PlayCasino is South Africa’s original online casino affiliate site. Since 2008, PlayCasino has been reviewing online casinos and sportsbooks for South African players. The online gambling laws in South Africa are still being discussed and debated by politicians, so players often find themselves without any sort of regulatory guidance or advice.
Online casinos have become popular around the world despite many countries still having strict laws banning them or seriously limiting play. The offshore online casino industry has been booming in response to these harsh laws. Many of the top online casinos are truly international businesses with players located all over the globe.
This gives players more options, but it also makes it harder for players to find online casinos that are specifically available to players in their region. It doesn’t help that many online casinos aim their advertising and bonuses at players from the United States and United Kingdom. Any gambling fan is probably familiar with the experience of finding an online casino that looks great, heading to a review site to check it out, only to see the dreaded phrase: “Not available for players in your country”.
Regional online casino guides are the solution, and they are becoming increasingly common. South Africa has one of the healthiest gambling industries on the continent, so it’s no surprise that they also have a popular online casino guide. PlayCasino is the leading online casino guide and affiliate site in South Africa.
Do people rely on PlayCasino because it’s the only online casino affiliate site in South Africa? Or is it because the site consistently provides accurate, detailed reviews of online casinos that are useful to players? This in-depth review will try to answer that question.
Who is PlayCasino?
A review site is only as good as its staff. In order to write trustworthy and reliable content, the staff of an online casino guide need to be experts in their fields. Even better, they should have writers with a variety of expertise regarding the iGaming industry. It also helps when there is an editor with a strong vision of the site’s values.
PlayCasino has a small staff of researchers and writers, but each one has their own niche of expertise. The majority of their reviews are written by Kelvin Jones (senior online casino expert) and Rudie Venter (online slots and casino games expert). Melissa Kruger (e-payments and casino payout specialist) and Katlego Modise (online sports betting and lottery specialist) contribute reviews as well and share their expertise with the rest of the team. PlayCasino also employs a sports journalist and iGaming contributor, Trivesh Vassen,
Ilse Lotz is the editor in charge of PlayCasino’s content. She has decades of industry experience and is responsible for fact-checking, editing and tracking trends in iGaming that the team should look into.
The content on PlayCasino’s site is created by this expert team. While we would also appreciate seeing a security expert added to their panel, and perhaps someone with a legal background to fully explain the complicated online gambling laws players come up against, their staff does have a good range of expertise.
Established reputation
Reputation matters a lot in the online gambling world. When it comes to reviewing online casinos, there are always concerns regarding whether the reviewer or site is being completely honest. We’ve all seen plenty of examples now of how easy it is to lead people astray on the internet and the rise of AI is making that even easier. Establishing a good reputation takes time and effort, which is why it means so much.
PlayCasino has been reviewing online casinos for over 15 years. In that time, they have built up a good reputation. They have done this by being consistent in how they review sites and repeatedly demonstrating that they are a brand that provides accurate and fair information.
One of the ways that they’ve maintained this reputation is by updating their reviews. Instead of reviewing a casino only once when it is new, they regularly revisit online casinos that they have previously reviewed to see if anything has changed. This demonstrates their commitment to accuracy and being up to date, which users appreciate. If they included the dates of every time a casino was reviewed and updated, that would be even better.
How they review
Reading reviews online has become the norm for most things we do. We look up reviews before trying a new restaurant, deciding what to watch on a streaming service, buying an album or booking a hotel. It makes sense that we would also consult reviews before choosing which online casino to play at.
Most of the time, we don’t know very much about how a reviewer has come up with their ratings. We need to accept that personal preferences play a big part and that not every review is going to be objective. With review sites, there is a bit more transparency. The best review sites will provide the established criteria that they follow, and this will result in consistent reviews across the site.
PlayCasino has their review criteria on the front page of the site; all I had to do was scroll down a little bit to find it. Making their criteria public is a great way to show their readers exactly what they look for in an online casino. These are the nine factors they investigate:
- Accessibility to South African players
- Licenses the casino holds
- Security in place and fair play measures
- Game library
- Bonuses and promotions offered
- Customer support
- Deposit and withdrawal options and processing times
- Reputation
- Responsible gambling initiatives
These are all important factors that determine if an online casino is a good place to play at, so it’s reassuring to see that PlayCasino considers them all. The only omission I see is that the reputation section doesn’t include an option for players to submit their own reviews. Giving their reader-players a space to share their personal experiences would help PlayCasino to detect any issues they might have missed.
Website quality
The best information could be provided on a terrible website, and no one would ever know because a bad website can be impossible to navigate, frustrating and make visitors to the site give up and leave as quickly as possible. Even a decent website that loads slowly has distracting fonts or graphics or hosts too many pop-up ads is likely to alienate casual visitors.
It is now easier than ever to create a good website thanks to tools like Squarespace, Figma, WordPress and Wix. There is really no excuse for a brand to have a bad website. Personally, when I find a bad website, I assume the company behind it either doesn’t care about their product or doesn’t care enough about their customers to give them a quality browsing experience. Neither of these are good possibilities.
PlayCasino has consistently updated and upgraded their website to remain current and relevant. In 2020, the site moved to WordPress as part of their second major overhaul. This was a smart decision as WordPress is a trusted web content management system that also provides its clients with support and design help. While PlayCasino’s site has a lot going on, I found it easy to navigate.
Balance
If a casino affiliate site has a glowing review for every single casino they mention, it becomes very hard to trust the site. A review site shouldn’t give bad reviews just to level out their stats, but they do need to be honest with their readers. A balanced site will have reviews that range from wonderful to terrible.
PlayCasino may be a bit generous with some of their reviews. There are more 5-star casinos than anything else. In fairness, there are also a good number of 4- and 4.5-star reviews. What I found most reassuring is that PlayCasino also has a page for online casinos that they do not recommend.
When I clicked on the ‘Blacklisted Casinos’ link, I was taken to a page that explained why a casino might be blacklisted and how seriously PlayCasino takes the blacklisting process. This is followed by a list of casinos that have been blacklisted by the site, mainly for failing to pay players their winnings and unethical business practices.
For further transparency, I would like to be able to see the initial reviews for these blacklisted casinos. In general, PlayCasino has a balanced review system that can be trusted.
Closing thoughts
Choosing the right online casino for you should be the easiest part of online gambling. However, the number of options is overwhelming and confusing for many people, especially those who are new to the iGaming world. For them, an online casino affiliate site is a great tool.
Not every player is going to see the value in a site like PlayCasino. Players who already have favourite sites, who will play anywhere or who prefer to do all the research themselves won’t understand the value of the site. However, players who are new to iGaming, who like to get advice before they create an account or who are just curious about their options will appreciate what PlayCasino has to offer.
