be honest until I wrote this review I didn’t actually realise just how many games were actually hosted by the casino.  I regularly take advantage of the 50% Fridays promotions.  If only I could go back and take advantage of the new player bonuses!

Overall Score: 9/10

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Discover first-class online casino gambling at 888.com with more bonus giveaways, promotions, and events than at any other casino online! From the free casino download to the amazing ultra-realistic, industry-acclaimed 3D software you will find a play experience like no other.

Bonus Money

Welcome Bonus

Instantly double your first deposit with 888′s 100% immediate Welcome Bonus up to £100. For example, deposit £100 and play with £200. Because the bonus is instant you can head straight to the tables and enjoy a few games on 888!

Monthly Bonus

Happy Hours - On the last day of each month at 888 there are special Happy Hour events between 7pm and 9pm where extra bonus money can be claimed, simply deposit an amount over £60 and and claim an extra 10% on your deposit up to a maximun of £60.  In essence giving you an extra £60 bonus a month, totaling £720 for the year!

Bonus Score: 8/10

With an annual bonus of £820 this can be played into some serious free cash!

Promotions

365 Free Spins – 888.com have numerous promotions ongoing at any one time.  The current big promotion is 365 Free Spins to win £1,000,000, that’s ONE MILLION pounds!  This is a clever ploy to get you to visit the casino as often as possible, but with the chance of becoming a millionaire, I’ll take that!  The beauty of this offer is that even if you don’t want to deposit at 888.com you can still play the free spins just by registering at the casino.

Comp points – for every £10 you bet you earn 1 comp point, which is equal to 1p, for every 100 comp points you can convert this to £1.  Not the best comp points promotion on the web, but they can rack up quite quickly.

5th Deposit Bonus – 888 give you bonuses on your 5th, 10th and 15th deposits for example on your 5th Deposit you can get a £25 bonus, on your 10th deposit claim £50 and on your 15th deposit you can claim £75!

Casino Race – On the 5th day of each month 888 hold a Casino Race where you simply play the games you love and the players who accumulate the most comp points win extra prizes with the winner receiving a 1,500 prize!

888 also run a video poker tournament, a roulette tournament, a krazy keno race, a spin city tournament and a blackjack attack competition, all of these designed to allow you to win extra money playing the games you love.

Promotions Score: 8/10

There are some great promotions here to take advantage of, yet most of them are strict in their timings, occurring at specific times during the month which may not be convenient to all.

Choice of Games

888 Casino have over 100 games from classics such as roulette to the very latest branded slots such as Spiderman and Monopoly, you are sure to find something to tickle your fancy either in the download casino or the instant play casino.  You can also gamble in the brilliant Live Casino where real life dealers deal the cards and talk to you, this enhances the playing experience no end.

Choice Score: 8/10

All the classics and more, plus live play.

Free Play

Free play is available at 888.com but you need to have signed up before you can take advantage, which isnt really a problem as such as I would recommend that this is one of the first casinos that you sign up with.

Free Play score: 7/10

Exactly what it says on the tin.

Deposit Options

There are nearly 40 deposit and withdrawal methods available for use at 888, including the most popular.  Credit and Debit cards, Neteller, Moneybookers (now Skrill) and Paypal.  A full list can be found on the website prior to depositing.

Deposit Options score: 10/10

The most comprehensive list of deposit options available.

Player Support

Player support is mostly in the form of a huge Frequently Asked Questions mini site.  I don’t doubt that you will find many of the answers to your questions there, however it isn’t a substitute for speaking to an actual person, either via live chat, phone or skype.  None of these options are easily available even once you are signed into the casino, yet they are there buried within the site should you need them.  This could definitely be improved upon. You can always email support@888.com with any queries.

Player support score: 5/10

Could do better!

Security

888casino is fully certified and strictly regulated by some of the most prestigious governing bodies worldwide including eCogra , TRUSTe, GAMCARE, and more. 888casino has proven its compliance with high standards such as:

• Fair games
• Honest casino operation
• Responsible behaviour towards players
• Safe monetary deposits

Security score: 9/10

Definitely one of the most reputable casinos out there.

Summary

All in all 888 Casino is one of the best on the internet, the player support score drags the total score down, but you should definitely sign up as one of your preferred casinos.

Overall Score: 8/10

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