Online Casinos

This category contains reviews of online casinos that I have played or still play at. With recent changes to US legislation, the choice is far more limited for American players and most of the casinos I review no longer take players from the USA. That said, the RTG casinos (see USA Casinos) still do and they have a good array of games still. For the rest of us in Europe and around the world, the Microgaming and Wagerworks casinos offer different choices and these are where I spend most of my time.

Well it’s highly unusual to find a Playtech casino which doesn’t have a reverse withdrawal period but I found one! When you cash out from Tote Casino the money goes straight through for processing - no option to reverse and lose it which is a huge plus for me.

I use a debit card so I haven’t been able to test the speed of cashouts at Tote with eWallets like Neteller, as once you have selected a deposit option that is your only option for depositing and cashing out (money laundering requirements). But no matter what you use, there is still no reverse pending delay.

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The latest addition to the stable of Wagerworks casinos (IGT) is from the Grand Casino group, a subsiduary of Rank Interactive who also run Blue Square and Mecca Bingo. Grand Casino is an established brand in land-based casinos in the UK, and has been re-branded as GC Casino online to avoid any confusion with similarly named properties one assumes.

Grand casino also has a Poker offering alongside some more unsual games like Rubiks, Bejeweled and the like if that’s your cup of tea. Not mine but I know these games have quite a decent following.

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Perhaps a little surprisingly, SEGA have launched an online casino using the popular Playtech casino software platform this month. First impressions are that SEGA casino is going to be right up there with Bet365 IMO. I have played there to test it out and with a few minor glitches, overall I was impressed. No reverse pending period, cashouts to Neteller inside 12 hours (after being verified of course) and very friendly Live Chat. I have played and conducted a full SEGA Casino review over at OCUK and rather than post it in dulicate here on Online Casinos & Slot Machines [.co.uk], I suggest you head on over there if you want more details.

SEGA casino has a few unique slots too, themed on popular SEGA titles like “Nights” and “Virtua Street Fighter” among others. My favourite slot, “Gladiator“, is present at SEGA however for some reason isn’t activated yet - probably a licensing issue but I’m told it’s due soon. The Marvel slots too are yet to arrive, but every other game is there and “Nights” is an excellent replacement for Gladiator with an extra scatter in the free spins. Definitely one of the better online slots I have encountered.

Check out SEGA casino and the £2,010 (200%) casino bonus with a not unreasonable 20x D&B playthru requirement. Also, look out for Grand Casino (IGT) also launching in this month. 

Visit SEGA Casino

Ok to be honest, I don’t know a lot about this one yet, but I’ll update this article when I do. Golden Lounge is a new online casino using Microgaming software - so no USA players - and it supports multiple languages including English (obviously!), Greek, Turkish, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Japanese and even Swiss!

It launched in late 2008 and has a 3000EURO “free play” signup offer to get you started, no deposit required. More…»

With the choices of online casinos becoming less and less for US players, I have decided to focus in on the handful of casinos I trust in this market. There appears to be plenty of choice for Americans but quite honestly, most of the casinos attacking the US market now are either untrustworthy or so new that they haven’t convinced me they are reputable.

iNetBet casino is one of the few that buck this trend, and I have had an account here for several years. It uses RTG (Realtime Gaming) software to drive it and there is a wide choice of games, in particular for online slots players the “Real Series” slots are the pick of the bunch. These are notoriously streaky, but iNetBet have the payout ratio set to a decent 95% which More…»

Get Minted is a name that is probably not familiar to a lot of people, but they’ve been around for years. In fact I first came across them when working for a web development company in 2003 and they came in for some work. They use the excellent up-and-coming Wagerworks Flash casino software, Wagerworks being owned by IGT, although that means no US players are accepted (along with some other countries). Good to go in the UK though.

I signed up a few months back to play some of their slots games which, IMO is where Wagerworks’s strengths are. Get Minted has the More…»

I’ve recently been trying my luck at Paddy Power casino (Bonus: 100% up to £101), so I thought I’d share my findings…obviously with a slots focus as those are the games I play.

Gotta admit, I’ve always had a soft spot for Paddy Power, mainly because they do some amusing and sometimes plain weird promos. In fact they are responsible for my all time favourite banner - for the Cleopatra slot, one of my favourites in fact. The tagline? “The most fun you can have with a dead chick!”. It tickled me, so here I am. Actually, Cleo is an excellent slot, converted to online play by IGT and recently followed up with the not quite so good Cleopatra II. Although the latter does offer more potential for huge wins in the free spins bonus it should be said.

Cleo I is lowish variance, has the 15 free spins bonus and is probably my favourite slot at Paddypower. Closely followed by the excellent Wolf Run - another IGT Vegas slot that I’ve played More…»

Limited Time Offer (from May 2008): 20% Cashback On All Slots 

Australian based bookmaker Canbet has recently ditched it’s RTG-driven casino platform to migrate to the industry leader, Microgaming. The change sees Canbet launch both a software download version and a Flash casino, the former providing users with over 200 online slots and the latter some 100 or so. Both versions contain the very popular Microgaming slots, Thunderstruck, Mega Moolah progressive (standing at over £4.3 million as I write) and the newer slot, Hitman with it’s great graphics and sounds and three seperate bonus rounds.

But where Canbet differs to many other Microgaming casinos is in the speed of cashouts. Because they also operate a popular sportsbook and poker room, Canbet have their own backoffice banking system that overrides the traditional Microgaming banking system. The main advantage here for players is that there is no “reverse pending” peiod, meaning when you cash out, processing is done far more quickly. Canbet say that, for example, Neteller cashouts More…»

With such a plethora of online slots out there, finding the best online casinos to play them at can be a bit of a chore. So, being pretty well versed in this sort of thing, the following list of online casinos are the ones I would recommend players from the UK and Europe.

• Spin Palace (Microgaming Software) - As I write, they have an excellent freeplay slots promotion where you get a bankroll and an hour to play all your slots with a chance to win up to £200. Over 140 slots to choose from.
• Roxy Palace (Microgaming) - Not the quickest online casino to pay out, but definately the best ongoing loyalty bonuses if you stick around. As a VIP, I often receive 2 or 3 bonuses every week of varying amounts. 
• 32Red (Microgaming) - My personal favourite online casino. Another that rewards loyal players more than newbies but excellent slots again and excellent support. Also run the very popular slot tournaments on “Tombraider” and “Thunderstruck“
• All Jackpots (Microgaming) - Accepts USA players too and runs the slot tournaments as above. Good reputation but better for US players by all accounts. More…»
  
  

Many experienced online casino and poker players outside of the USA will have heard of, and probably use, the Neteller eWallet (WikiPedia) service, a free online banking service that pretty much every online casino makes use of to receive deposits and send out cashouts. For those that don’t, it’s relatively easy to set up and once you are accredited (requires scans or photos of ID being sent), you can use this to send and receive money to and from online casinos, poker rooms and sportsbooks. It also comes with a Mastercard prepaid card and the ability to More…»