Avantgarde Casino is a Bitcoin-friendly online real money gaming site that accepts players from America (USA), Oceania (New Zealand), France, Spain, and elsewhere. We don’t find any country restrictions in the terms and conditions.

The site claims a license in Curacao under Antilliphone (#8048/JAZ) on its “About Us” page. However, there is a grayed-out shield of another Master License holder, Curacao e-Gaming on the footer of the page. The shield links to the official CEG home page rather than to a specific license. With permission to search inside CEG’s database, the URL comes up as an unlicensed site.

Looking for information on the landing page about ownership and management, none is found. While it may be possible that the operator’s website is simply in disarray and needs to be updated in order to authenticate just where it is licensed, if it is licensed, at this point we need to look at it as an unlicensed casino for the safety of our readers.

According to the website: “Casino Avantgarde is regulated by the Kingdom of the Netherlands and is Rival Gaming’s very first European online casino.”

Caveat Emptor “buyer beware”. As we learn more from any future developments we will update this page with new information.

We don’t find any verifiable instances of players who should be paid not being paid. While there are some complaints about assumed sister sites, which we identify below, no players followed up to keep any open complaints active. Players who are aware of and play according to the terms and conditions should be okay as far as we can tell with the eldest sibling being about 2 years old as of the time of this review.

We’ll focus on Terms and Conditions to be aware of in the sections to follow.

Avantgarde Casino carries games from the following providers:

• BetSoft 
• Rival
• Saucify
• Tom Horn Gaming
• Arrows Edge
• Fresh Deck Studios
• Dragon Gaming
• Qora Games

Players in the USA, NZ, and elsewhere can play all of the games with one exception - US visitors may not find Tom Horn titles offered on the site - players in other regions can.

We find at least two other gaming sites that share services or are otherwise affiliated with Avantgarde - Pure Casino and TrueFortune. Pure links to a document purported to be a notarized license attestation from C.I.L. (Curacao Interactive Licensing). TrueFortune claims a license by “Curacao Gaming Authority #8048/JAZ”, which is Antillephone but has no dynamic link to a license.

Many of the terms and conditions that are unique to Avantgarde are interchangeable with the terms found at the two other associated sites. Some less than player-friendly terms such as “All Deposits of 249 USD/EURO/GBP/AUS or less have a max withdrawal of 10X” were found in the past at the former TopGame casinos.

All TopGame sites closed after a troubled run. The company was a platform provider with some of the first instant-play games online, it was also a game provider. The game assets were sold off to a new company that eventually offloaded them into a company with no known ownership or location called Octopus Gaming. The company that purchased TopGame assets began developing its own games. That concern is now one of the top providers in the industry, Pragmatic Play.

Software and Games

The site appears to be running on the new Unified Rival platform which is far superior to the legacy Rival instant play software. The lobby and games, cashier, promotional tools, and all other elements are rendered via HTML5 in any web browser connected to the internet - mobile (iOS, Android) or desktop. All important transactions are encrypted on a secure socket layer, just like your online banking pages and all transactions are secure.

The site doesn’t have any advanced sorting or filtering features. Rather, different types of games are found in different categories and in the case of slots, subcategories.

New games

• Slots
  3-Reel
  Video
  Progressive
• Video Poker
• Live dealers

While it’s possible to try most of the games in Fun Mode, you will still need to register an account to do that.

All of the three-reel games we found were provided by Rival. Players in other areas might find more variety.

The live dealer suite is provided by Fresh Deck Studios. This is perhaps the premier live dealer software for American players outside of intrastate casinos like those in New Jersey, Delaware, Michigan, etc. where online gambling is regulated by the state. I’d be hard-pressed to notice much if any difference between Fresh Deck and ViVo or even LuckyStreak.

Look for the following games in the live dealer section:

• Live Dealer Baccarat
• Live Dealer Blackjack
• Live Dealer Caribbean Stud Poker
• Live Dealer Craps
• Live Dealer Roulette

Bonuses and Promotions

Look under the promotions tab on the menu or in the cashier to see what they have cooked up for you. Bonuses can be unique to each player.

The opening offer we found was a choice between a percentage match bonus and a first deposit cashback insurance offer.

There were also weekly bonuses listed. These included a Welcome Raffle, non-descript Cashstavaganza, and Comp Points. None of the offers had specific terms available so we had to look further. We found three important sections to explore, never leaving it to chance that all relevant terms would be found in one place - General Terms and Conditions, General Promotion Terms and Conditions, and Promotions and Bonus Terms and Conditions.

The first thing to note is that players will be capped at a 10x deposit max cashout if they take either the match bonus or the cashback offer.

• Any deposits of $249 or less are only eligible for 10x deposit cashout
• Any bonus of 200% or above is only eligible for 10x deposit cashout
• The max cashout on any 100% cashback offer is also 10x

With the current offers we see - be sure to check inside your account for personal offers - are not very attractive for a bigger bettor. The best course here, where they are herding us, is to deposit at least $250 without a bonus as this is the only way to cash out more than 10x the deposit.

Wagering requirements for the match bonus are not available prior to registering an account, but they are 35x d+b at Pure so that might be the rollover here as well. Wagering on free chips is 20-60x depending. Cashback and comps seem to have conflicting rules that need to be clarified in the terms and conditions. In some passages cashback and comps are treated as free chips and in others cashback is treated differently without rhyme or reason.

Banking and Customer Service

We currently find about a dozen deposit methods including cards and two ways to withdraw - Bankwire or Bitcoin. However, this seems to be in flux as the site just launched very recently. On another visit, we found Neteller, Skrill, Jeton, ecoPayz, and Bitcoins as payment methods that work in both directions. When in doubt please contact customer service prior to depositing if you don’t see your preferred method listed.

Deposits and some withdrawals may incur a fee. In one section it states “We reserve the right to charge a fee of 3% - 6.5% for the processing of Credit Card deposits,” and in another, it states, “A 3% processing fee will be taken on all deposits.”

Withdrawals may incur fees.

5.4. All withdrawals (Wire, Netteller, Direct-to-Card, etc.) are subject to a 10-40 $,€,£ transfer fee. Fees are based on location and are determined by our payment processor and are the responsibility of the individual player to absorb.

5.10. The minimum amount for a withdrawal is 100 €/$/£/AUD or 1000 ZAR.

Once documents are verified most players can expect to wait 15-18 business days before their withdrawal is processed.

Live chat and email are available 24/7, according to the site and we find an international phone number as well as numbers specifically for players in France and Spain.

Pitfalls

• Conflicting license information
• Long pending period regardless of withdrawal method (18 days)
• Max cashouts on all deposits of $249 or less (10x deposit)
• May incur deposit fees (3 - 6.5%)
• May incur withdrawal fees of 10-40 $,€,£ (Wire, Netteller, Direct-to-Card, etc.).
• Cashback and Comps have restricting terms (10x withdrawal)
• Betting systems including Martingale are banned

The Final Word

Avantgarde Casino is a quirky site with great games but less than player-friendly terms. Any deposit of $249 or less - whether you use a bonus or not - can only win 10x the deposit amount. They also want you to pay them to deposit and absorb the processing costs of withdrawals.

If I was a kid whose dad made him go into the family business and I didn’t really want to do it, I’d probably come up with terms like that. On the other hand, if you don’t play with bonuses, always deposit $250 or more, and really like the games here you might not mind waiting up to 18 working days to get paid. Nobody seems to be complaining about not getting paid and sticking it out to let other players know.

I have to admit, if this is reverse psychology, they might just have me. It boggles the mind. If I do try it, it would definitely be with profits from an instant pay casino, but still…