|
|
The River Belle is on of the Internet’s longest established online casinos. Created to bring online gamblers a slice of the ‘Southern Hospitality’ of a casino aboard a Mississippi paddle steamer, the original River Belle Casino launched (if you’ll pardon the pun) in 1997 and the fact she’s still in ship shape and Bristol fashion testifies to the enduring popularity and reliability of this online casino. Thankfully the River Belle’s Euro-centric site, whilst offering transactions in Euros and UK Pounds, sticks with the Mississippi style rather than creating the ‘Southern Hospitality’ of a casino onboard a car ferry making a rough crossing of the North Sea! Also worthy of note is that River Belle’s Euro online casino is accredited by eCOGRA the independent, non-profit organisation setup to protect consumers and ensure good practice in the online gaming community. It’s steady as she goes!
According to River Belle’s blurb you’re not just a Player with them, you’re a Passenger, but is the experience of playing at this online casino’s euro-friendly site a real trip? Or will you be getting a sinking feeling? Well, stepping aboard the River Belle you’re greeted by an attractive website that presents much of the ‘need-to-know’ content in a clear layout that makes orientating yourself relatively plain sailing. The published help is adequate, but we still think many casinos could learn a thing or two from the comprehensive and intuitive user guides offered at the William Hill Casino. We particularly felt the absence of simple game guides on the Rive Belle makes life on board trickier for those dipping their toe in the waters of casino games for the first time. There is a neat online animated tutorial to walk you through the process of downloading, registering and depositing money to play, but it’s quite a big download in itself so could frustrate dial-up users (and yes! They still exist!) It would also be nice to see more regional customisation of the site for its Euro customers as we could find no language options beyond English, and all the banners for River Belle’s attractions and promotions were expressed only in UK pounds.
click here to play at Riverbelle now
Where the River Belle goes full-steam ahead is with the scope and quality of its games. Powered by the same Microgaming Viper software that’s behind the superb games at rival Ladbrokes Casino, it’s no surprise that this online casino’s games are both plentiful and of a class you’ll find hard to beat anywhere on the net. Even the non-download ‘Instant Play’ casino option provides a first-class service with few compromises compared to the full bells ‘n’ whistles of the download. More seasoned players will particularly appreciate the extra functions available in the Viper software’s ‘Expert Mode’ as these can really help you pack in a lot of gaming during each session online. We mentioned the scope of gaming on offer here, and, at the time of review it was topping 190 games (!!!) – 110 of these are slots and video poker games so if that’s your bag you’ll have more than enough to keep you busy here, plus there are some stunning progressive jackpots to play for.
The ‘Instant Play’ casino gave us hope that users without Windows PCs could enjoy that ol’ River Belle hospitality too, but sadly it was not to be. The published help didn’t specify computer requirements and our Apple Mac test failed to get us into the Instant Play casino. It did however give us an opportunity to try out the customer support options to find out if it was truly game over for Mac users, or just ‘pilot error’ on our account. The freephone support was splendidly swift (and let us know it was the former – looks like those darn Mac folk just ain’t welcome in the South!), whilst the live chat option was a waste of time taking nearly ten minutes before an agent logged on to answer our query. This is a shame as we think live online chat is a great asset to customer service where it’s offered and done efficiently.
click here to play at Riverbelle now
Finally we have to mention the unique option to download the Belle Rock Buddy software to manage your online casino sessions. River Belle is part of the Belle Rock Group, which operates a number of reputable casinos online, and this software allows you a ‘one-stop’ solution to playing, and managing accounts at any or all of them, as well as accessing bespoke content from game tips to horoscopes. If you like the River Belle milieu this is a tremendous tool to keep you updated on news and conveniently explore its sister online casinos if you fancy a change of scenery.
The River Belle has really earned its position as one of the best online casinos operating today and the latest incarnation of its casino retains all the style and Southern flavour of its original American-focused parent, but with the added convenience of letting you play for real with Euros (and we might add with a conveniently wide set of deposit options). Whether this American bias to the River Belle’s ambience floats your specific boat, or torpedoes it is a matter for you to judge, but in our estimation this is a mighty fine online casino and we definitely enjoyed getting all (our) hands on (their) decks . . . and slots . . . and dice . . .
click here to play at Riverbelle now |
|
| |
|
|
|
| Win an iPod Nano MP3 Player |
| Register for Casinocoinage.co.uk's Newsletter |
 |
| Register now |
|
|
|
