CasinoCastle looms large on the horizon. This online gaming site offers something fresh and new to players in the US, Canada, and the United Kingdom. Additional countries may be added to the welcome list in the future.

The games are provided by Mobilots, an international online slot developer with headquarters in Malta and two other offices. Launched in 2015, Mobilots can be found at several other gaming sites that accept US players. However, this is the first site we've come across with a dedicated focus on these fun and well-designed slots.

That's not to say they won't add other providers as time goes by, but the portfolio from this studio simply fits the narrative and theme of Castle like a glove.

Single-player and team sport slot tournaments provide the backdrop for defenders of the keep to protect the bounty they amass in daily battle.

Fend off interlopers who attempt to joust you from your position and earn your own virtual 100 acres to defend. Buttress your forces and build your wealth in your own castle and find the hidden treasures, prizes, and rewards that are just out of reach but never out of sight.

Look for single-spin jackpot games with $100,000 prizes, video slots, video poker, card games, and arcade games like Ra to Riches.

We'll take a close look at the bonus scheme as we explore the operation and find out how you can boost your bankroll every day of the week you choose to play. And we'll dig into the terms and conditions to help you decide if the deposit incentives have any real value to players who like to cash out as much as they like to play.

There are plenty of payment options including Visa, Mastercard, and other cards as well as PayPal and Bitcoin along with at least four ways to collect your winnings. Payment methods evolve over time, so please visit to see what is currently available in your locale.

We're reviewing the site soon after launch, so the operators haven't had a chance to establish a reputation yet. We'll cover what we think we know, what we do know, and what we discover as we take a deep dive into reviewing the site.

Let's start with...

Software and Games

The Castle is delivered to your mobile or desktop web browser over the internet on the WBN platform. The "About Us" page tells us the people behind it have been in business since 1996 - that narrows it down considerably, yes?

In the Terms and Conditions, we find: "The system is powered by software provided by Parlay Entertainment and Mobilots. This website operates pursuant to the Laws of Panama".

Looking deeper into the games offered we find a couple of "time one" games from the dawn of internet gambling sites. In the Classic Games section games from a quarter-century, ago bring up feelings of nostalgia and the first "big wins" for an old-time like this reviewer. Trolling for Treasure and Get Cracking were some of the first games to inspire my desire for online gambling.

These are funky retro games with the most basic of modern-day video slot bonus mechanics - wild symbols, scatter pays, and picking bonuses.

That said, we probably would have made the leap and ascribed the "WBN platform" to either Parlay or Winward based on the inclusion of Parlay Games and the allusion to the year 1996. A quick click on the marketing link brings us to a company claiming 22 years of experience and a slightly rebranded name.

That may be a long-winded way of getting to the software platform. It's well-tested, stable, and has evolved along with the industry. Parlay associates offered some of the first instant-play games online back in the early 2000s and they seem to have fine-tuned the frontend as well as the delivery platform itself and the back office.

What that means to players is that the games load quickly on any device and they won't hang up or glitch on a slower internet connection.

Free to try?

Unfortunately, visitors will need to register an account to play any of the games in demo mode. However, we have two of them for you to preview by clicking the following links if you'd like:

Fortune 88

Summer Smileys Beach Slot

It's easy to see that Mobilots is not a developer that is stuck in the past by any means. The maths, mechanics, themes, and artwork are fresh and new.

New titles are released regularly so the Castle playground should never get boring. We count over 65 titles from the Mobilots studio here.

We have yet to run across two games that are cookie-cutter clones of each other and foisted off as original simply because they have different images or sounds. Each game engine we have examined is unique.

What that means for players is that even with only one or two software providers (game studios) supplying the Castle, the variety should remain forever novel.

The games

All of the different types of online casino games are found in their own category. The main menu filters include:

• All Slots 
• New Games
• $100,000 Jackpot
• Video Slots
• Arcade
• Video Poker
• Classic Games

The New Games catalog is a good place to start if you want to try the latest Mobilot releases.

More seasoned titles are most likely cycled out as new slots are released. When we visited there were 10 games in this section.

The developers use clever plays on words to conjure a relationship to popular themes. For instance "Ladybucks" has a feature character that very much resembles the heroine in the French cartoon "Mysterious" (Ladybug).

Diana Jones is a nod to the feminine side of adventure with the lead character smartly donning a fedora, just like (In)diana Jones did. The title, Wild Wonka speaks for itself.

Video slots

We'll take a look at a few of the more recent releases here and you can look at some of the earlier titles by reading our Mobilots review.

Vlad Dracula is a simply stated cartoon art-styled 3x5 slot that pays leftmost to right and right to left.

There's an inherent smoothness to the game, from the art to the action. The reels spin and stop in a way that's unique to this studio. The artwork is not profoundly unique but after playing on the software for a while it becomes very familiar and each slot becomes recognizable as part of a family of games.

This game has only 10 paylines (or 20 if you count both ways). The wild Vlad symbol (reels 2, 3, 4) expands when it appears and is held for a respin whether the triggering spin was a winner or not. Additional wilds can be held as well.

The "X" symbol acts as a multiplier whenever two or more appear and can increase payouts by up to 8x the stated paytable rewards.
Landing 3, 4, or 5 Scatter symbols trigger 5, 10, or 20 bonus spins respectively.

Like all of the games we tested previously from the provider, this one is low to medium volatility. This game is billed as "high RTP to player", however, we have not seen the datasheet on it to learn anything about hit frequency or how much of the RTP resides in the base game, and how much occurs in the free spins.

The expanding wild mechanic certainly accounts for most big wins, but scatter symbols are also stacked and we triggered free games with scatters on only two reels - one on reel #1 and two on reel #5.

$100,000 Jackpot games

We're not quite sure how this dynamic works. We might have to assume that they have bolted on a jackpot component to some of the Mobilots arcade titles.

The Castle website doesn't provide any details game by game, and the studio's description of titles like Big Fat Turkey doesn't mention anything about such a large jackpot component.

The original releases had a personal progressive jackpot mechanic, sort of like a UK fruity sometimes known as an "emptier". For clarity, we'll just pass along what the creators say about the jackpots on these games.

"Mobilots’ latest seasonal arcade slot features its popular player session jackpot. This feature is unique to each player and awards a jackpot win accrued during gameplay. When the jackpot is awarded, the player also gets to spin the jackpot bonus wheel to re-seed the jackpot with a starting value."

Sounds fun!

Video Poker

We don't find a VP portfolio on the official Mobi website, but a quick jaunt over to Parlay shows us the video poker titles come from the old-timer studio.

That's not to say these are "time-one" renditions. The interface, mobile responsive elements, and just about everything has been updated. These are modern VP games.

The Jacks or Better game awards a full pay of 800:1 for Royal Flush with all five coins bet. However, the remainder of the paytable is not as generous offering an 8/5 payout. Full House pays 8x bet and Flush awards 5x.

All else being equal, the drop from 9/6 to 8/5 is significant in regard to increasing the house edge and decreasing the return to player percentage (RTP).

Variants include:

• All American
• Bonus Poker
• BP Deluxe
• Deuces and Jokers
• Deuces Wild
• Double Bonus
• Double Joker
• Joker Poker

After studying the paytables of these true odds virtual card games we can't say they offer the best chance to make a small bankroll last all day or night. However, the odds of hitting a jackpot are the same here as anywhere else.

As well, the game variety allows high volatility players a chance to win big, and low-risk players the chance to grind out hands hoping for that 1 in 2,598,960 hands chance at the perfect hand!

Classic Games

This is the place to find a few Parlay games that are as seasoned as almost any other games out there. We also found a few slots, "The Black Diamondz" and others that appear on the surface to be a clone of one of the older games - new images, wild symbols, scatter pays, and pick'em bonus triggers. Nothing too exciting there.

Blackjack resides in this zone, and it appears to be at least a decade old but still just as functional. Blackjacks pay 3:2, and a deeper dive into the rules would be needed to determine the RTP as well as optimal strategy.

The rest of the suite is filled out with video poker as described above.

That's about a wrap on the games - plenty of variety, retro and modern slots, arcade titles, jackpot games, and video poker with common but not great paytables.

Bonuses and Promotions

I'm always hopeful as we dig in to see what's new about any longstanding company making a new effort. We'll talk about terms and conditions as well as the marketing department's poor math in a moment (3 bonuses of 250%, 350%, and 450% do not add up to 1,300% no matter how you try to stack it).

Let's look at the gamification first!

Your adventure begins the day you register an account. Simply enter your mobile number, respond to the SMS with a 4-digit code, enter some basic information and your account is ready to go.

Under the Promotions tab, you'll find a pallet with portals for each day of the week along with a tab simply labeled, "Bonuses".

Each day holds special challenges. You'll usually have 12 hours to collect achievements. Many of the tournaments let you turn your bonus balance into casino cash.

We joined on a Friday in May so our first challenge was a blackjack tournament. The challenge ran from noon until midnight with prizes awarded for the top five positions on the leaderboard.

Check your rankings at any time.

Note: In order to save a seat at the King's Round Blackjack Table you will have to make a deposit in the last seven days.

The five-tier leaderboard for this particular promotion offered $25, $50, and $75 in bonus funds for the 5th, 4th, and 3rd place winners. The second-place winner received $100 in cash and the victor won $200 cash.

Each day of the week brings a new adventure. Recall, there's a new theme and set of challenges presented every month as well.

Saturdays in May were focused on the $100,000 Jackpot games. In order to play, visitors make a minimum $30 deposit on Saturday and play any of the games in the specified category. All titles are found under a single tab, so you won't get lost in the Castle!

Prizes are awarded commensurate with the highest *single* win on any of the machines and prizes are awarded to the Top Ten winners. Places three through ten win bonus funds while the top two places collect $100 and $200 in cash.

The picture becomes clearer!

If you aren't already familiar with participating in this sort of promotional model, you can click the following link to read a scholarly article on gamification. But you get the picture, right?

Sundays in May held five missions. Each successively more difficult mission earned players increasing levels of prizes. Some of them, such as "achieve 10 consecutive wins on Fortune88 to win $100 cash", and "lose 10 spins in a row on San Xing Fortunes to win $50 cash" will either occur or they won't. Of course, the more spins you log, the greater the odds of success!

• Mondays were more of a reward scheme than a challenge, offering cashback from the weekend.
• Tuesdays returned to tournament gaming with video poker as the game.
• Wednesday was another Mission challenge with five missions all paying cash prizes.
• Thursdays saw all players getting a few free spins and depositors that day getting up to 150 spins.

Regular bonuses

Look for a welcome offer and daily reloads. When we joined they were offering 100 free spins with no deposit required on the Mobilots game, Wizardry (10 spins per day for 10 days). The spin-stake was $1.00 and we ended up with $1.50.

Cleopatra VII seemed like the best game to try to build a bankroll with 0.10 minimum bets on a 4x5 grid with all pays left to right and floating wild symbols.

Although we never triggered a bonus feature we were able to play with increasing and decreasing bets for nearly an hour - that's the beauty of low-medium volatility slots like this. You aren't likely to shake the roof beams and bring down the chandeliers with a single spin, but you should get plenty of small wins with the occasional smile-bringer.

The welcome bonus covers your first three deposits with more generous match percentages for Bitcoin depositors.

We have never liked the way some marketing departments do maths. Here's a quick lesson for them.

If we deposit $100 three times and the first match is 250%, the next is 350% and the last is 400% that does not mean we got 250+350+400 = 1,000%. We got $1,000/3 for an average 333.33% bonus. No ifs, and's, or buts about it!

That said, you will get a lot of extra spins if you take the welcome bonus.

Now, it's time to look at the terms and conditions. We may need to go over them with a fine-toothed comb looking for any lack of clarity and especially for any terms that may be contradictory. We'll also look to the sins of the past on the "WBN platform" operators for a nasty little thing called "player class" - a vague term that was used in the past to limit daily, weekly, and monthly payouts.

We are hopeful before digging in with a deep breath, a strong willing suspension of disbelief, and the benefit of the doubt until or unless we get the slightest whiff of a predatory term or condition - in which case we'll dig as deep as we need to to get you the "skinny" and the low-down on what each term really means.

Fingers crossed, loins girded, kevlar on beneath chain mail, sword in hand... we enter the Rules Keep for an inspection!

The FAQ doesn't mention any terms so we won't need to compare those to official T&C, and the individual offers don't include details. This might be easy!

Max bet with bonus - $5 or 10% of bonus received (whichever is lower)

We find the common 'we are the final authority' old saw that goes like this: "...irregular betting or wagering patterns, or suspicious or irregular betting strategies"

Wagering requirement - 30xd+b (deposit plus bonus x 30)

Weighting - Slots and bingo count 100%, video poker 13% (WG 230x), and blackjack 8% (WG 375x)

All good so far!

The current bonus scheme does not include any maximum win/cashout amounts for winnings generated with a bonus. Very good!

Sweet! There's nothing funky in the bonus terms. They are all straightforward, clear, and free of even a glint of murkiness or foul odor.

This reviewer clears the Bonus Rules Keep for occupancy!

Banking and Customer Service

Now, considering that only players from the USA, Canada, and the United Kingdom are currently welcome to play - and that online gambling at offshore sites can be a bit of a gray area for operators in 75% of those countries, we may run across some difficulties in this section.

Hold my sword and shield, I'm going into this corner of the Rules Keep ready, for hand to hand so we can deftly look under and behind all that lies in wait! I will take a torch in case we find any deep recesses that need to be explored further and I will keep my mail glove on one hand in case we have to reach deep to find any spoilers.

Deposits...

• Minimum $25 but as low as $5 by Bitcoin
• Must wager at least 95% of deposit before a withdrawal request
• Verify account within 72 hours of request receipt or be deemed a scoundrel

Payouts are approved once a week on Tuesdays and will be paid within 7 days after approval. Payments are received 2-5 business days after that depending on the processor. Bitcoin is the fastest.

And we have examined the keep again! Now that every room of the castle and all of the grounds and outbuildings have been inspected, let's look at anything we didn't like. We'll lay it all out right here on the round table. Feast your eyes on the malice we have found. No, look closer, there MUST be something! No?

Pitfalls

• Deceptive marketing practice of adding bonus percentages together to make really big bonus numbers look fantastically humungous (why bother?)
• Slow payout processing times (up to 2 weeks)
• Limited time to submit documents (72 hours)
• Limited game selection (two game studios)

The Final Word

While almost any new online casino that is not a functional clone of a highly trusted existing operation deserves a careful look, we find the terms here to be clear, clean, and well-stated.

The only improvements we could hope for would be an extension of time to submit documents (so take care of that asap on your own) and the payment processing times.

Once-per-week processing is not a deal-breaker. I happen to play at 2 such venues, but they pay BTC the next day, only ACH and other payment processing is delayed.
However, adding another week plus actual bank or another financial institution's processing times on top of that is almost untenable. There are casinos serving these markets that pay within 15 minutes, after all.

That said, everything else here looks absolutely brilliant! I love the monthly rotating challenge themes with something new to do every single day. There is enough variety in the missions, tournaments, and free spins competitions to offer something to every player, regardless of their bankroll or how frequently they deposit.

This seems to be a working example of highly evolved gamification and an exciting rebirth of the legendary Parlay Games. A quick look shows that is most likely true as the company's new CEO (from April 2020) is an extremely successful serial entrepreneur who has worked with the likes of 888, CloudStreet Gaming, Expekt, Full Tilt Poker, ISD Games, Microgaming, Olympic Sportsbook, Paddy Power, Playtech, Poker Stars, The Score, and Victor Chandler.

Welcome back, Parlay!

Players, we're pleased to introduce you to CastinoCastle.