Lucky Thrillz casino review (UK)

Lucky Thrillz may be one of the slickest and best designed online casinos I’ve played at, with its sleek black backdrop and high-definition imagery really catching the eye.

The site is relatively easy to navigate too (particularly on a desktop device), with the various game verticals well organised and the live chat feature remaining accessible at all times.

I was also impressed with the generosity of the site’s welcome bonus, while the games’ library is incredibly diverse and packed full of live titles.

However, the operator’s customer support is limited by the restrictive nature of the phone and email channels, while the charges that are applied to both deposits and withdrawals can undermine the overall online gambling experience.

The Lucky Thrillz casino offers a generous welcome bonus, and one that rewarded me with a 100% deposit match up to £50 and 100 free spins on the popular Starburst slot.

After a two-step registration process (we’ll have more on this below), you can click through the ‘Deposit Here’ tab to credit your account for the first time. This will cause a pop-up window to appear on the screen, in which you’ll have to confirm your preferred payment method and choose an amount to deposit.

You’ll see that £40 is the default option regardless of which payment method you select, but you only need to deposit £10 to qualify for the welcome bonus. You can type this sum manually into the ‘Amount’ box if you wish, before clicking through the promo code icon and typing ‘BOJOKO’ into this space to opt-in to receive the offer.

Before confirming, you should note that the site appears to apply a 2.5% charge to all deposits made through Visa Debit card and PayPal. As I initially credited my account with £20, this meant that I had to pay a total deposit amount of £20.50 to process this payment.

I’ll speak more about this in the payment sections later in the review, but once confirmed you can hit the ‘Pay Now’ button. At this stage, both your cash and bonus funds should land instantly in your account, while you can access the free spins simply by clicking through the Starburst game directly.

I wasn’t expecting huge returns from this relatively low variance slot, and despite landing plenty of Starburst wilds and securing regular base game wins, I was only able to bank £4.32 from my 100 spins. These winnings were also subject to wagering requirements of 35-times, creating a playthrough requirement of £151.20 for this leg of the bonus.

As for the initial bonus funds, these are also subject to 35x wagering requirements. This is more than competitive (especially as your cash balance is not subject to these terms), and in total, I only had to play through £851.20 to access my winnings.

Overall, I like the generosity of this welcome offer, with the inclusion of up to 100 free spins particularly appealing.

The wagering requirements applied to the bonus balance and free spins winnings are also attractive, while they shouldn’t be beyond the means of casual players or those of you with smaller bankrolls.

The games’ library at Lucky Thrillz is packed with more nearly 1,000 titles, spread across a range of varied (but familiar) verticals.

You can navigate your way through this library using the ‘Casino’ and Live Casino’ icons in the top right-hand corner of the homepage.

When you click through the Casino button, you’ll immediately see a horizontal menu of relevant filters (such as slots, table games and scratchcards) running above the fold, while a handy search box is located on the right-hand side of this menu.

You’ll find popular slots such as Starburst and Book of Dead located prominently in the ‘Featured Games’ section on the casino page, with these titles taking between 15 and 20 seconds to load on average.

Table games like Instant Roulette and Blackjack Classic opened in around 15 seconds on average, although the latter is one of a handful of titles that require you to have the latest version of the Adobe Flash plugin installed before they can be launched.

Fortunately, most of the live casino games are powered by HTML5 technology, which means that you won’t need any additional software downloaded on your device to open them. There are also well over 100 real-time games available at Lucky Thrillz, including classics such as Lightning Roulette and Casino Hold ‘em.

I was impressed by the relative load times for the live casino games, with Lightning Roulette and similar titles taking just 10 seconds to load on average.

There’s certainly plenty of choice across the various game verticals, while the titles tend to play well and experience very little in the way of buffering. Of course, the fact that some games run on Adobe Flash is a little frustrating, but it shouldn’t detract from the overall gameplay experience.

Lucky Thrillz doesn’t currently have a native app on either iOS or Android, but the mobile version of the site works perfectly on browsers such as Safari and Chrome.

However, you’ll find that the site’s layout is slightly different on a mobile browser, with all the different verticals condensed into a single page and accessible simply by scrolling down the games’ library and expanding on your preferred search criteria.

The search bar is also located in the bottom right-hand corner of the mobile site, and because of these subtle changes, it can take a little longer to browse the different verticals and find your favourite games.

The good news is that all games tend to load quicker when accessing the mobile site, with Book of Dead and Starburst taking around 10 seconds to open on average. You can also navigate both the games and mobile site in either landscape or portrait mode, meaning that you don’t have to keep adjusting your grip!

There are several channels through which you can contact the customer support team at Lucky Thrillz, although neither the operator’s live chat feature nor telephone number are available 24/7.

In fact, you can access the support staff between the hours of 6 am and 11 pm seven days a week using these channels, while you can initiate a live chat by clicking through the floating ‘Chat With Us’ icon on the right-hand side of the screen.

This will trigger a small pop-up window that provides direct access to several FAQ links, or you can hit the customer support button to contact an agent. At this stage, you’ll have to wait to be connected, while you’ll be advised of particularly busy periods and prompted to allow push notifications when an agent becomes available.

My initial message concerned the welcome offer, as I was under the impression that the free spins would be made available on the Twisted Sister slot. I was connected to an agent in a little under two minutes, before being politely advised that the free spins were available on Starburst and I simply needed to open this game to start playing!

This was a positive experience and one that was considerably superior to using the site’s customer service number (0203 318 9367). It certainly took a little longer to connect with an agent through this channel (up to 10 minutes in some instances), while there’s no facility to request a call back from the site.

Not only this, but the number in question isn’t actually toll-free, and in my case, it was charged at the standard mobile rate.

I was also disappointed with the site’s online contact form, which can be accessed through the ‘Contact Us’ tab towards the bottom of the homepage. This will invite you to enter a broad topic and outline of your query, and I wanted to inquire about whether or not the operator charges a fee to process withdrawals.

However, when I tried to submit the message I was informed that this hadn’t been delivered, and despite several attempts, I was repeatedly advised to instead use the live chat or telephone number.

Although this was disappointing, the site’s FAQ was incredibly comprehensive and packed full of important information.

As well as being available through the live chat window, you’ll also find the full resource under the ‘Getting Started’ tab at the bottom of the page, and this is an excellent way of gaining information pertaining to withdrawals, account verification and even the site’s rewards points system.

The registration process at Lucky Thrillz is quick and seamless, as you can enter your personal information and details across just two different screens.

You’ll confirm your email and username on the first page, before entering your date of birth, telephone number and physical address on the next screen.

At this stage, you’ll also confirm your preferred currency, while I’d recommend entering this information as accurately as possible as it will be used to verify your identity automatically in the background.

If the verification process is successful (which may also require you to be registered on the electoral roll at your listed address), you should immediately receive confirmation of your new Lucky Thrillz account through a pop-up screen on the homepage.

This was definitely true in my case, and I was immediately able to credit my account and qualify for the welcome offer.

If the verification process is unsuccessful, however, you’ll receive an alternative message that will explain why and prompt you to provide documentation to support and confirm your identity. You won’t be able to make a deposit or wager until you’ve done this, so I’d recommend attending to this as soon as possible.

In most instances, you’ll need to provide evidence of your photo ID (such as a passport or driver’s license), proof of address (dated within the last three months) and a snapshot of your preferred payment method.

You can upload these items directly by clicking through your account icon in the top right-hand corner of the screen, before scrolling down and hitting the ‘Document Support’ button.

From here, you can upload new files straight from your PC (or drag and drop files if they’re already open on your screen), before hitting submit and waiting for the site to confirm that the verification process is complete. This should take no longer than 72 hours, and in most instances, it will be completed much quicker than this.

I was only given access to three available payment methods at Lucky Thrillz; namely Visa Debit, PayPal and the prepaid Paysafecard.

Although I tend to prefer the first two options when wagering online, I recognise that the lack of diversity and available e-wallets such as Neteller and Skrill may be an issue for some players.

Then there’s the issue of applying a 2.5% fee to all deposits processed by Visa Debit and PayPal, which is a highly questionable practice and one that’s very uncommon in the UK marketplace. Interestingly, this fee is applied to Paysafecard transactions, so this may be a better option if you have access to this payment method.

I processed my initial £20 deposit using PayPal, and while I paid an additional £0.50 fee to complete this transaction, the funds at least landed instantly in my account along with the bonus amount.

I subsequently processed a £20 withdrawal through the same payment method, as compelled by anti-money laundering laws that require you to transfer funds using an option that has previously processed a deposit.

However, you should note that the site will also apply a £1 charge to your withdrawal, so in my case I was only able to bank £19 of my winnings. This is hugely disappointing, particularly in conjunction with the deposit fee and how it makes the process of accessing your hard-won cash so much harder.

As for the withdrawal itself, this took nearly 48 hours to process internally, with the funds landing in my PayPal account less than 72 hours after the initial request. This is a competitive time-frame, while you can also track the status of your withdrawal through your account page (when logged into your account).

However, these factors fail to compensate for the fees applied to your transactions, or the relative lack of payment options available in the first place.