888 is the type of casino which you’ll either love or hate. It’s rustic, it’s simple and compared to many of today’s modern operators it lacks quite a lot of qualities. However, what’s missing in some areas is totally made up by an enormous amount of promotional offers. It’s a true paradise for bonus hunters and no matter if you prefer spinning the video slot reels or taking on the charming live casino dealers in a fierce game of roulette or blackjack, you’ll find plenty of bonuses to get you going.
If you like it enough to hang around for a while or tend to bet high, you may also get entry into 888’s VIP club and as a VIP player you’ll receive a first class service, several additional bonus offers and a wide range of other benefits.
On top of this, 888 is one of the pioneers in the casino industry, making them extremely trustworthy. The company has been around since 1997 and throughout the years they’ve received several casino awards, such as being the digital operator of the year 2014 and being the casino operator of the year 2013 and 2015.
Keep on reading the full review and we’ll let you in on all the details you’d like to know about 888, such as the promotions to expect, their game selection, withdrawal times and available payment methods.
Quick Facts
- Company operating for more than 20 years
- About 300 casino games to choose from
- More than 35 of these are jackpot games
- At least one new bonus offer every day
- Plenty of live casino promotions offered
- Three stage loyalty program with high end benefits
- Earn comp points while playing and trade them in for pure cash
- Customer support on live chat, e-mail and phone (1pm – 10pm GMT)
- Withdrawals processed within 3 working days
- Won Gaming Intelligence’s casino operator of the year award 2015
- Won the digital operator of the year award at the 2014 Global Gaming Awards
- Won the casino operator of the year award at the 2013 EGR awards
- Listed on London stock exchange since 2005
- Supporters of International Medical Corps UK – a company delivering emergency healthcare to those affected by conflicts, natural disasters and diseases.
Bonuses at 888 Casino
Promotional offers are without a doubt the big highlight of 888’s casino. It’s what you come there for and it’s also what will make you stay. As a new player you will first of all receive a great welcome offer.
1st deposit with a £20 min deposit with code. The bonus wins capped at £500. The bonus wagering is 30x which its requirement varies per game, and has to be fulfilled within 90 days. This welcome bonus only applies to UK players. Your deposit balance is available for withdrawal at any time.
Withdrawal terms & Full T&C Apply.
Monthly deals
It’s also common to find monthly deals which are offers running on a specific day of each month. This could for instance be free cash raffled out between every player signing in on the first of each month or getting a blackjack bonus on the 21st.
Live casino offers
Speaking of blackjack, 888 casino does an amazing job with live casino offers. There are usually a few different ones running at the same time and more often than not you’re able to combine these with each other.
It could for instance be that a deposit bonus is running at the same time as an offer rewarding you with a bonus every time the number 8 is hit in roulette is. For blackjack it could be that a couple of bonus cards have been thrown into the deck, which will reward you with a bonus if one of them is being dealt to you.
Slot races
In addition to all of the above, video slot fanatics are able to enjoy several different slot races every day, which can reward you with up to 100 free spins or £100 in bonus money. These races are a type of competition between players where your goal is to get the biggest wins on a chosen slot within a certain number of spins and minutes.
The wagering
For most of the offers you’ll find at 888, including the welcome bonus, the wagering requirement is set to 30x the received bonus amount. Not all games do however contribute to the wagering equally, but some are more efficient than others:
Video slots: 100%
Roulette: 20% (normal), 10% (live)
Blackjack: 10% for both normal and live
Video poker: 10%
Loyalty Rewards at 888 Casino
How does being rewarded for every wager that you place, no matter how small or big sound? At 888 Casino you’ll start earning loyalty points from your very first game round and when you’ve collected a total of 150 of these, they can be traded in for £1 in pure cash, without any wagering requirement.
As a standard player it takes £10 to earn 1.5 loyalty points, which means that this program is equal to a 0.01% wagering cash back. This may not sound like much, but having a cash back on your wagering is quite valuable, especially when there are a lot of promotions to go with it.
In addition to the cash back, 888 Casino offers three different VIP levels that high stakes rollers and those that keep coming back are able to reach. With these levels you’ll be able to benefit from a wide range of high end rewards, including but not being limited to the following:
- A VIP welcome offer
- Exclusive promotions that can earn you hi-tech gadget, jewelry, weekend getaways and more
- A weekly appreciation reward
- Invitations to various events such as championships and concerts
- Additional VIP bonuses matching your deposits with extra cash
- Up to 75% higher conversion ratio on loyalty points
- Exclusive VIP support which is always available
- Faster cash outs
You’ll also have a choice to spend your collected loyalty points on a huge selection of products, such as laptops, mobile devices, speakers, watches and much, much more.
Game Selection
There’s no beating around the bush about it – at 888 Casino you won’t find nearly as many games as you do at your average casino. However, unless you’re picky about it, it may still be enough to please you and there are in fact quite a lot of slots that you can’t find anywhere else, which is definitely a big plus.
You’ll currently find about 250 games to spin the reels on with around 60 of these being exclusive releases and 35 of them having a sweet jackpot to get your hands on. With NetEnt, Quickspin, Big Time Gaming and Scientific Games all being developers part of the selection, you can be certain to find a lot of player favorites while exploring the slots that no other casino has ever offered.
With table games the choice is much closer to industry standards and if this is your cup of tea you won’t be disappointed. All of the usual fun is there, such as Roulette, Blackjack, Casino Hold’em, Caribbean Stud, Oasis Poker and Red Dog. For the first two mentioned games you’ll also find a couple of special versions like Deal Or No Deal Roulette and Blackjack where both of the dealer’s cards are visible at once.
A live casino is of course also available at 888, meaning that many of the above table games can be enjoyed in an authentic environment. This experience is provided by Evolution Gaming and NetEnt, which means that it’s about as good as it can get. You’ll find about 100 different tables that you can choose to sit down at.
To please all of the video poker and keno fanatics, you’ll lastly find a couple of different versions of these games as well, making the overall game selection at 888 Casino a decent one.
Design
Visiting 888 Casino you’ll quickly notice that it’s all about the black and the green. These are the colors that represent the company’s casino section and they are well incorporated everywhere. It’s quite unusual to find operators with such a dark theme like this, but even though grey areas are being used over black ones, the design is easy on the eyes and you’ll immediately get into it.
Apart from the chat support that strangely enough can only be accessed through the deposit screen and not by clicking “contact us”, there’s no complaining about the navigation – everything is smooth and straight forward. Menus are well structured to the left and pages load fast. Unlike some casinos, there are no disturbing banners or other clutter covering the screen, which makes for a simplistic style that allows you to easily find what you’re looking for without any distraction.
If you prefer playing from your smart phone or tablet, the experience is just as good and perhaps even better if you choose to download one of the mobile apps that 888 casino have specifically developed for iOS and Android.
Payment Methods
Whether you’re a fan of using credit cards, e-wallets or paysafecards bought at your nearest 7-eleven, 888 Casino got you well covered. Except for Trustly, they offer all of the most popular payment methods, including the following ones:
- Mastercard
- Visa
- Neteller
- Skrill
- PayPal
- Paysayfe
- iDebit
- Entropay
- Wire transfer
It should be noted that the minimum deposit you can make is set to £20, whereas the maximum one is £10,000.00 for a single transaction.
Withdrawals
While 888 Sport got bragging rights on promotional offers, their withdrawal times are somewhat of a letdown in the current state of the industry and patience here is definitely a virtue. Once a cash out has been requested, normal players can expect this to be processed within 3 working days. For those that are VIPs, it’s a bit faster as these withdrawals are usually handled within 24 hours.
As always, it’s important to know that a verification process will take place at some point as part of anti-money laundering laws and fraud policies that the casino has to oblige to. You can choose to do this at any point and usually the documents requested of you are a photo copy of an ID and a photo copy of a bill or something similar proving your address.
Customer Support
When it comes to getting the assistance you need, 888 Casino has a friendly team of agents that will happily support you between 1pm and 10pm GMT. You can either reach them by e-mail, call them by phone or write to them on their live chat – if you’re able to find the contact page that is.
It’s important to note that every button or link that says “contact us” will only lead to an e-mail form and if you’d like to find the live chat or number to call them on you have to visit the cashier. Within this there is a help section that can open up a live chat and provide you with several regional phone numbers to reach the support on.
Conclusion
With a limited amount of video slots, long withdrawal times and a customer support that’s only available for 9 hours each day, 888 Casino may seem a bit outdated compared to many of its competitors.
They do however have a couple of important strengths that compensate for a lot of the down sides, such as an amazing selection of bonus offers and a loyalty program that rewards everyone. Not to mention the wide range of rewards that high stakes players are able to benefit from.
With an additional live casino that’s just as good as anywhere else and as many as 60 exclusive slots, this could very well be enough to make a visit to 888 Casino well worth considering. Definitely so if trustiness is on top of your priority list as 20 years of being in the industry and receiving several awards should give them quite a lot of credibility.
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