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Coral review
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The Coral betting stronghold and its blue colours are well known in these parts with its long history and British-inspired betting experiences.
It takes up prime real estate here in Stakersland as well as enjoying an abundance of betting booths along all the main avenues and side streets. It’s not all as it seems though and there is a lot of business going on behind the scenes. Most notably we have seen this famous Coral blue being taken over by the red of Ladbrokes and now it is has become a story about forgotten identity. Although the Coral brand still operates in its own colours, it’s the red Ladbrokes stamp that seals all the Coral documents nowadays. What it all comes down to is that Coral is not the big dominant player that it used to be, but it stills enjoy almost one million stakers coming through its gates to bet and watch the live streams from racecourses across Great Britain. Coral is dedicated to its British community and this is because they generate almost 100% of their revenues, with a small group of Irish stakers who are keen to see what all the fuss is about. As it goes, all that fuss is mainly based on the horse racing and greyhounds as these are the top two betting markets with events being covered all across the world. In true British tradition, live in-play football also plays a significant role in their gross gaming revenue. You can find a good range of sports to bet on at Coral if you dig a little deeper and one area that they have decided to move into is the esports markets. League of Legends, Dota 2, and CS:GO are all included and so this shows that their marketing team is well educated, and they are still keeping their eyes on the growing global betting trends.
Coral provides its stakers with a similar set of top limits to its merger brother, Ladbrokes. The £1 million maximum for all top-level football events drops down to £100,00 for international lower leagues. However, these Coral limits tend to drop significantly compared to those set at Ladbrokes for the rest of their sports markets. For example, the limit on all golf bets is capped at £250,000 which is half of that available at Ladbrokes. Again, the limits are below when betting on sports like tennis, darts, snooker, and athletics with a £100,000 limit compared to £250,000 on the red half of their merger. It continues even further with a limit calculated at 10 times less than those offered at Ladbrokes on sports like handball and volleyball at just £10,000. At least we found one similarity and that was with its Coral casino limits being stuck to a consistent £250,000. For Coral to payout these maximum winnings of £1,000,000 then it would require them to be on the fly and taking bets for around 20 hours in total. For those who enjoy the live casino products then the maximum payout of £250,000 would take them around five hours to payout that maximum casino limit. As estimated by our team here at Stakers HQ, they should have incoming cash available from new deposits within 48 hours which is still a big deal and impressive going for the loss-making GVC Holdings. On the other hand, being part of the publicly traded GVC company on the London stock exchange should mean that they would have no problem in sourcing their top limit of £1 million. Avoiding the ensuing negative press coverage from not paying would be at the forefront of their minds in any case like this.
Originally founded by a Polish native for the Brits, ‘Joe Coral’ had no reason to promote the venture abroad with sufficient volumes of cash coming in from its successful British operations. Technically speaking, Coral had 59 betting shops in Ireland and Jersey, but those were left with Ladbrokes back in 1999 due to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission realising that the buyout was anti-competitive to the industry.
Top limits of £1,000,000 continue to attract the Coral staker community who are wagering around £15-20 on their favourite racing and football markets. The annual gross gaming revenue adds up to £246M, excluding expenditure, for the owners GCV Holdings.
The Coral monthly gross gaming revenue generated within Stakersland is estimated to be around the £22 Million mark with an average spend of roughly £15-20 per staker per month. The bookmaker is therefore building up a yearly gross gaming revenue of £246M excluding expenditure to their loss-making owners GVC Holdings. GVC yields a negative -6% from their overall £3.6 billion gross profits with a net loss of £140 million, which is due to major licensing costs and taxes. Ladbrokes Coral Group did invest with the help of credit markets to boost their betting shops up to 3,000, but in a twist of fate, the recent limits imposed on their famous fixed-odds betting terminals means they are unable pay back their debts as they had planned. If we look to some of Coral’s competitors with large British communities then Paddy Power would be an obvious choice. The 964,000 British stakers of the total 1.4 million community generate an annual gross gaming revenue of £420 million. Flutter plc, the owners of Paddy Power and Betfair, remain in profit with £150 million in 2019, unlike their counterparts GVC. Betfred is another similar British-inspired rival with a 550,000 staker community and £200 million in annual gross gaming revenue. Although they make significant losses overall, the downturn has not stopped Betfred founder Fred Done taking home a £10.2 million dividends package.
Coral Offers
According to our calculation, there is almost a million Brits (964,000 to be exact) who are coming to bet with Coral in Stakersland on a monthly basis, with a tiny queue of 9,000 Irish stakers who are still hanging on to the glory days.
| United Kingdom | United States | India | Brazil | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| monthly | 666K | 43K | 39K | 35K |
| License |  |  | | |
Social Buzz
A total of 28 staker reviews and six complaints can be found on the profile. We saw that most of the complaints are focusing on closed accounts, lengthy withdrawals, and those frustrating software glitches again.
The LCB profile has a total of 34 comments and 227 votes, with most of those being marked down as ‘green’ with an average rating of 4.5/5. In what looks like quite a positive reaction from stakers, the only negative comments are based on poor bonus offers and a poor selection of games.
Bonus clash
Coral entertains stakers with a well-planned and varied incentives program that allows you to upgrade promotions using the Coral Connect membership card - which is offered free of charge for existing stakers. The welcome package of £20 for new members is extended with another £30 for new Connect holders, so you can quickly turn £20 into £50 with a simple £5 deposit required. So, all looks good so far, now let us see what some of our stakers think of these offers.
“They have tons of promotions for any staker who visits here. Their welcome bonus is impressive, and the qualifying odds are low. I recommend anyone to come and try it.”
“What I like most about Coral is their free Correct 4 promotion. It gives you a chance to win real funds by just answering a question and making your own predictions. Great betting value!”
“I'm disappointed that only Connect members are paid in cash for the ‘Accaplus’, while those who are not part of the club are paid with a tiny 10%, and only as a free bet with further wagering required. It does not make sense to me.”
“To tell you the truth, I would like to see bigger rewards for the promotions - something like £20-40 free bets as part of the daily deals. Also, there is no refer-a-friend offer which should be a standard promo for bookies like Coral. “
It is a full bonus board here at Coral with a good mix of promotions available. They are currently offering an in-play free bet club, which is in essence a cashback deal with 30% paid back, no matter the outcome. There is also a number of racing promotions with limits above the market average which spells good news for the British staker regulars who bet here. We will now go through the 15 promotions available for stakers at Coral with all our usual running commentary below.
| promo name | promo type | requirements | restrictions |
|---|---|---|---|
Get £20 in Free Bets when you bet £5  | Welcome Bonus | Sign up, make a deposit and place £5 on any sport | Restricted for Prepaid cards, Paypal, Paysafe, Neteller, and Skrill |
Jump into the Coral gambling adventure with a well-balanced promotion for new members. For those who have not yet entered into betting agreements with the bookmaker, Coral is offering a £20 free bet credited in four instalments of £5. You just need to make a qualifying bet of £5 at odds of 1/2 or more. For example, a single line accumulator bet with each individual selection of the bet being at odds of 1/2, plus only the win parts of win/each-way bets will qualify. The qualifying bets must be made within 14 days of the account being opened to claim the bonuses.
| promo name | promo type | requirements | restrictions |
|---|---|---|---|
Get Connected online with £20 in Free Bets | Welcome Bonus | Apply for a Connect Card at a Coral betting shop and place two £5 win or £5 each-way bets at the odds 1/2 or greater | Restricted for Prepaid cards, Paypal, Paysafe, Neteller, and Skrill |
A repeat of the welcome bonus which is available for new members who apply for a free Coral Connect card at any of Coral betting shops across the UK. As soon as you secure your Connect membership, place a qualifying bet of at least a £5 win or a £5 each-way, at odds totalling 1/2 and you will be rewarded with 4 x £5 free bets. The 4th £5 free bet is credited 48 hours after your qualifying bet and all free bets will expire just as fast, if not used within seven days of being credited, so be quick.
| promo name | promo type | requirements | restrictions |
|---|---|---|---|
In-play £5 Free Bet | free bet club | Place three £5 In-Play singles on any sport | Void bets do not qualify |
Explore the freebet club from Coral with their £5 in-play free bet promotion. Stakers are required to wager three £5 singles with odds of 1/5 or greater on any sporting event, traded while live in-play and between 00:01 and 23:59. All qualifying bets must be placed at minimum odds of 1/5 and the promotion is available daily, with the reward credited automatically and valid for seven days. The offer holds no special benefits for Connect Card members.
| promo name | promo type | requirements | restrictions |
|---|---|---|---|
Beaten by a Length? | FROM £1 | Place a minimum £1 win or each-way single bet on any race from the schedule | Restricted for markets Green Tick/Win Only, Betting Without, Place Only, Match Betting or to any Enhanced Price Offer, Combined or Void bets |
For all those near won races that pass us by, Coral is offering money back in the form of a free bet of up to £10. You will be rewarded with this bet if your selection finishes in any position, a length or less behind the winner. The offer applies to the standard Win and Each Way market only. The minimum stake to qualify is £1 and all Connect Card members are offered the same benefits here, and so the additional Connect banners in use here are excessive in our opinion.
| promo name | promo type | requirements | restrictions |
|---|---|---|---|
Correct 4 | Challenge | Predict the final score of four matches from the weekly schedule | Restricted for PayPal Paysafe, Neteller or Skrill. Only a single attempt per week is allowed |
Enjoy half of the 1-2-FREE offer from Ladbrokes with Coral’s Correct 4. We say half because Coral stakers can only enjoy 50% of the winnings and it comes with more challenging game rules as well. You are required to predict four correct scores instead of three (at Ladbrokes) from the weekly schedules and you will receive up to £50 in cash should all four scores be correct. Predictions are based on pre-match events and all picks made while live in-play do not qualify. There is a maximum of one attempt per staker per game every week. Lastly, while the Correct 4 banner for all Connect Card members is advertised separately, there are no changes and all the rules, prizes, and conditions are identical.
| promo name | promo type | requirements | restrictions |
|---|---|---|---|
Get a 10% boost up to £100 as a Free Bet | combined bonus | Place a winning accumulator with three single selections or more | Void bets are excluded from this promotion. Available once a day |
For those of our stakers who enjoy high-risk betting, Coral is offering Accaplus which increases your winnings by 10% up to £100 in the form of a free bet. The qualifying bet should be placed as an accumulator with three single selections or more with cumulative odds of at least 6/4 (2.50). It must also be placed before kick-off for all matches included in the accumulator. Connect Card holders may get a 50% boost but this requires you to place bets using the Betstations within the Coral premises. The promo conditions include a 5% boost on 5-folds, a 10% boost on 6-folds, and for the upper reaches of 14 folds+, the boost will be the maximum 50%.
| promo name | promo type | requirements | restrictions |
|---|---|---|---|
Extra Place Races | Extra Places | Place a real money single bet on selected races from 6pm the day before the event | Requires all horses to run |
Coral adds extra places on horse racing bets which are related to the daily schedule. With no opt-in required, the qualifying single bets placed from 6pm the day before the event are all accepted on this promotion. Just be sure to double-check the additional places being awarded in accordance with the daily race schedule in the UK and Ireland.
| promo name | promo type | requirements | restrictions |
|---|---|---|---|
Best Odds Guaranteed | Best Odds Guaranteed | Make a pick on any UK or Irish horse race | Bets placed after the start of the race do not qualify |
With a significant cap of £50,000 per staker per day, Coral offers the best odds for horse racing and greyhound races. Should the starting price be higher than the original odds at the time you placed the bet, you will be paid out at the bigger odds. Simple. No opt-in required and only single bets wagered with real money funds on the day of the racing event are subject to promotion. Just to clarify, all bets placed after the off will not qualify for this promotion.
| promo name | promo type | requirements | restrictions |
|---|---|---|---|
Half-time Winner | FROM £1 | Place a qualification bet of at least £1 on any Premier League or FA Cup fixture using the Match Result market | In-Play bets do not qualify for this promotion |
Should your football team be leading at halftime but lose after 90 minutes, Coral will reward you with a refund of your stake. The potential returns on this offer is a maximum of £50 in the form of the free bet. The offer applies to a qualification bet placed on any Premier League or FA Cup fixture of at least £1 and it must be wagered within the Match Result market before kick-off.
| promo name | promo type | requirements | restrictions |
|---|---|---|---|
At the Roulette | Other | Place a £5+ single bet on the first race at the selected meeting and bet £25+ in straight up bets on the Sports Roulette table. Offer available between the first & last races of the meeting | If a combination of bets placed in a Roulette Game amounts to the coverage of 70% or more of the roulette wheel, these bets will not count towards the requirements |
Finally, we come to the point where you need to play roulette to win a free sports bet. Sounds odd, right? Let us explain. To qualify for this promotion you are required to place a single bet of £5 on the first race of the selected meeting and then stake a further £25 on Sports Roulette between the first & last races of the meeting. If you manage to do all that then you will be rewarded with a small £2 bonus for live casino, and another little £2 free bet on sports. This promotion is available every day if you wish to take part, let’s just hope that you’re a fan of roulette else there really is not much point otherwise.
| promo name | promo type | requirements | restrictions |
|---|---|---|---|
Smart Boost | boost | Find the markets with the Smarts Boost icon | Restricted to one bet per day |
Again, following the Ladbrokes approach, Coral offers enhancements on selected markets and specific events according to their schedule. It’s a great way to give your returns a quick boost but this particular offer is restricted to one boost per day. It requires very little on your part so keep your eye out for the icon and grab your boost while you can each day.
Conclusion
Coral offers a diversified bonus menu and we found it to be one of the most complete collections of sport betting bonuses that ranks in line with both Paddy Power and Skybet. Coral is well beyond its red-coloured twin merger brother with their advanced marketing approach and so they could definitely teach Ladbrokes a few lessons in bonus management. Take the Coral Connect card, for example, this is something that can inspire stakers to continue their betting activities and help to stay on with the brand for a little while longer, although the card itself does not bring many benefits in relation to bonuses – but it is widely advertised, regardless. With the broad variety of horse and greyhound racing incentives, Coral is advertising their ‘freebet club’ and ‘half-time winner’ for football that are both so desperately missing over at Ladbrokes. On the other hand, the Ladbrokes 1-2-FREE offer seems to have lost its power on the crossover to Coral with a reduced reward and added complexity on the rules - we see a hint of capitalism there from the bonus team.
Sports betting
A small yet highly skilled team of developers maintain the Coral platform along with other teams in Hyderabad, India.
Our expert team of technology enthusiasts examine and scrutinise each bookmaker within the grounds of Stakersland. Our stakers deserve the best betting experiences and to manage this we need to make sure all the latest betting tools are available to you. It is a full-time job but your experience here at Stakersland means a lot to us and so we’ll now talk you through what the Coral team have developed and what you can expect to find when you are betting with them.
A small team of Java developers are devoted to both the Ladbrokes and Coral betting sites and these can be found working out of the headquarter offices in Stratford, East London. To be a part of this closed society, you must be educated to a Russell Group University graduate standard, at the very least. This elite team is responsible for the overall planning and supervision of the Coral site development practices. The wider scope of the coding team who are involved in the architecture planning and the hands-on software development is actually found in Hyderabad, India.
Sports
The top sports for Coral are horse racing and the greyhounds. The British and Irish racetracks that are closely followed include Windsor, Hamilton, Naas, Roscommon, and Haydock. In France they follow the courses of Marseille-borely, Vichy, Enghien, and across the water in the USA, tracks such as Delaware Park, Grants Pass, Evangeline Downs, and Gulfstream are all available to bet on. As mentioned earlier on, the second most popular area for Coral are the in-play football markets.
Betting slip
It is clear that both development teams in Stratford and Hyderabad have focused a lot of time in bringing this bet slip to life. But we can see that there is more yet still to be done. For one, the long-lasting reloads as you add each selection helps to ensure their odds security, but this could be improved upon for stakers. Both single and combined selections are available in the betting slip and the system custom bets include Trixie, Super Yankee, Super Heinz, and Goliath options. You can also cashout through the My Bets section of the slip.
In-play stats
All the Coral live events are supplied with a visualisation widget that offers overall stats that are updated throughout the course of the match. Head to head, present form, and official standings are all accessible for the top events and these are supplied by Opta Sport. Additionally, all major events and major race meetings get the Coral video streaming treatment. However, the overall statistics reporting is not that comprehensive with only the live score being supplied.
Betting markets
The Coral betting markets are well covered with around 174 pre-live and 109 live markets for football. Elsewhere, you can find tennis events with 22 pre-live and 66 live markets, with 87 pre-live markets for basketball and 151 for ice hockey.
Margins
The Coral betting margins are around average on the whole with slightly lower margins found in the pre-live events. Football offers a range of margins from 3.67% in pre-match to 7.6% in live, and tennis events usually include margins of 8.47% for pre-live and 7.72% for in-play events.
Event results
For all the main football fixtures in the UK, Ireland, and Europe, stakers are given head to head, latest form, top goal scorers, and several other ‘overall’ stats. It goes a bit deeper for the English Premier league with detailed information right down to player level. You won’t find any scoreboards though and no data on past matches, with the only information available being the settled bets.
| Sports | margins | live margins | markets | live markets |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| tennis | 8.47% | 7.72% | 22 | 66 |
| football | 3.67% | 7.6% | 174 | 109 |
| basketball | 4.17% | 5.49% | 87 | 36 |
| ice hockey | 4.42% | 8.17% | 151 | 55 |
Coral stakers can find some good betting value in the pre-live markets and there is reasonable value to be found amongst the other markets, too. If we take the pre-live markets on the Europa League, the 5.74% of Coral shows better value over their bigger brother Ladbrokes with 6.7% and the 7.36% of Boylesports as well. The 8% margins in both the live Champions League and English Championship events don’t quite hit the value marker though with rivals like Betfred and 888 Sport both offering margins of 5-6%. Coral can take some pride on their pre-live markets, but they don’t quite offer the same levels of value in their live events at the moment.
Financial Limits
Our expert finance team collect and verify all the financial information being processed here in the park. So, we have gathered up all the related data on how Coral are managing their financial procedures and set it all out in an easy-to-read summary table. Read on to find out what we found in the backrooms of Coral HQ.
Payment Method Restrictions
Which payment methods are valid when claiming my bonuses?
All deposits made via Neteller, PayPal, PaysafeCard, Skrill, or via any pre-payment card will not qualify for the Coral deposit bonuses.
The Influence of Third Party Agencies
What checks are being made and do they use any third party agencies?
All of your supplied details will be checked against public or private databases. To establish the profile of staker members, they use the Callcredit agency to obtain a credit reference and this will leave a soft footprint on your credit file. Besides Callcredit, Coral may also share your personal information with other gambling operators, banks, and credit card companies, ESP's (defined below). The list goes on with other appropriate agencies also gaining access to details for the purpose of investigating and safeguarding against underage, fraudulent, criminal, or suspicious activity, or if the team has any reason to believe that you have undertaken such activities that play against their general terms and conditions.
Personal Data Transparency
Will they inform me about the automated checks being performed?
Coral’s terms and conditions warns all new stakers that upon creating an account they agree that their details will be checked and verified, as well as through the help of third-party agencies. According to our investigation results, we discovered a number of trackers that uncover your website opening activities. Those include Google, Adsrvr, Adobe Marketing Cloud, Bing, Iivt, Akstat, HotJar, Demdex, Snapchat, Bing, Taboola, Adnxs, Everest tech, Rubicon Project, Twitter, and a number of others. There are no details that describes these trackers within the privacy policy and in our opinion, it is unsafe practice and their policies require immediate revision.
Social Media Communication
Will my financial disputes and complaints be answered on the social media profiles?
Coral has communicated with their customers on Askgamblers on a handful of occasions. Five out of six registered complaints on Askgamblers were finance-related and only one was resolved. There has been no reaction from the Coral team on the Trustpilot reviews though, including the ones with financial-related issues.
Gambling Anonymously
Are my banking transactions with the bookmaker private?
Coral does not offer an option to change their company name to something else on your own banking documents. They recommend that stakers take this up with their personal bank to see if any changes can be made.
Withdrawal Timeframe & Common Complaints
How fast are the withdrawals and what do stakers complain about the most?
Your withdrawals are usually approved within 24 hours. When it comes to processing it takes 1-2 working days to get the withdrawal funds to VISA/Mastercard debit cards, and it is the same time for bank transfers. For PayPal, Skrill, and Neteller, the withdrawals should get credited within three hours and Coral Connect card withdrawals are processed instantly. The official Coral withdrawal page contains warnings that in any case where additional security checks are needed, the processing time may be longer.
However, we did find some recent complaints from stakers about withdrawals being held in the ‘processing’ stage for unreasonably long times under different excuses, in some cases these funds were held for weeks at a time.
Player-Friendly Withdrawal Limits
What are the minimum and maximum withdrawal limits available?
The minimum withdrawal limit is set to £5 for all payment methods except for the Connect Card. You can withdraw as low as £0.01 via Connect but other payment methods can also be used for withdrawing amounts under £5, but in these special cases, stakers are asked to contact the Coral support team. There is no maximum limit per transaction. However, the source of funds checks will get triggered when you reach a cumulative volume of deposit and withdrawals of £10,000, this is in line with the anti-money laundering directive and the rules are all made clear.
Withdrawal Options & Additional Costs
What are my banking options when withdrawing my funds and do they add fees?
Coral offers withdrawals via debit cards, PayPal, Skrill, Neteller, Worldpay, Connect Card, and Bank Transfer. Additionally, there are no processing fees being charged by Coral.
Regulatory Check Transparency
Are they clear about the Source of Funds and Source of Wealth procedures?
Coral has a Source of Funds Policy page inside their Help Centre, explaining in detail the procedure, the triggers, and the list of documents required. Proof of earnings they currently accept include Payslip/Director remuneration/Dividends/Pension/Annual Tax Return, an official bank statement/savings account that clearly shows the last three months of consistent income from an identifiable source. You can also show a trust deed clearly showing a consistent entitlement to funds, an account statement showing funds recently won from another company, dated proof of an award/payment made to you, and any other clear evidence that would support "affordability" in relation to your betting with Coral.
Conclusion
Coral offers a range of withdrawal options that includes cards, a number of e-wallets, bank transfers, and the limits are adjusted to satisfy the needs of recreational betting fans. We think that stakers will also appreciate the faster than average processing times supplied by the Coral financial team. However, it should be taken into consideration that some stakers have complained about the actual withdrawal times being a lot longer though. The big highlight for our team is that all the internal procedures and policies, including the verification checks, are described clearly and that they are also easy to find which shows a great deal of transparency. Coral is a rare example of a bookmaker with clearly defined policies and procedures for stakers. Being both publicly available and in line with present iGaming regulations is a must for every bookmaker and so Coral has got this down exactly to the letter of the law.
Customer Support
The Coral customer support is a tiered system and the level of service is very much dependant on your Coral member status. Members of Coral will get a more polite form of communication over unregistered stakers, and Coral Connect holders are served in a more personalised way with an extended and higher level of service provided again. Responses times are quite frustrating as sometimes you will have to wait up to 15 minutes and some emails are left ignored. Across the board, the support team can be contacted in various ways with email, live chat, and direct messages via Twitter (business hours only). The varying levels of customer service being given by the team cannot be judged by any SLA and there are no other details given in the terms and conditions in relation to this. So, once again we will leave the summary up to our Stakers testing team.
Support Speed & Resolution
How fast do they reply to my general queries?
The live chat starts instantly, and the agents use generic templates to greet you and ask security questions. It will then take about 2-3 minutes to get a response to your initial request.
Live Chat Access
Is the online live chat tool available on the site?
Unregistered stakers may contact Coral via the 24/7 live chat, but the agents refused to credit any ‘no deposit’ free bets which was in a formal tone with short and blunt replies. When dealing with emails, it takes them on average 2-6 hours to reply but some of our email requests still remain unanswered.
Support Team Competency
How quickly will the support team reply to complex queries?
It may take up to 15 minutes to receive a detailed explanation on complex queries after getting several short replies. They were unable to assist even with minor technical queries associated with the loading of their web site. Most likely the query will be escalated to a technical department in real time while you sit and wait.
Level of Technical Expertise
Are the support agents sufficiently trained to answer technical queries based on odds, margins, and markets?
The live chat agents were unable to provide any assistance on sports betting queries related to markets and odds.
Unregistered Staker Support
Will the customer service team interact with unregistered stakers and will I get a free bet?
The support team do attend to general requests from unregistered stakers but some of the agent replies were short with little detail though. However, ‘no deposit’ bonuses are available as a goodwill gesture, but these are for active staker members only.
Professional & Friendly Service
What type of response will I get when requesting a bonus from the service team?
After repeated bonus requests, the agent replies became shorter and less formal and they even started to become slightly rude. We were asked repeatedly whether any other help was required but there were never any clear explanations on their free bonuses.
Customer Service Knowledge
Will the agents provide the correct information about payment limits when compared to the terms and conditions on the website?
The information received over the live chat on the Coral withdrawal and deposit limits were partially incorrect when compared to the information found on their site.
Willingness to Help Out
Will the support representatives help me navigate around their website?
After asking the agent to help us navigate the site, we were asked to simply look for the requested information on our own. There were no links or explanations given whatsoever.
Tolerance Levels
Does the support team have a high tolerance level for repeated bonus requests?
The tolerance levels of the Coral agents are low, so much so that they may refuse to answer and finish the chat on their own discretion.
Onsite Support Efficiency
How efficient is their onsite Helpdesk compared to the competition?
The Coral Helpdesk is well equipped with a lot of information for stakers should any questions arise throughout their Coral journey. The support personnel are clearly trained around this Helpdesk, so we found that by using the search button you are more likely to find the answers yourself anyway.
Conclusion
The Coral support team story is not an inspirational read to be honest. You have agents using generic templates that do not always fit your requests, chats may be finished on the decision of the agent while you continue to ask questions, and the Coral support team do not deal with any technical questions regarding sports betting. There is an obvious lack of training in all matters here that starts from general customer service to the technical topics on betting odds and margin, and agents often turn rude whenever the communication goes further than their knowledge can handle. So, here we have Coral as a good example of how not only a bookmaker, but any other customer service should not be set up. At any moment you might come across agents being rude, unqualified, and acting very slow with basic communication. In comparison, big brother Ladbrokes do tend to manage this a little bit better in the sense that they play ping pong on any of the matters above their expertise, but at least you get an answer, eventually.
Conclusion
The Coral support team story is not an inspirational read to be honest. You have agents using generic templates that do not always fit your requests, chats may be finished on the decision of the agent while you continue to ask questions, and the Coral support team do not deal with any technical questions regarding sports betting. There is an obvious lack of training in all matters here that starts from general customer service to the technical topics on betting odds and margin, and agents often turn rude whenever the communication goes further than their knowledge can handle. So, here we have Coral as a good example of how not only a bookmaker, but any other customer service should not be set up. At any moment you might come across agents being rude, unqualified, and acting very slow with basic communication. In comparison, big brother Ladbrokes do tend to manage this a little bit better in the sense that they play ping pong on any of the matters above their expertise, but at least you get an answer, eventually.
Should you run into any betting or account issues with the Coral services then we hope that this short FAQ can help you solve them in the quickest time possible:
Are you able to complain with Coral?
A complaint can be submitted to the customer support team. If you are unsatisfied with the decision from the agent, the issue may then be forwarded to their team/line manager. Further steps would then involve sending the complaint over to the customer support manager, but there is no information on the time it will take to carry out the investigation.
Where to complain if they refuse the withdrawal?
Stakers can raise a dispute using the Online Dispute Resolution platform or Coral’s official regulator the Gibraltar Gambling Commissioner, or the dedicated IBAS (UK players only).
How do stakers rate the Coral customer service?
Stakers don’t rate the customer service very highly. There are many complaints about the support being unhelpful and rude, the agents closing the chat upon their own discretion, and advising stakers to contact the email team to find a resolution.
Up or down
The Coral betting portal at Stakersland enjoys a solid uptime rate of 99.75% and this stable betting environment is all down to the hard work being carried out by the Hyderabad team. The near-million community of stakers enjoy very little downtime here and so the virtual Coral doors should be open day and night. It is the overall waiting times that might frustrate the stakers though. According to the Google Page Speed rating, the Coral betting pages clock up 64/100 and although it is well above the industry average, we do expect more from one of the veteran bookmakers here at Stakersland.
TECHNOLOGY
The backend of Coral has been developed using old Java 9 and PostgreSQL for the database. In terms of communication logs, we found that 99% of the requests consist of http requests. Our experts quickly pointed out that the use of websockets would be the logical solution to help reduce loading times within the current Apache Kafka setup. The frontend is not the most intricate of setups either with a mix of both AngularJS and JavaScript being used. The total size of the JS code is lumped up to around 4MB and should be reduced down to the optimal 1MB, which would help those stakers betting via mobile devices.
DATA CENTER
The Coral servers are protected by Cloudflare but the current routes to the exact location of the servers are not openly unavailable to our testing team, and the public in general. The Cloudflare choice is an obvious one as the Coral site is big and dragged down with heavy Java issues. Memory allocation is also the other major issue here when there is high demand on data communication. We believe that only the smallest of DDOS attacks could implicate staker access to the Coral betting markets. Therefore, the use of Cloudflare and Kafka help to reduce the server fleet.
SSL CERTIFICATE
The DigiCert SSL certificate is costing Coral around $2,000 per annum and this is substantially more costly compared to other UK and foreign rivals. The current encryption algorithm is 256 bits, with a key of 2048 bits and this shows that the current market standards are being met. The DigiCert certificate applies to all domains and subdomains of coral.com and so, as we understand it, this is a fully-fledged wildcard certificate.
The Coral technical outlook is sufficient, but we have had to overlook them in our official rankings due to its old tech legacy. It runs well enough but there are sections that are in need of one or two specific updates. The use of Java is weighing down the site and the knock-on effect is the costly overhead that comes with serving the near-million staker community through a private data center. Despite obvious signs of trying to optimise, the use of Angular still shows inexcusable flaws such as adding inline styles directly into the code. It looks like they have jumped in and tried to make some changes without fully thinking it through. The use of Apache Kafka to deliver the odds updates looks to us as though they are trying to avoid the inevitable. It is a system that works now but for how much longer, we really could not say.
countries where Coral is licensed
The Coral story takes you down a long and winding road, but if we look at the current situation then Coral is operated by the Ladbrokes Coral Group and owned by GVC Holdings. The two main offices of Ladbrokes Coral are in the UK, one in Nottingham, and one in London which is the head office. Other offices can be found in Gibraltar which is their legal address and the owners GVC Holdings have offices all across the world from the UK, to the USA, Austria, Italy, Bulgaria, Israel, and all the way over to the Philippines as well. Most of the GVC employees who are working on the Coral brand are located in the UK offices and they look to be expanding with around 40+ vacancies available. The Coral sign up form is only really visited by British stakers with one or two Irish, and so this explains the UKGC and HM Revenue Commissioners Irish licences in use. The UK license allows the following activities: bingo, casino, pool and general betting (on both real and virtual events), and betting intermediary, with the Irish license being strictly in use for sports betting only.
Coral holds two betting licenses and these have been acquired under the UKGC and the Irish Revenue of Commissioners. These two licenses help to keep their core community of UK and Irish stakers betting on their racking markets.
As mentioned, the Coral story contains enough gossip and intrigue to fill a book. So, let us take you back to the beginning. It all started with a Polish native and you might remember the ‘never quarrel, bet with Coral’ slogan, well it could have been 'never a controversy, bet with Kagalitsky'. The Coral brand was established by Joseph Kagalitski. A business born in Poland with the firm's founder and former east London street bookie managing to create a career in bookmaking that lasted more than 70 years. To avoid any doubts in the UK and to come across as customer oriented as possible, Joseph took the name of Joe Coral and since then, betting luck has chased the savvy entrepreneur all over Britain. He was one of the first to take advantage of the new betting legislations and opened his first licensed betting office back in 1961. This new law was not intended to encourage betting though and therefore his shops were unattractive in appearance and devoid of any luxuries, not like the shops that we know today with HD TV screens, gaming machines, free tea and coffee, and all sorts of other small comforts.
In January 1981, the Coral Group was acquired by Bass plc and although it continued to retain the Coral name it became an integral part of the growing Bass Leisure. This is where the ownership of Coral really starts to ramp up. After two decades, the Coral brand faced a serious threat over whether or not it would continue in the betting world. It was struggling, so Bass eventually sold the brand to Ladbrokes in 1998 for a total of £363 million. However, there were problems, the Monopolies and Mergers Commission found that the takeover was anti-competitive, and the UK Government ordered Ladbrokes to sell the Coral business. So, all of Coral except its 59 betting shops in Ireland and Jersey were sold on to the Morgan Grenfell Private Equity in a management buyout deal worth £390 million in 1999. This left Ladbrokes with a tidy 7.5% margin, or in other words, £27 million. Not bad business, the story goes on.
Over time, the value of Coral has grown and in 2005 Gala bought out the brand for £2.18 billion to form the Gala Coral Group. This acquisition created the third biggest bookmaker operator in the UK. Fast forward two decades though and Ladbrokes recaptured the title of Coral by paying 10 times as much as they paid in 1998 by handing over £4 billion, in turn, they created the Ladbrokes Coral Group. The story is not yet finished though, and as it turns out, GVC Holdings are now the legal owners of Coral after paying £4 billion to acquire the Ladbrokes Coral merger in 2018. This time around Ladbrokes didn’t really get the deal they were looking for and came out with zero profit unlike their deal back in 1999.
The future of Coral? It is hard to say but one thing we do know is that it has been a fascinating story. The Coral brand started with a Polish native and it currently stands with the loss-making GVC Group, so we do expect more chapters to be added to the Coral story in the near future.
A big betting brand like Coral and with a history as long theirs, it comes as no surprise that one or two headlines have been created in their name. The major talking point is the £5.9 million penalty that landed on the desk of the Ladbrokes Coral Group for failings in anti-money laundering and social responsibility between the years 2014 and 2017. These issues started with Ladbrokes but continued on after the merger with Coral, and so the Coral name took the hit on this penalty, as well as being involved in the scandalous headlines. Elsewhere, the Coral name was brandished across the UK papers as they refused to pay a staker his £250,000 winnings because Rangers FC were not relegated – even though the Coral website itself had mentioned that they were relegated.
Questions
What documents do Coral require for account verification?
Depending on the type of checks that Coral performs, they may ask you different types of documents including a valid photocard driving license, a valid passport (the photo page only), valid ID card, bank statements, bank/savings account, an issue letter from a credit/debit or prepaid card. Utility bills like water, gas, mobile phone, and electric are allowed, as are council tax bills, HMRC tax notifications, tenancy agreements, mortgage or home loan statements, home/mobile/car insurance certificates, a formal university acceptance or admissions letter, contracts of employment or payslip with visible address, marriage certificate, and enrolled deed poll certificates.
Speaking of the automatic checks at Coral, then to establish the account identity they use unnamed sources. According to their terms and conditions - "As part of Verification Checks, we may make use of third party agencies to confirm Your age, identity, address and payment details. This process will involve checking the disclosed details against certain (public or private) databases. By entering into this process, You agree that we may use, record and disclose such personal information and this data may be recorded by us or them". The lack of transparency here is a little worrying and as such, we feel that Coral really need to update and clarify this section of their terms in more detail.
How long does it take them to settle the bets and payout?
Bets will be settled by the Coral trading department once the full result of that market is known. Sometimes a result may be delayed and if your bet remains unsettled for more than two hours after the result is received, you are asked to contact Coral support so they can investigate the settlement further. Additionally, slight delays for overnight events are well-known, as these bets can take longer to verify and settle due to the lack of instant official data available. Coral is known to use various sources including Opta Sport and Statsperform.
How to request a withdrawal and how long it may take?
Withdrawals are usually approved within 24 hours and you can easily request this via your Coral account. The overall processing times after the initial request has been approved varies with each payment option. Visa and Mastercard will take 1-2 working days, the same goes for bank transfers. Skrill, Neteller, and PayPal all get processed within three hours. The whole withdrawal process may take longer though if your total deposit/withdrawal amount comes to £10,000, as this triggers the anti-money laundering directive and so you will be subject to additional checks. The minimum withdrawals are as low as £5 for all payment methods expect for Connect Card users who can withdraw any amount upwards of £0.01. Your overall withdrawal options include Skrill, Neteller, PayPal, Bank Transfers, Connect, and Worldpay.
Are multiple accounts allowed?
Opening more than one account per staker is a prohibited action at Coral. The opening of duplicate accounts may be taken as fraudulent activity and the appropriate measures, including complete account closure, can be applied to those stakers and all the accounts involved.
Is it safe to open an account with Coral?
Coral is one of the oldest and largest bookmakers in the UK and they are operating under official and highly respected licences. No regulation breaches have been registered since the acquisition of Ladbrokes Coral group by GVC Holdings, and it looks as though Coral are demonstrating sufficient transparency in most of their internal policies. At the same time, there are many complaints from the stakers side about verification and/or withdrawal checks taking excessively long times. In relation to getting your winnings then it would only take around 36 hours for Coral to balance out their £1 million upper limit. The publicly traded owners GVC Holdings should have the money available even though being a loss-making company. The associated trouble that any negative press coverage would bring would be too much risk for such a high-profile global company.
VPN Usage - legal or not?
Using VPN on the Coral website is not restricted unless you are trying to open an account from any restricted territory or jurisdiction, as this would be seen as you trying to hide your actual location. This is defined as a prohibited act in the terms and conditions and may lead to account closure, so we highly recommend that you only try to access and bet with Coral from the countries recognised under their official licenses.
gross gaming revenue
customer base
time to make £1M
Social Buzz
Up or down
The Trustpilot profile has been claimed but there are no responses from the team. 88% of staker reviews are marked as “bad” and 3% as “poor”. Most of the reviews are complaining about the inefficient customer service, delayed withdrawals, and problems with the games and software.