SkyCity Casino Review

Backed by an MGA license, SkyCity Casino is a fresh legit operator on the gambling market of New Zealand. It offers a frequently updated collection of over 1200 games, a well-stocked bonus program and a full library of live dealer games by Evolution. The lobby, which gives access to the entire game collection, is structured well enough and contains 10+ sub-categories for easy location of players’ preferred games. New members may claim either of two alternative welcome bonuses that get pokies and live games covered, and this comes in addition to a 7-day free spin package that has no wagering requirement at all. Those wishing to step inside the VIP Loyalty Club will be treated with random rewards, exclusive offers and Tier Rewards, each becoming more valuable as soon as the player moves across the 10 VIP levels.

SkyCity Casino is powered by more than 10 top-rated providers including Microgaming, Play’n GO and NetEnt. Lack of <i>by provider</i> filters can be seen as a downside to the casino design; however, the total number of games somewhat makes up for it. The online casino is created specifically for NZ players and people from all other locations are not accepted – they simply are not allowed to pass sign up procedures successfully. An important implication to the above is that all financial aspects, Customer Support and even the gaming content are tailored to the needs and preferences of normal New Zealand players.

Banking options in SkyCity Casino

Payment providers available on the banking page are both international and local. For depositing, a player may use Inpay, Neteller, Skrill, Visa (MasterCard), paysafecard, ecoPayz and Neosurf. No types of crypto currencies (bitcoin, etc.) are accepted. Deposits can be made in a number of currencies selected during sign up, including NZD. Min/max limits depend solely on the selected payment method.    

After initial verification of the player’s identity, which takes around one week, the player may cash out some or all of his winnings from the casino account, using a few available channels such as bank transfer, ecoPayz, Skrill and Neteller.

Approval times (5 days) are much longer than the ones used in many other online casinos. Once approved, the withdrawn money goes to the recipient in line with the policies of the selected payment method (e-wallet – almost instantly, bank transfer – up to 5 days, etc.).   

A player needs to keep in mind the minimum withdrawal amount of NZ$20. There are no other limits established by SkyCity Casino.

SkyCity mobile casino

Optimized for mobile play, the casino offers excellent user experience with over 1000 HTML5 pokies and table games, including Live. Due to clean and lightweight visual design, the mobile casino features smooth transition of pages, very fast loading times and no glitches of any sort.

Online pokies in SkyCity Casino

There are over 10 pokie providers in the online casino. As is said above, the key drawback is that pokies cannot be arranged by provider and are shown in a mixed way. Yet there is a counter-intuitive method of getting games of a single provider visible on a page. To do this, a played needs to insert the provider’s name in the Search field and confirm by pressing “Enter”. 

The lobby contains many subcategories for pokies. For example, the Daily Drops tab shows a number of pokies from Pragmatic Play, such as Wolf Gold and Mustang Gold. Jackpots in these games are programmed to always hit every day.

Similar to the above, Red Tiger is another famous company that builds Hourly Jackpots into their games – these are available in the same-name tab in SkyCity Casino. As a glaring example, Dynamite Riches pokie by that provider releases a small jackpot every hour, as the name of the category suggests.

Normal pokies that have no progressive component are held in the Slots section. While the online casino tries to update their offer quite often, it now comprises about 800 best pokies by Microgaming, NoLimit City, Net Entertainment and other reputable companies that create highly entertaining real money games with exciting prizes and lots of special bonus features.

Progressive pokies in SkyCity Casino

Regardless so many prominent providers that have progressive jackpots in their libraries, SkyCity Casino offers only four pokies with a progressive feature. These are:

• Mega Fortune (NetEnt) – this is the only game in the casino to give away grand prizes of over NZ$1 million
• Holmes and the Stolen Stones (Yggdrasil)
• Bell of Fortune (Play’n GO)
• Golden Goal (Play’n GO)

To summarize this game category, SkyCity Casino could have done much better in this regard, taking into account the total number of games. There are no brilliant Microgaming pokies with progressives (Mega Moolah, etc.), no NetEnt’s progressives and other titles that usually appeal to normal NZ players.

Table games in SkyCity Casino

All major table games have a separate category inside the casino, which makes it very easy to find the preferred title. The Roulette tab features a few tables by NetEnt, Red Tiger and Play’n GO. Sadly, no American roulette is found among the eight games.

The bad news for baccarat fans is that the casino has none. To be exact, there is a couple of live dealer titles by Evolution, yet normal, non-live baccarat is absent in the online casino.

As for online blackjack, SkyCity has a good variety of single-hand and multi-hand titles from a few providers. New Zealand players like European Blackjack Gold (Microgaming), Deal or No Deal (Red Tiger), Dr Fortuno (Yggdrasil) and other interesting variations of the game of 21.

Live dealer games in SkyCity Casino

Powered by Evolution, the library features the entire scope of live games by this globally renowned company. There are all kinds of live games (Live Roulette, Live Blackjack, Live Baccarat) as well as game shows (Crazy Time wheel of fortune, Gonzo’s Treasure Hunt), Live Monopoly and other award-winning creations that are loved by many online casino devotees in New Zealand.

Loyalty program in SkyCity Casino

Almost every online casino features a loyalty scheme of one or another kind. In SkyCity, it is named The Online Club and consists of 5 tiers and 100 levels. A player accumulates comp points during normal casino experience when betting real money on casino games, or in the course of special events.

For the purpose of the loyalty program, all games do contribute to comp points but hold different percentages of contribution (details are described on the online casino site).

On proceeding to a new level, a player gets a random award such as cash prizes, Super Spin or free spins, all abiding by standard Bonus T&C that suggest certain WR be fulfilled.

Bonus system in SkyCity Casino

The Promotions page has two parts: Welcome Offer and Casino, each currently posting two bonuses (perhaps, casino managers alter the content from time to time). The offer for new players comprises:

• 100% first deposit match up to NZ$100 + 70 free spins. This offer is valid on pokies
• 100% first deposit match up to NZ$150 + 70 FS. This bonus must be played through on live games, except for FS that are naturally wagered on pokies.

A minimum deposit of NZ$10 is required to claim either deposit bonus, and both need to be wagered 35 times (live casino is counted as 0%). The maximum bet allowed while a bonus is active is NZ$5.

The other two bonuses posted on the Promotions page are The Online Club (the loyalty program explored above) and Drops & Wins tournament run by Pragmatic Play.

Therefore, SkyCity Casino seems to have a poor bonus program (as of writing the review) with a very small amount of bonuses. Currently there are no free spins other than Welcome FS, and no reload bonuses other than these in the Welcome Pack.

Bottom line on SkyCity Casino

SkyCity is a New Zealand-targeted legal online casino with over 1000 games (and one Live provider) produced by 10+ well-known companies. Its bonus program remains wanted but the loyalty program is good. Payment options are fully suitable for NZ players but withdrawals are somewhat long in comparison with the competition. Bitcoins are not in the list of casino’s currencies. As of today, reliability and game fairness of the online casino leave no doubt so it can be recommended for real money play without any reservations.