Betfred Casino Review

While we’re seeing a rising number of new casino brands enter the competitive iGaming market, there are some companies whose operations have stood the considerable test of time.

Take the iconic Betfred brand, for example, which was founded back in 1967 and is currently established as the largest independent bookmaker in the UK. It was back in 2005 that the operator entered the iGaming space, in order to supplement its 840 betting shops across the length and breadth of the country.

As you can imagine, Betfred’s online casino has also won several awards since its inception more than 13 years ago, including the coveted ‘Casino of the Decade’ prize. Last year, the operator was also voted the winner of the Annual Playtech Award for 2018, which rewards brands that successfully utilise the software houses’ various games and features.

Betfred is also widely considered to be one of the most socially aware and responsible iGaming brands, both in terms of its treatment of players and charitable endeavours. It recently donated all profits made from over-the-counter bets made during the Cheltenham Festival to the iMRU appeal, with more than £1.25 million banked on the very first day!

All-in-all, Betfred remains an enduringly popular online casino, and one that holds an iconic place in the iGaming market. We’ll explore this further in the review below whilst asking whether or not it’s right for you.

“The best company I've used in a long time. Fair, good chances of winning in Casino games and they treat me very well as a customer”.

Getting Started with Games and Bonuses

If you’re new to the world of online gambling, one of the first things that you’ll do is compare the market to identify the best real-time promotional offers. This is easier said than done in the current market, however, especially with so many brands competing for the attention of customers.

Betfred certainly offers a competitive range of promotions, including a generous welcome bonus that features a noticeably low minimum deposit.

But what exactly can you expect from Betfred’s full range of promotions, and what terms and conditions are associated with these?

What’s in the Betfred Casino Welcome Bonus?

Let’s start with the Betfred welcome casino offer, which is presented as a 100% match on all deposits of between £5 and £100. This means that the promotion has a maximum value of £200 in total, while this is automatically available to all new players when they register for an account.

This bonus offer is also a little more accessible than others in the marketplace, as players can qualify by making a minimum deposit of just £5. The standard threshold for most promotional offers is £10, so it’s possible to capitalise on Betfred's casino bonus with only a small amount of playing capital.

Slot players can also benefit from a targeted welcome offer that rewards them with 50 free spins when they credit their account with a minimum of £10. These spins can be used across 16 slot games in total, including Age of Gods, Frankie Dettori’s Magic Seven Jackpot and Stars Awakening.

You’ll just need to remember that these free spins must be claimed within three days from the date that they were added to your account, while you’ll also need to play through a minimum five game rounds to withdraw any funds or winnings.

Don't forget to compare Betfred with other casinos for other great UK Casino Welcome Bonuses.

Are there any other Promotions Available?

While Betfred’s welcome offer should serve as a considerable incentive to new players, the brand has also earned a reputation for taking care of its existing customers.

Loyal patrons can always access a diverse range of promotional offers through the site, many of which are topically relevant and available for a limited period of time. Take the current Grand National Free Spins Accumulator, for example, which is available until 7th April and rewards player with one free spin for every £10 that they stake (up to the value of £300).

Then there’s the popular Tuesday Lossback promotion, which is an opt-in bonus available to players who stake £10 or more in The Great Revival. Through this promotion, players whose luck fails to hold will receive 25% of their losses back up to the value of £5 and this cash will be added to their account within 24 hours.

For the high-rollers amongst you, there’s also the tantalising 10 Million Blackjack promotion to get your teeth into. Simply transfer your cash into chips and launch the game, before staking between £1 and £10 and making a hand of six cards or more (without busting, of course!). If you’re lucky, you could win up to 1,000,000-times your stake up to a life-changing £10 million.

Betfred Casino Welcome Bonus Terms and Conditions

Some people say that the best things in life are free, but these individuals have clearly never frequented an online casino. Make no mistake; all welcome bonuses are subject to a handful of strict terms and conditions, and the Betfred promotion is no exception to this rule.

The Betfred welcome offer is subject to wagering requirements of 40-times the value of the deposit bonus, for example, meaning that players must stake a fixed sum of cash before they can make a withdrawal. The actual bonus itself is also “sticky”, meaning that it can never be withdrawn and will be removed from your account once the wagering requirements have been met.

Specific game weightings also apply here, while there’s a maximum bet allowed of 20% the bonus received. So, if you deposit £50 and have £100 credited to your account, you’ll be able to play with £25 in the pursuit of sizeable jackpot wins.

In order to take advantage of the 50 free spins welcome offer, it’s important to note that there are several restrictions placed on depositing cash. More specifically, customers who credit their account using a prepaid credit card (Visa or Mastercard) or an e-wallet will not be eligible for the promotion. You can read on below to see what other payment options are available.

What Games are Available to Players?

At first glance, it appears as though Betfred does not offer the most expansive games’ library on the market. In total, there are 192 games available through the desktop platform, including more than 120 slots and 31 iterations of blackjack and roulette.

However, there’s more to this selection than initially meets the eye. There’s an impressive 53 slot jackpot games, for example, which provide ample opportunity for players can claim large and progressive prizes. The majority of these have been provided by Playtech, who have also developed the software for the operator’s downloadable and instant play casino sites.

While the slot selection may be relatively small, the diversity of titles is immense as is the range of low and high variance games. This includes the incredibly popular marvel slots (The Incredible Hulk, Fantastic Four and Iron Man 2 to name just a few), King Kong and the progressive Gladiator Jackpot.

The site’s live casino also offers exceptional value to players, with more than 33 real-time iterations of blackjack, baccarat and online live roulette available. There’s also a handful of live dealer poker games available, including 3 Card Brag, Casino Hold ‘em and Hi-Lo, while the exclusive Betfred Lounge features high-stakes versions of blackjack and roulette for the high-rollers amongst you.

Is there a Mobile Version of the casino?

Through its continued partnership with software house Playtech, Betfred launched a mobile version of its casino back in January, 2013. This instant play platform, which could be accessed through a mobile browser, featured 20 of the casino’s most popular table and slot games while laying the foundations for further innovation in the future.

In the subsequent five years, Betfred’s mobile casino has continued to evolve and now offers in excess of 100 games to its customers. This ever-expanding range includes bingo and live dealer experiences, which sit alongside a larger selection of slots and immersive lotto games.

The operator has also launched separate application for iOS and Android devices, and anyone who access the befred.mobi platform will automatically be directed to their relevant app store. The former app requires iOS 9.0 later, while it’s compatible with the iPhone 5s and above and will require 133.1 MB of available storage space.

The latter app requires your smartphone or tablet to run on Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean) and up, although it only commands 27 MB of internal memory. We’ve summarised this information below, and be sure to double check the requirements before completing a download.

Available to play over 3G, 4G or Wi-Fi connections, Betfred’s mobile casino all offer an immersive live gaming experience that’s powered by Playtech and features several jackpot games. This serves as a continuation of the operator’s desktop live casino, by providing authentic and interactive games with extremely high quality graphics.

“Flawless game play with excellent interactive games and fast payouts with no fees or limits. The mobile version is also exceptional!”

What Payment Options and Currencies are Available?

When registering with any online casino brand, one of your first considerations will be how easy it is to credit your account or make a withdrawal.

While Betfred don’t necessarily lead the way in this respect, they do offer a healthy range of payment options and minimal restrictions when it comes to limits. At the time of writing, they’re also one of the few operators to still allow deposits by cheque, which is a huge positive if you don’t have access to e-wallet payment solutions.

Below, we’ll review the full range of payment options available while appraising the average transaction times.

What’s the Maximum Withdrawal?

While some operators are looking to impose more stringent withdrawal limits in the modern age, Betfred have bucked this trend completely by removing all restrictions when players transfer cash out of their account.

Not only is there no withdrawal limit at Betfred, but players can also access eight different payment solutions when transferring their winnings. These include the aforementioned cheque and the traditional bank transfer, along with credit and debit card options such as Maestro, Visa and Visa Electron.

Betfred also allows players to withdraw funds using PayPal, alongside similar e-wallets like Neteller and Skrill. The good news is that these allow for the quickest transactions, with most electronic withdrawals taking between 24 and 48 hours to complete.

In contrast, credit and debit card transactions will take between two and five days to process, while bank transfers will be completed within five working days. If you do aim to withdraw your funds by cheque, Betfred aim to deliver within a period of between seven and 14 working days.

What’s the Minimum Deposit?

We spoke earlier about the Betfred welcome bonus, which is available to all players who initially credit their account with £5 or more. This is indicative of a relatively low and competitive minimum deposit, which should appeal to newcomers and casual players alike.

There’s also a wide and diverse range of options available when crediting your account, with 11 separate methods currently accessible to players. Once again, these include cheque and bank wire transfer, along with credit and debit cards such as Maestro, MasterCard, Visa and Visa Electron.

In terms of e-wallets, you can complete deposits using Neteller, PayPal, Ukash and Skrill, although this is not a viable option if you want to qualify for the welcome bonus. Similarly, you can’t use a prepaid Visa or Mastercard to credit your account, and this may be off-putting for players who are looking to control their wagering.

However, almost all of these payment options allow you to complete instant deposits, aside from bank transfer and cheque which can take up to five and seven working days to process respectively.

”To start with, Betfred Casino is one of my favourite casinos because it offers a wide variety of games, powered by Playtech. The payment options are great too; with really quick withdrawal times.”

What Currencies can you use?

Betfred remains one of the world’s most loved and iconic iGaming brands, having blazed a trail for others to follow since its inception in 2005. As a result, it allows players to wager in a number of different currencies, aside from staple options including the Euro and British pound.

These include Australian, Canadian, Hong Kong and New Zealand dollars, along with Icelandic kroner, Japanese yen, Malaysian ringgits, Norwegian kroner, Thai baht and even the South African rand.

Betfred User Experience

As you’d expect from such an experienced and established iGaming brand, Betfred has also worked tirelessly over the years to constantly improve the user experience that it provides. Even a fundamental level, the casino has been optimised to respond intuitively to different devices and platforms, while you can also leverage instant play and downloadable software according to your circumstances.

This approach is also reflected in the range of betting limits on offer, which enables both casual and serious players an opportunity to identify the games that best suit their outlooks. Not only this, but Betfred has also introduced a maximum payout of £500,000 per single wager, which is more than double the threshold announced by 888 Sport, Coral and BetVictor.

Betfred also offers an exceptional VIP club, which is available to frequent and high-rolling players who amass a certain amount of comp points. This loyalty program offers several benefits to players, including 24/7 mobile support, a dedicated account manager and increased table limits.

Their VIP membership also offers players access to exclusive competitions and faster e-wallet withdrawals (as the pending time for transactions is minimised). You may even be rewarded with race-day passes, and this is just one example of how the Betfred brand continually goes above and beyond to enhance their users’ experiences.

What Game Providers are here?

While all of the usual suspects provide a healthy number of games to the Betfred casino, the operator has also integrated software from several up-and-coming developers.

In total, 18 software houses are represented in the Betfred games’ library, including the aforementioned and market leading Playtech.

IGT (WagerWorks) also provide a large number of slot games, from low variance favourites like to The Leprechaun King to progressive jackpot titles such as MegaJackpots Cleopatra (which once paid out £1.2 million on a single £2 stake). Blueprint Gaming and Microgaming are also well-represented on the site, through titles like Jungle Jackpots and Hellboy.

In terms of less well-known development teams, 1by2 Gaming provides four low variance slots to Betfred, while High5, Merkur and Ash Gaming also contribute several of the site’s most popular titles. Yggdrasil Gaming is also becoming an increasingly prominent Betfred partner, and one that will continue to add new titles in the months and years to come.

How Easy is the Site to Navigate?

Whether you’re playing through Betfred’s desktop or mobile casino site, you can rest assured that the operator has invested considerable amounts in creating a fully-functional website that’s easy to navigate.

To begin with, the Betfred Casino has developed using responsive design principles, meaning that it intuitively adapts to different screen sizes and resolutions depending on the device that you’re using. This means that when you click-through to the home page, you’ll instantly be greeted by a prominent horizontal menu that runs along the top of the page and lists the site’s various gaming platforms.

If you were to hover offer the “casino” heading, you’ll quickly access a further drop-down menu that lists different gaming genre. This makes it incredibly easy to access slots, table games or the Betfred live casino, while the menu also includes a convenient search function that allows you to search for specific titles directly.

The site also follows the tried-and-tested ideal of featuring its various bonus offers above the fold on the home page, with each option scrolling horizontally as your browse the casino. If you scroll down, you can also access the site’s most popular games across different genres, and once logged in it can take just two or three clicks to start playing!

What’s the Instant Play Feature Like?

Arguably, Betfred’s instant play platform is the most popular amongst customers, particularly on the desktop device. This typically allows for quicker loading times for landing pages and specific games, while it also negates the need to download any software onto your device.

However, you’ll need to have the right software and device requirements if you’re to get the most out of your Betfred Casino experience. At the very least, you’ll need to have Flash Player 11.3 or above installed and enabled on your device, but you may also need to ensure that you’re using an adequate browser to surf the site.

Windows Vista and XP users will need to use Internet Explore 6.0 or above, for example, while those of you with a Mac should access Betfred through either Safari 1.x or Safari 2.x (depending on whether you on the v10.1 or v10.4 platform respectively).

The site also recommend that your broadband boasts a minimum speed of 512kpbs to access the live casino platform, although even a significantly slower speed should enable you to enjoy basic slot and table games at Betfred. However, if you’re using an outdated, 56kbps dial-up connection, you’d probably struggle to maintain a regular connection.

What Type of Return is Available to Players?

We touched earlier on the betting limits available through Betfred, but it’s also important to review the casino’s average return-to-player (RTP) rate. Not only this, but you’ll also need to check the RTP rate associated with each individual title, which you can find through a specific game’s help file on the Betfred site.

The good news is that Betfred’s games’ library has been externally tested by an independent third-party, to determine the functionality, fairness and transparency of the titles on offer. This has found that Betfred boasts an average RTP rate of between 95% and 96% across all of its games, which is relatively competitive given the casino’s range of low and high variance games.

Slots continue to dominate the Betfred games’ library, and the vast majority of games in this genre boast a generous RTP rate in excess of 96%. This means that most Betfred slots are low variance in nature, as they generate frequent but relatively modest returns that provide a consistent stream of payouts.

In terms of high variance and jackpot games on Betfred, there are a number of titles in which the RTP rate varies between different rounds. VF’s Adventures in Wonderland game boasts a base game RTP of 86.42%, for example, but this increased to 90.92% with the inclusion of lucrative bonus rounds. You can review the RTP rates for Betfred’s games when you visit the site.

Customer Support with Betfred

If there’s one area in which Betfred holds a competitive advantage over its rivals, it’s the delivery of customer support. In fact, there’s a number of different ways in which you can contact the operator’s customer service team, whether you want to send them a letter or speak with a dedicated representative in real-time.

UK customers can initially make contact by telephone, on the number 08000287747. This is a freephone service that won’t cost you a penny, which definitely earns the operator some bonus points in the current market. Customers from outside the UK can use the telephone number +44(0)1925878269, which should connect them quickly to a helpful adviser.

You can also contact Betfred on a couple of different email addresses, depending on the nature of your query. For general questions, you should send out an email to [email protected], while customers in need of account assistance can make in contact in writing at [email protected]. The average response time is pretty impressive too, with most queries answered within one or two hours of receipt.

On every Betfred landing page, you’ll also notice a “Live Help” icon featured in the bottom left-hand corner. This is accessible 24/7, while it also connects you immediately with a customer service representative. If you have a frequently-asked question that needs resolving, you could also check out Betfred’s detailed FAQ page here.

"I am a regular customer for 6 years and I am very satisfied with the service, and the manner of their approach to players. The support team is always available to help and extremely knowledgeable!”

Is the Site Secure and Well-designed?

Regardless of the games or the quality of customer support available through it casino platform, no operator could succeed without a secure or well-designed site.

This not only ensure that new players will be attracted to your website, but it also provides them with peace of mind that their personal and financial details will be safeguarded at all times.

But is the Betfred Casino safe, and what measures are in place to protect players and their information? Let’s take a look:

Is Betfred Safe?

Owned by Petfre Ltd, Betfred’s online casino is protected by advanced SSL technology and 128-bit encryption. This is the industry standard throughout the iGaming market and the financial services sector, while it ensures that financial transactions are completed securely in real-time.

We’ve already discussed the Betfred’s platform and game’s library has been independently verified through a third-party, in this instance the market leading international testing agency eCOGRA. So, although the site has not had its RTP publicly verified, its games have been certified to deliver viable returns and transparency to players.

Betfred also takes the notion of responsible gaming seriously, and has forged partnerships with various public bodies including GAMCARE and BeGambleAware.org. It’s also an active participant in the GAMSTOP scheme, whilst the operator also offers in-house self-exclusion options to players and customisable account activity limits.

Similarly, Betfred has taken the proactive approach of guaranteeing the protection of minors through its use of sophisticated software. You can also access third-party software to block the operator’s website, and Betfred includes details of how to use this here.

The Site’s Licensing

While Betfred’s headquarters have been based in the northern town of Warrington since 1967, the brand historically based its digital operations in Gibraltar. This means that the operator is currently licensed by the Gibraltar Regulatory Authority and the UK Gambling Commission.

There were recent rumours that Betfred was relocating its online operations to the tax-friendly Spanish enclave of Cueta. While this has been denied by the brand, they have opened an additional office here so could be planning some form of reorganisation in the future.

How Does the Site Look?

If you’re a regular frequenter of online casinos, you’ll probably have noticed a trend emerging in terms of website design. More specifically, the operator has framed its landing pages on a striking black backdrop, whilst bringing this to life with bright, neon shades and eye-catching game visuals.

This, combined with a clean and intelligent layout, contributes to an exceptionally professional website design that manages to convey a sense of trust. The absence of cartoonish graphics also helps this perception, although it’s a little unusual in the current iGaming market.

The use of neon reds and purples is also an extremely effective design feature, primarily because it prompts feelings of excitement and urgency amongst players. However, the operator also uses bright colours to promote responsible gambling information at the bottom of the page, and this helps to shape a helpful and logical user experience.

Ultimately, it’s hard to argue with the assertion that Betfred’s casino has been intuitively and stylishly designed, and it definitely follows the modern trends in the iGaming market. Despite this, however, it manages to stand out from its competitors, and definitely provides a compelling visual experience to players.

The Bottom Line

Betfred undoubtedly has a leg up on many of its competitors, thanks largely to its 13 years’ experience in the iGaming sector. During this time, it has seen immense changes in the marketplace, but has continually strived to adapt to these and improve the experience that it delivers to its customers.

This manifests itself in numerous ways on the site, from its market leading customer support to the select but varied range of games that are on offer. The outstanding live casino is also packed full of innovative game iterations and generous payouts, while Betfred has managed to strike the difficult balance between offering big jackpot titles and an impressive RTP rate.

The operator isn’t perfect, of course, as its relatively small games’ library may be a little disappointing for some. Even this is offset by the diversity of games on offer, however, while the presence of both high and low variance slots offers plenty of choice for players regardless of what they’re looking for.

With these points in mind, Betfred can lay claim to being one of the best and most consistent casinos on the market, and one that arguably has no major weakness to report. As a result, it can definitely be recommended as a viable option to both new and serious gamblers, whether they’re slot game enthusiasts or high-rolling live players!