GoKong Casino

GoKong Casino Review

The name “Kong”, almost meaningless over a century ago, now evokes feelings of grandeur, of beastly proportions and kingly prestige. It’s undeniable that the creators of GoKong sought to evoke precisely this imagery when choosing the name and theme of their website, doubly so because their mascot is a giant gorilla living on a wild island. But the question remains: is this casino worthy of its royal namesake, or is it nothing more than a blown-out chimpanzee?

To find that out, we at CasinoAustraliaOnline decided to thoroughly research the site top to bottom, exploring every aspect that the average Aussie player would want to know about. We made sure to investigate not only the games and bonuses, but also the available payment options, the VIP program, the support features, and, what else, the legality and legitimacy of the site! Wanna know whether GoKong is worth your hard-earned dollars? Stick around and find out!

Bonuses

Welcome Bonus – 100% Match up to AU$750 + 200 Free Spins + 1 Bonus Crab

GoKong Casino actually has not one, but two different welcome bonuses: one for fiat currency (in our case, Australian dollars), and one for crypto (Bitcoin, Ethereum, etc). We’ll examine both, but for the moment, let’s focus on the fiat currency one, since it’s not only the one we presume most players will claim, but also the better choice if you’re a fan of free spins.

Sure, the match bonus isn’t anything to write home about: you’ll just get a 100% match up to AU$750. By no means terrible, but at the same time, you can get significantly bigger amounts at other casinos, if you’re willing to put down a deposit that big, of course. On the other hand, you’ll also be awarded with 200 free spins (and a single spin on the Bonus Crab game with guaranteed prizes), and THAT right there is a rare and wonderful bonus. A true treat for pokie enthusiasts!

In the world of online casinos, every treat comes with conditions – and here, it’s no different. The winnings from those 200 free spins will have to be wagered x40 times before they can be withdrawn, and as for the match bonus, that must be played through x35 times. Although these requirements are par for the course when it comes to casino sites, we shouldn’t underestimate the fact that they’re still pretty tough.

Crypto Welcome Bonus – 200% Match up to 3,000 USDT

Like we said above, GoKong Casino doesn’t just have a single welcome bonus: it also has an exclusive offer for people who are depositing using crypto. That welcome bonus (which needs to be selected during sign-up, you can only have either it or the previous bonus) comes with a far more generous 200% match up to 3,000 USDT – certainly one of the bigger bonuses we’ve reviewed. Sadly, it also comes with no free spins, meaning that players who prefer to have those over a match bonus are better off depositing using fiat currency.

It doesn’t matter that the bonus is listed in USDT, since it’ll still be paid off if you deposit in a different currency: up to 1,200 XRP, 0.78 ETH, and so on. Furthermore, the wagering requirements will be much higher, since you’ll need to play through the full amount (deposit + bonus) x40 times. This means that if you deposit 100 USDT, you’ll have to wager through 300 x 40 = 12,000 USDT before you can withdraw your winnings, all within just 10 days. It’s fair to say that while this bonus is very generous, that’s only because GoKong Casino doesn’t expect anyone to withdraw it.

Reload Promotions at GoKong Casino

Regardless of which welcome bonus you choose (if any), you can only use it once before it disappears forever. Bummer, isn’t it? Well, don’t be too disappointed: GoKong Casino offers plenty of reload promotions for both fiat and crypto players, ensuring you’ll never be left without a bonus. As you might have guessed, these bonuses will refresh periodically (for example, once a week), allowing you to keep claiming them as many times as you want.

For example, every week a deposit of at least AU$30 will net you 50 free spins, while on the weekend, that deposit will give you a 50% match up to AU$1,050 (and also 50 extra spins if you increase the deposit to AU$75). On the crypto front, you can get a 60% match up to 1,000 USDT during the week and a 75% match up to 750 USDT (and an extra 100 free spins) during the weekend. All of these promotions are pretty great!

Beyond those, you’ll have access to limited time offers, for example for Christmas or Valentine’s Day (it’s pointless to discuss them here, as they’ll change year after year). You’ll also get stuff like cashbacks and extra promos as part of GoKong’s VIP program (which we WILL discuss a little later in the review). Either way, you certainly won’t be left without a bonus!

Games

But an online casino is no good without its games, no matter how numerous or varied its bonuses may be. Luckily, GoKong is also settled on that front, since you’ll find no shortage of ways to gamble within its virtual halls. Obviously, the main ones are pokies and live casino games (as well as non-live table games), both of which we’ll discuss in detail below. But they’re far from the only games available here.

You can also enjoy plenty of instant win games, like Plinko or Aviator – titles that still have the randomness of pokies, but provide you with a unique gameplay experience that should keep you entertained even if you don’t like spinning reels. And if you’re a fan of sports betting, well, you’ll also find plenty of that. While the sports betting section here isn’t amazing, it’s perfect for more casual players looking to put bets on big football matches.

Pokies

The selection of pokies is arguably GoKong’s biggest strength – it’s huge, especially for an Australian casino. Sadly, many gambling sites intended for Aussies tend to skimp out on the slots due to several big providers (like NetEnt) not making their games available here. Although GoKong needs to work within those same restrictions, it has still found a way to provide so many games from so many providers that you’d never notice the missing ones.

We’re talking titles from big companies like BGaming, Pragmatic Play, Play’n GO, and Microgaming, as well as plenty of smaller ones like Booming, Octoplay, and 3Oaks. And if you’re new to the world of online casinos and aren’t sure where to start, no worries. The casino offers several different categories that make finding your starting game much easier – and while we’d have preferred said categories to be a bit more detailed and numerous, what’s here is still good enough.

Live casino

No matter how good the pokies are, not everyone wishes to play them at an online casino. Many gamblers go specifically to enjoy the live dealer games, such as blackjack or roulette. If you’re one of those players, then you’re in luck: while the selection here isn’t quite as big as the one for pokies, you’ll still find more than enough to keep you entertained. While most of the games here come courtesy of Pragmatic Live, there are a few smaller providers here that inject some variety.

Naturally, most of the games you’ll find here are either blackjack, baccarat, or roulette – or their variants. If you’re looking for smaller titles, like sic bo or andar bahar, you’ll still find them… but they’re considerably fewer compared to their more popular counterparts. Not only that, but they’ll also have less rooms to choose from, meaning they’re less available than something like blackjack. Still, we imagine that most players will be looking precisely for the big games, and those are plentiful in both rooms and variants.

Deposits & Withdrawals

A lot of players tend to take the ability to deposit at an online casino for granted, which makes sense – isn’t that the bare minimum you should be able to do before you can play? And while that’s true, there’s also the fact that many sites, especially casinos that accept players from Australia, tend to skimp on the payment methods we commonly use. Sure, they all accept credit cards, but what about Neosurf?

Well, GoKong does accept Neosurf, right alongside a few more pre-paid solutions (like Paysafecard and CashtoCode). It also accepts a bunch of e-wallets, like Skrill, Neteller, or Jeton, as well as a bunch of cryptos. You can deposit using not just the popular crypto coins (like Bitcoin and Tether), but also a handful of smaller ones, like Ripple and BitcoinCash. Sure, there are omissions in every category (like Revolut for e-wallets or Solana for crypto), but that doesn’t make the selection any less impressive.

Withdrawal time

Hooray, you’ve won! But how quickly will you actually get to use those winnings? Well, that’ll depend in no small part on what payment method you’ve chosen to withdraw with. Although every player will need to wait about 3 days for the withdrawal request to be processed and the money to be dispatched, once it’s actually been sent out, how quickly it’ll make it into your account will depend entirely on how quickly the payment processor will, well, process the payment!

For example, credit cards tend to be very slow, taking up to 5 additional days to be sent out. Bank transfer withdrawals will be even slower, taking up to 10 days. On the flipside, using an e-wallet like Jeton should process the payment very quickly, and the same holds true for crypto like Ethereum or Ripple. So if you’re interested in the fastest possible withdrawal, the choice is obvious.

VIP Program

Every self-respecting online casino has a VIP program that rewards the most dedicated players, and GoKong is no exception… but alas, its own program feels far less like a reward and more like a chore. The way it works is simple: the more real money you put down on pokies, the more points you’ll get, and the higher your level will go. With each level-up, you’ll unlock additional features and perks that should improve your experience at the casino.

It’s a simple enough premise, perhaps maybe even too simple. But the issue is two-fold. First, level-ups are extremely slow, with just five levels to get through for the entire program (meaning the distance between each two levels in terms of time and monetary investment is huge). Second, the rewards you’re getting are nothing special, just a small cashback and improved withdrawal limits. Doesn’t feel very VIP, does it?

Tournaments

Considering the fact that GoKong’s pride and joy are its pokies, it only makes sense that the site has also invested quite heavily in tournaments. Indeed, although not many players are into the idea of playing pokies competitively, those who are can’t live without tourneys – and if you belong to the latter category, then you’ll be pretty happy with the selection here.

What impressed us most was the sheer volume of different tournaments available here, which includes not just ones for pokies (and trust us, those are very plentiful), but also ones for live casino and even sports betting. Sure, not everyone will want to participate in all of these, and not all of them will reward you with cash (some will only net you some coins to buy bonuses with). But the sheer variety of different tournaments here is so big that if the idea appeals to you at all, you’ll probably find at least one to take part in.

Verification

Every single online casino site, at least the self-respecting and legal ones, will require players to verify their identity before they can make a withdrawal. This isn’t something they do just to be mean to players who are about to cash out: it’s a requirement issued by payment processors (like Visa or MasterCard), who in turn are complying with money laundering regulations. If the casino doesn’t verify you, it probably wouldn’t be able to pay out your money at all.

So, what does the verification procedure actually entail? Believe it or not, the actual process is no more complicated than, say, proving your identity when pulled over or when voting. You’ll have to present some form of ID, alongside a proof of address (could be something as simple as a utility bill) and, sometimes, a proof that you own your payment method. Again, that’ll likely be something simple, like taking a photo of your credit card with some of the numbers censored for security reasons. The whole process shouldn’t take more than a few minutes to submit and a few days at most for the casino to approve.

Is GoKong Casino Legit & safe?

At first glance, you might notice that there isn’t a license or even an owner listed anywhere on GoKong’s site. Whether you’re checking the footer, the terms of service or the About Us section, there simply isn’t any kind of mention that the site is legal. This should, reasonably, lead most people to assume that GoKong is unlicensed and therefore not worth playing at, but you know us, we at CasinoAustraliaOnline always like to dig a little deeper! As such, we decided to check a bit more closely, checking various license registries for the domain… until we found a hit in the most unexpected place.

Most casinos we review have a license from Curacao, Anjouan, Kahnawake, and other big regulators. GoKong, for whatever reason, is registered with Tobique, a fairly new and untested regulator that, although not unheard of (we’ve reviewed a few sites licensed by them), are definitely an underdog. This means that although GoKong does technically have a license, the authority enforcing said license is untested and doesn’t yet have a good reputation with the community. Whether this still counts as a licensed site or not is entirely up to you.

Customer support

Sooner or later, everyone needs to use a casino’s support feature. Maybe you encountered some issue, like being unable to play certain games or change your preferred currency, or perhaps it’s a much more serious problem, like not being able to withdraw your winnings. Either way, writing a message to support is an obvious and easy way to get to the bottom of those issues… as long as you’re careful about HOW you message them.

At GoKong, you can use either live chat or email to contact support, with the site clearly wanting you to use the former, given how a link to it is on every page. Surprisingly, that’s the wrong choice: in our experience, live chat was slow, unreliable, and even wrong at times, which isn’t at all what you want from a support feature. Although the email support wasn’t perfect, it was (in our experience) significantly better than live chat, though at the expense of also being much slower.

Mobile casino

Playing casino games online is already very convenient, but it’s even better when you play them on mobile – that way, you can do it anywhere you want, whether it’s on the throne in the morning or on the couch in the evening! That convenience is why most casinos put a lot of work and effort into their mobile versions, and GoKong is no exception. Although there isn’t a downloadable version that you can install on your phone, quite frankly, one isn’t needed, as you can still enjoy all the site’s features by just going to its domain from your mobile browser. That way, even users in closed ecosystems (like iOS) can enjoy GoKong on the go without much trouble!