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Casino
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> Cirrus
Casino Review Cirrus
Casino
Review Welcome
Bonus: Our
Rating: Introduction Cirrus
Casino is a UK
Online
Casino
which uses RTG (RealTime Gaming)
software to power its
games. Cirrus
Online Casino have been around
for a number of years now, having
launched back in 2001 here in the
UK (Southampton, to be
precise). Cirrus
Casino state that they follow
"strict European guidelines" in
order that they maintain "a high
quality gaming website for our
players to enjoy". Free
Money Welcome
Bonuses The
homepage of Cirrus Casino
states that new players receive a
'£10 free chip'
No
Deposit
Bonus
but this bonus is far from
exciting. Check out this little
gem in the bonus terms and
conditions: We
require you to have wagered a
minimum of 30 times the amount of
the free casino chip before
cashing out up to a maximum of
the value of the free chip you
redeemed. The
x30 playthrough (£300 worth
of wagers) isn't really a big
issue, especially as it's a no
deposit needed promotion but
you're effectively being told
that you can cashout a maximum of
£10 even if you manage to
fulfill the terms! On
the plus side, you can also
receive a 50% bonus on your first
real money deposit and get up to
£300 free. For
example: To
add to the confusion, Cirrus
Casino's promotions page boasts
that "Cirrus UK Casino believes
that bonuses should not just be a
one-time thing" and that they
offer a 'redeposit casino bonus'
on all subsequent deposits. We
did attempt to find out exactly
how this redeposit bonus works
but we were then taken to another
information page which listed no
less than four options. We
couldn't be too bothered to dig
very deep and we gave up and left
the promotions pages, still very
confused about what exactly was
on offer. It's all just too much
information. Getting
Started At Cirrus
Casino After
we'd tried to work our way around
the welcome bonus confusion, we
pressed ahead and downloaded the
Casino
Games
Software
and registered as a new player -
only to be hit with more
problems. We
registered our new player account
and attempted to log in, only to
be told that our username did not
exist. We know this wasn't
correct because we'd registered
only a few seconds previously! We
tried twice more and were
unceremoniously kicked out of the
games software. We
would have restarted the games
software - if we could find it.
It was nowhere to be found on our
PC! Now, when we'd clicked
'download' on Cirrus's website,
we were not told whether to 'run'
or 'save' the installation
software. In fact, most
online casinos don't help players
out by telling them what to do
here. In truth, I don't think it
makes all that much difference
because the software should still
end up installed on your PC
either way - but it can be
confusing and it would be nice if
online casinos gave players a bit
of guidance at each step of the
way. Anyway,
we'd selected to 'run' the
installation software. As this
hadn't worked out brilliantly, we
decided to try again, only this
time we opted to 'save' the
installation software to our
desktop and run it from there. We
did this, and registered as a new
player again. This time when we
tried to log in, it worked. And
the software appeared to have
been installed successfully. In
fact, we noticed that we now
seemed to have TWO installations
on our PC - one called Cirrus
Casino and the other Cirrus
Casino UK. Hmmm. We'll
point out now that one of the
things we always test when
reviewing an online casino is the
ease of uninstalling the games
software. With Cirrus, it wasn't
all that straightforward. We
couldn't find either of the
installations in the usual Start
> Programs location so we had
to uninstall via Add/Remove in
the Control Panel. And to make
matters worse, once we'd done
this and uninstalled both
installations, we found that it
had left both folders containing
the casino installation files in
our Program Files folder. Very
naughty. Regardless,
we pressed ahead. Show
Me The Money To
receive the £25 no deposit
required bonus at Cirrus Casino,
you need to contact the casino's
customer service team via the
Live Chat facility on their
website. We clicked to chat to a
rep and got through to someone
called Adriana within seconds. We
explained that we were there to
collect the free £25 and
after just a few seconds she told
us that it had been credited to
our account. What
was nice here was that there was
no hard sell for us to make a
deposit of any kind. Sometimes,
when a casino requires you to
physically 'ask' via Live Chat
for a no deposit bonus, it's been
known for them to use the
opportunity to badger you into
making a real money deposit.
There was none of this at Cirrus
Casino and that was nice to
see. Now,
considering that this review so
far hasn't exactly been glowing,
we'd really love to say
that the £25 bonus was
credited with no problems but
even this simple procedure went
pear-shaped! Whilst we were still
in Live Chat to Adriana, we
checked our player account
balance and saw that it stood at
zero. Actually, it was at this
stage that we noticed our balance
was $0 which we thought was
strange, seeing as we'd signed up
for a UK £ account. But more
on that later. So
we asked the rep Adriana about
the balance issue. She told us to
enter a few games and the money
should be there. Well, every time
we tried to enter a game it told
us there was no money in our
account. Adriana's last comment
was "Playable Balance:
£25.00". Assuming
the £25 no deposit required
bonus must be in the account, we
logged completely out of the
casino software and logged back
in again, checked our balance and
there was bugger all to play
with. Things by now were starting
to get a bit embarrassing and
more than a little
annoying. So,
back to Live Chat. Again, we were
connected very fast (see, we ARE
trying to give praise where
due!). This time we reached
someone called Shawn and
explained the situation. Whilst
there was no apology or
explanation for the missing
bonus, he did process it for us
very quickly and this time we
found it immediately sitting in
our player account. Shawn even
wished us an enjoyable time in
the casino. And that's one of the
really annoying things
about our Cirrus Casino
experience - their staff were
friendly, polite and
knowledgeable. Heck, we even
tried to catch Shawn out by
asking what type of games
software the casino used. We knew
full well it was RTG (RealTime
Gaming) but we wanted to test
just how clued up their staff
were. What's annoying is that
this casino was always so close
to being decent and yet always
seemed to trip up and make the
most simple mistakes. So much
potential wasted. One
final moan. Cirrus Casino's
website states that the no
deposit bonus is £25 and
when we spoke to them via Live
Chat, they again repeated this.
What we actually got was $25.
We'll discuss the currency issue
later in this review but it's
important to realise that, given
currency exchange rates, we were
actually given something more
like £12.50 than
£25. Still
In The Mood To
Play? We
weren't exactly in a gaming frame
of mind by this stage but heck,
we had a job to do! We played a
few different games at Cirrus
Casino and to be fair, they're
not bad at all. The graphics are
bright, big and colourful and
navigation around the casino is a
breeze. The roulette games feel
somewhat ancient but there's not
an awful lot Cirrus can do about
that as the games software is
provided by RTG, who really
should overhaul some of their
older casino games. Overall,
we found no serious complaints
with Cirrus's casino games. The
blackjack was a soul destroying
experience where we didn't win a
single hand but we'd run out of
funds by this stage so couldn't
really give it a serious test to
see if we could have won it all
back. Given the problems we'd had
so far, we weren't about to whack
in some more money to find
out. The
initial games download only gives
you a basic core selection of
casino games. If you want to play
any additional games then they're
automatically downloaded when you
click to play them. These extra
game downloads don't take very
long at all - we're talking 30 to
60 seconds here so it's pretty
painless. What would have been
nice though is being able to play
other games while we downloaded
another one - or the ability to
download more than one game at
the same time. All this is
possible at Microgaming online
casinos such as Golden
Reef
Casino.
It's just another indication of
just how far behind RTG are when
it comes to software development.
This is a shame because there's
not much that casinos such as
Cirrus Casino can do other than
change software provider - and
that's no simple task. Pounds
Or Dollars? We
touched briefly on the fact that
we'd visited Cirrus Casino's UK
website and definitely downloaded
the UK version of their online
casino - only to be playing in
US$ when we'd hit the tables. We
did raise this issue with Adriana
via Live Chat and she assured us
that this was quite normal. Not
in our opinion, it isn't. Perhaps
she was too busy playing with the
£25 she hadn't given us to
explain things. It
might well be the case that RTG
casinos cannot be played in any
currency other that US$ but this
needs to be explained to players.
Visiting a UK casino which
describes bonuses and play in UK
£ and then having you play
in another currency - with no
warning or explanation - can only
lead to confusion. A newcomer to
the UK online casino scene would
likely have run a mile at the
first sight of US $. Cirrus
Casino Summary Rating
Cirrus Casino as 2 out of 5 is
about as fair as we could be. It
could so easily have been a 1
star rating in view of the
numerous errors and problems we
encountered. Quite frankly, we
shudder to think that this could
have been the first online casino
experience for someone - we doubt
they'd bother to try
elsewhere. What
did go in Cirrus Casino's favour
is that somewhere, buried really
deep under all of the problems,
there's a half-decent casino
trying to get out. The games play
well and the support staff
couldn't have been nicer. But the
fact remains that our experience
was a bad one. The currency
issue, the problems installing
(and then uninstalling) the games
software, the need to register as
a player twice, the confusing
website promotions pages, the
failure to credit the no deposit
bonus when promised - all this
and more makes Cirrus Casino very
hard to recommend, especially to
anyone who's not very familiar
with how online casinos
work. Silly
mistakes which are easily
avoidable need to be addressed. I
mean, they didn't even bother to
send us a welcome e-mail with our
account details. If
Cirrus Casino can give their
website an overhaul and sort out
the numerous issues we've raised
then there's a half-decent chance
that they can produce a much
better product. Until then, we
recommend you play
elsewhere. |
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