Coral are yet another of the British high street giants, having been formed in 1926 when Joe Coral started with a few trackside pitches at the horses. In 1961, when the industry became legalised and regulated, high street shops followed and the company has gone from strength to strength.

They are a part of the Gala Coral group, encompassing around 1,700 Coral shops in the UK. This gives them a 20% share of the market and makes them the third largest in the trade. They employ over 9,000 people through these shops, telebetting and the internet operation. With more shops in Italy, trading as Eurobet and bingo halls and casinos in this country, the group had revenues of 1.17 billion GBP in 2010.

Coral are very good all-rounders, as one might expect from such an old and sizeable company. They excel in horse racing, offering just about every event and market imaginable and are also superb for football, offering around 120 markets on the big matches. They are somewhat UK-centric in terms of markets and although they do cater for US sports and some smaller sports popular in Europe, their focus mainly surrounds the likes of golf, tennis, rugby, snooker, greyhounds and big events like the Olympics.

Their odds are also very good, especially on the biggest football matches where you can sometimes find them outstripping Betfair. On other markets they are always towards the top end being particularly strong for the horses.

The standard sign up bonus in the sports book is an easy 30 GBP, 100% match on your first bet. At the time of writing this was only available to UK customers and there are no minimum odds required. The free bet is valid for 30 days and the stake is not returned with any winnings.

Coral also offer sign up bonuses and a raft of promotions in their casino, poker room, games suite and virtual bingo hall, for those who are interested.

However, reverting to the sports book, they offer a host of other promotions to new and existing customers to keep you happy. These include free bets for dormant accounts, enhanced odds and/or each way terms in big horse races, cashback and refunds if a certain event happens (e.g. they often offer money back if there is a red card in a match and did the same in the recent darts World Championship if your selection lost to a bullseye finish) and also enhanced odds on accumulators and first goal markets.

To view Coral's in-play service correctly you need to install the latest version of flash but this will be prompted from the home page. The console has been updated recently and is now as fast and functional as the rest of the site. Events currently live and those coming up are clearly marked and the range of sports and markets is good. You can easily see the latest odds and the previous key moments in the match with their software and it scores very highly.

Coral have a dedicated area for their mobile betting as well with all the information you need to get involved. They are also pushing specific promotions through the mobile application. You can either text MOBILE to 60006, scan the QR code onsite complete an online form to access their app. Easy!

Telephone: 0800 44 00 11 or 1800 936 955 (Ireland) or +44 1483 771 411
Email: onlinecustomerservice@coral.co.uk
Address: Gala Coral Group, Globe House, Victoria Way, Woking, GU21 6DD
Other contact methods: Callback, e-message through site

Coral's customer services department is good but loses big marks for not having live chat and not being available 24/7. This is very outdated and needs improving. Having said that, messages through their online e-messaging system get handled quickly and we didn't have to wait at all for calls to be answered.

Queries were dealt with efficiently at all times and the agents were polite and friendly. There is an FAQ section also but it is not quite as good as those of rivals and is also somewhat hidden, not being accessible through the "Help" tab as one might expect.

In summary then, Coral is a huge, reputable and reliable bookmaker that offers good odds and excellent promotions. There are some minor gripes, such as the imperfect customer services options, the lack of support for their live steaming service and the lack of coverage for some lesser sports but all in all we thoroughly recommend them.

The website is nicely designed, quick and uncluttered and for football and horse racing fans, and lovers of other major sports, they are not far behind the very best. With one or two minor tweaks they would warrant a place with the elite bookmakers that narrowly eludes them at present.