BetOnline Review
A rogue casino site that confiscates player winnings
Casinomeister's Verdict
BetOnline Casino is rogued here at Casinomeister. Our members have run into a plethora of complaints while playing and betting at the casino, and, as you’ll see from this review, they operate shadily, often confiscating player’s winnings without justification. We strongly recommend that you avoid playing at BetOnline Casino at all costs.
First Impression
Before we even started to write this BetOnline Casino review we knew exactly what we were facing. While the site may look the part, they have a terrible reputation, and are well-known for withholding player’s winnings, acting unethically and being completely unresponsive to complaints.
While we aim to present online casinos as honestly and impartially as possible within our casino reviews, please do not confuse this honesty with us recommending BetOnline; this is a rogue casino that should be avoided at all costs.
Pros
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Nothing
Cons
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Confiscated player winnings without justification
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Dodgy licensing
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Poor quality of games
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Low sports betting prices
BONUSES AND PROMOTIONS
BetOnline has a number of different promotions; for example, they have a sports betting welcome bonus, a casino welcome bonus, and a slots welcome bonus. Below, we’ll be covering the slots bonus, as this is what most players will be claiming.
Welcome Offer
The slots bonus at BetOnline is a 100% matched deposit bonus up to $1,000, with a min deposit of $100. These bonus funds can then be used on a number of slot games at the casino.
No-Deposit & Free Spins Offers
At the time of writing, BetOnline doesn’t offer any no-deposit bonuses or free spins promotions.
VIP and Loyalty Programs
BetOnline runs a variety of ongoing promotions, designed to tempt players to be loyal to the site. For example, they offer 10% casino rebates, and a ‘lifetime bonus guarantee’ within their sportsbook – but we should point out that all of the bonuses at BetOnline carry very strict terms and conditions, often, with very high wagering requirements.
Banking & Payment Methods
When it comes to making deposits and withdrawals at BetOnline Casino you’ll find that you’re offered a wide variety of options, and this includes both fiat payment options and cryptocurrencies.
For example, the online casino allows you to make deposits using most major debit and credit cards, along with Person-to-Person, Bank Transfer and Cashiers Check. The minimum deposit amount varies, depending on which of the deposit methods you choose to use, but it’s generally around $50 for fiat banking options.
When it comes to cryptocurrencies, BetOnline Casino allows players to use Bitcoin, Ethereum and Litecoin. The minimum deposit for these payment methods is $20 – so considerably lower than the fiat payment methods.
Deposits are credited to your account immediately, and, aside from charges or fees levied by your bank, there are not any hidden charges applied by the casino.
If you’re looking for a decent crypto-focused casino, check out our Bit Dreams Review!
BetOnline Review: Withdrawal Speeds
When it comes to withdrawals BetOnline Casino are pretty quick, and they aim to process most withdrawal requests within just an hour. Their maximum time-frame, however, is 48 hours – but even then it’s just a couple of working days, and that’s the maximum time-frame.
While writing this BetOnline review we found that the minimum withdrawal limit – for most payment methods – is just $20. You can also withdraw up to $10,000 at a time, and the casino does not charge any fees for you to make a withdrawal.
If you wish to withdraw between $500 and $5,000, you can request a cheque from BetOnline Casino. For sums greater than this, you can request a bank wire transfer – but there may be fees associated with most of these payment options.
Note: BetOnline Casino has a history of simply not paying out player winnings. This goes for both players of the BetOnline poker room and their online casino. Their sports betting platform is also affected. Read our ‘complaints’ section later on to find out more about this.
Responsible Gaming
In today’s online gambling industry responsible gambling is a pretty hot topic – and regulators are increasingly requiring casinos to carry out checks on their players and ensure that they’re only gambling with money that they can afford to lose.
Unfortunately, while this stance is taken by most regulators, Curacao is one that hasn’t quite caught up – and, as a result, most online casinos licensed in Curacao only do the bare minimum when it comes to responsible gambling. This is seen even more at crypto casinos; it’s almost impossible to set deposit/wager limits at these casinos, due to the very nature of the way in which cryptocurrencies work.
As a result, when you play at BetOnline Casino, you won’t be able to use or set such limits. However, the online casino has made available quite a comprehensive responsible gambling page where you’ll be able to find help links to external resources – designed to provide guidance should you feel that your online gambling is becoming a problem.
You can also take a time-out – or opt for self-exclusion – if you believe your gaming has been troublesome, and both of those responsible gambling tools are self-manageable, which means you do not need to call the customer service staff to implement them onto your account; this is something we like to see, and it’s proof that the online casino does indeed take responsible gambling very seriously – something we’re big advocates of here at Casinomeister.
Customer Support
Whenever we write a casino review one of the core areas that we look at is the customer support facility. This is something that you may, initially, overlook as being relatively unimportant, but it’s actually crucial to the overall player experience – after all, if you do run into problems, you want to ensure that they are taken care of quickly and promptly.
We were surprised to see that BetOnline Casino offers customer support 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and they offer three different ways that you can get in touch with the casino support team. It should be noted, however, that when you actually need help there’s a good chance you’ll get the ‘talk to the hand’ treatment.
The first way is through their live chat facility. Live chat connects you to a trained customer representative in just a couple of minutes, and once the connection has been established, you can then talk through your problem, question, or query in real time. Once the conversation has ended you are given the opportunity to send a transcript of the conversation to your email address.
BetOnline Casino also offers phone support, which is something we were actually quite surprised to see. Phone support is expensive for casinos to operate and requires significantly more manpower, so it’s surprising, once again to see it available at the casino. In addition to the live chat and phone support offered, BetOnline Casino also offers support by email.
However, if you choose to get in touch with the customer support team via email you may find yourself waiting up to 12 to 24 hours to receive a response; potentially slightly longer on the weekends and public holidays.
KYC
Whether you need to verify your account at BetOnline Casino seems to largely depend on the method in which you make a deposit. If you only use cryptocurrency, it appears as though you have a lower chance of being asked to complete a KYC check. However, those making deposits and withdrawals using debit and credit cards will be asked to complete a KYC check.
So, why do you need to complete a KYC check? Here’s what Thales Group has to say: “KYC process includes ID card verification, face verification, document verification such as utility bills as proof of address, and biometric verification. Banks must comply with KYC regulations and anti-money laundering regulations to limit fraud.”
Once you submit your documents to BetOnline Casino their team will aim to process them within 24-48 hours. However, the casino appears to have a pretty solid track record, and we’ve read many player reports of their documents being approved within just a few hours of submitting them!
Website Experience and Features
Desktop and Mobile Gaming
When our team was writing this BetOnline Casino review they wanted to see how well the site rendered across a number of devices – and to start off, we looked at how well the site worked on desktop computers and laptops.
For the most part, BetOnline Casino does a pretty good job in ensuring players are able to enjoy a hassle-free, smooth and enjoyable online gambling experience. The website was pretty fast loading, and we found – thanks to the handy navigation menu – that making your way around and finding the right games to play was easy and straightforward. The website’s slick and modern design also means that you can enjoy the action in a modern way.
When it comes to BetOnline Casino’s mobile platform their site isn’t quite as impressive as some of the other Bitcoin casinos we’ve seen – but it does the job. As you’d expect, you don’t need to download or install any software to begin playing, and simply head to BetOnline Casino from your mobile device’s internet browser and you’ll be automatically redirected to a special mobile-friendly version of the site.
At the time of writing, BetOnline Casino doesn’t unfortunately offer a dedicated mobile casino app, but if this changes in the future we’ll update this review accordingly – and let you know how it performs.
Brand games
Providers
While putting this BetOnline Casino review together, our team wanted to look closely at the types of game offered at the online casino – and what our readers could expect when playing there.
The first thing you should know about BetOnline Casino when it comes to games is that, unfortunately, there’s a super limited selection of titles on offer. All of the non-live casino games are provided by Betsoft – and while their portfolio is pretty decent, you won’t find any of the mainstream games offered by the likes of NetEnt of Pragmatic Play.
The only other software provider you’ll find is a company called Fresh Deck Studios, who we’ll be looking at in more depth below. They’re a live casino games developer – but, other than that, it’s just Betsoft’s games you’ll find.
Slots
While writing this BetOnline review, we found that – in addition to their sports betting and the BetOnline poker room – the site offers very little in the way of slots. The only software provider you’ll find at BetOnline Casino is Betsoft – a company who have a number of their own issues, especially when it comes to regulation and trustworthiness.
Even if you are a fan of Betsoft’s games, we strongly recommend you don’t play at BetOnline Casino; there are plenty of much better casinos to play at, and don’t let the guise of 3D slots draw you in, either – these can be enjoyed at many other crypto casinos that don’t have such a poor reputation.
Live Casino
BetOnline Casino is one of the only online casinos we have seen to offer live casino games from Fresh Deck Studios. Fresh Deck Studios are arguably the smallest software provider in the live gaming industry, and so far, we have only found their games available at a small handful of sites – mainly crypto-focused online casinos.
However, just because Fresh Deck Studios are small and relatively unknown, does not mean that they should be ignored – and they have actually managed to put together a relatively strong portfolio of live dealer games, many of which can be enjoyed for as little as $0.20 per hand/spin.
To access the live dealer casino at BetOnline Casino, you simply need to click the live dealer tab on the website main game navigation menu. You will then be taken into the live dealer casino lobby where you will find yourself faced with all of the tables, showcasing a picture of the dealer, the betting limits for that table, and, where applicable, the opening hours for that table.
Table Games and Video Poker
BetOnline Casino offers players a variety of casino table games covering everything from Roulette and Blackjack, to Baccarat, Video Poker and more. The Video Poker selection is perhaps the most extensive at the casino, with a large number of titles available to play.
The selection of other casino games is slightly less impressive, unfortunately, and it includes just a few 3D slots, table games and poker-inspired table games.
Progressive Jackpots
BetOnline Casino offers progressive jackpots from Betsoft – and this may come as a bit of a letdown to some players, given Betsoft’s poor track record with progressive jackpot games in the past.
However, if you are a fan of Betsoft’s progressive jackpots, you’ll find a wide variety of their titles to enjoy at BetOnline Casino, and this includes their iconic Greedy Goblins. This game, first developed in 2014, doesn’t tend to offer the biggest jackpot amounts, but they do regularly surpass $150,000, and the jackpot bonus tends to trigger quite frequently, too.
Another of Betsoft’s popular progressive jackpot video slots, Bad Girl 25c can be enjoyed at BetOnline Casino, and, as the name suggests, this allows you to be in with a chance of winning the jackpot while staking as little as $0.25 per spin!
About the Team and History
BetOnline Casino is a relatively well-known online gambling website which has roots dating back to as far as 1991. Originally founded in Rochester, New York, BetOnline Casino moved to Costa Rica in 2000, to avoid ever-tightening regulations in the United States.
While BetOnline Casino actually has a history dating back to 1971, the site in its current form was known, between the years of 2001 and 2007, as BestLineSports.com. Here’s a blurb from GS.org explaining about the company:
“Before they became BetOnline, there were two other companies using the same name.
The first was launched July, 8, 1998 as a partnership between the UK’s Mirror Group and the Press Association. Initially it was located on the sub-domain, betonline.sporting-life.com, before using the URL betonline.co.uk in September of 1998. (This original BetOnline appears to date back to the UK betting site now known as BlueSquare and has nothing to do with the company under discussion.)
The other BetOnline actually used the domain name betonline.com. This same group now owns 7redsports.com and ezstreetsports.com. We will come back later to explain how BestLineSports.com ended up becoming betonline.com. For now, take note that neither of these other BetOnlines forms any part of the BetOnline.com of today, nor have they ever been.”
Today, BetOnline Casino continues to operate as both an online casino and bookmaker, and they’re one of the biggest US-facing brands, while also branching out into other jurisdictions.
Complaints and Track Record
Unfortunately, BetOnline Casino has a pretty mixed reputation when it comes to trustworthiness. Their reputation, while long-standing, isn’t without issue, and there are a number of issues we ran into online while writing this BetOnline review.
For example, one very serious allegation claimed that BetOnline Casino employees knew poker players’ passwords back in 2012 – and while this appears to have been confined to their poker room, it did damage trust in the brand as a whole.
While writing this BetOnline review we also found this post from maxd – the complaints manager here at Casinomeister. Here’s what he had to say:
“Over the past year we’ve seen a number of complaints against BetOnline.ag including a couple PABs for substantial amounts, close to $150,000 on the PABs alone.
The reasons given to the players for the confiscations were never very confidence inspiring but lately they’ve degenerated to dismissive comments like ”it’s a management decision” or “you’ve played in an unethical manner”.
The casino hasn’t responded properly to any of these cases and most recently they’ve said:
If further information is needed, we require to speak with the player in question directly.
Trying to explain to them that the players’ attempts to do so have routinely failed so the players have turned to us and produced no comment.
Explaining that we are certified arbitrators and the player has every right to ask us to speak on their behalf has produced no comment.
The bottom line is that they’ve taken a lot of player money and aren’t willing to explain, or even discuss, why they’ve done so.
And last but not least BetOnline.ag is apparently licensed in Panama which is very low indeed on the list of trustworthy jurisdictions.”
WARNING: BetOnline.ag is confiscating substantial amounts of money from players for completely inadequate reasons. They are ignoring player complaints and refuse to recognize the player’s right to arbitration.
Players are STRONGLY advised to avoid BetOnline.ag and all its operations.
Casino Facts
Founded | 1998 |
Casino representative | |
Affiliate program | Affiliate Link |
Is this casino certified at Casinomeister | No |
Payout Time | N/A |
Reverse Time | N/A |
Weekend Payouts | Yes |
Locks Withdrawals | Yes |