Casino.com

Casino.com is one of those brands that you have heard of but never really had a closer look at. This seemingly casino focused brand is run by the parent company Mansion Ltd. Which were the 2018 winners of the Most Responsible Online Gambling Operator of the Year by CFI.

As far as global operators in the African market, Casino.com is one of the biggest international players. As a matter of fact, this huge operator holds three different gaming licenses. They hold a Gibraltar license, a UKGC license and an Italian ADM license. In recent years they’ve added a number of African countries to their product offering. And slowly but surely, they’re also adding African currencies like South African Rands.

We appreciate the fact that global operators are entering our African market, however, are they suitable? The gamblers.africa team have spent some time to test their product, their support and their responsible gaming tools. It was quite the experience and gave us insight into the future of online casinos in Africa.

Casino.com is sweeping the African countries with international standards.

The Casino.com website is quite elegant and minimalistic. You are presented with a gamified landing page with the welcome offer in the middle. 100% bonus up to $400 + 200 free spins, which is quite a big welcome offer.

What I enjoyed is that you have access to the casino lobby without having to register first. As a result, you can browse the product offering and its games before even registering a casino.com account. Speaking of the lobby, it has a great layout and structure. The lobby has a big carousel with a few pages highlighting ongoing promotions and bonuses. Underneath, you will have access to the games library with slots, live casino, table games, jackpots and more.

They have maintained their branding throughout the product. Especially with their signature colours and style. As far as the casino product goes, it has international standards and is well tailored to suit all kinds of players. It is evident that they keep their website up to date with the latest trends.

To sum up, I am quite impressed with Casino.com so far and if the rest of the user journey is similar we might have a great African casino product on our hands.

Casino.com offer a straightforward registration process. Fill in your Email, preferred Username, Password, Personal Details, Contact Details and Currency. Overall a simple process, specially if you are South African and want to avoid the FICA requirement. The only downside to the registration process was that I could only set a password that is shorter than 10 characters.

After the registration is done you will get a welcome notification. Surprisingly you receive 20 free spins on Age of the Gods to begin your casino experience. All you need to do is accept the spins and head to the game.

Much like many other global casinos, you will be required to provide KYC documents at some point to verify your age and identity. Cumbersome as it may be, it is a requirement from legislators to complete. Remember that it is there to protect you as a player and to prevent underage gambling. These documents are usually:

• Copy of passport, driver’s license, national ID card or birth certificate
• Copy of utility bill (electricity bill, water bill, bank statement, rental agreement, etc)

There is always a chance that a utility bill is requested after you have moved. In that case please provide the casino with this information to avoid further delays.

In short, my overall experience with Casino.com was great. I was positively surprised with the support and ease of navigation.

I will begin with the most important part, responsible gaming. There are loads of information on how to make your casino experience more secure and affordable with Casino.com. Unfortunately, these tools are not self managed in the product. As a result, I had to contact the support to inquire responsible gaming interventions that are available.

As a millennial, I shy away from phone calls and don’t like to communicate through emails. So, I was glad to find out there is a Live Chat feature available. I contacted the support through Live Chat and was swiftly assisted by one of their agents. Another positive experience was that they conduct a data hygiene/verification process in chat. For this reason, in order to be assisted you will have to confirm your personal details. This prevent unauthorized access to your account by any other person than yourself.

The agent assisted me with setting a monthly deposit limit and answered a few of my questions in a polite manner. Further to deposit limits, you will have two additional responsible gaming tools available:

• Time-Out
• Self-Exclusion

While probing responsible gambling tools, the agent asked me if gambling is an affordable hobby for me. She was trying to establish whether I can afford to play or not. This was a great experience as it means Casino.com up-skill their staff to identify problem gambling and can assist thereof.

In terms of their banking system, it’s solid and have many different options. While they might not offer local African banking methods, they do have the most common methods. If you don’t have a credit or debit card, I would recommend that you open a wallet with any of their merchants to make deposits and withdrawals.

ONLINE CASINO

Onto my favourite part of the test, the online casino product experience! With my newly created casino.com account, I now had access to my 20 free spins on Age of the Gods.

The games offering is huge as they have several software providers in the lobby. Experience games from NetEnt, Microgaming, Blueprint, Playtech and more. So, the possibility of finding new exciting games are vast. Furthermore, I enjoyed the simplicity in finding new games and filtering on games I know I like. This way you don’t have to spend time to endlessly scroll through the library.

They have also included popular categories if you feel like exploring games this way, like:

• Recently Played (based on your activity)
• Top Games
• Daily Jackpots
• Slots
• Table Games

My only bad experience with the actual games were the load time. They opened up in pop-up windows and took some extra time to load. I believe if the games were integrated in an iFrame in the lobby it would have allowed for a smoother gaming experience.

LIVE CASINO

Casino.com’s Live Casino offering is very nice, they have just north of 30 different types of live games. All these are ranging from 0.1 in coin size and up, so you don’t need to be a big gambler to enjoy some Live Casino.

All you need to do is select a Live Casino game, choose your nickname and join the stream. Also, while in the game, you have the chance to chat with other players which can be fun if you are craving a bit more socialising when playing.

Under the Live Casino section you will find games like:

• Roulette
• Baccarat
• Blackjack
• Spin the Wheel
• Football Roulette
• Hold’Em

Casino.com offers all new African players an excellent welcome offer of:

20 no deposit spins & 100% bonus up to $400 + 180 free spins

The 20 no deposit free spins are credited on The Age of Gods slot and are available straight after signing up. Once you make a deposit, you will receive a 100% match bonus + another 180 free spins to enjoy. The remaining 180 free spins will be credited 8 times, 20 per day. It could be a retention strategy or a move in allowing you to enjoy free spin every day.

The bonus comes with a wagering requirement of 20x before any withdrawal can be made. Remember that different games count differently towards the wagering requirement. Have a look at their bonus terms to find out which.

Other promotions at Casino.com

• Table Welcome Bonus
• Gold Card Happy Hour
• $250,000 Prize Pools
• Daily Drops & Wins
• Two for Tuesdays
• Friyay Fever
• Beat the Dealer
• Winning Streak

Table Welcome Bonus

Casino.com welcomes you to the Table Games by giving you 20 Golden Chips. To claim this offer, simply:

• Deposit a minimum of $20 with bonus code TABLE
• Wager a minimum of $20 on Roulette or any Card game
• Accept the pop ups to receive your 20 Golden Chips

Read the full terms on the Table Welcome Bonus promotions page.

Gold Card Happy Hour

Have the chance of winning up to $5,000 extra with Casino.com Live Blackjack.

• Play during Happy Hour (20:00-22:00 every Tuesday, Wednesday & Thursday)
• There are 2 cards up for grabs in each shoe

Read the full terms on the Gold Card Happy Hour promotions page.

While browsing their promotions I noticed that they update ongoing promotions on a regular basis. You will find weekly, monthly and seasonal offers to take part in. As a casino player, I find it exciting to get some extra bonus and increase my chances at winning. Just keep in mind to read the full terms before accepting any promotion.

As Casino.com has been in the game for quite some time, they have accumulated great experience and knowledge. With a Gibraltar license they are bound to follow a few responsible gaming requirements. I am happy to see that they are going the extra mile to offer even further responsible gambling tools than the requirements.

As I mentioned during my product experience review, they offer the following tools:

• Deposit Limits
• Time-outs
• Self-Exclusions

To set deposit limits, you have to contact the support and specify what limits you wish to have. You are able to set daily, weekly and/or monthly limits.

In terms of Time-outs, you can decide to take a time out for 1 day and up to 6 weeks. After the desired period has expired, your account will be reopened automatically. Which is quite nice as you won’t have to contact support to get access to your account again.

However, the Self-Exclusion option is a bit more stringent. You can choose from self excluding from 6 months and up to 5 years. You can not change your mind after the self exclusion has been applied, which means you will have to wait until the period is over. This is essential in preventing problem gambling. In addition to this, your account won’t be reopened automatically either. So, you will have to contact support and request to have it opened, after the period has expired. A successful reopen request will take 24 hours to come into effect.

Overall, I am very pleased with the responsible gaming approach by Casino.com. While I wish that I could access these tools myself in the product, it is still great that they offer this over support. Luckily the support is quite quick so it is pretty painless.

Another key point that I enjoyed was that the support agents are trained in terms of handling responsible gaming chats. If they suspect there is problem gaming in play, they will probe and try to find out more in order to assist you. They would even suggest you to take a break if they feel it is granted.

I have spent several days testing the Casino.com website. As well as interacting with their staff, playing the games and browsing around. I can say that I am definitely pleased. Furthermore, It doesn’t matter whether you are using a desktop or mobile device to play at Casino.com. The games look stunning in landscape mode on your phone as well as on tablets.

They do however have an app that you can download straight from their website if you would prefer that.

The whole player lifecycle from registering, depositing and playing is seamless. I didn’t run into any issues during my time at casino.com and the live support on chat was great. In addition to this, the product itself is modern and easy to navigate. It is evident that they have kept the user experience first in mind when designing their product.

A few final words; if you are an average African casino player looking for a casino, casino.com is more than good for you. You have the most common deposit and withdrawal methods with fair payment times.

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