Are Cloudbet Sky High?
First opening its doors in November 2013, Cloudbet.com continues to be one of the largest Bitcoin sportsbook/casinos in the market, currently. They offer a wide variety of casino games, both live and through software, and one of the largest sportsbooks, on the market. Cloudbet also boasts some of the highest limits for sports wagering, with limits reaching as high as 50BTC, depending on a few factors. Aside from the games and sportsbook, what really sets cloudbet.com apart from others, is a mobile platform that you can both wager on sports and play casino games on. Cloudbet continues to roll out features for players and has always been on the forefront when it comes to providing players with a very large selection of choices.
Casino Games
Live Dealer
Cloudbet offers a wide variety of casino-style games, both with software and with live dealer. They have two different live dealer casinos, each having blackjack, baccarat, and roulette. The minimum bet in the live dealer casino begins at 10mBTC and ranges all the way to 5 full Bitcoins. The only downside to the live dealer casino, is the availability, at times. With traffic, at Cloudbet, being as high as it is at times, the tables that they do provide tend to fill up very quickly. Generally, though, this doesn’t happen but for a few hours each day. Overall though, adding the live dealer portion to their site makes Cloudbet one of the top places that players can be trusted to play at.
Software
Cloudbet also offers games through software, as well. As one would probably guess, there are a vast selection of games through software than through the live dealer. They provide various slot games, as well as popular table games and different variations of those table games. They also have included over 25 different variations of video poker. As if these games weren’t enough, they have also included a section labeled “soft games”, which provide players games such as Keno and Virtual Horse Racing. (If you have never tried virtual horse racing, we suggest you try it at least once. You might very well lose as we did, but it is one of the more enjoyable ways to wager with Bitcoin!) Even though some of the cards lag when you are being dealt some table games (we suggest you use Chrome when playing), for the most part, it is only slightly noticeable. Overall though, with the selection the Cloudbet provides, it is one of the largest choices of games in the industry.
Sportsbook
Although Cloudbet provides a great casino service, what they always have hung their hat on, is their sportsbook, and they very well should. To say that they have a large sportsbook, would be a VERY LARGE understatement. The selections that they provide are truly at the top of the Bitcoin sportsbook industry. Players truly have to experience the Sportsbook and compare it to others, just to realize how far ahead Cloudbet is when it comes to providing selection and quantity of games. They provide most every sport a player can think of, and even some sports, that players have never even heard of. When we compared the lines throughout the top Bitcoin sportsbooks, Cloudbet did have some prices that were a little higher than other books. That being said, while other books had a slightly better value for main lines, such as the game’s spread and total, they did not have the selection that Cloudbet did. From first-half lines, to individual team totals, and even which side would get the first yellow/red card, the selection is so vast, that it blows away almost every other sportsbook. If that wasn’t enough, they also provide teasers and parlays, up to seven teams. Available to players is also the ability to bet in-game, with live betting. We found this to truly be one of the more remarkable and comprehensive sportsbooks, not only within the bitcoin community but with the online gaming community, in general. If players can’t find what they’re looking for when it comes to placing a wager on a particular game or part of the game at Cloudbet, they will probably have a hard time finding it anywhere else.
Banking
When it comes to the banking portion of Cloudbet, they accept Bitcoin and Bitcoin Cash. They also offer instant 0 confirmation deposits as soon as it hits the blockchain, with the according transaction hash. Withdrawals take three confirmations of each deposit, a player deposits, but when they are all cleared, the withdrawal of funds is usually instant. While they do ask for up to 24 hours to process withdrawals, it is usually quite instant, unless it is a large withdrawal and not enough funds are in their hot wallet.
Bonuses Offered
Cloudbet does offer a deposit bonus of 100%, up to 5BTC. While this does sound very enticing to players, we found that it is very hard to even get a small portion of the bonus. They require you to achieve 800 loyalty points to release .01BTC into your main account. This is the chart they provide when determining how many loyalty points you get for each wager:
“Reward points are generated every time you place a bitcoin bet.
The amount of points you are awarded will vary depending on your stake size and price. The higher the stake size and price, the more loyalty points you’ll earn. Reward points are calculated using the following formula:
Sportsbook:
Loyalty points = stake (in mBTC) x price score (up to 1)
The price score is the square root of the odds, minus one (decimal odds). The maximum price score is 1.
Casino:
Loyalty points = stake (in mBTC) x game score
The game score varies depending on the game you play. Slot games earn the most points, blackjack earns the lowest points.
For example, Live Roulette earns 0.216 points, European Blackjack earns 0.049 points, and The Slotfather earns 0.345 points.”
After doing some calculations, we found it rather difficult and costly to even have .01 released. For instance it takes over 2BTC worth of wagering within the slot games, just to release .01BTC. While this bonus may look appealing from the outside looking in, we tend to believe it is just a way to get more customers depositing, as it would be extremely difficult for the average player to get their full bonus.
