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Casino
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> Online
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Casino Reviews
> Circus
Casino Review Circus
Casino
Review Welcome
Bonus: Software:
Playtech Our
Rating: Introduction Circus
Casino is the official online
casino from the global
Genting
Group
who are the UK's largest casino
operator with more than £11
BILLION behind them. There's
a good chance you haven't come
across the Genting name but if
you've ever spent any time in a
UK casino then you may know who
they are - Genting's casino
portfolio consists of 40
UK
Casinos. Genting's
properties include, to name just
a few, the Circus, Maxims and
Mint casinos. They own the hugely
successful Crockfords
in London (the world's oldest
private members gaming club,
established way back in 1828) and
they're also the company behind
Birmingham's Star City – the
UK's largest casino. To
say that Circus Casino are a
solid online casino would be a
massive understatement and this
should be hugely reassuring for
online casino players. Getting
Started When
you visit Circus Casino's
website, you will have the option
of downloading the casino
software to your PC or playing
the 'Instant Casino' with no
download required. The website
definitely seems to encourage you
towards the download option and
we tend to agree with this. The
'no download' version is great if
you're very short on available
memory or if you're playing away
from your normal computer but
downloading the software will
give you a far more complete
experience. In any event, you can
uninstall the software very
easily if you want to in the
future. It's
worth mentioning that Mac users
can play the Instant Casino (no
download) version of Circus
Casino. The
download doesn't take very long -
approximately five minutes for us
and our connection (Sky
Broadband) is not what we'd
call fast. While you're waiting
for the download to complete, we
recommend that you take a look
around Circus Casino's website -
we found it to be just lovely to
use and look at. We'd go so far
as to say it's probably the
prettiest casino website we've
seen to date and the design team
should be very proud of their
work. Circus
Casino welcome all new members
with a number of free money
welcome bonuses. We'll take a
look at them next. No
Deposit Welcome
Bonus The
first welcome bonus from Circus
Casino is a completely risk-free
no
deposit required
bonus
of £25 free. The casino's
website states that the no
deposit bonus will be credited to
your account within 24 hours of
registering or "the bonus may be
requested from one of our live
chat agents" if you want to use
it straight away. In any event,
we received an e-mail from Circus
Casino within minutes of
registering our player account,
telling us our £25 free
bonus was waiting for us - and it
was. This
is a very new promotion and it'll
come to an end on 8 August 2010.
You have to register a
debit/credit card to get the
bonus but there's no payment
involved. There
is a 40x playthrough requirement
before you can withdraw any
winnings generated from this
bonus money. This means that
you'll need to place at least
£1000 in total bets (40 x
the £25 bonus) before you
can withdraw. This isn't as
difficult as it might first
sound, especially if you get off
to a winning start. Make a
£10 bet and win, followed by
a £10 bet which loses and
your wagering requirement is
already down to £980 but
you'll still have your starting
balance. It's
important to keep track of how
much you've wagered before trying
to withdraw when playing with
this no deposit bonus. The
casino's terms state that if a
withdrawal is requested before
meeting the playthrough
requirements then "all bonus
winnings will be removed". Now,
we're not sure if Circus Casino
would actually be strict about
this but it's best to play safe -
many online casinos have similar
clauses but simply refuse early
withdrawal requests, without
removing the winnings. One
really excellent thing about this
no deposit bonus is the games
you're allowed to play. Many
online casinos offer no deposit
bonuses but restrict your play to
just slots and video poker.
Circus Casino are allowing play
on MOST games and it makes
things far more
enjoyable. The
slots games, including
progressive
jackpot
games,
contribute 100% towards the
wagering requirements. European
and American Roulette and
Caribbean Poker count 50% towards
the playthrough requirement and
all other games count
25%. The
only excluded games are Craps,
Red Dog, Pontoon, Stravaganza,
Blackjack Switch, Blackjack
Surrender and Sic Bo, making this
a very attractive
promotion. There
is always a limit on how much
players can win and withdraw when
playing with no purchase
necessary bonuses and very often
these limits are quite low -
£25 to £50 is not
uncommon. After all, it's totally
risk-free money so we can't
complain. At Circus Casino you
can withdraw a healthy maximum
amount of £200 FREE when
playing with the no purchase
bonus so it's definitely worth
going for. Deposit
Bonuses Although
no deposit bonuses are very nice
(and a great way to try things
out), the real free money starts
when you come to making real
money deposits. At
Circus Casino, you can choose to
accept one of three different
deposit bonuses, depending on
what type of casino games you
want to play when using the bonus
money. All three bonuses have
different terms and different
requirements so ensure you select
the bonus that best suits your
gaming preferences. Your deposit
bonus options are: Let's
go through those bonuses in
turn. All
Games - £20 Free This
is a tiny welcome bonus but it's
very flexible. You can play any
of Circus Casino's 150+ games
with this money. Simply deposit
£20 (or more) and
you'll get £20 of the
casino's money. It's perfect for
newcomers or players who don't
want to be restricted. Enter
coupon code 'newbie', make your
£20 deposit and the bonus
will be automatically credited.
The playthrough requirement is
32x the bonus so you'll need
to wager a total of £640 (32
x £20) before you can
withdraw. Blackjack
Only - £50 Free As
the title suggestions, this bonus
is for blackjack play only and
offers a little bit more free
money than the 'all games' bonus.
The terms state that Circus
Casino's Blackjack Surrender and
Blackjack Switch games are
excluded from this promotion but
all other blackjack variants are
allowed. The
casino's website states that the
bonus is "up to £50 free"
but there's no indication of any
minimum deposit required to get
the bonus. Enter
coupon code 'bjack', make your
deposit and Circus Casino will
instantly credit your bonus to
your bonus balance. Once you meet
the 60x (bonus) wagering
requirements, your bonus and
winnings will be added to your
'real' account balance. So, if
you're depositing £50 to get
the £50 blackjack bonus then
your wagering/playthrough
requirement will be £3000
(60 X £50). Slots
Only - up to £1000
Free If
slots are your thing then there's
a huge amount of free money up
for grabs - your first
NINE deposits will be
increased with free money
bonuses, up to £1000 free.
Here's how it works - it's all
pretty simple. Your
first deposit is matched 100% up
to £150 free. For example,
deposit £100 and get another
£100 free. Your
second to eighth deposits each
get a 50% bonus of up to
£100 free each. For example,
deposit £100 and get
£50 free. Finally,
your ninth deposit bonus works
the same as the first - a 100%
bonus up to £150
free. Now,
you're probably as fed up of
reading about playthrough
requirements as much as we're fed
up of telling you about them but
it's important that we explain
these wagering requirements for
the slots bonus. All too often,
we hear from players who don't
check these first and they always
regret it when things go
sour. You'll
be pleased to know that the
wagering requirements for the
slots bonus are a straightforward
20x both your deposit
AND bonus before
withdrawing. This applies to all
nine bonuses. For example, if
your first deposit is £50
then you'll get another £50
free so you'll have to wager
£2000 (£50 deposit +
£50 bonus x 20) before
withdrawing. Of
course, if you don't want to be
tied down with wagering
requirements and restricted games
then you can forget everything
we've just said and play with
your own money and withdraw your
winnings when you feel like it.
This is becoming a more popular
practice all the time as online
casino players move away from
bonuses and decide that total
freedom is the way to go. Only
you can decide what works for
you. Casino
Games You'll
have more than 150 games to
choose from when you download
Circus Casino. The Instant Casino
(no download version) has 60
games. We
mentioned earlier that the
initial software download takes
only a few minutes to complete.
It's so speedy because not all of
the 150+ games are included with
the initial download. The core
favourites (roulette, blackjack,
etc.) are already in place
but the majority of games need to
be downloaded before you play
them for the first time. These
additional game downloads are
simple to do (you'll see "click
to download" instead of "click to
play") and most of them take just
a few seconds. In fact, we found
the speed of all downloads at
Circus Casino to be surprisingly
fast. In any event, you can play
other games whilst downloading
additional games so nothing
really slows you down. The
stakes at Circus Casino are
refreshingly varied and we found
some nicely low minimum and
maximum stakes. This means that
Circus Casino is equally suitable
for online casino newcomers and
experts. You can play blackjack
with stakes as low as £1 a
hand and roulette from just
25p! You
should take a few minutes to
check out the progressive jackpot
games where a small part of each
bet is put aside into a separate
jackpot. These games kick out
massive winnings and if you hit
one, there's a good chance you
won't be going to work
tomorrow. All
of the games we played were good
enough to warrant a thumbs up and
we certainly felt that we had a
fair gaming experience with
plenty of wins. However, we did
come across a few problems that
didn't impress us. Circus
Casino's collection of games
includes a live
dealer
section which should be an
excellent addition to their
collection - there are live
dealer blackjack, roulette,
baccarat and sic bo where you can
watch a real dealer and chat with
other players. Unfortunately,
things didn't work very well when
we tried these games. The
blackjack wouldn't load at all
and the roulette was next to
useless, with the wheel never
turning (just a static image) and
a computer-generated voice
telling us what number had come
up - it didn't seem 'live' at
all. More work required on these
games, it seems. It
was quite funny to see that you
can 'tip' the live dealer if
you're feeling generous but given
that we found the live games to
be rather crap, we decided
against it! There's
also an 'arcade games' section.
We got a bit excited, expecting
to find some Space Invaders or
Pac Man game but alas, these were
just more casino-type games. We
tried a roulette-type game called
Spin a Win but this game wouldn't
work either. Guess it's best to
stick to the main casino games
then. It's
worth mentioning that you can
decide to play for fun instead of
real money whenever you start the
casino software. This can be a
really good feature, especially
if you don't know how to play
some of the games. It's also nice
to have a bit of a risk-free play
when funds are low. Banking The
'payment methods' section of
Circus Casino's website gives a
full list of all deposit options.
Most players will use a
credit/debit card but there are
quite a few other options
too. The
full list of banking options are
credit card, debit card,
NETeller,
Moneybookers,
Click2Pay,
Click and Buy, Ukash
or Bank Transfer. All
the above deposit methods will
mean instant funds in your
account with the exception of
bank transfer, which takes
between two and five
days. It's
really nice to see that Circus
Casino have some really low
minimum deposit requirements. If
you're using a credit/debit card
then you can start with just a
tenner. If you're using any of
the e-wallets listed (ie.
Moneybookers) then you can
deposit anything from two quid
upwards! It
goes without saying that Circus
Casino's transactions are totally
private and secure. The casino
make the point of mentioning that
they constantly review and update
their security. Given the size
and nature of the casino's parent
company, we have no
concerns. We
were very pleased to discover
that there is no maximum
withdrawal amount at Circus
Casino. We have criticised
several online casinos recently
for placing weekly limits as low
as £10,000 on withdrawals so
it's great to see that Circus
Casino haven't made any such
restrictions. Comp
Points and VIP
Players All
players at Circus Casino will
earn 'comp points' as they play.
Regardless of whether you win or
lose, all bets you place will
earn these points which can then
be exchanged for real money in
your account. 100 comp points
equals £1 and you'll find
that they start to mount up
without you really thinking about
them. It can be a nice surprise
to check your comp point balance
and find you have a few hundred
or thousand points which means an
unexpected lump of
cash. Comp
points are all very nice but if
you find yourself becoming a
long-term player or a high roller
then Circus Casino are likely to
contact you to discuss their
invitation-only VIP Programme.
This programme is different for
all players. In the words of the
casino, "This isn't a one size
fits all programme. We personally
tailor everything to suit you and
how you play." The
VIP Programme offers
exclusive promotions and bonuses
which will be matched to your
preferred games. There are five
levels of membership according to
how you play. The first level is
called 'Plus' and gives you extra
bonuses, prize draws and
exclusive newsletters. The levels
move up all the way to the top
'Club Prestige' level and each
level has it's own benefits,
including a dedicated VIP
manager, no deposit bonuses,
invitations to exclusive VIP
events, increased table limits,
international trips and more. If
you're a serious player then
Circus Casino are keen to keep
you happy and the rewards for
being a loyal player are
definitely up there with the best
we've seen at any online
casino. Summary We're
proudly detailed with our reviews
here at Casino Beacon and we've
given Circus Casino a very
in-depth analysis. Our review is
full of praise but we have tried
hard to find things to criticise
- it's what we do! We tested
pretty much everything and
scoured their terms and
conditions for anything yucky but
we've been unable to find very
much that doesn't impress. It
would be fair to say that Circus
Casino is one of the best
internet casinos we've seen in a
long, long time. Given that the
live games didn't work very well,
we'd normally be deducting points
but everything else has impressed
us SO much that they fully
deserve our maximum five-star
rating. We
haven't even touched on all the
good things we found at Circus
Casino - the personalisation
options, for example, are very
good. You can alter the volume
settings, game speed, game
session limits, large cards
option, male or female dealer
voice, etc. The whole package has
been put together incredibly well
and the casino website is simply
beautiful. We even tried to catch
out their support team with a few
'live chat' queries but even
those went perfectly. Overall,
Circus Casino is a bloody good
and near perfect casino. We'll be
playing there again. |
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