Last updated February 12th, 2023
Coral Bookmaker is a formerly well-known UK bookmaking brand. Once part of the ‘Big Three’ of British retail bookmaking, it is now part of a portfolio of brands owned by Entain Plc (formerly called GVC Holdings), all of which have lost trust and credibility under the current ownership. Entain Plc hides part of Corals’ profits from the tax man via its offshore company structure. Coral is now a badly-run betting company with a history of ignoring contractual arrangements.
OPINION: Coral Bookmaker has been run into the ground by a dishonest parent company. There have been many player complaints about Coral. These include slow payment, rapid limiting of stakes, disappearing funds and bad customer service – just take a look at the Coral customer reviews on this page below and see how poor the feedback is. Entain have also been dishonest with business partners, altering contractual arrangements at will. We can not recommend this, or any Entain brand, to punters. It would be reckless of Just Bookies to approve a firm where profiteering is profligate.
Coral Bookmaker Review & History
The bookmaking brand Coral has changed hands many times, including to various venture capital firms. In our view its current owners (Entain Plc, renamed from GVC Holdings Plc) are its worst. Under Entain’s previous CEO, the shameless self-promoter and publicity-seeker Kenny Alexander, Coral has lost its integrity. That was one the one thing it had previously managed to maintain until 2020.
While its bricks and mortar betting shop business may have been competently managed, Coral had made some poor decisions where its online business was concerned. As a result they lost some headway in the betting lands of the world wide web. Coral got into the position of having several unconnected online brands with no strong identity. In a bid to rectify this they closed their Eurobet online operation in September 2011 in order to push the online betting brand.
Coral was purchased by Gala in 2005 to form Gala Coral. It brought the bricks and mortar, land-based bingo halls and casinos of Gala together with the high street betting shops and online presence of Coral.
Gala Coral are proud possessors of 180 bingo halls and 31 casinos and over 1600 retail betting shops. In addition there are a couple of dog tracks at Hove and Romford. The bricks and mortar bingo operations were badly undermined by the rapid growth of online bingo. Ironically it was not Gala Coral who exploited this at all.
This is a firm with a long history and it was a famous brand, particularly in the UK. The current Coral bookies’ website uses Playtech software. It did launch with some major teething problems as casino software giant Playtech had not done sports betting before. It was obvious nobody had done the necessary testing and so they went live with so many bugs, including the fact it wouldn’t work with one of the main browsers. Coral allowed themselves to be somewhat of a guinea pig.
They have moved away to better software, but have lost their way in terms of competent management. The feeling is that the cutomer is not there to be serviced and cared for, but rather to be fleeced.
Joseph Kagarlitski who founded this bookmaker in 1926 and pragmatically changed his name to the more pronounceable Joe Coral in the process, will be turning in his grave when he sees how Entain Plc have treated his brand like a cash-cow at the chief expense of honesty and reputation. Those were two qualities Joe Coral treasured. The fact customer care and good service is at the bottom of the priorities for all Entain brands is a crying shame. Now Joe’s eponymous fake name is attached to a second-rate online betting operation who’s parent company’s sole aim until recently, when he retired under a cloud, was the self-aggrandisement of its duplicitous and dictatorial CEO, Kenny Alexander.
Please Rate & Review Coral Bookies
Submit your review | |
After betting at Corals for over 7 years in Stratford, I go to the shop on Sunday night to be told by a member of staff 'oh your barred for a year' as they want to see my bank details etc. This in front of several members of the public. Lucky I have managed to get a statement from them which I will be using as evidence in my case against Corals, a company that has decided after 7 years of betting I may need looking into. When I went to CAB, they were shocked and thank goodness are making a case for me. Avoid this company at all costs.
Shocking bookmakers and won’t be using them again. I had been putting bets on using my debit card and had told the member of staff every time I took a bet up to the counter. Went to put an each-way bet on two virtual horses one minute apart. Member of staff put bet on and realised after he threw it in the bin it was card bet and not cash which he had put it through as. Quickly he tried to rewrite my bet to put it on because he had made a mistake. The horse race went off before he had done my bet and they both won. Never got paid out. Never go there again because this is not the first time.
I would not give Coral one star. Extremely dodgy.
Placed a £30 bet last Friday evening for the following day. My £30 was taken but no bet was placed. My money disappeared and the bet won. I've tried numerous times to get the matter corrected after waiting 30 minutes each time to get through. Then they said it will be sorted but not heard a dicky-bird or received my money.
If you have evidence proving the bet was placed then you might want to make a complaint to the UK Gambling Commission (https://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/). UKGC licenses Coral in the UK and has issued huge fines against offending gambling companies for various offences. If they contact Coral about this, you'll get a reply from them immediately. The other authority for betting disputes is the Independent Betting Adjudication Service (IBAS). If IBAS (https://www.ibas-uk.com/) decide you should be paid, then you will be.
I deposited on 3rd feb and never showed on account. After a number of customer service rubbish that don't read emails properly I finally got email on 5th stating there was a tech issue: they see the payment and total apologies etc. Money never appeared, emailed again, told to call a number as missing deposit, more rubbish, spoke to a person on phone whom said was being sorted. Today email customer service another story and I still have not had account credited. So disappointed in this company after years on site, no way to treat customers.
You could contact the UK Gambling Commission: https://www.gamblingcommission.gov.uk/
Why do the games rip you off all the time if you play 10p stakes you the features but if you play 20p or 50p you never get the features at all I played £100 the other day and didn't get the features once because I was playing 50p a spin it just took every single penny and more the games on here just rob you blind and rip you off the robbing b*****ds, absolutely disgusting.
Worst online site going.
Corals are the worst for not paying out on dog races. I put a bet on a dog race 12.17.50 seconds. They said race went of at 12.17 39seconds but they claim they have a 12 second delay receiving it in to their shops. That's why they claim I was late in putting my bet on, so I lost out on winning £48.18. Shameful
Coral bookmakers are the worst betting company to use. I joined coral during the lockdown. I used my name and my wife’s bank account as I only use a savings account. All was ok at first but then they said I couldn’t use my wife’s bank so I got myself a coral connect card to top up and since I have had that all I have ever done is topped up, never withdrawn. But Coral have banned me from any slots tournaments and similar promotions and for the last 3 months I haven’t won a single spin on the grabber yet my friend wins at least 4 times a week. I have complained but have been told the decision is final and won’t be overturned. I have now discovered I won on football series but won’t receive my prize. They are a joke and make you feel a second class citizen, shameful.
I went in today and was astonished that because I won on a machine they could not pay me because it stated suspicious activity on my part? I was a regular ages ago, took a break and returned due to boredom either put a sport bet on or play machines. It was not the staff it was the people above who now ask what's the person name, he is a regular customer! All because I loaded money, won on 2nd spin, took ticket out, put in another machine, won on 6th spin and wanted paying. Omg are you kidding me, I have never been so embarrassed or disgusted to be accused of the crime for winning. Maybe I should accuse Coral of fraud, and fixing the machines when I lose? Never going in that shop again and believe me it's NOT the staff it's the company. Very annoyed. Spread the word Coral don't like paying anyone.
Local shop underpaid my bet, the Coral email does not work (now defunct?) on their website. Not a company that wants to be contacted. Going elsewhere in future.
Quick to take your money but very slow to give it back on winnings.
I worked for coral for one year in head office. I came across a memo that was to be sent to the Philippines to the customer service branch now based out there. It was advising managers to tell the people manning the phones "don't be worried about using false English names as it can make the gambler more trusting of you with an English name." Also a second memo telling British staff to go to other bookmakers to convince "mugs" to come to coral to play Fixed Odds Betting Terminals. Also the most shocking memo was telling Coral managers to see customers as quote scum! I was flabbergasted. A manager caught me reading these memos and I was promptly suspended and then subsequently sacked.
Site is slow when big events are on. Menus have been changed and it is less intuitive. Coral have limited or reduced my betting stakes many times. Coral has the potential to be a good site but it is badly run and their trading department is staffed with pathetic cowards. Gambling Commission should get off their useless fat arses, stop making soundbites to the media and sort out those bookmakers that refuse to lay a bet - starting with Coral and moving swiftly on to useless SkyBet. Coral and their equally abysmal sister firm Ladbrokes should be made to take a bet at their advertised odds, or what is the point of them?
I went into my local Corals today to place a bet of Tottenham to win 4-0. I put £10 on this and she gave me the odds of 10-1. When i went to collect my winnings of £110 i was told she done the wrong odds and it was only 9-1. Personally i wont be going in there again.
Their site's a bit slow compared to the others I use but you get there in the end. Never had any problems betting-wise over several years although I do have a loss-making account so unless my luck changes I don't envisage any.
I think Corals is becoming one of the most corrupt bookies out there. If you are not a loss-making customer then you are no good for them. They have turned off my best odds and I got no explanation for this. They stopped me from having free bets because I always win on them. They stole my last tenner by sending me false information offering a free bet. I bet the stake and got told over the phone that the free bet is not valid for my account. When I asked why he told me, sorry sir I can not tell you that!
Thank you for your feedback. We are sorry to hear about this. It is bad practice by Coral, but it is standard behaviour in the industry. All the bookies do it. Winning customers are first barred from the special offers and then have their limits cut so they can only place small bets. Then ultimately they might have their betting accounts closed. The governing body is the Gambling Commission (GC), who issue the bookmaker licenses. The GC ought to set criteria whereby none of this can happen, as they do in Australia. Unfortunately the GC is poorly managed with little knowledge and appear only to care about collecting their license fees. They could do something about this but they do not. Nevertheless, you could make a complaint to them - their contact details are on their website.
Coral are a bookies that have improved no end. Having tried most of the big names, I have stuck with this firm and do not anticipate moving on. Surprised at how good they are for sports betting.
Coral is my bookmaker of choice at the moment. They seem better than most others. Paddy Power & Ladbrokes started to reduce my bets (and don't get me started on Stan James) but Coral has been good. One tip - if you need to withdraw over a grand, do it £900 at a time. If it is over a grand it takes longer as they manually take a look at it which delays the withdrawal.
I bet on sports with Coral the whole time. I have had my account closed at a couple of bookies and I can not get much of a bet on at many others. They offer a service for small stakes only but Coral is different. I can get much bigger stake sizes on with them and they have not yet limited me. If it is too big for them then it goes to a trader, but they appear to do their best to take the bet. I bet a few hundred quid on say a 5/1 shot, so that is the level I am talking about. It is the level most other online bookies will not play, especially if you have backed a winner or two before. Sure the Coral software is less reliable in the sense the site does even now seem to struggle for the major events when there is a huge demand - Grand National day this year again - that still needs to be sorted out. All other times they have become my No.1 choice.
Impressed, glad I gave Coral a try. Telephone customer service was helpful too.
I have noticed difficulties on big events. This years Cheltenham and then the Grand National was a mini disaster for Coral, their site plainly could not cope. They seem to have an inferior system to the other really big bookmakers, with a few oddities in their system, and hopefully those issues will be looked into. On a day to day basis they are fine.
Yes they use Playtech software, currently slightly inferior to other sports betting systems. Hopefully these issues on big days will be solved in the future as it is costing Coral business. It is a good firm though.