Corals Online Sportsbook Review
Coral is one the oldest and most established names in sports betting although is relatively small outside of the UK & Ireland. Its online offering is extremely popular and gains thousands of new customers each year.
The Sportsbook prides itself on providing an enjoyable user experience with a number of bonuses and rewards for those who wager on a regular basis.
Coral tends to put the emphasis on football betting and may be a touch guilty of neglecting other sports, but we found plenty to our liking when we took a closer look.
Getting Started & Signing Up
Like most online sportsbooks Coral don’t make it difficult to sign up to their service. The new customer offers (more on them shortly…) are plastered all over the landing page with the green ‘Join Now’ button in the top right hand corner.
Coral will require some mandatory details and new customers must create a username and password before completing registration. You can also select preferred currency and submit a secret question. Once you’ve submitted all of these, add a payment preference, verify the email and you’re signed up!
Depositing and Withdrawing
There a wealth of deposit options available with Coral. The most popular and highly recommended option is Visa Debit or Credit Card. There is no charge for this and the minimum deposit is just £5/$5.
Mastercard, Skrill, Paypal, Paysafe Card and Neteller are other accepted methods and commonly used.
There appears to be no charge for using any of these at the time of writing.
Unlike most online sportsbooks, Coral allows customers to withdraw as little as £1/$1 from accounts, but this does seem fairly pointless.
Most withdrawals take between 3 & 5 days, which is the average, but can depend on the chosen methods and bank settings.
Money can be moved around between sportsbook wallet and casino wallet.
There is also a responsible gambling page on the Coral website and users can choose to implement their own restrictions.
New Customer Bonus
The Coral Sportsbook bonus offers ALL new customers £20 in FREE bets when they sign up, deposit and bet at least £5. This must be on a selection with odds of 1.50 (1/2) or over.
If you deposit and bet £5, you will receive a £5 free bet. If you deposit and bet £10, you will £10 in free bets. You get the idea…
This is capped at £20 and free bets will arrive in the form of 4 x £5 bets. These are credited to the account straight away.
The first bet must be placed within 14 days of signing up. This is relatively generous considering that rival online sportsbooks offer just a week to take advantage of the bonus. This could be handy if you’re waiting for payday to come around!
If you sign up on the week of a significant football match or sporting occasion, Coral will occasionally offer new customers an alternative sign-up offer. For example – Get 7/1 for Manchester City to beat Stoke when you open a new account. Maximum bet £5.
There is an element of risk involving this bonus as Manchester City MUST win their match, but bonuses will be paid out straight after the final whistle.
Customers will have the option to choose between these bonuses but generally cannot opt in to both.
Other Bonuses and Promotions
There is a dedicated offers page on the Coral website, but most of their current promotions are dotted around the home page already.
These usually come in the form of enhancements for upcoming football matches. Often centred on the Premier League or English teams playing in Europe.
They also have a 5+ Acca Insurance offer which applies to football accumulators and is particularly popular at the weekend.
There aren’t a huge amount of offers focusing on alternative sports although I spotted one or two enhancements on the snooker and Six Nations rugby.
They have various offers geared towards the next big horse racing event including the Cheltenham Festival, Aintree Festival or the St Leger. There are best price guaranteed offers on greyhound races too.
Usability
The Coral website has improved remarkably over the past couple of years although at times still looks a little too cluttered.
There is a lot of detail on the home page which can be a little overwhelming at first.
However, finding the sport and market of your choosing is straightforward and menus load up quickly. The football markets are simple to navigate between and placing a bet in easy. Shortcut pages help save time searching for your favourite sports and this can be tailored to suit individual needs.
The In-Play page is particularly easy to navigate and the option of ‘Live in Play Now’ or ‘Live in Play Later’ is a welcome addition and a handy way of planning bets throughout the day.
The interface is decent and the colour scheme is relatively easy-on-the-eye. The busy-ness can be difficult to come to terms with at first, but once your eyes have adapted, it’s soon forgotten about!
Markets and Odds
Coral definitely prioritises football and the majority of their headline offers will relate to this. Horse Racing is another of their key priorities and they offer a decent selection of enhancements and specials on a number of big events within the sport.
It isn’t just sports. Politics, lotto and TV specials are all offered on the Coral website although these aren’t as extensive as some of their rival sportsbooks.
There are plenty of sports offered and can be found in the A-Z of sports list on the left hand side of the website. Aussie Rules, Motorsports, Golf and Hurling are all options available.
Some of these markets have the tendency to be limited and if you’re a fan of betting on Ice Hockey, Basketball or Lacrosse, you may be better looking elsewhere.
The odds provided by the sportsbook are always competitive and offer decent value to punters. They can’t be described as ‘outstanding’, but you won’t be losing any value betting with Coral.
The horse racing markets are plentiful with every UK and Irish race priced up and plenty of ante-post markets and offers on forthcoming festivals.
If you are predominantly a football punter, Coral should be one of your first destinations as there are hundreds of markets on every game from the top leagues throughout Europe. Several enhancements will be available on games in the Champions League, Premier League and major International tournaments.
It’s clear that Coral sportsbook largely target football punters and they cater perfectly for their needs.
Other Features
Coral Radio
Coral Radio allows customers to listen to live audio commentary of all UK and Irish horse racing meetings for FREE. There are also sports commentaries offered. It’s available through the website.
Streaming
Coral have recently improved their Live Streaming service to compete with rival sportsbooks. It is available through PC, Tablet and Mobile. It boasts over 2,000 live events each week which includes football from the Eredivisie, La Liga and the increasingly popular MLS. There are tennis tournaments from both the ATP & WTA tours as well as Snooker, Darts and Volleyball.
The streams are high quality and are available to any customer with a positive balance in their account.
Horse Racing and Greyhounds are also available in streaming for any customer who places a bet to the value of £1 or greater on the race.
In-Play Betting
The In-Play console is very impressive and extremely simple to navigate. There are hundreds of events available at any one time with markets being updated quickly and efficiently. Cash-Out is also available on the majority of pre-match or In-Play bets which is handy if things are going your way!
Mobile and App
There isn’t too much to say about the Mobile and App offerings. They are easy to download, straightforward and we didn’t come across any problems or glitches when using it. Placing a bet is quick and the menus are simple to navigate which is ideal for those betting on the move.
The Bet Slip is easy to customise and users can add their own quick links to the app in order to speed up the betting process.
Customer Support
If customers are suffering issues with the Coral sportsbook, there are plenty of options available to them. First of all, a huge list of FAQ are available and easily accessible on the website. Make sure you have your reading glasses at the ready as it’s extensive!
Phone-lines are available and manned for the majority of the day. Coral often schedule a call-back to save customers wasting time on hold. This is a nice touch.
There is also a live chat and email service which are both fairly efficient.
Coral’s online sportsbook is an established name in a crowded market and is one of the best options for football and horse racing bettors. They have a decent offering of markets and odds but are perhaps lacking in more obscure sports, however they are constantly improving the service. The offers are plentiful and promotions regular and they certainly look after their customer base. If you can look beyond the slightly busy design of the website, using Coral Sportsbook is an enjoyable experience.