Carbon Sportsbook Review

For the time being, Carbon Gaming has closed registration to its betting site — shutting out any potential new members. It’s a strange move, but not out of the ordinary for Sportsbook.ag and its sister sites. How long this hold on new membership lasts is unknown. 

Not being able to sign up for an account skewed our review process. Many areas of Carbon Gaming’s site are open to members only. Therefore, we had to rely on Google search in certain parts to put together this review.

True to form, Carbon Gaming hides its bonuses from non-account holders. We scoured the Internet to try to find out what exactly it offers, but information was either inconsistent or flat-out not mentioned. 

Still, we’d have to assume the sign-up bonus here mimics that of Sportsbook.ag. Over there, the site matches a player’s first deposit at 20 percent — up to $2000 (meaning you’ll need to add $10,000 to earn the full reward). Sportsbook.ag’s deal also comes with a far-too-steep rollover rate of 20X.

Carbon Gaming is stingy with its banking options here. It only supports Bitcoin or debit/credit card — that’s it. We would’ve loved to see a bank transfer or e-wallet option, but both are noticeably missing. 

Bitcoin: Only This Crypto Supported

The good news: Bitcoin is accepted at Carbon Gaming. The bad news: no other cryptocurrency is accepted on the site. At least, Carbon Gaming doesn’t fail with its Bitcoin deposit limits. The max amount allowed per transaction is a cool $10,000, which should suffice for most players. 

Credit Cards: Not Living Up To Its History

Akin to Bitcoin, Carbon Gaming accepts one card method and one only — VISA. That, along with the rest of the site’s deposit options, feel overly restrictive. Carbon Gaming will need to expand its deposit methods if it wants to be taken seriously in this competitive industry. 

Carbon Gaming requires certain documentation before you’re allowed to cash out any winnings. This documentation is needed to prove you are who you say you are (e.g. a passport, ID card, or utility bill). You can upload this information on its site and it must check out with what you registered with, no ifs, ands, or buts.   

Once verified, you can get paid out in one of three ways — Bitcoin, check, or wire transfer. While VISA’s are accepted for deposits, they are not for withdrawals. 

Bitcoin: Watch Out For Fees

Getting paid out isn’t cheap on Carbon Gaming. While one withdrawal is completely free every year, any after that comes with a three-percent fee on the withdrawn amount. Three percent! That’s way too high, especially since its money you’ve rightfully won. 

It doesn’t end there, though. While Carbon Gaming allows deposits of up to $10,000 with Bitcoin, its withdrawals are far more strict. Per transaction, the platform allows a max cash out of $2,500. It’s a bad sign when a sportsbook urges you to deposit four times as much as it allows you to withdraw. 

As much as a pain as the rest of Carbon Gaming’s site experience is, betting is astonishingly not. The sportsbook is organized in a simple-enough fashion — by sport and subsequently, by league within that sport. This makes finding and placing a bet intuitive. Just click on any odd to add it to your betting slip where you’ll enter how much you want to risk. Hit the “place bet” button and you’re all set.  

Carbon Sports’ politics selection is reserved exclusively for United States affairs, specifically the presidential election that takes place every four years. There’s a fair amount of odds for the election such as state-by-state winners and of course, which candidate will win the nomination.

We wouldn’t be surprised to see more eSports betting offered at Carbon Gaming in the future as the “sport” continues to rise in popularity. For now, the site only offers betting on the most popular video games — Counter-Strike, League of Legends, FIFA, and a few others. 

Carbon Gaming labels this as “sports sims” in its sportsbook, and it’s a relatively new addition to the menu. Not to be confused with eSports, virtual sports have no human element. The outcome is 100-percent simulated by a computer. At Carbon Gaming, the selection sticks only to real video games such as FIFA, Madden, NBA 2K, etc.

Carbon Gaming doesn’t take shortcuts with its NBA betting catalogue. You’ll find the full gamut of betting odds on the platform — spreads, moneylines, over/unders, props, futures, and in-play. 

Tennis has a strong presence throughout Carbon Gaming. Betting lines for tournaments from across the map can readily be found on the site. During Grand Slam events like Wimbledon or US Open, Carbon Gaming really amplifies its selection, too. 

US sports are definitely put on a pedestal at Carbon Gaming. With that, the NFL is definitely the king of its sportsbook. During its season, there’s no other league with as many betting lines available than the NFL. You’ll find any and every NFL odds from pregame to in-play to futures, plus more. 

The best thing about betting MLB is the daily opportunities. Unlike the NFL or NBA, there’s almost always an MLB game to bet on during the months of April and October. At Carbon Sports, you get a lot of mileage out of the MLB every day with props and regular game lines. 

On the main menu of Carbon Gaming, you’ll see a tab for “horses.” Inside, you’ll find odds for races contested on many different continents — North America, Oceana, Asia, Africa, etc. Carbon Gaming also offers an eight-percent rebate on all horse racing bets, win or lose.

We tried to access Carbon Gaming’s casino and were immediately met with an error message that “casino wagering is not available in your current location.” We used a VPN to switch our IP address into a foreign country (more on this later), but had the same issues. This was also the case for the site’s dedicated poker room. Carbon Gaming just keeps finding more ways to shoot itself in the foot. 

Inside the sportsbook, you’ll find a submenu titled “live betting.” Here’s where you’ll find a complete list of games with in-play wagering ability. The selection covers a slew of sports, but is definitely heavy on soccer, tennis, and basketball. Carbon Gaming also maintains a live betting schedule that’s filled out days in advance for planning out future bets.  

To place a parlay, just add two or more odds to your betting slip. Once on your betting ticket, make sure to select the “parlay” tab up top to combine all selected bets. Carbon Gaming only allows you to place one sum risk amount on the entire bet — not split money apart on the parlay (e.g. $25 on leg one, but only $10 on the second leg). 

Look, sports betting isn’t easy — and that goes for new or old bettors. Getting a hand from a sportsbook is, while nice, not common. At Carbon Gaming, there’s not much resources to speak of. It’s up to bettors to know what they’re doing and who to bet on. 

This isn’t a promo in the true sense of the word but it's a bettor-friendly feature that’s worth mentioning — cash out. The option is sparsely available in the industry, but it is a staple of Carbon Gaming. With cash out, you can end a wager before its conclusion for an adjusted rate (all depending on how far the game is advanced). In the sportsbook, hit the cash out submenu to see all games that carry the function. 

One of the areas closed to non-members is surprisingly customer service. Hit on the Carbon Gaming contact us page and you’ll essentially hit a wall. The page urges you to either click on “my account” when logged in (which isn't applicable to non-account holders) or send them an email with a “click here” button. One problem with the latter option: clicking doesn’t actually do anything. No popup window. And it doesn’t even say what Carbon Gaming’s email even is. This is the exact opposite way you're supposed to do customer service.

We can’t speak to Carbon Gaming’s email marketing tactics. Since we weren’t able to sign up for an account, we also couldn’t join its mailing list. 

Online bettors everywhere are clamoring for bookies to carry live streams of games. This feature is all that’s holding back players from ditching physical sportsbooks altogether. Despite the demand, betting sites have been slow to roll out such features. That includes Carbon Gaming, which doesn’t offer the capability. 

A small number of countries are restricted from using Carbon Gaming. However, if you do find yourself in one of them, not all is lost. You could always opt for a virtual private network (VPN) that will hide your IP address, which is what gives away your location. Not only does it hide it, but it actually makes it appear to be coming from elsewhere. So long as you pick an IP address where Carbon Gaming is legal to use, its site becomes fully accessible through this VPN. 

HideMyAss: A Bettor’s Favorite

If you are in fact in the market for a VPN, then it’s hard to go wrong with HMA. This VPN has everything a bettor needs — multiple servers to connect to, reliable, and secure. We used it alongside Carbon Gaming and saw no negative side effects whatsoever.  

If Carbon Gaming was the only online bookie, we’d understand why’d even consider playing here. But the reality is, it’s not the only bookmaker — and there are far better options out in the marketplace. If Carbon Gaming wants to be taken seriously, here’s what they need to fix first and foremost:

• Opening up its account registration again
• Adding way more banking options for both depositing and withdrawing
• Opening up access to its casino and poker room

Carbon Sportsbook Review

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