|
|
Let's face it – the burgeoning popularity of online gambling coupled with the potential for humongous earnings has encouraged an avalanche of online casinos to begin operating on the Internet. Some of these companies have absolutely no experience in Internet gambling. Lastminute.com, previously having no ties to the world of online gaming, is one such company. Their late entry to the world of online casinos begs the question – are they truly last minute, or has the train already left the station?
Lastminute.com was previously a high-profile online travel company. The website, which is the invention of Internet entrepreneurs Brent Hoberman and Martha Lane Fox, became well known in the highly commercial world of travel. They certainly have a great reputation as an online travel company, and have inspired enough trust to make spending your money with them a fairly easy decision. But will their previous travel business success translate to success in the very different world of Internet gambling? We think their mission statement – "to become the number one European e-commerce lifestyle player by delighting our customers, etc, etc, etc…is unfortunately as unwieldy as their website.
click here to play at Lastminute Casino now
We're not ones to sugarcoat the facts, so we'll get straight to the point – our first impression of the Lastminute.com online casino was sorely disappointing. Because we know from experience that first impressions can be sometimes misleading, we closed our eyes briefly and then took another look. A second inspection of the website only confirmed what we first suspected; the website was dull, presentation was sloppy and it certainly didn't look exciting. In fact, for a company that has so much experience in the Internet world, the slow loading of the initial page was definitely unexpected, with a promotional banner eclipsing another advertisement on the same page. To be fair, Lastminute Casino redeems itself somewhat by having information such as "getting started" and "casino help" clear, concise and thorough. These sections help newbies get started and answer the many questions they may have – it also helps them register and begin playing easily – half the battle in online gaming.
St. Minver – which is the engine behind many online bingo gaming sites, generates the casino games on Lastminute.com – and they are only "Instant Play", as opposed to software that has to be downloaded and installed on your PC. Because of the "Instant Play" feature, even Windows rebels can take the Lastminute casino for a spin; on the other hand, the games that the software imitates aren't as life-like as being in a real casino – and this is exactly the type of experience that most players look for. Don't get us wrong - the St. Minver games on the Lastminute.com site load fast and there's nothing wrong with the way they play, but we hoped there would be more games on the menu! Lack of a good number of games is probably the crux of the problem with Lastminute. At the time we did this review, there were only about 20 games available, and only one very lonely looking Video Poker machine. Alas, to our dismay, there were also no progressive jackpots and – horror of horrors – no Craps! Now, if you've been playing at other flashy UK online casinos, with all the bells and whistles, then the choice limitations and conspicuous absence of the most popular table games will certainly not be inspiring – much less give you a reason to come back and spend your money.
click here to play at Lastminute Casino now
We were glad to see frugal betting limits; however the way they are presented at the gaming tables was somewhat confusing. Though chips are expressed as regular currency, for example, £1, etc., betting limits and history are shown as units. Upon seeing a minimum be of "100" and maximum bet of "100,000" at the virtual Blackjack table, we almost keeled over straight away – until we realised that this actually meant £1 and £1000. Not a huge deal, but if you're new to online casino gambling, then it can make things confusing. We're actually wondering what they were trying to accomplish here, or if this glitch was simply a reflection of Lastminute's online casino inexperience. Another complaint that we have involves a rather sneaky redirect – when we hit the help button on the Sic Bo game, we went to the Roulette preview page. Now, we're not novices on the Internet, but when we click on a button for information about a Chinese dice game, we expect to see information on the same – and not a not-so-subtle hint that maybe we should play another game.
Because Lastminute's core business was initially travel services, we were surprised that they didn't offer more promotions combining travel and gambling. Travel and gambling is especially big right now, especially gaming in the Caribbean, and we think they would do well to offer more specials along those lines. However, the promotions that they do have are designed to attract the high rollers, and they do an excellent, if not superb, job.
Lastminute online casino does measure up to even the best online casinos in one area – customer service (perhaps due to their online travel experience). It is available by phone or email, even at 3am. The support reps were quick and efficient, rating among the best we've tried.
click here to play at Lastminute Casino now
We hope that Lastminute has more features in the works – however, after our review, we can definitely say that we were significantly underwhelmed. The site offers some good betting, but we still can't figure out what a "European e-commerce lifestyle player" actually is or what it is supposed to translate to, in terms of the playing experience on this site. To compete with the best online casinos (or even the up-and-comers), they need to both refine and increase the number of the games on offer; and the website is in need of a serious overhaul to boot. Maybe current Lastminute casino customers find value in stopping by the online casino for a quick game of blackjack or slots while booking a trip to Vegas or looking for tickets to "The Lion King" – but in its current form, we have to bite the bullet and make the call against Lastminute.com, especially for seasoned online gamblers. They've got a long way to go to make it in the upper echelons of the online casino world.
click here to play at Lastminute Casino now |
|
| |
|
|
|
| Win an iPod Nano MP3 Player |
| Register for Casinocoinage.co.uk's Newsletter |
 |
| Register now |
|
|
|
