Ultima Casino

Ultima Casino Review

In the famous tabletop RPG “Dungeons & Dragons” (which in turn inspired many popular videogames, like the “Final Fantasy” series), Ultima is more or less the most powerful spell a sorcerer can conjure. It’s so strong that, upon casting it, you’ll need to throw 80 dice just to calculate how much damage you’d deal to the enemies!

Now, we can’t tell for a fact whether the creators of Ultima Casino had this immensely powerful spell in mind when deciding on its name, but to us, the connection is quite clear – and it creates certain expectations. Just like Ultima is so immensely powerful, we would imagine that the casino is similarly strong when it comes to its content, games, bonuses and features. Which is why we decided to take a closer look and thoroughly review all of those elements!

So, is Ultima Casino truly worthy of the Ultima title, or does it have less magic than a level 1 barbarian?

Bonuses

Welcome Bonus – 150% Match up to $1,000

Ultima Casino provides its players with two separate welcome bonuses – a regular one and a “high roller” one. However, the only thing that differs between them are the numbers, especially the minimum deposit required to claim them.

To receive the standard bonus, you’ll need to deposit at least $25, which will trigger an instant 150% match up to $1,000. However, the ways in which you’ll be able to use this bonus amount are extremely restricted, as you’ll only be able to wager it on pokies by NetEnt, EGT, Play’N GO and Amatic.

This is just one of the reasons why you might decide it’s best off not to claim this bonus, but there is a far bigger one: if you end up canceling the bonus for any reason (for example, by requesting a withdrawal before you’ve completed your wagering requirements), the casino will forfeit any winnings made while the bonus was active, including the ones you’ve gained with real money bets. Needless to say, this is ridiculous.

If that doesn’t stop you, then keep in mind that you’ll still have a very tough time actually withdrawing the bonus, as you’ll need to wager it x50 times over a period of 45 days. A tall order in and of itself, especially with a maximum bet of $5.

HIgh Roller Welcome Bonus – 300% Match up to $3,000

If the regular welcome bonus isn’t to your liking, then you can always take advantage of the high roller offer instead… Assuming you can afford it. After all, it comes with a minimum deposit of $250, which is certainly way out of most people’s pocket when it comes to online gambling expenses.

If you do have it, though, you’ll receive a higher match and limit – 300% match up to $3,000. On top of that, the wagering requirements are slightly lower than the regular welcome bonus, set at only x45 (which is still really high, but still, silver lining).

But don’t jump for joy just yet, as many of the worst elements about the regular welcome bonus are still present. Namely, that you can only wager this bonus on the pokies by a select few providers, and that any winnings obtained while the bonus is active will be voided if you need to cancel it (even if they were won with real money). Which makes this an even worse deal than the regular welcome bonus, given how much more cash you’d need to deposit to claim it.

Games

The selection of games available at Ultima Casino is… Weird. Is it bad? It kind of is, yes, but it’s more odd than bad. For example, the pokies section isn’t particularly big, and a lot of operators that are very common and beloved among casino players (like Pragmatic Play) are nowhere to be seen. In this one case, however, what is there is far more intriguing than what is missing, and that is because Ultima Casino provides games by NetEnt.

For those who are unaware, NetEnt have a carpet ban on any Australian players enjoying their games. The reasons why they’ve made this choice aren’t important, but what matters is that even casinos that normally provide NetEnt games either don’t display them for AU players or explicitly state in their terms of service that these games are not available. Ultima Casino does nothing of the sort – if anything, it encourages playing NetEnt pokies by having them be part of the welcome bonuses. As far as we’re aware, NetEnt have made no specific exception for them, which means that it’s very likely Ultima Casino are involved in some shady business here.

Moving past the pokies section, the casino also offers a number of table games, which is all well and good. However, its live casino section is extremely poor, and its sports betting section is… Non-existent. Selecting the tab displays a page thoroughly devoid of games to bet on, and we’re not even sure if this is some kind of glitch or simply that sports betting is not available in Australia. But the fact that it’s available as an option and leads to a blank page is perplexing in and of itself.

Pokies

As mentioned earlier, Ultima Casino is perhaps the only casino that offers NetEnt games to Australian players. While this sounds amazing, in practice it’s probably less of a case of game exclusivity and more of a case of Ultima not doing a proper job restricting access to those games, which, in turn, means that you’re unlikely to receive any jackpots won from them.

As for the remaining providers, you really won’t find too many recognizable names here. Play’N GO are here with classics like “Book of Dead”, but that aside, you’ll mostly contend with some rather obscure pokies. A few highlights from the casino’s “Popular” section include EGT’s “Dark Queen”, EvoPlay’s “Gold of Sirens”, Platipus’ “The Big Score” and Superlotto’s “Dragon Chaser”.

Live casino

There’s no beating around the bush here – the live casino section of Ultima Casino is so pathetic it might as well be non-existent. Do you think we’re being too harsh? We might be, but when the casino offers a grand total of four live games, it’s a little bit warranted.

All four games are provided by Atmosfera, and two of them are roulette. The remaining two are Keno and Music Wheel, meaning that, for whatever reason, Ultima Casino have decided that baccarat and blackjack just aren’t important enough to include in the live casino section… Despite being the two most popular live casino games besides roulette.

All in all, a rather baffling choice that is bound to leave a whole lot of live casino fans very disappointed.

Deposits & Withdrawals

In terms of payment options available, Ultima Casino is honestly not doing too bad. You’ll be able to deposit using a variety of payment methods, such as your bank card, directly through your bank account, or via an e-wallet solution (for example, Skrill or Neteller). While there are no pre-paid vouchers supporters, they’re hardly the most popular deposit method, so we don’t think many players will mind.

In terms of cryptocurrencies, the five most popular cryptos are all supported, which is great news if you prefer dealing with Tether or Ripple rather than US dollars or euro. With that said, there are still some areas where the casino could do better regarding its payments, chief among which being its low maximum withdrawal limits. $7,000 per month is not nearly enough, and it means that if you manage to hit a jackpot (and somehow the casino actually lets you keep it), you’ll be stuck receiving it in monthly installments of $7,000 rather than as a bulk sum, or larger installments.

Withdrawal time

In its terms of service, Ultima Casino states that it will take up to 2 days to process your request (unless specific circumstances cause a delay, which they usually will). However, this is rather misleading, because it only refers to the time between your withdrawal request being approved and your money being dispatched by the casino. It doesn’t actually mean you’ll be receiving them in 2 days.

How long it’ll take for you to get them will depend on the method you’ve selected. Keep in mind, all of the following estimates are for after the transfer has been made, so you can add 2-3 days to them to account for Ultima Casino completing the transfer on their end. Regardless, withdrawing using cryptocurrency (like Ethereum or Ripple) and e-wallets (like Skrill or Neteller) will be the fastest, and you should receive your winnings within a day.

Bank cards are significantly slower, and it can take up to 3-4 days for your winnings to arrive in your account regardless of whether you’re using Visa or MasterCard. Bank transfer should be avoided for withdrawals if at all possible, because it will take up to 10-15 business days for the transfer to be fully processed. Granted, this isn’t Ultima Casino’s fault, it’s the case in every casino.

VIP Program

Many online casinos will provide their players with a VIP program that rewards them for extended loyalty, just as a small way to keep them around and prevent them from jumping ship when the bonuses dry up. The bad news is that Ultima Casino doesn’t offer a program of that sort, but the good news is that it has something a bit different.

Instead of gaining levels, or collecting comp points, instead you’ll be getting a daily cashback for playing at Ultima Casino. As long as you lost at least $20 in a single day, 10% of that will be returned to you as a cashback bonus the following day. Keep in mind, though, that this money will be returned to you as a bonus, not as funds (like other casinos with a cashback program tend to do).

This means that this cashback will carry with it the same conditions as any other bonus at Ultima Casino – it has wagering requirements (x5 in this case) that must be completed in a set amount of time (7 days). But even worse, you can only use it on pokies by NetEnt, EGT, Play’N Go and Amatic, and if you attempt to withdraw while having such a bonus, your winnings get voided. And given the fact that you don’t even opt into this bonus, and it’s forced upon you whether you want it or not, it makes it more of a predatory excuse to keep you from withdrawing than an actual reward for loyalty.

Tournaments

Thousands of players have fallen in love with pokie tournaments over the last few years. After all, it’s much more thrilling to play pokies competitively than solo, it creates a sense of community and camaraderie in what is otherwise a very lonely experience. Not to mention, the extra rewards are another nice incentive.

If you, too, have fallen in love with pokie tournaments, then we’ve got some bad news for you – Ultima Casino doesn’t currently support them. This may be a deal breaker, since we know how popular tournaments can be, but don’t worry – we’ll keep a very close eye on the casino, and we’ll be sure to update this review if tournaments are introduced as an official feature!

Verification

Every single online casino that you’ll ever sign up for will require you to verify your identity before you’re able to withdraw. We at casinoaustraliaonline.net have reviewed quite a bit, and have yet to come upon any that truly don’t require you to verify your identity. Of course, Ultima Casino is no exception.

So, what does this mean? Basically, before you’re able to withdraw any of your winnings, you’ll need to e-mail a few documents to the casino’s support team to prove your identity. At Ultima, those documents will include:

• Both sides of a photo ID (like your ID card or driver’s license);
• A selfie of you holding your photo ID under your chin;
• A document proving your address (like a delivery receipt or recent utility bill).

The request for these documents will come in as soon as you attempt to withdraw your winnings for the first time. If you’d like to complete the verification process early, you can do so by navigating to the “My Profile” tab and selecting “Profile Details”, and then “ID Documents”, which will enable you to upload them for review.

Is Ultima Casino Legit & safe?

There are few things more important when it comes to an online casino than making absolutely sure that it’s safe, reliable and has a good reputation. Before you even click the Registration button, you need to make sure that it is fully licensed (to avoid breaking Australian law) and that it has good feedback from players (to make sure you won’t get scammed).

Alas, Ultima Casino doesn’t really pass either parameter. To start off, it doesn’t have any license at all, which not only makes playing at it illegal for Australians (despite the fact that the casino accepts AU players), but it also means it isn’t accountable to anyone. Under normal circumstances, if a casino that’s licensed by, say, Curacao, ends up scamming you, you can report them to Curacao and they’d lose their license. An unlicensed casino loses nothing, as there is no one they answer to but themselves.

Perhaps this is why there are so many reports of players not getting paid – we scoured through dozens of user reviews, and not a single one of them was positive! But even if you don’t believe in those, you can certainly believe the terms and conditions on Ultima Casino’s own website, which quite clearly state that the casino will not pay you a cent if you win over $50,000 total from it – even if that amount is wagered again rather than withdrawn. This is beyond ridiculous, and we’ve never seen such shady rules on any other casino we’ve evaluated here.

Customer support

Much like most things about Ultima Casino, its customer support is weird. Despite how monumentally important a proper support feature is for any casino (or basically any business that deals with monetary transactions), it doesn’t appear that Ultima have put a lot of thought into it. For example, while they do have a live chat function, it’s only available during certain times of the day, and those times do not appear to be set.

When the live chat is closed, you’ll be able to submit a ticket in its place, receiving the response on your e-mail address when it’s ready. Barring that, you’ll be able to also e-mail them directly, but we do need to warn that both of those methods are very slow, and it might take a day or two to receive a response. At some point, you might start wondering whether you should send an e-mail or just wait a bit to see if the live chat will become available, and honestly, that’s a very poor way of running customer support.

Mobile casino

Much like practically every online casino out there, Ultima Casino has a dedicated mobile version that you can access from your phone or tablet. There isn’t a specific app that you’ll have to download – instead, you can just open the casino site through your browser (such as Safari, or Chrome), and it’ll load up, ready to play.

The mobile version has a few minor differences compared to the desktop one, but the layout is mostly the same, just a bit more compact to account for the smaller screen. Nearly every game and feature that is available on desktop is also available on the casino’s mobile version. So if you’ve grown to like Ultima Casino on your computer, the experience is nearly identical on mobile.