Europa Casino Review

Let's start with the best features of Europa Casino – a few reasons to consider opening an account:

The site hosts hundreds of casino games. Instant play customers won't have access to quite that many, but if you're into variety, and if you download the software, you can play on one of the largest Playtech libraries in the business.

Europa accepts a wide variety of currencies and does business in many world languages. Reviewers sometimes call this "accessibility" – it means a lot of different people have access to the site. That's good for marketing, but it's a big deal to translate your site, your games, and provide customer support in a dozen languages.

The variety of deposit and withdrawal methods is impressive. As an American, I'm always amazed by the number of deposit and withdrawal methods Europeans have access to. But even at other Euro sites, I've not seen quite the list of available payment methods that you'll find at Europa.

And now for a few things about Europa Casino that I don't like:

Europa Casino is blacklisted by Casinomeister for its progressive jackpot terms. As a "Playtech casino with progressive limitations," Europa Casino has earned a spot on Casinomeister's blacklist. This is a bad sign – the Casinomeister staff is thorough, and I usually trust their findings. The reason for the blacklisting - "predatory terms," related to the limiting of payouts on progressive jackpot winnings. According to the site, "To place a withdrawal limit on these winnings is not only unethical, it's predatory and indefensible. The only reason why they do this is because they can; they are calling the shots."

But if you're not chasing progressive jackpots, this probably won't bother you that much.

No access for American players. This one should be obvious – I live in the United States, so when a site doesn't give access to Americans, I'm left out in the cold.

The Playtech-powered library is large but boring. I know – they have 450-something games in their download client, and that's amazing. But they're all Playtech games – that limits the variety. I'm also unimpressed with a listing of that many hundreds of games when only eight of them are video poker titles, and about that many again are blackjack variants. Clearly, the library at Europa Casino is aimed at slots players.

Withdrawals face a longer-than-usual pending period. According to information in the site's T&C pages, some withdrawals may be listed as "pending" as long as 96 hours, which is three times longer than the posted wait times at other online casinos. A friend of mine pointed out that this could mean that Europa is more honest about its wait times, since plenty of casino customers complain that their pending period was longer than advertised. He may be right – maybe Europa is just setting the bar low so that customers don't get angry.

I'm not sure how to feel about this, but I put it in the negative column because it just seems like such a long time to wait.

I'm not a fan of the heavily-restricted bonuses now available. All of the site's bonuses (outlined above) are aimed at slot players – the list of restricted games is long and complicated. I also don't like the wagering requirement for the referral bonus, which is four or five times larger than at other online casinos.

All the bonuses below have wagering requirements which must be cleared by wagering on a list of specific games. Here are the games excluded from bonus clearing requirements:

• Baccarat
• Roulette
• Sic Bo
• Darts
• Heads or Tails
• Video Poker
• Blackjack Switch
• Blackjack Surrender
• Pontoon
• Craps
• Wild Viking
• Spin a Win

All other games in the site's library count toward clearing bonuses.

Here's a breakdown of all the promotions running at the time of my review:

• $2,400 Free Bonus: Europa Casino heavily advertises a "$2,400 Free Bonus", but it's really just a combination of their three main promotional offers: a first deposit bonus, a series of eleven monthly reload deposit bonuses, and the customer's use of the $25 weekly loyalty bonus. If a player were to max out all 72 of those bonuses over the course of a year, they'd have earned a total of $2,400 in deposit and reload bonuses.
• 100% First Deposit Bonus: New depositors are eligible for a 100% match bonus worth up to $100. The minimum deposit to trigger this bonus is $25. This bonus carries a 20x deposit-plus-bonus wagering requirement.
• $25 Weekly Loyalty Bonus: Repeat customers can earn $25 once a week for making a deposit of $100 or more. Each $25 bonus you earn is subject to a 20x bonus wagering requirement.
• $500 High Roller Bonus: New customers who deposit $1,000 or more are eligible for a bonus award of $500. The wager requirement is 20x the bonus plus deposit amount, or a total of $30,000 in wagers, to clear the full amount of the $500 bonus. Now you see why it's considered a high-roller bonus.
• Refer-a-Friend: You can earn $50 for each new customer you refer to the site who deposits a minimum of $25 and downloads the casino software within a week of signing up. Referrers are required to wager $1,250 before the entire $50 in bonus cash is cleared. Players can refer an unlimited number of people to the site but can only earn $250 a month in referral bonuses.

Europa Casino provides currency support for:

Europa Casino accepts a long list of deposit methods. I count forty-five accepted deposit methods, listed with details like mobile compatibility, average deposit time, available bonuses, and compatible currency. It's a beautiful table with lots of useful details in an easy-to-read layout.

The deposit methods range from the universally-accepted (PayPal, credit/debit cards, bank transfers) to methods only available for citizens of a single country (Swiff, TrustPay, DineroMail). Included is a long list of eWallets, prepaid cards, and instant banking features.

Withdrawal methods are more limited. Here's the full list of ways to request a payout from Europa Casino:

• Check by mail
• Check by courier
• ClickandBuy
• MyCitadel
• Neteller
• Visa Electron
• instaDebit
• Visa
• Skrill

Players are limited to $9,990 (or currency equivalent) in withdrawals per month.

Here's an overview of each of the game categories at Europa Casino:

More than 200 total slot games are available on the site's download platform, with nearly that many also available in "instant play" mode. Slots is the largest category of games – and that makes sense, considering Europa Casino's slot-friendly bonuses.

Playtech has designed a bunch of slots with familiar licensed themes. These are games based on popular films, TV shows, game shows, and licensed characters. These slots are just as popular online as they are at land-based venues. Titles like Iron Man 2, Incredible Hulk, Gladiator, and Fantastic Four combine familiar themes with Vegas-style slot play.

Europa is home to classic slots, video slots, and progressive games. Classic slots have simpler rules and payout tables, fewer reels and symbols, and little in the way of bonuses or extras. They're popular because they're affordable, easy to learn, and easy to play. Any other slot game is considered a video slot, so named for the video and audio effects used to tell a story. Progressive slots are any slot games with an ever-increasing top prize.

Europa Casino hosts thirteen different Playtech-designed roulette games, most of which are just variations in features like table layout and graphics quality. Roulette lends itself to a little bit of variation, and Europa covers American, European, and French rules as well as a decent multi-wheel game. The rest are just window dressing.

Here's the full list of roulette games now available at Europa Casino:

• American Roulette – classic double zero roulette
• Multi Wheel Roulette – single zero roulette with multiple results per round
• Premium European Roulette – single zero roulette presented with premium graphics
• Premium French Roulette - a game played by la partage rules presented with premium graphics
• Live French Roulette – a live dealer game played under la partage rules
• Roulette Pro – a version of single zero roulette played on a fancy layout
• Marvel Roulette – double zero roulette using licensed symbols and characters from Marvel
• 3D Roulette Premium – double zero roulette with premium 3D graphics
• AR Roulette – a new variant involving special bonus payouts and different ways to wager
• Premium Roulette Pro – a premium graphics version of Roulette Pro
• French Roulette Multiplayer – a multiplayer version of the classic French roulette game
• European Roulette Multiplayer – a multiplayer version of the classic Euro roulette game
• Premium American Roulette – a multiplayer version of the classic American roulette game

Rather than being a unique category featuring titles you won't find elsewhere on the site, the Progressive Games heading is more like a place to gather up all the titles with jackpot prizes so that fans of jackpot games can find them with a single click of the mouse.

Sixty titles with some form of progressive jackpot are gathered in this category. Some casino sites only offer progressive prizes on slots – not so at Europa. They include slot games, casino games, and at least one video poker title in their jackpot library.

Europa hosts thirteen blackjack variants in this heading – and as a fan of online blackjack, I was excited to see so many different versions available.

• Unlimited Blackjack Live – a live dealer game with higher wagering limits
• Blackjack – the site's standard blackjack game
• Double Attack Blackjack – uses eight Spanish decks and unique rules
• Blackjack Pro – a standard version of blackjack with fancier graphics and a different layout
• Blackjack Switch – a variant in which players can swap their cards for better ones
• Blackjack Multihand – allows up to five hands at a time
• Live Blackjack – a live dealer game with standard rules
• 21 Duel Blackjack – includes a special bonus round and payout under certain game conditions
• Blackjack Multiplayer – allows up to five players at a time
• Progressive Blackjack – classic blackjack with a progressive top prize
• Perfect Blackjack – a variant involving special bonus payouts
• Blackjack Surrender – a variant in which players can surrender for a loss of half their wager
• Pontoon – based on the rules of an old British game similar to blackjack

Under this heading, you'll find all ten live dealer games currently available at the site:

I was surprised to see just four casino-style card games on the menu. Casino-style poker is both popular and potentially lucrative for the house, and lots of casino poker games are available in both desktop- and mobile-friendly versions. That said, I believe Europa picked four of the more popular casino card games to offer, so I can't fault them for that.

Here's a breakdown of each of the site's four card games now available:

• Caribbean Poker – A casino version of five-card stud.
• Pai Gow Poker – Based on the rules of an old Chinese domino games.
• Baccarat – The casino classic, but only available in one variation.
• Casino Hold'em – A casino-style variant of Texas hold'em poker.

Scratch cards are becoming a big deal online – or, at least, I'm seeing them more often at online gambling sites. Most of these collections are sparse at best, with RTG casinos usually hosting one or two different games. That's not the case at Europa Casino – there is a complete list of forty-nine different lotto-style online scratch card games available at Europa.

Video Poker

Most of the games gathered in the Video Poker heading are line variants of Jacks or Better and Aces and Faces. The classic variants – Deuces Wild, Joker Poker, Jacks or Better – are here, but the variations outside of those classics are dull.

Here's the full list of video poker variants available at Europa:

• Deuces Wild
• Joker Poker
• Mega Jacks
• 10-line Jacks or Better
• Jacks or Better
• Tens or Better
• All American Video Poker
• 25-line Aces and Faces
• 4-line Aces and Faces
• 4-line Deuces Wild
• 2 Ways Royal
• 4-line Jacks or Better
• 50-line Jacks or Better
• Jacks or Better Max Bet

You can contact Europa Casino via live chat, email, postal mail, or telephone:

• A live chat feature is available about sixteen hours a day.
• The toll-free international contact number is +63-2756-7823.
• The best email address for customer support is [email protected].
• The postal address for Europe Casino:

Europa Casino
P.O Box 1279
Makati Central Post Office 1252
Makati City, Philippines

Site software and customer support are available in the following languages:

• English
• French
• German
• Greek
• Magyar
• Italian
• Czech
• Polish
• Portuguese
• Russian
• Spanish
• Swedish

Europa Casino has been around for over a decade, and it offers a large download library of casino games in a variety of categories. I'm not impressed by the bonus offers or terms, and there's the whole progressive jackpot withdrawal issue to worry about.

On the other hand, they have a large library, an easy-to-navigate site, and a number of currency and language options to accommodate a variety of customers.