Casino Gonzo

Casino Gonzo Review

The game “Gonzo’s Quest” is one of the most nostalgic pokies from years past – back in the day it was everywhere, to the point where Gonzo’s cartoony mug graced the front page of numerous different websites. While today the game is still available, its popularity has waned considerably, replaced by newer and trendier pokies… and we can’t have that, can we? Enter “Casino Gonzo”, which has made the titular character into its mascot!

But the name wasn’t just randomly selected to cash in on nostalgia – it perfectly represents the focus of Casino Gonzo, which is none other than pokies! Let us tell you right now that if you’re not a fan of pokies, we don’t think you’ll find much here for you. But what if you dream of spinning reels and winning jackpots? Can Casino Gonzo deliver on that front, or is it completely unworthy of its prestigious name? Let’s dive in and find out!

Bonuses

No Deposit Bonus – 123 Free Spins on Gonzo’s Quest

Most online casinos nowaays won’t give you a no deposit bonus anymore – just like Gonzo himself, it’s something that has faded into obscurity. But we can’t have that at a casino named after a pokie’s protagonist, right? No, at the very least the site has to let players who signed up try out the game, and there’s no better way to do so than with some good, old-fashioned free spins!

Well, that’s exactly what Casino Gonzo has done! Just by signing up, you’ll automatically receive 123 free spins on the “Gonzo’s Quest” pokie! There is no need to claim them with a bonus code or anything like that, they’ll be added to your account as soon as you complete the registration by verifying your e-mail (which you’ll need to do within 24 hours of opening your account).

Of course, no deposit bonuses have always been notoriously difficult to withdraw, and this one is no exception. To actually lay claim to your winnings, you’ll have to wager them x50 times, and then you’ll need to make a deposit and wager it 3 times, too. Only then will you be allowed to withdraw, and only up to $25. It’s a lot of requirements, but also, that’s understandable given that a no deposit bonus is basically free money.

Welcome Bonus – Unlimited 100% Match

Once you’ve had your fun with your no deposit bonus, there’s no choice but to put down some money – in fact, you’ll need to do just that to stand a chance at withdrawing your free spin winnings! The good news is that Casino Gonzo’s offer for first-time depositers is actually really good! The bad news is that it’s going to make you sweat a bit until you can withdraw it, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

The welcome bonus is an unlimited 100% match – which means that it doesn’t matter how much money you deposit, the site will always double it in bonus cash. Of course, there’s a minimum: you’ll have to put down at least $25 to qualify, but beyond that, the sky’s the limit! You can deposit even something like $10,000 and the site will match it – though we won’t reccommend doing so, given the wagering requirements.

To withdraw your bonus, you’ll have to bet it x40 times over the course of just 7 days. While the requirements itself aren’t too bad (most online casinos in Australia require x35 wagers), the very narrow timespan in which you need to complete them will make life very difficult for you, should you attempt it!

Reload Promotions at Casino Gonzo

Depending on how you look at things, Gonzo either has dozens of reload promotions, way more than pretty much any other site we’ve reviewed here at casinoaustraliaonline.net… Or it only has one. That is because, if you deposit at least $25, you’ll snatch up a number of free spins for a slot of your choice! That’s the bonus!

The thing is, the amount of spins you’ll get, as well as the game you’ll be able to use them on, will vary greatly. There are more than 40 different unique ‘promotions’ that each follow this template, just with changing variables – and they come and go all the time! A few of the offers are mainstays, which means they’ll remain at the casino indefinitely, but most will only be available for a few days and will then get swapped out with new ones.

Honestly, this is a pretty great idea for a casino focused exclusively on pokies! The only negative thing is that (as we’re going to touch upon in just a moment), not all games at Casino Gonzo are available to Australian audiences, which in turn means that you won’t be able to take advantage of any of these promotions. It’s also possible for you to claim an offer that you then can’t use, as the site doesn’t seem to stop you from doing so – which is unacceptable.

Games

Bonuses are only one side of the coin when it comes to online casinos – after all, they may make you sign up for a site, but you sure won’t be sticking around if it doesn’t have the games to keep your interest, right? And Casino Gonzo doesn’t seem particularly shy in showing off what it hopes will keep you playing: pokies, of course! Right from the get-go, you’ll be seeing huge banners advertising individual games or free spins offers, to the point where there isn’t much else to do on the site besides play them. But are they good enough, or will the games section prove to be a massive disappointment?

Pokies

Ah, the bread and butter of Gonzo – the pokies! Given the immense focus the site has placed on them, surely the selection of slot games will be spectacular, right? Well… Not so much. In fact, you’ll only find about a dozen different providers here, and just over a thousand games by our last count. For the record, many of the sites we’ve reviewed have three times as many offerings!

What’s worse, Australian players clearly got the short end of the stick here, as many of these companies (such as NetEnt for instance) aren’t even available here! Gonzo doesn’t seem to hide these games, which means that you’ll have to manually click through them and then get the error message that you’re not allowed to play them! This can happen dozens of times until you finally find a game that hasn’t been geo-blocked, which is insanely disappointing! If you’re going to offer so few games, could you at least make sure they’re all available in every territory whose players you accept?!

Live casino

Casino Gonzo is a site that focuses exclusively on pokies – which means you won’t find any live games here, nor anything else (like bingo or instant win games). We’re perfectly aware of just how many people adore games like blackjack or live roulette, and wouldn’t even consider joining Casino Gonzo under these circumstances. And that’s completely fair!

With that said, though, we can’t really hold the lack of a live dealer section against Casino Gonzo. After all, it hasn’t exactly tried to hide what it is: a site solely dedicated to pokies. That’s what’s on the dashboard, that’s what the bonuses are aimed at. If it had tried to create a live casino section and failed that would be one thing, but Gonzo’s focus clearly isn’t here, so how can we hold something against it which was clearly a deliberate creative choice?

Deposits & Withdrawals

If the games were a disappointment, we’re sorry to say that the payment methods are borderline insulting. Where do we even begin? Well, how about with the fact that Casino Gonzo doesn’t seem to support Australian dollars. While it does seem to be mentioned briefly a few times on various pages, when you actually sign up you won’t be able to select that as your currency. This isn’t exclusive to AU$, as several currencies are mentioned off-handedly in, say, the terms of service, and then aren’t even available to use.

But the weirdness doesn’t stop there. It’s clear that Casino Gonzo’s target audience isn’t Australians, but Russians, as most of the available payment methods (like FKWallet and Kvitum) are exclusively available in Russia. Cool! So, what options do we get? Well, how about Visa, MasterCard, Jeton, and SettlePay (which you can use to buy crypto that you deposit). If you’re interested in crypto this might have caused your ears to perk up, but don’t be fooled – you can only use Tether and Binance Coin here. Not even Bitcoin!

Withdrawal time

Before we begin talking about Gonzo’s withdrawal time, it’s very important to bring up the fact that Gonzo requires players to wager every deposit x3 times before you can withdraw it. This means that, if you deposited $50, you must make $150 worth of wagers to withdraw $50. This is incredibly scammy, and pretty much just means you’ll be withdrawing a third of what you win, if that. But hey, if you do win, how fast can you withdraw?

Realistically speaking, Aussies will only have 4 methods to withdraw their cash with – Visa, MasterCard, Jeton, or crypto. Out of all of these, Visa and MasterCard will undoubtedly be the slowest of the bunch – international bank transfers take a long, long time, and it can be a week before you get access to your winnings! Sure, some people may be perfectly okay with that, but not everyone wants to wait.

So, what’s the alternative? Well, both Jeton and crypto will be quite fast – dare we say, practically instant. That’s not to say that you’ll receive your money literally as soon as you press on the “withdraw” button, as there will be a brief processing period, as will be the case with credit card withdrawals. But unlike them, Jeton or Tether will let you get your money as soon as that period ends, without waiting further for your bank to verify the transaction.

VIP Program

Gonzo isn’t exactly rife with different types of bonuses, but that’s where its VIP program comes in! Unfortunately, it’s an extremely basic offering that few players are likely to pay much attention to, but hey, it’s here. The way it works is that, for every $1 you wager, the casino will give you 1 Gonzo point. Earn enough points, and you level up, unlocking perks and prizes. Simple!

The rewards are actually pretty decent too, including a cashback starting at 5% and cash rewards starting at $100. But there’s a problem, too: the site won’t tell you how many points you actually need to unlock each level. It might be a bug, but nowhere on our profile did we find the remaining points needed to get to the next level. So, do these points even exist, or does the casino just decide when you’ve earned enough, supposedly? Furthermore, once you claim the final reward, you won’t get anything at all except your maxed-out cashback, not even a VIP manager or something like that. And that’s a disappointing way to treat your most loyal players!

Tournaments

Unlike the VIP program, at least Gonzo’s tournaments are pretty decent, even if they won’t blow any minds. The rules these tourneys offer are pretty similar to what you’d find on other sites: place bets on the participating pokies, collect points based on your winnings, and then see your point rankings compared to other players – with the top spot winning prizes!

We can’t lie, it’s a pretty decently put together system, and the prizes are also generous enough (with the top spot winning $1,500). The only potential problem here is that there’s only ever one tournament – and they last a while! And with all players bunched together, you pretty much stand no chance of winning unless you’re a high roller, as you’re directly competing against the richest people who use Gonzo. That’s why most casinos have multiple tournaments of various “tiers”, but fairness doesn’t seem to have been a priority for Gonzo.

Verification

There are a lot of things about Gonzo that we find shady, but even a site like this still respects the holy verification! And how could it not? Financial institutions, such as Visa, take verifying players extremely seriously and have been known to stop accepting transactions from sites that don’t agree with their sentiment.

But what is verification, exactly? Simply put, it’s an anti-money laundering feature that requires Gonzo to know who it is exactly that they’re paying winnings to. As such, you’ll have to present a few documents that prove your identity, like your ID card or a proof of current address. Photos of them can be uploaded to your Casino Gonzo profile to be examined by the staff, who will proceed to approve or deny your verification request.

If you’re approved, great! If not, you might need to resubmit documents, or you might be banned entirely if your information doesn’t match what Gonzo already has on record. As such, we strongly encourage you to use accurate information when creating your Casino Gonzo account!

Is Casino Gonzo Legit & safe?

Sometimes, whether an online casino is legit or not is extremely easy to see – some casinos are fully licensed and have a fantastic reputation, while others are so obviously scammy that even a total amateur could see through their lies. Sometimes, however, the nuance is a lot more subtle, and unfortunately, Gonzo is one such case.

For starters, the site is, in fact, licensed by Curacao – which we have confirmed and verified. However, it was very difficult to find much information about its parent company, or any user reviews for that matter. Add to this the fact that all deposits must be wagered x3 times for a withdrawal to happen, which is extremely shady, and you’ve got us feeling rather distrustful of the overall experience despite the presence of a license.

As always, the choice on whether to trust Gonzo or not is up to you.

Customer support

Take it from us – if an online casino has terrible support, just don’t bother with them! You may think we’re exaggerating, but the fact of the matter is that, if you experience a problem with any other aspect (bonuses not triggering, withdrawal not going through, etc), it’s support who decides whether that problem will be resolved in your favor or not. Bad or unresponsive support can easily ruin the whole experience.

So, how did Gonzo fare on this important front? Well… they’re okay. The support (which we tested via the live chat function, available in the bottom-right corner of every page) was responsive and fairly friendly, though trying to press them on certain details was a lost cause. For example, we asked them about the fact that Australian dollars aren’t available for deposits despite being mentioned on the site, and they simply reiterated that AU$ is not accepted at their site while ignoring the second part of that statement. So whether they’ll actually be helpful to you or not is anyone’s guess.

Mobile casino

Gonzo doesn’t exactly have the most sophisticated-looking interface – in fact, it wouldn’t be a shock if we learned that the entire site was made in about an afternoon by a college student instead of by a professional company. As such, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that it runs pretty well on mobile phones. There just isn’t anything here that can make your device sweat.

As is the case with most casinos operating in Australia, you don’t need to download and install a dedicated app. Just opening up the site through a browser is enough, as doing so will take you to a mobile version of the interface. Don’t worry, it looks and functions nearly identically to the desktop one, and will let you do anything you could on your computer – like play pokies and claim bonuses.