Betfair Live Casino Review

Out of all online casinos, Betfair has a unique place in the market – they started out not as a bookmaker or a casino, but a betting exchange. This is where users make bets with each other, instead of the house, and pay Betfair a commission.

This unique idea soon led to them dominating a new market, and in 2006 they started their own online casino to compete in a more traditional online gambling field. Their online casino now hosts several hundreds of games, covering casino classics like blackjack and craps to live dealer games by PlayTech and, of course, lots of slots.

Betfair is licenced in a number of European countries, the most prestigious of which are the Maltese and GB gambling authorities. So you know that your money and private information is in safe and regulated hands.

Betfair’s Live Casino tables are powered by PlayTech software and all privately branded. Although not always known as the most reputable company, you tend to see their competitor Evolution Gaming powering most of the biggest online casinos nowadays – so for you live casino veterans out there, this might be something new and different! Covering 47 different tables (although at least 20 of these are multiple blackjack tables to ensure seats are available at peak times) and 7 different games, this is quite a selection. Since they are provided by Playtech, you’ll also find some games here that aren’t common at other live casinos – notably, 3 card brag and the simple game Hi-Lo. So if you’re a fan of either of these games, it might be worth checking out on that basis alone. There’s also exclusive Betfair VIP tables and high/low roller options for play in most games.

Localisation/Native Tables

The Betfair website is available in English, Danish, German, Greek, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian and Swedish. All these are easily accessible from the flag icon at the top right of the main screen. Much more visible and obvious than some casinos we could mention. However, when it comes to local tables for live dealer play – Betfair is a little lacking. In fact there is only one option: Chinese versions of normal and French roulette. Unless you count standard French roulette as well, but since that’s simply the French version of the game and not a Live Croupier speaking French we reckon it doesn’t.

Private Tables

Betfair has 10 or so privately branded tables in Blackjack and Roulette, and they all come with exclusive offers and features. They also have a sliding scale minimum bet that can be adjusted by the house at peak times, to ensure a fair spread of high and low rollers.

Mobile

Interestingly, Betfair has a separate app for live casino and standard casino players. This is in addition to its betting exchange app. This can save you some confusion and disappointment if your device is not compatible with the performance intensive HD streaming of the live casino, as you will know before you even try to download the app. In our experience, the Betfair apps ran smoothly on Android and iOS and were well organised for a great user experience. Only around a quarter of the 400 casino games are available through the app – although all the live games made the cut in their dedicated app. This was a bit disappointing, but it still holds its own amongst other casinos. However, Android users beware: an even smaller amount of games will be playable on your device. Which is a real shame since Android users make up a big percentage of the mobile casino market. Hopefully this is something Betfair will look at improving in the future. For live casino players however, it was all gravy!

We thoroughly searched Betfair but couldn’t find an overly clear single list of all payment methods available. The best we found was this list: Debit or Credit Card (MasterCard and VISA), Bank Transfer, Non-UK Bank Transfer, Skrill, PaySafe Card, PayPal, Neteller, WebMoney and Qiwi. You may have to log in to see a full list of payment options in your country however. It was nice seeing PayPal on this list, as this most popular e-wallet isn’t available at many online casinos. However, withdrawing is a little complicated at Betfair. If you used more than one payment method, you have to equally withdraw the amount you deposited from each method – which can be a hassle. So if you choose to use Betfair, be careful what option you choose when depositing and remember you will have to use the same method to withdraw any winnings you make.