About 888

888 is one of the biggest firms in the business, despite only being in existence since the 90’s. They take each of their client bases seriously and so run their various books under different names; 888casino, 888poker and 888sport.

Here we’ll take a little look at each of these features, giving you the good and bad about 888’s overall offering to online players.

Our services in the UK are operated by 888 UK Limited, a company incorporated in Gibraltar. 888 UK Limited is licensed and regulated in Great Britain by the Gambling Commission under the account number 39028. Our address: 601-701 Europort, Gibraltar. We encourage responsible gambling. I opened an account with 888 sport, deposited the appropriate amount and made a qualifying bet. The account was never credited with a free bet per the promotion, after the qualifying bet had settled. Following this, I entered a live chat and spoke to a representative. This person advised me that I must verify account and send through documentation.

888 Welcome Bonuses

888 Odds Bonus

Special offers are sometimes listed on the site from time to time, but real welcome bonuses with 888 are saved for casino and poker players above all, and not sports bettors unfortunately. See below for details of what they entail.

888 Casino Bonuses

The first casino bonus to hit you will be the admittedly small $20 welcome bonus, though in fairness you don’t even need to deposit anything to receive this. Simply join up, claim the bonus after you receive an email from 888 and then begin to play with your free $20.

You can earn some bigger casino bonuses further down the line however. Once you make your first real deposit you can claim a 50% matched bonus up to $500, in other words to receive the maximum amount you will need to deposit up to $1000.

On your second deposit you can claim a further 50%, this time up to $1000 making it possible, in theory, to receive $1500 in total as 50% matched deposits.

The numbers here are good in terms of cash, however not many people out there will be depositing $3000 across their first two deposits and the 50% actually appears skinny compared to the 100% many other casinos are willing to hand out.

888 Poker Bonus

888’s poker bonus works exactly the same as above, but exclusively for poker. Once again then it means that although you can receive as much as $1500 to play with in theory, in fact it means if you wanted to play table games and poker and wished to receive the maximum possible bonus, you would expected to deposit $6000 across your first four deposits!

888 VIP Program

Given that poker is where 888 have grown their business most over the years its perhaps not surprising that its poker players who receive the VIP treatment.

When playing via 888poker you can earn what they call Status Points and Reward Points. You can use Status Points to climb the poker ranks meaning the higher you climb, the more rewards you earn.

Reward Points are simply 888’s payback for players’ loyalty and they can carry over each month so you don’t lose them when they are not claimed immediately. The higher a status you have (Blue to Platinum) the more points you get which can then be redeemed.

These reward points are worth cash with 5,000 points being worth $50 so the reward is tangible, if only for poker players meaning sports nuts will feel they are missing out despite perhaps showing the same loyalty in terms of how often they bet and with how much.

Odds And Betting At 888

Under their 888sport banner you can have access to 21 main betting markets, plus others from time to time. They are:

• Baseball
• Basketball
• Boxing
• Cricket
• Cycling
• Darts
• Football
• Greyhounds
• Golf
• Handball
• Horse Racing
• Ice Hockey
• Motor Sport
• Politics
• Rugby
• Snooker
• Soccer
• Tennis
• TV / Specials
• UFC / MMA
• Volleyball

The choice of betting markets on each of these sports is ok, especially soccer, though the odds tend to come up a little short in comparison with some of their competitors. As we’ve alluded to already, there seems to be a willingness to want sports bettors on board yet most of the offers are thrown at poker players.

888 Live Betting

Within 888sport you will see a Live Now section featuring the likes of basketball, soccer, tennis and more. Lines are updated constantly and appear reasonably fair and it does mean you can bet on the go, something which should be offered by all firms in this business these days.

888 Casino

A flick onto 888casino will produce for you a myriad of casino games, almost too many to choose from in fact. If dazzling slot games are your thing then you could spend weeks attempting to get through all of these!

For traditional table players however, the offering is a little simpler. Classic blackjack and American blackjack are available while 5 variations of roulette are also played on the site alongside video poker.

The overall array of table games isn’t terribly impressive to be honest, especially for a firm marketing itself as a “casino” and so this is certainly something they need to look at ASAP.

888 Live Casino

Live dealer games are offered by 888casino in Europe, however this is not possible in all territories so depending on what region you are in, you may or may not be in luck. Check with the site for more info.

888 Poker

This area is what 888 has attempted to make its cash cow and they have done that pretty successfully. The aforementioned $20 free play can get you going before you decide to deposit any money, thereafter you can have an extra 50% on top of what you throw in (see above).

A whole range of real cash games are offered up and if you join the loyalty program we mentioned earlier, you can be invited into games worth up to $10,000 each month.

888 Site Layout

Strangely, 888’s site layouts rather depend on where you are viewing them. Each country or region tends to have a slightly different version, though they are broadly the same with a slick looking home page and easy to find links.

The let down with this site is that it doesn’t always appear forthcoming with simple information, i.e. you want to know what poker or casino games are available on the site but any links keep taking you to the sign-up page.

This isn’t too bad considering you can sign-up and play with a free $20, however you should not have to go through this just to find out exactly what games are on offer.

The various sites are quick however and behave quite well, the color scheme is professional looking in the poker and casino sites but a little garish in orange over on the sports page.

888 Cash Out

Cash outs from 888 are dealt with in 3 business days, though if you reach the top level of the loyalty program this can be done within 1 day. This sounds OK and adds an incentive to be part of the VIP set-up however it also simply proves that cash-outs can be handled a lot quicker than they are for the everyday player.

888 Mobile Betting

All of 888’s worldwide betting options are available on mobile sites which can be used on any smartphone without the need for a download. They are, as you would expect, a slimmed-down version of the main sites and all behave perfectly well.

As before though, a lot depends on where you are in the world so be sure to check out your version of the site for yourself.

888 Deposits And Withdrawals

There is another letdown for 888 here and that is them not mentioned what fees you will face for either depositing or withdrawing cash, so before you take any chances get in touch with their customer service team (see below) and have this ironed out before you spend any money.

888 Bet Live Chat Online

Here are the methods you can use for depositing funds:

• Visa
• MasterCard
• Diners Cub
• Maestro
• Skrill
• Neteller
• PayPal
• EntroPay
• Nordea
• Instadebits

For Visa and MasterCard withdrawals it can take up to 8 business days to receive your cash, so keep this in mind when thinking of making any cash-out requests.

Responsible Gaming

888 Bet Live Chat Room

888’s responsible gaming policy covers all of their territories and can be found here: https://corporate.888.com/about-us/responsible-gaming

888’s History

The business was founded back in 1997 by brothers Aaron and Avi Shaked, along with Ron Ben-Yitzhak as Virtual Holdings Limited. A trading name of Casino-on-Net was launched at this time, operating out of Antigua though a subsidiary called Cassava Enterprises was incorporated and runs from Gibraltar.

Gibraltar became the administrative center of the company after Reef Club Casino and Pacific Poker were formed in 2002, with the company launching on the London Stock Exchange in 2005. Although 888 Holdings owned these brands and at first kept them apart, it began in 2006 to bring them under the singular 888 umbrella.

With business flowing nicely, 888 acquired online bingo entity Globalcom Limited for over $43 million in 2007 and by the following year the firm was listed on London’s FTSE 250 Index with revenues increasing exponentially.

Despite sports betting being the main attraction for customers in their core UK market and the fact that online gambling had been made illegal in the States where 888 had been trading as a casino, they became 4th in the rankings of the poker network list in 2012 having tripled their number of players.

888 Bet Live Chat Live

As online gambling returned to the USA in 2015 so did 888 having two years earlier began partnering with Avenue Capital to form the first US online poker network. Today, business is booming though customer feedback for their website and offerings could be a lot better.

888 Customer Support

FAQ’s are of course available as are various phone lines depending on your region, though other than this your only real chance of getting in touch is via the standard web help form. Reply times vary and there is no live chat option which is a major shame.

This just puts us off slightly given that because of some of the issues mentioned above; it would be wise to get some answers from 888 before playing though they don’t make it incredible easy for you to do that.

888 Terms And Conditions

888’s Terms of Service are pretty much in line with most major online sportsbooks and poker sites, though are separated out into: