Cryptobet is one of the newest online bookmakers in the game – so you might not even have heard of it yet. Cryptobet is growing out of an online casino and since 2019 it has offered a sportsbook with a unique twist. As the name suggests, Cryptobet operates using cryptocurrency and combines a quick flutter with a bit of speculation on one of the hottest financial trends out there. And that’s not all: wagering on the site generates CBET coins, the in-house cryptocurrency, which can then be used for further betting on the site.
Layout
There aren’t many surprises on the Cryptobet home page. True, the landing page steers visitors to the casino rather than the sportsbook – an echo of the company’s history as a casino that is moving into sports betting, rather than the reverse. But the menu bar at the top of the screen makes short work of getting you where you want to be and it hovers in view at all times for maximum convenience.
Maximum convenience, though, is not a hallmark of the Cryptobet sportsbook page itself.
At first glance, it all looks familiar, albeit minus some of the bells and whistles we might expect from other bookies. But take a look at that left-hand sidebar of Cryptobet. That’s a list of available sports, right? Err, not quite. It’s a list of on-going tournaments – but grouped more by geography than sport or significance. There’s not much to tell you that ‘Coupe de France’ is a football market and the Australian Open is about tennis. Moreover, if you have a specific interest in betting on, say, basketball, there’s a fair amount of scrolling required before you find the day’s NBA action. This really is not ideal and Cryptobet’s designers might do well to have a rethink.
Services
In theory, Cryptobet offers casino, poker and sportsbook services to punters from the UK. In practice, though, this isn’t always the case. Given Cryptobet site’s roots as an online casino popular in Europe, I started by checking out the live tables. And instantly hit problems: the dreaded ‘dead screen’; Cryptobet seemingly suffers from the grown-up offspring of the eternal hourglass that used to haunt Windows users.
Maybe it’s a side-effect of Brexit, but it doesn’t look like British users are going to have an easy time playing in Cryptobet either. When I attempted to access a free-to-play game, the pages said: “You cannot use our services from your country”.
Then, there were frustrations with promised free spins. In honour of a new link-up with Leviathan, Cryptobet users were supposed to have 10 free spins on a Leviathan slot of choice. However, on trying to redeem that promise, I initially hit another error message claiming site maintenance was underway. That issue was resolved before my next visit to Cryptobet and I was able to parlay those free spins into a small cash return.
In isolation, all of these are fairly minor issues. Put together, though, it begins to undermine punters’ faith in Cryptobet as a reliable site.
In the sportsbook, Cryptobet punters are offered the usual range of markets on top events in football, horse racing, basketball, hockey and the like. However, as mentioned above, Cryptobet has a habit of listing events on a fairly arbitrary basis – the left-hand sidebar would be easier to navigate if it started with an A-Z list of sports. On the plus side, all of the key markets are available, the action turns in-play smoothly and it shouldn’t be hard to get on a wager that takes your fancy.
However, there’s bad news as well: Cryptobet’s odds are not always generous. Odds on the FA Cup fifth-round tie between Everton and Spurs were some way below the best in the market, while the upcoming Premier League game between Leicester and Liverpool was priced in the middle of the market. The rates are not desperately poor, but they don’t do enough to put Cryptobet high on the list of sites to the source.
Live streaming options in Cryptobet are available but, once again, feel a bit limited compared with the market leaders. Cryptobet’s focus seems to be on E-sports rather than live-action events.
Cryptobet offers an Android app for punters. You can download it from the website.
Bonuses
Cryptobet sign-up bonus is straightforward enough, with free credits added to your first three deposits on Cryptobet. The first deposit attracts a 100% bonus, the second secure 50% and the third nets 35%. In each case, players need to deposit the equivalent of $50 or more, and bonuses are capped at $10,000. As an extra sweetener, the first three deposits on the Cryptobet site will also attract free spins in the casino. However, there is a 40x wagering requirement
However, the greater attraction might be the chance to accrue CBET coins you wager on the site. These are awarded on a monthly basis as compensation for lost bets. Cryptobet awards CBET coins based on the size and stakes of your bets, but in effect, it works like the cashback schemes familiar at other online casinos and sportsbooks. The difference is that CBET, as an in-house cryptocurrency, can be readily converted into other crypto funds and are accessed via Cointeller. If you like investing in blockchain, and you enjoy a flutter, Cryptobet could be a nice option for you.
Customer support
To be honest, this feels a bit half-baked. Cryptobet offers an in-house messenger service to deal with specific enquiries, as well as an FAQ to deal with common queries. However, Cryptobet FAQ is not convincing: a simple check on wagering limits produces a vague reply saying that minimum and maximum wager amounts are $x. A more useful answer would include some hard figures here.
As for the in-house messenger, this doesn’t always deliver a swift response. Almost a week after making a straightforward query about the minimum and maximum stakes, I’m still waiting for a response from Cryptobet. It certainly can’t compete with the live chat services that are commonplace elsewhere in the business.
Registration
Creating an account with Cryptobet is incredibly simple. Just nominate an email address, username and password, tick a box to confirm you’re not accessing the site from the USA, and away you go. Compared with the more elaborate registration procedures for many other online bookmakers this is either a welcome respite or a worrying laissez-faire approach to client security. However, when attempting to withdraw funds, Cryptobet punters are asked for more details including full name and date of birth. Again, this raises a couple of questions – most obviously, what happens to funds that Cryptobet was happy to accept from me if there should be any issue about confirming my details before making a withdrawal?
Financial
As mentioned above, Cryptobet’s USP is its ability to work with a wide range of cryptocurrencies and crypto-wallets. There are 12 different options for depositing and withdrawing cash in Cryptobet, all of which are subject to their own transaction fees. Information about transaction limits is not easy to come by, although it is notable that the minimum deposit to qualify for a sign-up bonus is $50 (or, more accurately, the equivalent in crypto). That’s relatively high – typically, sign-up bonuses using fiat currencies are capped at that kind of level, with companies looking to attract customers with a promise of the limited initial outlay. Again, this may be a legacy of Cryptobet’s history as a casino, where initial deposits and rewards are often larger since the nature of casino play rarely rewards the cautious, shrewd punter.
In Cryptobet sportsbook, the minimum stake is $1 and the maximum is $500. That’s a surprisingly tight range, suggesting that the high-rolling action is found at the casino rather than when using Cryptobet to dabble on sports.
Security and reliability
Because Cryptobet does not handle accounts in regular currencies, its licensing requirements are different from most. Specifically, it seeks to offer betting services in markets such as the UK without needing a license from the British gambling authorities. This does not mean Cryptobet operates without any regulation or oversight, but punters used to the reassurance of a local regulator will now be dealing with governance from Curacao instead.
Similarly, the reliance on cryptocurrency to power the site introduces a new layer of risk – and opportunity – for Cryptobet users. With an account priced up in sterling, dollars or euros, you can be fairly confident that the value of your assets will remain fairly constant over time, with only the steady effect of inflation having any impact. Cryptocurrency, and thus Cryptobet, is potentially more volatile. Therefore, the purchasing power of your account could vary wildly up or down regardless of your wagering wins and losses.
Gaming integrity should not be a problem. Cryptobet Casino partners with more than 30 recognized and reputable gaming companies to offer a wide range of slots and table games. However, some users might be put off by the seemingly low take-up rate for Cryptobet’s services. The bookie’s social media pages do not have many subscribers (at the time of writing there are 2,421 Twitter followers, and the most recent activity was a re-tweet from more than two weeks ago, while on Facebook there is a similar lack of activity and a mere 108 likes for the company’s page), which might be a red flag for some users. Meanwhile, some independent review portals have reports of players finding it difficult to withdraw their winnings from the site. It is, perhaps, a bit too early to speak with confidence about Cryptobet’s reliability, therefore, initially, investing with caution might be a sensible idea.
What’s missing
The most obvious absence for many players is the lack of any regular currency option on Cryptobet. If you’re not already involved in cryptocurrency, this casino is unlikely to be the thing that changes your mind. However, introducing fiat currency to the mix would undermine the USP of the whole operation, as well as opening a whole new range of regulatory issues, so it’s easy to why Cryptobet has chosen its current set-up.
A more relevant problem might be the lack of an active social media presence. Cryptobet is a fairly new player in a market in which trust is paramount. Having social media accounts that feel like they were set up a couple of weeks ago on a ‘watch this space’ basis is not a good look for a company that’s been in operation for close to two years and does not inspire enormous confidence in the casino or its sportsbook options.
The same sense of a slightly half-baked product also affects the Cryptobet website. Despite a couple of teething problems, I eventually got it to work well enough to play through some free spins and place a couple of bets. But as a user experience, it feels like something from the dial-up era. Once again, this does not inspire huge confidence in the operation as a whole.
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