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CyberBingo Com/Co Uk - Playing Bingo Review

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Big Bonuses At CyberBingo.co.uk

CyberBingoVisit: www.cyberbingo.co.uk

Site rating: 5 / 10

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First Impressions & Ease Of Sign Up

Cyber Bingo have been around since the 90s, although to most in the UK, their name will still be a fairly new one. After years of successful operation in the USA, the company shifted its focus to the UK following the implementation of the UIGEA back in 2006. The site feels a bit old fashioned on first arrival, feeling more like an American Bingo site, despite being UK focused.

The layout is pretty straight forward, and you can quickly get access to all the important info you need. The FAQs and terms are well laid out into logical groups, so you can quickly choose the sort of query you want to check up on. The massive opening bonus isn't as well promoted from the homepage as you'd expect, but it's there. Unusually, you see all the Bingo rooms on the homepage, as well as being given information on prizes and player levels. This is something you see a lot on US sites, but it's rare for a UK Bingo room.

It's not all plain sailing though, it's fair to point out the site has some irritating and poorly thought out sign up issues. During the registration process whilst entering your address you have to select the name of the type of street you live on first, then the first part of your address which makes no sense and is confusing. Following that, you address is displayed thus: Road 10 London, rather than 10 London Road. It's bad usability from the user's perspective and such a simple thing to sort out.

Sign-Up Bonuses

The sign up bonus is pretty staggering. At the moment you get a £20 trial and a 500% match bonus. The £20 trial does come with strings attached - you can only play in the trial room, and any winnings you have in there will not be eligible for cash out, unless you make a deposit. However, here's the catch, if you make you deposit before you use the trial, the trial money disappears as you become a paying player. That's not ideal, I'd like to see that pointed out somewhere as I made a deposit straight away as I'd been expecting the £20 trial to continue and it didn't. I'm not quite sure what would happen if you did win in the trial room and then became a depositing player, I'm guessing the trial winnings would stay as a bonus.

Ease Of Use

Depositing is slightly hindered by some awkward navigation choices. You click on the link to the deposit page, and given a range of boxes with the different payment types. The most obvious thing to click is the logo and headline for each option, but clicking on them takes you to a page with information on that deposit choice, rather than the actual deposit method. I had to click the back button and look at the page again. Only after a few seconds did the buttons to make the deposit appear to me, located in a slightly strange place, virtually hidden in the block at the bottom of each payment method box.

Then I went on to register my credit card as required, and once again things were not commons sense and straight forward. On the card registration page, you only enter the first and last 4 digits of the credit card, which seems very strange, and you're also stuck with the same address options problem as when you sign up - the inexplicable use of the Road / Street drop down before you add your house number.

Only on the third stage of funding does all these weird issues make sense, as it's there you add your middle digits, and now the address is correct, which is great. Prior to this though, I'm scratching my head and being made to think, at the time I shouldn't be. The minimum deposit at the site is £20 which is a touch on the high side for my liking - £10 is my preferred first deposit on a site I've never tried before.

They have their own software which is pretty common sense to use. Buying tickets could be a little better thought out though. The prices of the tickets aren't obvious, they're there but the font is quite small and difficult to spot (I wonder if that's intentional) and you don't get feedback on what you are about to spend. Personally, I like being told what I'm about to purchase and how much it costs before I press the confirmation button, but with the Cyber Bingo software, you don't get that option. Given the prices of the games can alter quite considerably, it would stop you spending more money than you wish.

Another slight issue with purchasing is on the 90 ball Bingo, the quick pick options are set at multiples of 5, which is a hang over from the USA style of the game. It's also a bit annoying that the pre-buy isn't available for bonus money (given how much you get at the start) and tickets are only available to be purchased for a short period before the game starts. If you log in during a game, you can't buy your tickets straight away (like on all other sites) but you have to wait for the game to finish to get the tickets up.

Otherwise, the software is pretty straightforward to use. If you want to mute the caller then you can do that through the options. Ticket sorting is available through the options, and you can choose whether or not get the 1tg 2tg 3tg messages. As far as the terms and conditions go the minimum withdrawal amount is £20, which is not brilliant but not as bad as many other sites out there.

Community Spirit

The chat rooms were active, but the times I went in, I didn't see any CMs on duty or any chat games going on. Given the amount of players at the site, you'd expect more of a presence. The chat is friendly enough though. On the site away from the games, there is no additional community related content other than a gallery (that has no pictures in it) and some CM photos, which is a touch disappointing.

Prize Money

The prizes generally reflect well on the number of players in the rooms. Most of the time I was playing, the 90 ball games do seem to be pretty expensive at 25 - 35p a ticket. There are cheaper sessions, but they are few and far between. Given the amount of players in the day (40 - 60) the prize money feels pretty good. Typically it's £10 line, £25 two lines and £50 full house. In the evening the player numbers go up a bit, with 55 - 70 in the money is in the £7 line, £17 2 lines and £70 full house sort of range. There are a range of progressive jackpots and bonus ball extra prizes also added to the mix.

Security

Once you've logged into the site, you move around on a secure server under the https protocol. Whilst that's good, the site emails you your username and password once you've confirmed your account details. If you forget your password, they will email it to you. This method means that your password is not stored encrypted at their site. If you only get the option to reset your password when you've forgotten it, that's a more secure method of password management. It's a minor quibble, but it would be good to see Cyber Bingo implement it. The Bingo games happen over a secure server as well, the padlock appearing in the status bar of the game window, as you'd expect.

Overall Feel At CyberBingo.co.uk

There is a lot to commend CyberBingo on, but unfortunately there is a lot of non-standard stuff that causes concern. Whilst it's a good site to drop in on and take advantage of the bonus, I don't think there's enough there that would entice me to come back as a regular player. The whole site could do with a bit more personality and I would like to see them try to make a bit more of a Bingo atmosphere at the site. I suspect that the American influence behind CyberBingo is maybe a bit at odds with the UK game. A bit of time spent get the feel of the culture of UK Bingo could be fed back into the site to make it a bit warmer and give it an element of fun and a culture of it own. At the moment it feels a bit lacking, despite the big bells and whistles of a monster sign up bonus.

I've also highlighted a number of usability issues that I think should be addressed to improve the user's experience of the site. I think that the site isn't particularly good value on the whole. I'd like to see cheaper games as the norm rather than the current mainstay of the more expensive tickets. 5p and 10p games are few and far between in the 90 ball room, and would make the site more appealing to more players. CyberBingo is certainly fine for a game and fit for purpose, but there are a lot better sites out there for UK Bingo fans. Overall rating - 5/10 (May 9th 2008)

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Visit: www.cyberbingo.com

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