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Party Casino Review
Casino Beacon Rating
Welcome Bonus
100% deposit-match bonus up to £750 free on your first four deposits - potential bonus is
£3000 FREE if you go for the maximum £750 each time. Read the full casino review below for more details.
Introduction To Party Casino
Party Casino is the online casino from Bwin.Party, who happen to be the world's largest publicly traded online gambling firm. Most people have heard of the online poker room, Party Poker - Party Casino is from the same company. They are listed on The London Stock Exchange and also own Foxy Bingo, occasional sponsors of the Jeremy Kyle show.
Bwin.Party was created just over a year ago, in March 2011, from the merger of poker-specialists PartyGaming and sports betting giants, bwin. The merger created the world's largest listed online gaming business. They have been the main shirt sponsors of the Real Madrid football team since 2007.
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Party Casino
Download Or Instant Play
You have the option to download the casino games software to your computer or play in your browser with no download. This no download casino is called the Instant Play version and works just as well as the download casino. Most players download the software - roughly four out of every five players prefer this method - but it's really down to your own personal preference. Try both versions (you can play both from the same player account) and see which you prefer.
Choose Your Free Money Welcome Bonus
Just about every good online casino will offer new players a free money welcome bonus and Party Casino is no different. However, whereas most casinos will boost your first deposit with free money, Party Casino go a few steps further and will give you a free money bonus when you make your first four deposits.
Party Casino will credit your account with a 100% 'deposit-match bonus' on your first four deposits, up to £750 free for each deposit. For example, if your first deposit is £200 then you'll be given another £200 free, giving you a total of £400 to play with. If your second deposit is £100 then you'll get another £100 free, and so on.
The maximum total free money is £3000 free, if you go for the maximum £750 each time. Party Casino say that no bonus code is required as "you'll get the first bonus automatically". This is the bonus most players will go for as it offers the most amount of free money but it's important to be aware of the limitations that come with the bonus. Take the 100% bonus and you can only use it to play slots and jackpot games. That means no roulette, blackjack, poker, etc. so if you're desperate to hit the tables and avoid the slots then this bonus is not for you.
Fortunately, Party Casino offer two alternative bonuses for players who want to take advantage of a free money welcome bonus but don't want to be restricted to slots and jackpot games. These other two bonuses are called the 'Casino Games' bonus and 'Roulette' bonus. They're limited to £200 and £500 respectively but they do offer considerably more freedom in terms of the games you can play with your bonus money. Rather than dilute our review of Party Casino with a hideous amount of bonus information, we recommend you take you a look at the 'Promotions and News' page which is available at Party Casino's website.
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Party Casino
Party Casino Games
If you haven't played at many online casinos before, one things you'll soon notice is that many casinos have the same games. This is because most casinos licence their software from a third party. For example, play at Ladbrokes Casino
and you'll be able to play slot games such as Thunderstruck, Tomb Raider and Mega Moolah. Head over to 32 Red Casino
and you can play exactly the same games - because both of these casinos licence their games from a software developer called Microgaming.
A few online casinos don't license their games from a third party. Instead, they have developed their own in-house software. This is called 'proprietary' software. BigCasino.co.uk is one such example of an online casino using their own games software.
From a player's point of view, there are advantages to both the above scenarios. Play at a casino using licensed software and you'll be able to play games you're already familiar with. Also, you can play
progressive jackpot games
where a huge jackpot is increased by thousands of players, all playing the same game but at many different UK online casinos. This frequently leads to jackpots running into several million pounds.
On the other hand, play roulette at Ladbrokes Casino and you've pretty much played it at every other Microgaming-licensed casino. There are few, if any, differences between most casinos who use the same software. It can all start to feel a bit too familiar and so it can sometimes be more fun to play at an online casino where the games are unique.
It's down to what you prefer - the comfort zone of casino games you know well, or unique games you won't find in a hundred other casinos. Whatever floats your own boat. So where do Party Casino's games fit into the picture - licensed games from a third party, or in-house software? The answer is somewhere between the two.
The games at Party Casino come from a variety of different sources. The casino is made up of games from many different software developers, including Microgaming, Evolution Gaming, Cryptologic and Electracade. There are also many proprietary games that are unique to Party Casino, developed in-house - one example is Melon Madness, a slot game with a minimum jackpot of £1.5 million. Players do win big amounts at Party Casino.
Despite playing against the house, casino games at Party Casino can also be multi-player. Multi-player casino games make it possible for you to sit around the same virtual gaming table to play and socialise (through the online chat room) replicating the experience of a land based casino, as much as possible.
If you don't actually give a flying hoot where the games come from (in which case, we've probably just bored the arse off you) then you'll be happy enough to know that you will find all popular casino games at Party Casino. Roulette, blackjack, slots, video poker, scratchcards, bingo, keno, poker - all these and more are available. We couldn't find an exact number of games at Party Casino but they tell us there are more than 160 to choose from.
One nice feature is the ability to play Party Casino's games for free, with no real money involved. However, it's slightly annoying that you are required to create a new player account to be able to do this. Some players prefer to have a few 'fun' bets before deciding to sign up and it'd be nice to see these games become available without the need to join.
Banking, Deposits, Cashouts
You can deposit money into your Party Casino player account via a number of methods. Most UK casino players tend to use a debit or credit card but there are plenty of alternatives, including bank transfer.
You can use an 'e-wallet' such as PayPal
to deposit at Party Casino. The minimum amount you can deposit at Party Casino when you use PayPal is just £15 and you'll be able to withdraw any winnings back to your PayPal account. These withdrawals are NOT limited to the amount you've deposited - you can cashout any amount back to your PayPal account so if you hit a huge win, you can cashout the lot.
Other e-wallets available for depositing and withdrawing at Party Casino include Neteller,
Skrill/Moneybookers,
Click2Pay
and Ukash.
Customer Support
There's a reasonably decent FAQ section at Party Casino but if you have an unanswered question or problem, you can contact the customer support team at Party Casino in a number of ways.
You can drop Party Casino an e-mail or pick up the telephone and ring them via a free 0800 number. Alternatively, you can try your luck with their 'Live Chat' instant-messenger style facility which is supposed to put you in touch with a human operator.
Unfortunately, we ran into a number of problems with Party Casino's customer support. We tried to use their Live Chat on numerous occasions. It immediately put our backs up by telling us we had to register an account with Party Casino before being able to chat with them. This is hardly going to encourage new or nervous players that Party Casino are on the level. If an online casino offers a Live Chat facility then it should be available to potential players who haven't signed up yet. Closing this door to people who haven't joined yet is unwise and will lose them customers. Even worse, when we logged into our player account and tried again to use Live Chat, it still wouldn't connect to an operator.
We did get a slightly better service when we contacted Party Casino by e-mail but things were still not quite right. When we review an online casino, we usually send a few questions via e-mail to see how the casino responds. Often, we'll send stupid questions, like 'does your casino have roulette?' or 'can I post you cash?'. You'd be amazed at the equally stupid replies we often receive.
In the case of Party Casino, we asked the roulette question and we asked about what software the casino games uses. They were reasonably helpful with the roulette question, confirming that the casino did have roulette games and even pointing us to the live dealer roulette games. All very acceptable.
Party Casino - Our Review Summary
There are many things about Party Casino that really impressed us. They've got a really good product and the variety of casino games, from different software providers, makes this one of the best, most enjoyable UK online casinos we've played at. The flexibility of banking, including the ability to deposit and withdraw with PayPal, is another massive plus for Party Casino.
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Party Casino
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