Coral Review

There is a quick and easy welcome offer promising up to £20.00 in free bets too so how did the sign up process work out?

My Ratings

The Welcome Offer

The first comment I would make is that the welcome offer is a little hard to find. Unlike other bookmakers, the sign up deal is not really highlighted when you log on, although there is a link to another offer from the home page – this is a rotating deal relating to enhanced odds on a current event.

To find the £5.00 get £20.00 welcome deal, you have to click on the offers link and it comes up along with a whole host of other promos.

And from here you can check all the relevant terms and conditions.

So it’s not the biggest welcome bonus around but it is very straightforward. Deposit £5.00, make a bet at 1.50 or longer and get 4 x £5.00 free bets straight away. Sounds good to me so from here, it’s on to sign up.

Registration

There is a button marked ‘join’ at the top right hand edge of the home page so obviously this is the place to start if you are going to open an account here. Having clicked, the following part of the procedure will be very familiar.

The really good thing here is that all the information that you need to input is contained in just one page. Name, address and contact details are all held on that first page before moving on to username, password and other security.

This makes this one of the fastest registration procedures around and it took less than 90 seconds to give Coral everything that they needed.

As you may already know, I like a bookie who takes you straight to funding after registration and that’s exactly what happened.

Funding

Coral Funding

There is a good choice of options when you want to make a credit but be aware that using certain e-Wallets will exclude you from the welcome bonus. To be safe therefore, I chose a debit card as this is one of the methods that are definitely accepted.

Input all the usual details and decide how much to deposit – minimum is £5.00. Having done this it did take about 30 seconds for the process to complete but after that I got a confirmation and the new balance was showing in my account.

With money at your disposal, it’s time to make that qualifying bet.

Placing a Bet

As you’d expect from a long-established bookmaker such as this one, there are lots of choices when it comes to making your first bet. It’s relatively easy to find everything too, with popular events listed at the very top left of the home page but then, if you scroll down below the fold, it’s good to see Coral providing a full A-Z.

Betslip

Remember that your first bet has to be at odds of 1.50 or longer in order to qualify for the welcome offer. I had made my mind up on a punt which came in just above that so it was a good option to test things out. From here, the process is like any other – click on your selection and your betslip opens.

Put in the amount you wish to stake and click the big green button to get it all accepted.

So, with my first bet made, did Coral give me my bonuses as promised?

Bonus Bet

Coral say that your 4 x £5.00 free bets will be made available as soon as you make that qualifying bet and I’m happy to say that they did just that. There was no waiting around for the conclusion of my event and as soon as I went back into the markets to make a second punt, it was obvious that the freebies were there.

If you wish to use a freebie at this point, click on the dropdown menu, type £5 into the stake box and you’re done. A really quick and simple process here.

Support

FAQs

Click on the help button and you just get the list of Frequently Asked Questions. I don’t know about anyone else but I don’t really have the patience for these and often I can’t find my answer anyway!

The other options include a Freephone number from the UK which I didn’t use. You can call up Live Chat and there is an e-mail – all of these have proved to be effective but it would be good to see them more prominently displayed.

Conclusion

Trust is important when you sign up with any bookmaker and the fact that Coral celebrated their 90th birthday in 2016 is important. But in this competitive market you need more than just a name and your markets, offers and odds need to be strong.

Overall this was very positive for me: the sign up process was among the quickest so far and it’s great that your free bets appear as soon as your qualifying bet is made. The choice of markets is sound, there are competitive odds and one of the best ranges of ongoing promos around so I’m definitely on board with Coral for the long term!