North Casino is an online real money gambling site that was crafted specifically for players in  Canada, Norway, Finland, Denmark, and Sweden. Players in regulated jurisdictions around the world are welcome to enjoy the experience as well.

It might be cold outside in the Great White North sometimes, but the games are always hot - to paraphrase a line from the operator’s “About Us” page.

Look for a truly impressive library of about 2,000 games from top-tier providers like Microgaming, Evolution, Pragmatic Play, and Big Time Gaming Megaways from several studios. All told, there are more than 50 studios, labs, and aggregators riding on the fiat currency and Bitcoin/Alt-coin friendly SoftSwiss platform.

The site is licensed and regulated under the Dutch laws of Curacao and displays Antillephone sub-license No. 8048/JAZ2019-015 with a live link to a confirmation certificate. North is owned and operated by Hollycorn N.V. Sister-sites include Supraplay, Blue Leo, Stay, and Abo among others such as Golden Crown, and Rocket. Wildcoins is the operator’s most recent launch - a site where US players can play games usually only found outside the country - as long as they use a VPN as well as deposit and withdraw using cryptocurrency.

The game selection includes slots and jackpots, RNG animated tables and card games, and a live dealer studio featuring Evolution studio streams and live floor games from Euro-casinos, and a full complement of the hard-to-find Microgaming Studio streams.

Native language tables include Suomalainen Ruletti, Turkce Rulet, Svensk Roulette, Norsk Roulette, Netherland Roulette, Japanese Roulette, Arabic Roulette, and Deutsches Roulettee.

Payment systems may vary by player location, but players in every serviced jurisdiction will have plenty of options. Some methods like iDebit, Interac, and Neosurf are provided for players in certain areas, while crypto processing, vouchers via Visa, multiple eWallets, and bank transfers should be good to go wherever you log in from. Ewallet and crypto withdrawals should be instant with bank transfers appearing within a week in most cases. 

Looking over the major player’s forums where 90% of valid complaint traffic is generated, we find no valid unresolved issues. While North doesn’t seem to provide boots on the ground to address player issues in public, some of the sister sites also owned and operated by Hollycorn do. In the case of Casino Rocket (not to be confused with the transposed iteration), we don’t find anything but levity and cheer since they joined LCB in 2020. 

Another site lists about 10 inquiries, all of them resolved. The issues ran the gamut including slow pay, technical issues with the cashier, and verification problems. As would be expected, most of the slow payout complaints were from customers who were also having trouble verifying their accounts. 

The time span was from September 2020 to September 2021, so about one complaint per month on average for that site. The amounts in contention were all under 4 digits except for two in the lower four digits - one was requested and paid within two days and the other was a payment that was delayed for a week and then tendered within 3 days of the inquiry.

Companion sites such as Abo and Blue Leo simply haven’t generated any complaints but Abo is highly rated by players, so it ranks high on most honest lists. In the last 6 months or so, it has been difficult to judge the future behavior of some casinos using the past as a precedent for the future. 

At some point about two years ago, some sort of reorganization went on behind the scenes with many SoftSwiss-powered operations. We saw names like Direx N.V. give way to Dama and N1, and now a subset of white labels and turnkey sites are operating as Hollycorn. We are starting to compile enough historical data on this operator to draw direct lines between storefronts/skins, and frictionless fairness at sister sites. Since the label owners also operate the virtual properties, what you find at one should be what you find at another regarding the fairness of terms and managerial ethics.

After extensive research we’d have to say, “So far, so good” for this licensee and we don’t foresee any troubles on the horizon.

Software and Games

The SoftSwiss platform is stable, scalable, and robust. All functionality occurs in a secure encrypted environment on your web browser. For details, click the padlock icon if you are using a Chrome browser to see certificate information explaining that passwords and credit card numbers, etc., are secure, and that no hacker can sniff out the encrypted data or interject themselves anywhere in the process to siphon off details or masquerade as part of the security system.

The lobby here is understated and softened like snow with decreasing opacity on the bottom edges of the game icons. It’s an appealing aesthetic and gives a feeling and sense of ‘home’, at least for a northerner like myself.

The site is easy to navigate using the various game menus or even through sorting by the game provider. 

• All Games 
• New
• Popular
• Slots
• Live
• Table
• Video Poker
• Jackpot

Exploring the slots offering via provider filtering, it’s easy to juped to time-honored favorites from Microgaming, iSoftbet, or Quickspin or to explore brave new worlds by playing games from lesser-known studios like Lucky, pgSoft, and GameArt.

When choosing a provider the game icons load like greased lightning. When we visited, the GameArt selection included Ali Baba’s Riches, Battle for Cosmos, Nefertiti’s Nile, Piggy Bjorne, Hawaiian Fruits, Nefertiti Hyperways (WOW), Santa’s Factory, Xtreme HOT, and “Video Poker”. The latter opened a single, one-hand version of Jacks or Better with a 9/6 paytable and 800:1 payoff for Royal Flush when betting all 5 coins - just as the paytable should look.

I don’t often get the chance to play pgSoft games (Pocket Soft) and I was a little disappointed they didn’t have my favorite title here (Steampunk) but I tried a couple of other games - Bally Vacation with Infinity Reels, and Treasures of Aztec - the splash screens reminded me of how much I like this provider and I made a note to come back later to try for real money wins. You see, I was using a VPN and the trial mode downloads failed on both games. Bummer.

Venturing over to the GameArt catalog I chose Piggy Bjorn - Muspelheim’s Treasure, and that demo game worked just fine. 

While there wasn’t a specific category for Megaways games, simply typing the word into the text search box brought up about a dozen titles. It was at this point that it dawned on me I wasn’t seeing all of the games on offer by any of the providers, only a select few from each one. This is likely because I didn’t log in.

Moving to game categories and choosing Jackpots fixed that issue with page after page of progressive slot titles including the big ones from Microgaming progressive network like Mega Moolah.

I decided to try a progressive title from Lucky I had never seen before - Shaman’s Spirit. The artwork and theme were intriguing on the splash screen and the game reels were no disappointment. The UI seems very close to another CIS provider’s work, perhaps Belatra, and the mechanics and volatility felt nearly identical. However this game had 20 lines rather than just 10, and five scatters pay x1000 total stake. I’ll return to these games later as well.

Live games

It’s nice to see the Microgaming live-streaming games make a return. They all seemed fresh and new after not seeing them for quite a while. It’s possible this is the culmination of the new On Air Entertainment provider, powered by Microgaming, but I didn’t expect those studios to go Live for another month or two. 

Be that as it may, there’s a great selection of live titles here including Microgaming 6+ Poker, Baccarat, Bet On Poker, Dice Duel, Lucky 5, Lucky 6, Lucky 7, Speedy 7, War of Bets, and Wheel of Fortune. The balance of the games was all Evolution.

As mentioned earlier, roulette comes in a lot of language varieties including Finnish, Turkish, Swedish, Norwegian, Dutch, Japanese, Arabic, and German as well as Italian and Russian tables. (Suomalainen Ruletti, Turkce Rulet, Svensk Roulette, Norsk Roulette, Netherland Roulette, Japanese Roulett, Arabic Roulette, Deutsches Roulettee, Ruleta En Vivo, and Ruletka Live).

We didn’t find any further filtering or sorting tools but simply scrolling down the page and scanning with the naked eye is one way to see all the options. The text search box works for specific titles, but not broad categories such as “game show”. Searching manually we found Deal or No Deal and Crazy Time as well as a portal to the Evolution Lobby which could contain hundreds of more titles like Monopoly Live, Crash or Cash, and the Gonzo community slot.

RNG tables and card games

A lot of gaming sites focused on the Nordic region seem to think that slots and live dealer games are all they need. It’s nice to see this operator offer a deep and wide selection of animated RNG casino games. It’s unfortunate that they decided to mix live games with digital games but they are easy enough to differentiate.

Get your specialty fix with retro solitaire, several Sic Bo titles, animated pull tabs, blackjack, poker, cribbage, baccarat, and other games. Plenty of them offer side bets and variations to help boost the volatility and big prize potential.

Video poker is mixed in here too, but there’s also a specific category for the games. Go to that category if you only wish to play Microgaming titles, but there is one bGaming Jacks or Better link there as well. Under the table games section, you’ll find all sorts of VP games. 

I’d just caution you to study the paytables and rules on any iSoftBet VP offerings as they can be, well, out there and your normal strategies will probably not work so well on those games. True aficionados might want to run the numbers, find the iSoftBet titles with very high RTP (if they exist) and then craft their own optimal strategy, I simply tend to avoid that brand when it comes to video poker.

Microgaming Aces and Eights presents the following paytable:

• JoB - 1
• 2P - 2
• 3 OaK - 3
• Str8 - 4
• Flush - 5
• FH - 8
• 4 OaK (any) 20
• 4 OaK (7s) 50
• 4 OaK (As or 8s) 80
• SF - 70
• RF - 250 (5 coins = 4,000)

Running the maths on that and adjusting our strategy presents a better opportunity than any iSoftBet game would.

Bonuses and Promotions

Please be sure to see the bonus and basic terms above for up-to-the-minute offers. I’ll go ahead and give a few examples of what I see today, but promotions do change from time to time so please visit the site to confirm anything I report before you deposit.

The welcome package currently offers several percentage match bonuses, but these can change over the course of time.

Wagering 60x the bonus and max bet is €/$5.00 / 50kr or 10% of the current balance, whichever is lower. That’s kind of a weird one but shouldn’t present any problems as long as players are aware of the term.

Also, please keep in mind that specific terms may vary depending on your location so go with what you see in your account offers. As long as you aren’t using a VPN or other masking technology what you see should be what you get!

In addition to the synopses above, you’ll find terms in three different places on the website:

• Specific bonus
• Bonus terms
• General T&C

Most of what you need to know is transcribed above from the specific terms of the welcome package.

In the bonus terms, we find that your deposit and bonus will be locked until wagering has been completed. Real money is used first.

When allowed, table games. Video poker, live dealer games, and any other games count 10% toward wagering. The regular cast of restricted games is listed in the bonus terms.

Banking and Customer Service

There are almost as many ways to get your deposit in and your winnings out as there are countries with special invitations to play here. Canadians may wish to deposit via Interac and withdraw using a bank wire. iDebit and ecoPayz work in both directions as well. 

For those with access to a MyNeoSurf account, the voucher system also functions a lot like an eWallet to store value from withdrawals, but that will take a visit to the site to set up incoming and outgoing transactions with the method.

Skrill and Netteller work universally and MiFinity is available for players in some regions. Of course, Maestro and plain Mastercard, as well as Visa, are all good methods. If you have any problems with a Visa card they may also still be offering a service whereby you can purchase vouchers with Visa and deposit via voucher.

All deposits are instantaneous. Visa has a $20 minimum but all others including cryptos and bank transfers only require $10 (min. 10/max. 4 000).

All payout methods are stated as having 1-2 banking days processing time. The minimum withdrawal by any method is $100 and the maximum is $5000 per week and $10k per month. Winnings larger than $10k will be split into monthly installments of $10,000 each until the final payment which may be less is tendered.

Customer care

The site maintains an excellent FAQ section that answers everything I can imagine wanting to know including how to submit documents and how long it takes to get them approved (“Normally it takes up to several hours.”).

Live chat is also available from every page.

Oddly enough, I was unable to find responsible gambling pages or instructions for any account dashboard tools. I was under the impression that even the regulators in Curacao insisted on information on self-exclusion at a minimum. The information may be there and I simply overlooked it.

Pitfalls

• Fairly high minimum withdrawal for some regions ($100 CA)
• No telephone support
• Unclear if all wagering counts or just bonus funds and winnings therefrom (60xb)
• Max bet with bonus is €/$5 or 10% of available balance, whichever is less

The Final Word

North Casino is a pretty cool place, in more ways than one. I personally like the game curation. The mix of providers is interesting and sets a sort of tone for the experience. Yes, Microgaming classics are there along with others like Pragmatic Play with plenty of Megaways titles. However, I especially appreciate some of the less well-known labs like Lucky and GameArt, not to mention pgsoft. Pocket Gaming slots are perfect for mobile and just fine for desktop play.

It’s nice to be able to visit and play some of the games in practice mode knowing that the maths and mechanics are exactly the same in the demo games as they are in the real money versions. I am curious as to why a few of the games weren’t available for practice play but that won’t matter when I go back to play for real winnings.

I will definitely return to play Nefertiti Hyperways for real money. Nothing, I mean nothing thrills me more than the ability to choose my own volatility on a game before I spin the reels. Yes, bonus rounds where you can choose 5 spins at 10x, 7 at 7x, or 10 spins at 5x are great, but setting myself up for a win of 150,000x rather than 50,000x simply takes the cake.

The bonus system seems good. I like the large max first deposit at 100% and since wagering is xB, not 60 times (bonus + deposit), I might even consider some of the lower percentage matches offered. It’s always nice to see free spins for depositors even if it is only 5 or 10 - as long as there are no further encumbrances or rules on them.

If you like a site that’s slightly different, one that purposefully caters to players in the Northlands, one with a generous first deposit bonus and you don’t mind limits like $10,000 per month max withdrawals, this might be a good place for you too.