888 Casino UK – Full Review of the Games and Bonuses

888 is one of the best online casinos not only in the UK but in the world in general. They simply excel above all others in all aspects: when it comes to the games, the promotions, and the overall experience. If you plan on playing real money games online, this is undoubtedly the best choice for you, as it was for over 25 million other players. Join them today and you’ll be rewarded with £88 worth of FreePlay money!

In this detailed review, I won’t try to convince you that 888 is the best casino site as this is a fact that has been confirmed by enough experts and players already. Rather than doing that, I will go through every single aspect of the casino, giving you precious information on how to take the most out of your stay at the site. So let’s start with the registration process.

First Steps at the Casino – Registration and Login

Opening an account at 888 is pretty straightforward and resembles more a registration at a regular site than at a real money gaming destination. Here’s pretty much what you have to do to start playing for real money within minutes:

Visit the home page of 888 Casino’s website and click on the yellow ‘Sign up & Play’ button. You’ll be redirected to a simple 3-step registration form which you have to fill with your personal information – a process that takes no more than two minutes. It’s really important that you use your real name, address, and phone number because when you later down the road want to withdraw your winnings, you’ll have to undergo an account verification which includes you sending a copy of an identification document to the operator. So if the information you’ve provided upon registration and the one on your driver’s licence don’t match, the operator will refuse to pay out your winnings. This is simply a requirement set by the Gambling Commission and not the operators being mean, so don’t risk leaving the site empty-handed and use your real details. The site is 100% safe and has a serious privacy policy, so you can be sure that they won’t provide your information to third parties.

• Visit 888 Casino By Following One of Our Links
• Fill the Registration Form With Your Real Personal Details
• Log Into Your Account By Clicking on the ‘Login’ Link

Once you’ve created your account, you are ready to begin your new gambling journey. At the top of the casino’s homepage, you’ll see a ‘Login’ link. Click it and you’ll be redirected to the Member Login page from where you can access the casino using your credentials. You’ll find yourself in the lobby, greeted with the message by the operator prompting you to check your email so that you can claim your an £88 free gift – your first bonus of the many that await you at 888!

Great Welcoming and Continuous Bonus Opportunities

One of the best things about 888 is the sheer number of bonus offers and promotions that the operator has at any time. And among all of those, the most generous one is, naturally, the welcome bonus. As I already mentioned, once you’ve logged into your casino account for the first time, you’ll receive a message that encourages you to check your mail in order to claim the £88 FreePlay bonus which requires no deposit whatsoever. So check your inbox for that email from 888 and click on the link they’ve sent you (Note that in some cases, this email might end up in the spam folder, so make sure you check there as well if you cannot find the message in your inbox). When you return to the casino you’ll find £88 FreePlay money in your account – an offer which is available only to UK players!

The FreePlay Bonus – £88 to Try Selected Games

Once you’ve confirmed claiming your £88 FreePlay bonus by clicking the link that 888 have sent you via email, you can return to the lobby of the casino. You’ll discover that a new button has appeared saying ‘You Have Freeplay’. Click on it and a pop-up will show up, as illustrated in the screenshots below, from where you’ll be able to choose one of the eligible games: Ultimate Universe, Treasure Fair, Multhand Blackjack, Millionaire Genie, Irish Riches, European Roulette and Casino Reels.

• ‘You Have Freeplay’Click This Button in the Casino Lobby
• Choose a TitleFrom the List of Eligible Games
• Play for Real MoneyWithout Spending a Penny of Your Own!

An interesting fact, one that you should keep in mind if you plan on playing on the go, is that you can now claim the FreePlay bonus also on mobile – something that wasn’t possible only a couple of months ago, as the offer was only available to the desktop users. The process of claiming and using the bonus is identical to the one on desktop – you just have to register, click on the link sent to you by 888 and choose one of the eligible games to play at.

Now that you have the bonus, it’s time to use it! You can play one, some or all of the eight eligible games with this bonus, but in order to be able to withdraw some winnings, you’ll have to clear certain requirements. First of all, you should know that out of the £88 FreePlay, you can keep up to £15 in the form of casino cash which is subject to a 30x wagering requirement. As opposed to the FreePlay Money, you can wager this particular bonus on any of 888 casino’s games, but you should know that some of the games contribute at a different rate toward the playthrough conditions, a topic that we’re going to cover in more detail in the ‘Bonus Policy & Wagering Requirements’ section, a little bit further down the page.

Two First-Deposit Bonus Offers

Free money is always welcomed when you’re playing at an online casino. But the truth to the matter is that these are not the most convenient bonus options for the player as they have higher wagering requirements and lower bonus amounts than the other promotions. The offers that are most generous are actually the first-deposit bonuses and the same is true for 888 Casino. Here you have two options to choose from depending on how much you are willing to deposit at the casino.

The first welcome bonus option that you have here is the standard one which can bring you up to £100 in bonus cash. In order to claim this bonus, you have to make a deposit using one of the accepted payment methods at the casino. You don’t have to use any bonus code in order to get your bonus – the minute your transaction is completed the bonus amount will be credited to your account.

If you feel that a £100 bonus is too low of a number for you, then you can take advantage of the other offer at the casino. I’m talking about the Premium Player Package – an offer that can be claimed with five separate deposits and can secure you up to £1500 in your first week at the casino. If you’re interested in this particular offer, then you should make a first deposit of at least £20 at the casino using the promo code Welcome1. This deposit will be rewarded with a 100% bonus up to £100. Then, for your second, third, fourth and fifth deposit each, you’ll receive a 30% bonus up to £350 with, respectively, the bonus codes Welcome2, Welcome3, Welcome4 and Welcome5. Note that only the players that have claimed the first-deposit bonus using the promotion code Welcome1 will be eligible for the next four deposit bonuses. Also, note that you can claim bonus 2 through 5 only if you make the subsequent deposits within 7 days of the first one and after wagering the deposit amounts 3 times.

Bonus Policy & Wagering Requirements

Not only does 888 have great bonus options for new players, they also have set some of the best wagering conditions that you can see at an online casino. As you probably know all too well, once you’ve claimed a certain bonus, you have to wager it a certain number of times before you can withdraw it. At 888, that requirement is set at 30 – a number as low as it can be. On top of that, the validity period for those bonuses is set at 90 days – 3 times more than what you can usually find at online casinos. This makes the bonuses at 888 some of the easiest to clear.

Another important fact about 888’s Bonus Policy is that not all games contribute at the same rate toward the completion of the bonus wagering – a practice that is pretty standard at online casinos as the different categories of games bring a different level of risk. Here are what these rates are:

As you can see, pretty much all but the table, card and video poker games contribute 100% toward the playthrough requirement, so if you want to wager you bonus faster, you should select a game belonging to the first category. Usually, players prefer to wager their bonuses on slot games as they are straightforward and fast in terms of gameplay.

Numerous Promotions for All Types of Players

The new player offers at each casino are crucial for you to get off to a good start at an online casino and secure yourself a good amount of free cash to play with. Still, that’s not the only thing that you should be looking for at an online casino. Remember that you can take advantage from a welcome offer only once. This is why it’s really important for you to check whether the casino has a big enough number of promotions for the regular players as well. And, thankfully, when it comes to those types of promotions as well, 888 Casino doesn’t disappoint one bit!

First of all, I want to draw your attention to 888’s Daily Deals. Yes, that’s right, 888 offers a different bonus for every day of the week. Here are the available promotions:

The availability of the Daily Deals pretty much guarantees that you will have the opportunity to claim a bonus every day of the week. Still, this is not where the promotions end at 888. On top of everything else, there are two special promotions dedicated to the live dealer games fans and also a comp point system which will secure you regular cash back. As for the high rollers, 888 has a great VIP programme which offers exclusive offers and many privileges to the most loyal players. This programme has three levels – VIP, VIP Gold, and VIP Platinum – each offering more and more perks. But what would those bonuses mean if it weren’t for the exciting games that the casino has – the next topic in our detailed review.

A Game Selection Like No Other!

What would a casino be without its games? It’s those games that inspire us to sign up at an online casino or at least to take interest in one. This is why it’s really important for a casino site to offer a rich selection of diverse games that can keep us busy day and night. And that’s exactly what 888 does!

Now, I cannot say that 888 has the biggest game selection out there as this is simply not true. The collection has over 100 titles, a good number indeed, but that’s not even comparable to the 400-500 that other casinos have. But what’s important is that this collection is still one of the most diverse on the market as there you can see titles by many different providers. On top of that, a part of the games is developed internally by 888, something that rather few operators on the market do.

When you log into the games lobby of the casino, you’ll see six different categories of games that you can choose from: Live Casino, Card & Table Games, Slots, New Games, Exclusive Games and Jackpot Games. Of course, the biggest category in terms of numbers is the slot one so this is where we’ll start digging deeper first.

Slot Selection

Slots are the centrepiece of every casino game selection and this is why you can tell a lot about an online operator just by looking at its slot selection. Judging 888 by this criterion, you will immediately know that diversity is the main focus of the casino as there are slots developed by many different software houses. Some of the more popular slots here are Millionaire Genie (featuring a huge jackpot), Knights and Maidens, Rainbow Riches, The Big Lebowski, Pirates Millions (yet another progressive slot), Treasure Fair and Nightmare on Elm Street. Among the newer titles, on the other hand, you’ll see Kiss: Shout It Out Loud!, Saved by the Bells, Ghost in the Shell, Spartacus – Gladiator of Rome and Steampunk Nation.

Table Games – Roulette and Keno

As far as table games go, at 888 you can enjoy the player-favourite roulette and Keno. And while Keno has only one game variation, roulette can be enjoyed in 10 different variants and that is excluding the live games! More precisely, you can play the following roulette games: European Roulette, European Roulette High Limit, French Roulette, French Roulette High Limit, American Roulette, American Roulette High Limit, 3D Roulette, Low Stakes Roulette and Deal or No Deal Roulette. As you can tell by the names of the games, there are tables for players with all sorts of bankrolls. In fact, the allowed bet amount at all the available roulette games at 888 starts from as low as £0.50 and go as high as £2000.

Card Games – Blackjack and Poker

One of the few remarks that you will find in this review will be the following: unfortunately, the blackjack collection of the casino needs some work. There are only three blackjack games there: Multihand Blackjack, Classic Blackjack and American Blackjack and although the betting range is pretty nice (£1 – £15,000), that’s not enough to satisfy the needs of the true players. Thank god for the live-dealer tables! They somewhat make up for this flaw. As for the rest of the card game selection, at 888 you can play baccarat and some casino poker games: Oasis Poker, Caribbean Poker, Triple Card Poker, Casino Hold’em and Red Dog. A big omission here is the lack of a Craps game.

Other games that you can enjoy at 888 besides the above-mentioned categories is video poker. There are 6 video poker games there which are weirdly located in the Card & Table Games section of the lobby. I say weird because it’s more usual for these games to have their own section, but hey, at least they are there. Anyway, the available video poker games at the casino are the following: All American, Deuces Wild, Joker Wild, Jacks or Better, Tens or Better and Tens or Better Clash of the Titans.

Live Dealer Games

888 trusted Evolution Gaming with the development and support of their live dealer platform and this is why it can boast one of the biggest, richest and most diverse live dealer games selections in the world! In fact, at 888, you can play live dealer roulette, blackjack, baccarat, Casino Hold’em, Three Card Poker and Caribbean Stud Poker. Just for reference, online casinos usually offer only roulette, blackjack and baccarat, therefore, 888 truly outshine their competitors in this regard.

At 888, you will find over a dozen live roulette tables, all with different limits ranging from £0.50 to £40,000 which obviously means that these games are suitable for all types of players – high rollers and low rollers alike. In the blackjack section of the live dealer lobby, on the other hand, you’ll often see over 30 different tables, with limits ranging from £0.50 – £10,000. The baccarat section usually features 2-3 tables while the rest of the games – only one.

One of the best things about 888’s Live Casino is that you can play there with your bonus money. In fact, as we mentioned earlier in this review, all live dealer games contribute toward the wagering requirement of the casino. And the bonus that is most worth it to claim and then use on live games is the welcome offer as it has very convenient playthrough conditions and is valid for 3 whole months:

• . Play Live! Welcome Bonus £100 Excellent• Top Offer for Live Dealer Games• 6 Different Live Game Variations

Of course, the welcome offer is not the only bonus that you can claim for live dealer games. At 888, there’s a live-roulette and a live-blackjack promotion that you can participate in every day. On top of that one of the daily deals, namely the Saturday one, is solely dedicated to the live gaming fans.

Software Platform

888 is one of the few casinos that have developed their own platform as opposed to using one of the ready-to-go solutions from Microgaming or Playtech. As a result, the site looks and feels like nothing you’ve seen before. There are two versions of this software – instant-play and download ones even though the second one doesn’t work at the moment. But then again, I would recommend you use the instant-play option even if they soon fix the problem, because it is easily accessible from different devices and runs on all the most popular operating systems: Windows 7, Mac, Windows 10, Windows 8 and Windows XP.

Other than that, it’s important to note again that 888 feature games from different software providers, some of which are IGT, Cryptologic, Barcrest, Blueprint Gaming and Electracade, to mention but a few. On top of that, almost all of the games are available for play money, i.e. in demo mode.

Mobile Compatibility

Except for a great and stable desktop platform, 888 also offers great mobile support. The casino is compatible with all the most popular portable phones running on a relatively recent version of Android or iOS. For Android, there’s a web application, meaning that you can access the site directly in your mobile browser. As for iPhones and iPads, there’s a native app which you can download from iTunes. There is no downloadable .apk app for Android nor a web app working on iOS. Unfortunately, there’s no official support for Blackberry and Windows Phone which means that very few games if any will work on such devices. Yet, I cannot consider this much of a flaw as almost no online casinos support these operating systems since their market share is very small.

Cashier – Deposits and Withdrawals

If you want to claim the £100 welcome bonus or any of the other offers at 888 for that matter, you’ll have to make a deposit at the casino. You can do that by accessing the casino lobby and clicking on the ‘Cashier’ button or by going to ‘My Account’ and then clicking on ‘Deposit’. From there on, you can choose one of the accepted payment methods. For UK players, those are Visa, Master Card, Maestro, PayPal, Paysafecard, Neteller, Skrill, Wire Transfer, EntroPay, iCheque Visa and PayR. They also accept deposits by phone which is the newest method of topping up your casino account. The minimum and maximum deposit limits depend on the method you’ve chosen but have a range respectively of £7-£50 and £3000-£25,000 a day. All the money transfers to the casino are executed almost instantly and are at the same time secure and private.

As for the withdrawals, they can be made via Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, PayPal, Skrill, Neteller, Wire Transfer and iDebit. Naturally, before you can withdraw any of your winnings at the casino, you’ll have to undergo an ID verification – a standard practice at all online casinos. On top of that, the withdrawals, unlike the deposits, are not instant. The withdrawal time for UK players varies from 2 to 29 days, according to the payment method you’ve chosen. The cash out methods with the shortest payout time periods are the ones via e-wallets – they usually take 2-5 days. Cheques, on the other hand, take the longest – the awaiting process might reach up to 29 working days! Is it even necessary to say which type of payment method it’s recommended you use?

Security, Privacy & Social Responsibility

888 is not only one of the richest online casinos in terms of bonuses and game diversity, but also, one of the most serious operators when it comes to security, fairness and social responsibility. Being one of the biggest companies in the niche, 888 take their duty to inform their visitors about problem gambling and to prevent underage gambling very seriously. They support reputable responsible gambling organisations such as GamCare, Gamblers Anonymous, Gambling Therapy and GambleAware, on top of offering their customers useful self-control tools such as one for setting your own deposit limits and another one for self-exclusion. They even recommend tools which can block your access to the site – something that is definitely not great for the business, but is a testament to the trustworthiness and social-engagement of the company. They also have their own site dedicated to responsible gambling called 888Responsible. This is probably why 888 have won the EGR award ‘Socially responsible operator of the year’ multiple times.

On top of being a truly stellar example of how an operator should care about its impact on society when offering real money games, 888 operates a 100% secure website and software platform which is attested by one of the biggest anti-virus brands in the world – McAfee. Also, the fairness of the games 888 offer is regularly tested by eCOGRA which periodically issues reports about the RTPs of the games.

The Company Behind the Brand

In the UK, 888 is operated by 888 UK Limited – a company that is licensed and regulated by the United Kingdom Gambling Commission. This company is owned by Cassava Enterprises Limited which deals with the gambling activities of the operator in the whole of Europe, has a head office in Gibraltar and is, therefore, licensed by the Gibraltar Gambling Authority. Cassava, on the other hand, is owned by 888 Holdings PLC which is the group which operates all of 888’s brands and is listed on the London Stock Exchange.

As a responsible gambling operator, 888 offer their customers 24/7 support service reachable in all possible ways: via phone, live chat and email, and in different languages: English, Chinese, Danish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish. There are many phone numbers that you can use to contact the support centre of the operator, but if you are British player then I suggest you use the UK 0800 contact number featured in the table below:

For all of you that have additional questions about the operator, you can visit 888’s website and, from the footer of the home page, go to the FAQ section of the site. There you will most likely find answers to all your questions. If not, then would be the time to contact the customer support service. It’s also recommended that you read the terms and conditions of the site before starting to play there. After all, if you’re going to bet your own money, you should know exactly what you’re getting yourself into. Also, on the homepage of the site, you will find a link to 888’s blog where you can find useful game guides, interesting articles on gambling and even a card-counting trainer.

Tips, Known Issues and Solutions

There’s not much to criticise about 888, but the fact to the matter is that the operator is just like any other and it’s possible that at a certain point you might experience an issue. One of the questions that players struggle to find an answer to is how they can delete their accounts. And the answer is actually pretty simple, as explained in the ‘Help’ section of the casino – you should simply write an email to support@888casino.com and request an account closure. Players should also contact the customer support if they wish to self-exclude or have any other complaints the answers to which they cannot find in the FAQ.

Another problem that some players have experienced when playing at 888 is the ‘Unable to Connect to Server’ message. In such cases, most often than not, the players find out that the problem is on their end or in their Internet provider and not in 888. In such cases, you can check your Internet connection, restart your router or contact your provider.

The last issue that we’re going to cover here is surprisingly common and one that has pissed many people off who in most cases later down the road find that the fault is actually their own. I’m talking about the painful ‘888 won’t let me withdraw’ complaint. More often than not, the case is that the player tries to make a first withdrawal and they are asked for ID verification – a pretty standard practice at all gambling sites. In such case, they simply need to send a copy of a personal identification document to the customer support and the casino would remove the withdrawal restriction. In the case that the player cannot verify their identity because they have registered with a fake name – I’m sorry, but you can say goodbye to all your winnings! This is exactly why, in this review, I’ve emphasised numerous times that you have to register using your real personal details. After all, with a brand as popular, secure and trustworthy as 888, you have nothing to worry about when it comes to your privacy and the safety of your personal details.

888 Is Great! Join, Don’t Hesitate!

As far as gambling operators go, there is no one better than 888. The professionalism of the company shines through every single aspect of the casino – from the games to the bonuses and promotions, the precise but simply written terms and conditions and the 24/7 customer support. Over 25 million people have put their trust and money in the brand, not to be disappointed later in any way. Most of them have spent hours and hours playing for free and winning real cash taking advantage of the generous offers of the casino and some of them have even won life-changing jackpots, such as Norm who used his first deposit to play on the popular slot Millionaire Genie and hit a jackpot of over 2.3 million pounds! Be like Norm and try your luck at 888! You are not guaranteed to become a millionaire like him, but one thing is for sure – you will have fun and get the adrenaline going!