Casilando casino review (UK)

Casilando certainly looks the part, with a clean design, but would this positive first impression carry right through?

I was presented with a simple 4-step signup form to complete with the usual details of address, phone, number, email etc. I then had to click a link in the email sent to the address I entered to verify my account. The link brought me back to the homepage where I got a popup about responsible gambling. This had a button to set the various playing limits and restrictions on my new account if I wanted to. Clicking 'Continue' dismissed this and I was free to explore the site.

There were no further prompts about anything, such as making a deposit, and I didn't feel rushed into doing so. When I wanted to deposit some funds and claim the welcome bonus, everything went smoothly, which just added to the seamless casino experience here.

Once inside, I found the layout and design of the site highly appealing. It had a nice clean feel about it with no unnecessary pop-ups or garish graphics to be seen. The menu structure was nice and simple, and it was easy to find everything I needed within a couple of minutes from signing up. It certainly felt like a solid casino site which you could trust.

The welcome bonus came in two parts, a 100% match up to £300 and then 90 free spins for Book of Dead with a minimum deposit requirement of £20. At first glance, it seems like a pretty balanced deal with no hidden complications.

Claiming the bonus was first straight forward. There was an option to 'Add Bonus' when I was selecting my deposit amount. On my first deposit, there was just the one welcome bonus to click on. This gave me a £40 bonus to match my £40 deposit, and it was credited instantly once the transaction was completed and the two balances were shown separately.

The wagering on the bonus was a pretty standard 35x (B) with a max bet of £5 which all seems fair. The list of non-contributing slots is fairly long, but it's certainly not the longest I've seen. I would have needed to play through my real cash balance first before the wagering kicked in. But, as I won a mere £3.55 from my 90 free spins on Book of Dead, I wasn't about to try and meet the requirements within the 30-day limit.

Clicking on the 'Bonus Details' tab on the 'Account' page gave me a full breakdown of my bonus balance and progress. A really neat feature here is the ability to click on the 'Show Games' button which gives me a popup of all the games which are valid on that specific part of my bonus.

Investigating the slot games selection, the default page is the 'Top Games' selection which gave me a list of around 30 titles. There's a simple menu to pick from with table games, live casino, jackpots, etc., having their individual pages. I found an impressive list of developers, and it's certainly what I'd class as a well-stocked casino site. The layout here was very tidy, and there's also a search box if I wanted to find a game by its developer. I also liked the 'Last Played' tab, where I could easily find my most recent games. I first tried a few £0.20 spins on the snout-tastic Piggy Riches Megaways, but with no wins to speak of I trotted off. Next, I had a dig with Bonanza Megaways, but again nothing came my way there. Then I rocked out with Saxon from Play’n GO and managed to land a few decent wins of £2 plus. Finally, on the desktop, I had some £0.20 bets on Willy's Hot Chillies and got a flaming win of £4 and £2.50 to keep things ticking over. I'm happy to report that the games loaded and played without any issues on my laptop.

Moving on to the Live Casino section, I counted a pretty small collection of just 21 games to pick from which was a bit of a letdown given the large range of slots. However, when I clicked on Live Roulette, it took me to the main Evolution games lobby where I had plenty more titles to choose from. I had a few £1 bets on the basic Roulette Live but lost every time. The game loaded without any issues and there were no glitches in the live stream, so all good there.

I couldn't find a dedicated mobile app for Casilando, so I just used the chrome browser on my device. Opening up the mobile version of the site on my Android-powered handset, I found things just as simple and easy to use as the desktop version. The navigation was clean with a nice 3 button menu at the bottom of the screen, and my account balance displayed at the top.

Checking out some of the mobile games, I first loaded up Fire Joker, where I managed to land a couple of £1.50 wins from £0.10 spins. This topped up my balance nicely. I'd unwittingly saved the best for last with Rainbow Jackpots where I triggered the free spins game from some £0.20 spins to bag a tidy £17.20 from 11 spins. Both games loaded up quickly and there were no glitches in the gameplay to speak of. This site gets top marks for its mobile platform.

On the dedicated 'Contact Us' page, it said that all of their industry knowledge can be found "logged within the souls of our customer support agents" which I found slightly freaky. I wonder what happens when they quit their jobs?!

Support is provided 24/7 via email, but I opted to jump on the 'Live Chat' function, and my call was answered in just a few seconds by one of their team. The support agent was friendly and handled my question about account verification very well. The answers were comprehensive, and it didn't feel like he was just trying to get rid and even asked if there was anything else he could help me with. Top marks there. Beyond Live Chat, I couldn't find any dedicated FAQ page on the site and the guy on the chat confirmed it didn't exist. This lets the support side of things down a little, and I think they could deal with a lot of basic questions by adding one in the future.

I had a good look around the site but couldn't find anything about account verification, checks or documentation anywhere. Even under the 'My Account' section of the site, there was nowhere that I could find to upload documents or get more info on verification. The customer support guy did say that I could upload docs on the site or just email them in but didn't offer any further details.

As it turned out, my first withdrawal went through swiftly without any issues, and nothing was asked for. It's just always nice to know what's coming further down the track so I think they should warn of future checks in their initial emails etc.

Making my first deposit using my UK bank Mastercard Debit went without any hitches. It was a simple 2 screen form which asked for my card details and then the amount I wished to deposit. I tapped on the £40 option, checked the box to agree to the terms and then I was all set to go. I got a popup to confirm a successful deposit as well as an email with all the details.

When I went to make a withdrawal, I was a bit disappointed to see that the minimum withdrawal was £20. I always feel like £10 is a high enough limit for an online casino, so they get marked down for this. Once I'd made the request, I didn't receive an email to confirm it, but it did display in my 'Pending Withdrawals' section of the 'My Account' page.

My first withdrawal request was approved in under 16 hours, confirmed via email, and it took less than 1 hour for the funds to hit my account after approval. Casilando can't be faulted here, the process was smooth with no checks required, and it's one of the quickest withdrawals I've had for some time.