bets.io is a popular online gambling site that launched in early to mid-2021. It features a modern design with lightning-speed transitions between games on desktop and mobile and accepts deposits in multiple cryptocurrencies.

Operated by Bets Entertainments N.V., in compliance with the laws of the government of Curacao, the site has operated under a sublicense from Gaming Curacao #365/JAZ (GLH-OCCHKTW0701272021) since January 2022. The link is live and the license is verifiable.

We’re not aware of any sister sites owned or operated by the same management, and we find no complaints after more than a year of operations. Comments on the gambling boards are generally favorable with the occasional grumble about slow customer service. However, all reviews after a first payout have been laudatory.

Marketing and some customer service are currently shared with some better-known gaming sites under the DAMA N.V. umbrella, such as Gunsbet, Loki, Roku, and EvoSpin but that should not be taken as a unique qualifier of ownership. It’s also not a given that the operating platform is SOFTSWISS, it could all be down to marketing agreements (4KingMedia, Alpha Aff, etc.) and customer service co-ops.

The companies have different registration numbers with the Curacao Chamber of Commerce and different statutory directorships as well as diverse creation dates. Unlike in Malta, Curacao registration doesn’t give us access to all supporting software licenses including that of the platform provider. While some of the crypto games are the same as found elsewhere - there are also some distinct differences. We’ll conclude that thought in the next section.

The game selection reaches into the thousands with a good variety of slots, RNG table games, live dealer streams, jackpots, and specialty games. The providers list can be accessed with a single click from almost anywhere on the site you can be playing NoLimitCity, Pragmatic Play, Play’n GO, Leander, Booming Games, Absolute, or titles from any other provider, RNG or live in a heartbeat.

The site is available in English, German, French, and Spanish. Players from Canada and most other countries are welcome. If the gambling age in your locale is 18, then that’s what it is here too. If it’s 21, that will be the cut-off for your country here as well.

We don’t find any telephone support but that doesn’t mean it won’t be available if needed. Live chat may only be available in English at most times but email should get you native language support if you should need it.

Banking is pretty straightforward with deposits accepted in multiple cryptocurrencies. You should also be able to purchase crypto with a bank card in the cashier lobby. While the price of your chosen currency is reflected in a small window throughout the site (lower left) and you can display your balance in fiat currency, you will only be able to play and withdraw in cryptos.

It’s easy to convert your balance to any of the choices after a deposit, so if you happen to deposit in BTC or ETH you can also play using a tethered coin such as USDT if that makes betting easier for you as the value of USDT is tethered or tied to the value of the USD.

Of course, the Dollar can fluctuate too, but never quite as dramatically as some cryptos do.

Note: Since the minimum bet on games might be in uBTC (Satoshis) when the price of Bitcoin is down, so is the minimum bet on most games. This can allow a bonafide low-roller to still participate in otherwise sometimes higher stake Megaways games but most importantly, it can make feature buys downright affordable for everybody!

Of course, the inverse is true as well so when BTC is through the roof some feature buy games are simply not available to everybody. Such is life.

Bonuses are plentiful enough, I guess, but especially if you prefer a cash-back scheme. They don’t always offer a welcome deposit bonus so if you see one on this page (near the top, by logo) I’d grab it.

According to the website, and by way of explanation, the following is the range of potential for new players:

• First deposit bonus
• Pack of deposit bonuses
• No deposit bonus
• Sticky bonus
• A number of free spins
• No bonus at all

When we visited, we found 20% cashback every single day, Wednesday free spins with a deposit and no max cashout, and a weekend reload bonus with additional spins.

The only thing to suggest for bonus lovers is to see the terms near the top of this page (constantly updated) or to visit the casino and see what today’s offer is. We’ll go deeper into the terms and conditions in the sections below.

At this point, I usually like to spend a couple of hours, if necessary or possible, parsing the internet tubes to find out all there is to know about an operation. In this case, there are simply no complaints to be found for this brand after more than a year of operations.

Also, as mentioned earlier, I can’t draw a direct line to any sister sites, only shared resources so it wouldn’t be fair to lend this site legacy credibility going back to 2017 in the case of Loki, nor any slight by associating it with Crazy Fox, operating under a Malta license, where there have been complaints but no actions by the gambling authority.

Many of the operations have licenses in different jurisdictions so that isn’t helpful either.

With that, we are reduced to stating that after in-depth research we have found no complaints, some grumbles about contact times while the site was being “reworked”, occasional game buffering, tournaments not being frequent enough, and withdrawal limits being too small for some players at BTC 0.25 or USDT 10,000 per week.

Software and Games

The games lobby and all of the titles run your device’s secure browser environment and are optimized for whatever you are using, thanks to the magic of the HTML5 markup language. The site’s certificate is available at all times from a link within your browser address bar.

It runs on Cloudflare using SSL (secure socket layer encryption) via an ECC CA-3 certificate issued by Baltimore CyberTrust Root. Each layer of the certificate will show valid from and valid to date so there is virtually no chance your data, bets, or personal or financial information could be misrouted, hacked, or otherwise compromised or corrupted.

There’s also plenty of extra security going on behind the scenes that we aren’t allowed to talk about to help make sure that if you somehow did let your own security hygiene lapse it would still be very difficult for a bad actor to use your bonafide credentials to spirit away your funds.

A deep dive into the cookie jar doesn’t really help identify the software platform so we’ll not go further down that rabbit hole - it could be S-Swiss, it could be any number of other tier-one providers’ set up and it could be a bespoke amalgamation of components and modules crafted specifically for the brand with their own game servers, APIs, aggregation, payment gateways, and short bot crypto algorithms but the important thing is, it’s bulletproof, leakproof, stable, and efficient based on all of our testing, poking and prodding.

We’d like to suggest that when you first visit, perhaps stick around on the landing page for a few moments as there is some interesting and potentially useful information to be found there. Of course, jump right into the game selection, double-checking terms, hunting the best bonus, or whatever you like, but we find the following information easily digested in a well-ordered layout with a modern feel and hyper-quick transitions. It’s a nice lobby.

When we visited the live average time for cashouts was listed at 11m 59s and the total available jackpot value was $17,336,875.00. If you find the same numbers they aren’t really “live”. But the next stat shown is the rating for 24/7 Live Chat support for the prior month - that appears to be about 4.5 of 5.

As the marquee slider entertains at a steady clip we also learned the operators are participating in a million euro Drops & Wins tournament for slots and live games from Pragmatic Play - that up to 20% cashback is available every day, and that if you don’t have any crypto at the moment you can buy crypto with bank cards here.

Creating an account couldn’t be easier. Simply enter your email and a password and new depths of the site open up for you. You’ll find a quick list of “crypto in seconds" payment methods, access to a game search text box, and access to the live gaming library among other things. While we didn’t try it in “fun mode” there appeared to be an option to play some of the Pragmatic Play Live games like Sweet Bonanza Candyland in demo mode.

As for navigating the site, on a desktop display, the top and side menus complement each other really well. While there is some redundancy each is well-focused.

After selecting a category such as slots, adding a secondary filter such as provider(s) can give the enterprising players a fair command of the inventory. Unlike some database-driven sorting and filtering options, the process works in the converse here too.

If you’ve always liked Amatic slots and want to try some of their other games you can simply select the provider and then quickly cycle through the other games categories. Unfortunately, when starting with a game category such as Live, all of the providers will be available on the provider dropdown, so that feature is not quite as helpful as it could be.

Live dealer crypto games

The software will change your interface to display the type of coin you want to bet with. Some players might want to choose one that is valued close to their local fiat currency in multiples of fractions or simply use USDT since most of us are familiar with our local exchange rate within reason.

However, since live gaming streaks can sometimes take on a life of their own, it can be fun to use a completely foreign value and bet within limits and within reason. It can be a nice surprise to come out of a session, display funds in fiat currency, and find you’ve just quadrupled your bankroll without even realizing it. Of course, the inverse can be true as well, so please do whatever you are most comfortable with.

When we visited from Canada we found over 100 tables in the live games section. Vivo Gaming, Pragmatic Live (the largest contributor), Lucky Streak, and Absolute Live Gaming were the options. Pragmatic Play provides some 84 of the 102 tables and Lucky Streak comes in with 14. Actually, there are quite a few more than 102 when you realize that of the few icons displayed for some providers, one of them can be a lobby icon taking you to a whole new selection of games.

The player location could determine whether or not some providers like Evolution and Ezugi are available.

Some of my favorite dealers are found in the Vivo studios and some of my favorite classics are found at Lucky Streak. Pragmatic does a great job of appealing to players in multiple jurisdictions with specialty games and native tongue tables. We all develop favorites. Many of Absolute’s tables are streamed from casino floors in Malta, specifically the Portomaso.

Some industry estimates place the sheer volume of online casino bets at live games as high as 30% nowadays - that’s a far cry from just a few years ago when the genre was just catching. Perhaps increased mobile bandwidth and the greater exposure thanks to providers like Evolution who went all out to get onto as many sites as they could, helped those numbers. Either way, it’s either whales or live gaming that has simply become very popular in the early 2020s.

If you just want a fun break or have never really gravitated toward the more serious floor games, there’s still plenty of variety. Look for fun big-money games like Sic Bo or Mega Ball. Wheel of Fortune variants like Dream Catcher, Crazy Time, and Sweet Bonanza Candyland all offer great fun and game show titles like Monopoly Live and Deal or No Deal are always popular.

Some games are designed so that it doesn’t matter how many people are playing. Some 5-seat or 7-seat games also allow ‘bet behind’ so you can “follow the leader” if you see someone taking down the house.

Table games

If you like table games and cards but prefer to control the pace 100% the random number generator table games might be just right for you. Look for a complete selection of Nucleus games (rebranded Betsoft tables) including titles such as Single Deck Blackjack, Pontoon, 21 Burn, and Super 7 as well as Ride ‘M, Oasis, and Pai Gow poker to name a few.

Another provider for this section is BGaming with blackjack, poker, roulette, and Hi-Lo Switch. All told, there were 45 RNG table games in the suite when we visited.

Jackpot games

This reviewer is of the opinion this suite might be a bit too populated for my liking with well over 300 slots titles. Maybe they could have broken the category down a little further by jackpot value, frequency, or some other criteria. Many of the jackpots are small, such as those in the Fugaso “Day 2 Day” jackpot series and some seem to be included simply because you can win a lot of money on the game as may be the case with the Megaways games from several different providers on the list.

Personally, I would not feel slighted if none of the Platipus or Nucleus jackpot titles were included simply because I’ve never known anyone to hit one - but that could just be down to me, luck, and seven degrees of separation.

While we’re in this section I’ll mention that in addition to the “Other Games” category, this is where you’ll find some of the crash games. If you aren’t familiar with these games I’d suggest reading any blurb about them on-site, but also try them out in fun play mode first if you are unsure. Yes, you can win big but a few bad games in a row can also break a bankroll if you get carried away - just like any gambling game I guess.

I tried OnlyGame’s F777 Fighter, and I’ve never had such bad luck in my life, and then I martingale it and won back 10x my losses on a lucky flight. Virtually anything can happen!

Megaways

Although there wasn’t a specific category for these slots I was able to conjure up more than 40 titles simply by typing “Megaways” into the search area. It was nice to find titles by KA, GameArt, and Booming Games and the quality of iSoftBet submissions impressed me as well. The balance was comprised of Playson and Pragmatic Play favorites for the most part. All in it’s a great selection.

Feature Buy

Interestingly enough, none of the Megaways titles were found in the Feature Buys category, but that’s okay. We found them anyway and the vast majority also allow you to buy a bonus (where permitted by regulators).

Many of these games are Betsoft slots but we did find a few by GameBeat, Kalamba, and BGAming as well as a few others. My favorite choice here is to select Feature Buy, and then go into the provider filter and choose only Spinomenal. If you ever give that path a try I think you’ll understand why and might even agree.

Granted, not every single Spinomenal title is phenomenal, but when you find one with great art, sounds, animations, etc., and it’s “in the mood to pay”, and all those bonus mechanic stars align just right, it’s simply a “wow” experience.

Other games

Video poker is found here along with a few scratch cards, dice games, and numbers games. Be sure to check out the Spribe mini-games too if you aren’t familiar with them. The games are all simple and fun and they all have high RTP.

Bonuses and Promotions

All bonuses here have short shelf lives so be sure to claim and use them as necessary.

The daily cashback starts at 10% and goes up as high as 20% in increments depending on the amount/value of your losses. Wagering, like with straight deposits is 3x in order to discourage erroneous activities (money laundering) and there are no max cashouts. Losses of less than USDT 20 will not be credited and you have 3 days to claim and a total of 7 days to complete wagering.

By the numbers, those are very generous terms and a true second chance bonus boost in my estimation.

Wednesday Free Spins have higher wagering requirements, of course, but no max cashout. Players need to enter the code prior to depositing with the number of free spins (up to 50) commensurate with your deposit: 20, 30, or 50 spins for deposits of 20, 30, 40 USDT (or equivalent, so there’s another bonus boost if you deposit at least 40. Nice. Wagering is 40x spin winnings.

The Weekend Reload Bonus is worth a look.

In this player’s estimation, this is a very liberal and generous bonus. Let’s look at an example for maths.

I deposit 100 and get 50 plus extra spins. To keep the maths simple we’ll assume I didn’t win anything from the spins. I now have 150 in my bankroll and have to complete 40xb wagering (40x50=2,000). Looking at total wagering to bankroll I get a coefficient of 13.33xd+b going by the on-face terms, the one-click away terms, and nothing specific in the General Terms seems to contradict or negate that.

GT #11 states: “When You are playing with an active bonus, Your bets are deducted from the real money balance first. After all real money is spent, the bets are deducted from the bonus funds balance.”

It doesn’t state that wagering requirements begin fulfillment when the real money balance is depleted. When in doubt, please ask customer service prior to claiming a bonus.

Banking and Customer Service

The following currencies are available for deposits. If you don’t have any in your crypto wallet, you may be able to buy them through the cashier: Bitcoin (BTC), Ethereum (ETH) — ERC-20 tokens only (fungible), Bitcoin Cash (BCH), Litecoin (LTC), Dogecoin (DOGE), Tether (USDT) — ERC-20 tokens only, and Ripple (XRP).

To buy crypto onsite click the dropdown arrow next to your account avatar (upper right) and choose “Wallet” from there you can use a bank card to purchase the type of crypto you want to play in. Please note you will only be able to cash out in crypto though so you will need a wallet somewhere like Coinbase.

The cashier is highly efficient, functional, and modern - a far cry from the online casino cashiers of yesteryear.

Payouts are stated as “as fast as possible and within 24 hours”

Verification is stated as unnecessary beyond confirming your wallet address and on rare occasions your phone number.

The withdrawal minimum is 30 and the maximum per transaction is USDT 10,000, the weekly limit is USDT 20000, and the monthly limit is USDT 40000 - VIPs can be made an exception, according to the terms.

Look for a well-written FAQ to include responsible gambling information. Live support is stated as having an average response time of 1 minute and Email support is currently averaging 10 minutes. There is no phone provided.

Pitfalls

• Crypto-only withdrawals
• Newer operator on Curacao license
• 3x wagering on clean deposits in lieu of KYC/AML
• No telephone support

The Final Word

bets.io is a modern crypto casino with a great game selection, limited but generous bonuses, fast, hassle-free cashouts, and a good reputation. We’ll leave it to readers whether or not to assume it is related to certain other operators such as DAMA N.V. but will note they operate on a separate license from a completely different ‘regulator’, have a different registered address, and operate quite differently than any other casino that shares customer support with them.

With over a year of frictionless service to players, we don’t find any of the perennial complaints or even grumbles that seemed to arise with other crypto-only sites wherever you looked - namely, slow document verification. A quick look at the onsite FAQ or a review of the last few paragraphs should make it clear as to why that is, why the casino is becoming an increasingly popular niche site to play, and why it has a quiet attraction rather than promotion commercial footprint.

Having played with mixed success at several crypto-only gambling sites over the last few years, I don’t find anything that gives me the willies here. It’s discreet, smart, sharp, so far managed flawlessly, and good enough for my ETH and BTC.