Coral Review

Coral is one of the most-popular UK betting shops, probably
third in line behind Paddy Power and Betfred. Coral has that
rare quality that I like in a sportsbook – well-financed and
backed by businessmen in a major world city. It’s a nice time to
visit Coral, as they’ve been pushing to change the site for the
better over the past few years, adding new features, polishing
off their game library, and creating easy-to-earn bonuses to
drive new traffic.

Overview

When Gala Coral merged with Coral Eurobet in 2005, Coral
rocketed to its current place in the pantheon of UK bookmakers
and gambling sites. Today the group operates more than 1,800
betting shops and kiosks as well as the popular mobile- and
desktop-only services available at Coral Online.

Though Coral still offers a download suite, instant play and
mobile games are more popular these days, and it looks like
Coral is moving in the direction of getting rid of the download
option entirely. Their mobile site, while available in a limited
variety on Windows, Apple, and Android tablets and smartphones,
still needs some work if it’s going to be competitive with the
top mobile platforms in the industry.

How do I feel about Coral’s various
online gambling options?

Let’s Start With Some Good Features – Reasons to Consider
Opening an Account at Coral:

• Coral is licensed by two of the world’s top gaming
  authorities

Holding a license from either the UK or
Gibraltar would be worth bragging about – the fact that Coral
holds a license from both of them is even more impressive. I
know more than a few gamblers who don’t spend time considering a
site’s licensure, but I think it’s important. For starters, if
you have an issue with the site and you need to make an official
dispute, you’re out of luck with a site that’s licensed in Costa
Rica or Panama. Licensure from places like Gibraltar and the UK
means added legitimacy and easier access to regulators should
you need to go that route.

• Casinomeister lists Coral Casino as “accredited.”

If you aren’t familiar with Casinomeister.com and you gamble on
the Internet, you need to get with the program. Brian Bailey and
staff have been blacklisting and accrediting gambling sites for
nearly two decades, and they work hard to right the wrongs done
by rogue sites. A listing as “accredited” by Bailey et al is a
good sign of a site’s legitimacy and willingness to correct
mistakes. The fact that Casinomeister gives Coral a high rating
(8.4 out of 10) is further sign that this is one of the top
all-in-one sites in all of the UK.

• The sportsbook provides a comprehensive set of
  markets

This is to be expected of a top-rated UK
bookmaker. I cover the sportsbook in greater detail below, but
suffice it to say that if you have the desire to bet on a sport,
pro or amateur, you’re likely to find it available at Coral.
When you consider this along with the fact that Coral has one of
the best-looking and most functional betting interfaces that
I’ve reviewed this year, it’s clear that sports bettors with
access to the site will be impressed with the book’s coverage,
functionality, and design.

Now For Some Stuff I Didn’t Like Too Much About Coral –
Consider These Reasons That May Make You Not Want to Join:

• Coral has a limited number of boring bonuses

When I heard that Coral was working hard to interest potential
customers in opening new accounts, I figured I’d find a long
list of cool bonuses tailor to meet the needs of a variety of
gamblers.

Look at that list above – do those look anything like the
bonuses found at sites like Paddy Power or Betfred?

No – the bonus amounts are small, some of the wager
requirements are higher than they should be for such small
amounts, and I’m not sure that you can even call that poker
offer a “welcome bonus.” I’m not one to chase bonuses, but if I
was, I wouldn’t be enticed by the current available promotions.

• The site’s small casino game library was designed
  entirely by Playtech

204 games is not an acceptable
number in an industry where some sites have 500 or more titles
available. As for the software – I’m not a huge Playtech fan,
and I’m really not a fan of single-designer libraries. I can
think of two companies that produce more interesting games than
Playtech – NetEnt and Betsoft – and I don’t think it would have
been that hard for Coral to cut the kind of deal with Playtech
that allows them to add a few games from other platforms.

I cover the casino games in more detail below.

• Coral doesn’t allow bets from anywhere in North
  America

In fact, the site is open to a limited number
of bettors, mostly in Western and Northern Europe. I understand
that this isn’t a big deal to some people – those living in
Europe, mostly – but to me and to the gamblers I know, not being
open to American wagers is a deal-breaker.

Bonus Details

• Bet $5, Get $20

  All new depositors who deposit $5 or
  more are eligible for a free $20 sportsbook wager. This
  bonus carries no wagering requirement – the $20 free wager
  must be used within seven days of signing up.

• Casino Welcome Bonus

  First-time depositors can earn a
  $50 bonus by depositing $10 or more. This bonus carries a
  24x bonus wager requirement.

• Poker Welcome Bonus

  All new depositors who intend to
  play poker can earn $20 in free tournament tickets just for
  making a deposit of $5 or more.

• Bingo Welcome Bonus

  First-time bingo customers can earn
  a 300% deposit match bonus worth up to $15, provided they
  deposit a minimum of $5. This bonus carries with it an 8x
  bonus wager requirement, and the bonus must be activated
  within seven days of your first qualifying deposit.

• Mobile Bonus

  In order to entice customers to try their
  revamped mobile presence, Coral is offering first-time
  mobile customers a $25 bonus for depositing $10 or more. The
  wager requirement (24x bonus) must be met by playing mobile
  games.

Banking Options

This Table Shows the Site’s Deposit Options and the Required
Minimum Deposit Size:

This Table Shows the Site’s Withdrawal Options and the
Minimum Withdrawal Amount:

Currency Support at Coral Includes:

• British pounds sterling
• US dollars
• Hong Kong dollars
• Swedish kronor

Sportsbook

Coral has been operating in the sports betting industry since
well before the Second World War. Though the site was late
getting into the online industry, missing the initial boom by
nearly a decade, they’ve done an adequate job playing catch-up,
operating one of the most popular online books in the UK while
amassing an empire of brick and mortar shops across Europe.

Thirty-Two Markets Are Available For Wagers in Coral’s
Sportsbook:

Not only is this one of the longer lists of available markets
I’ve seen, it includes some intriguing obscure markets alongside
the more popular European sports – football, US football, golf,
tennis, hockey, and basketball. Coverage for sports like
Hurling, Gaelic sports, Snooker, and Fishing are evidence of the
site’s UK heritage – yes, you can wager on major US sports
year-round, but clearly the markets listed above are an
indicator of the site’s European heritage.

Five sports are now available for live in-play betting:
football, golf, tennis, basketball, and cricket. I found the
live coverage disappointing, and I had a devil of a time getting
a consistent stream to play, though in the site’s defense, I
probably wasn’t watching at peak traffic times, and mid-summer
is the worst time of year in terms of professional sports. It’s
likely the coverage would be different on a different day.

A racebook is also maintained on-site, but coverage is
limited to European tracks, and most of those are in the United
Kingdom. No special welcome offers are made for racebook
customers, and no coverage for greyhound races is available.

The Casino

204 games – all Playtech designs–make up the casino library
at Coral. I’ve written already above about how bored I get when
playing at all-in-one sites that build their casino library out
of a pool of games by a single designer. The lack of real
variety in the various categories below should speak better to
that point than anything else I can say.

Table Games

At my last count, thirty-five games made up the “Table Games”
category at Coral. Playtech sites tend to do this, lumping a ton
of disparate games under the “Table” heading, even though the
collection itself is a jumbled mess of games that don’t have
much to do with one another.

Rather Than List All the Games, I’ll Give You a Sampling of
What You’ll Find Under This Heading:

• 3 Card Brag – based on a traditional British card game
  which is an ancestor of modern poker
• Baccarat – the casino classic game of comparing two
  hands
• Caribbean Stud – a house-banked version of classic
  five-card stud
• Casino holdem – a house-banked version of Texas holdem
• Craps – the classic dice game
• Pai Gow Poker – a poker game based on an ancient Chinese
  game using dominoes
• Red Dog – a poker-like card game involving hand
  hierarchies
• Sic Bo – a dice game mostly popular in Asian casino
  hotspots like Macau
• Stravaganza – a five-deck progressive game similar to
  blackjack
• Tequila Poker – a high-speed poker variant with three
  initial betting options
• VIP Baccarat – a “VIP” treatment of Playtech’s standard
  baccarat game

Slots

I was surprised to find just 103 titles in the slots category
at Coral’s casino – I was sure this was shaping up to be another
site aimed almost exclusively at slots fans.

Playtech has an interesting collection of slot games, ranging
from popular licensed titles to simple classic-style “fruit
machines.” I’m usually more interested in licensed titles, with
their familiar characters, plot lines, and audio and video
effects, not to mention bonus games and higher replay value. But
if you’re into more traditional slot gambling, I counted a
couple of dozen simple “fruit and stars” games available.

Slots are one of the only games that count 100% toward
clearing bonus requirements – even if you don’t like slots,
you’ll likely find yourself playing them a bit to chase some
bonus cash.

Video Poker

Here’s the List of Fifteen Video Poker Variants Now Available
at Coral’s Casino:

• Pick’em Poker
• 10-line Jacks or Better
• 2 Ways Royal
• Aces and Faces 25 Lines
• 4-Line Aces and Faces
• 4-Line Deuces Wild
• 4-line Jacks or Better
• 50-line Jacks or Better
• Aces and Faces
• All American Video Poker
• Deuces Wild
• Jacks or Better
• Joker Poker
• Mega Jacks
• Tens or Better

As a fan of video poker, I was happy to see games like Aces
and Faces, Mega Jacks, and Tens or Better on this list. Too
often, casino websites will host two or three of the
most-popular variants and ignore the wealth of variety that’s
available in video poker rules and payouts.

But I take issue with parts of this list, too – I’m not a fan
of multiple versions of what is essentially the same game being
used to swell the appearance of a library’s size. All those
multi-line versions above are just filler and of little interest
to video poker players. They may as well be cut from the list,
for all the use they’re likely to get.

Poker

Coral is a skin on the massive iPoker network. According to
PokerScout, iPoker is regularly one of the top three poker rooms
in terms of traffic. At the time of my review, more than 2,500
players were on the network in cash games. These days, that’s a
big number.

The only games now spread at Coral Poker are Texas holdem and
Omaha – that’s disappointing because of the variety of games
found at other poker sites, including hi-lo and mixed games.

But most poker players are interested in playing one of these
two variants. It’s not such a big deal to most players.

The site runs tons of
large-guaranteed prize pool tourneys. Events like the iPoker
Online Poker Series are household names in the world of online
poker – the iPOPS event alone has a prize pool of more than $3
million. Freeroll tournaments are also numerous and
well-attended, and since the current poker player promotion is
essentially a glorified freeroll ticket, this is really
important for new players.

As for the player interface – it is solid. If you’ve played
at any iPoker or Playtech-powered site before, you’ll recognize
it. Some software just looks old and clunky, but iPoker’s
interface runs smoothly, and I had no difficulty playing on as
many as sixteen tables – the site’s limit.

I especially liked the simple tile/cascade option that will
resize all your tables and put them in the right position at the
push of a button. The auto resize function works best on five or
fewer tables, though it has the capacity to handle up to sixteen
at a time.

One thing I appreciate from a design perspective – the color
scheme of the poker interface matches the simple color scheme of
the site as a whole. This sounds minor, but when you’re flipping
back and forth between the two, it can give you a headache.

Customer Support

I found four ways to contact Coral’s customer support department:

• Internal messaging:

  From your customer
  account, you can send a message to support staff through the
  site’s internal messaging system.

• Live Chat
• Telephone:

  The site’s international
  toll-free number is +44(0) 208 507 5544.

• E-Mail:

  Contact the site at
  help@coral.co.uk

English is the only language you can use to communicate with
customer support.

Summary

Coral is a household name in the few countries where it is
open for business. A sparkling history of customer service,
licensure from two of the world’s top jurisdictions, and more
than a decade in the business make this a reliable and
consistent provider of a wide range of gambling options.

Coral FAQ