BookMaker Casino review: a sportsbook's casino with weekly slot tournaments and a 50x slots bonus that expires in 72 hours

A sportsbook's casino

BookMaker has been around a long time. The site says "over 30 years of experience" and its copyright line runs from 1997. It's known for its lines, and our BookMaker sportsbook review covers the book, its limits and its banking. The casino uses the same account and cashier.

The terms, the banking rules and the list of who may play all live in a separate help centre, and that site refused me access when I checked today. So I can't confirm the age limit, the restricted states and countries, or a licence for you here, and I won't repeat them from an older reading. The sportsbook review sets out what the help centre said when it was last read. Whether you may play at all depends on where you live, and that's the first thing to settle.

The floor

The casino menu lists baccarat, blackjack, craps, three card poker, let it ride, pai gow, roulette, slot machines and video poker, each with a rules page, and the casino promotions page adds crash games and live dealers. There's a free-play casino for trying games without money. The site names no game studios, so there's no software provider to point you to, and it gives no game count.

The rules pages print house edges for baccarat: 1.17 percent on banker, 1.36 on player, 14.1 on tie. With a 5 percent commission on an eight-deck shoe, the usual figures are about 1.06 on banker and 1.24 on player, as our house edge guide works out. The conclusion is the same (banker is the best bet, tie the worst), but I'd check any number on those pages before relying on it. For slots, the RTP in the game's own help screen is the one that counts; the RTP guide shows where to look.

The weekly slots tournament is the casino's best feature. Through October, each week had a $25,000 cash prize pool, a $40 entry and a $20 rebuy, with $8,000 for first and prizes down to 25th. You buy a set number of spins and chips, so your cost is fixed before you start, and I like that more than any bonus here.

The bonuses, worked out

The casino page offers two welcome bonuses, claimed by email or live chat: 100 percent up to $500 on slots with SLOTS500, and 100 percent up to $250 on blackjack and video poker. The casino page gives that second code as CASINO250; the casino promotions page calls it GAME250 and puts it at 80x. There's also a 10 percent rebate on weekly casino net losses of $200 or more, at 30x.

The slots bonus has its terms on the public site. Minimum deposit $25, maximum bonus $500, slots only, played from a separate bonus tab, 50x the bonus amount, and every casino bonus expires 72 hours after it's issued. Then the line that matters: once the rollover is met, "ONLY winnings that exceed the bonus will be credited as cash".

Work it through. A $500 bonus at 50x is $25,000 of play, which is 25,000 one-dollar spins in three days. On a slot that returns 96 percent, the expected loss on $25,000 is about $1,000. You start with $500 of bonus, so on average the balance is gone long before the rollover is done. If you do get there, the first $500 left over goes back to the house and only the rest is yours. On average that's worth very little. The table bonus at 80x is worse: $250 means $20,000 of blackjack or video poker. The method is on our rollover page and in the bonuses guide.

Getting paid

The public pages say less about casino payouts than the help centre does. The home page says BookMaker "now offers same-day Bitcoin payouts". The Bitcoin page says you can request up to five a week, up to $10,000 each, and have the money in under 48 hours, with no fees, and that over 90 percent of its customers fund and withdraw in Bitcoin. Our sportsbook review found different, larger limits in the help centre when it was last read, which is another reason I'd confirm on chat before a big request.

Who it's for

If you already bet at BookMaker in crypto, the casino is a convenience, and a tournament entry is a fair way to spin for a fixed price. I'd decline both welcome bonuses. Keep the casino money apart from your betting bankroll, and decide before you start how much of it you're willing to lose.