Punt Casino is an online gambling website that runs on the RTG platform. The site’s primary markets are in and around South Africa but players elsewhere are welcome as well at another site that will present itself based on your geolocation. The new site transacts in Bitcoin and Litecoin only as of January 2022. This was the case with a clear cache and a VPN using US and SA IP addresses.

Look for about 200 slots, blackjack, roulette, baccarat, and video poker titles from the minds of SpinLogic along with legacy games from RTG’s Aussie studios and RTG Asia.

While the general terms and conditions focus on non-cashable bonuses with max cashouts, all of the promos we find in the lobby offer unlimited cashouts, and the bonus funds are indeed withdrawable with these offers.

The site is licensed by Gaming Curacao under Master service provider #365/JAZ. Oddly enough, when accessed from a desk in the USA and a Chrome browser, the gaming regulator’s license verification showed an unverified URL, meaning the license was not showing as valid. However, when visiting from a South African IP, the license was verified.

License # GLH-OCCHKTW0704082020 is issued to Effice Group N.V. and the domain of punt dot casino appears to be a new iteration, first seen in October 2021. While the license, arrived at by clicking on the licensor’s badge attributes the operation to Effice, the website itself states: “The website is owned by Merus UK Limited, with its registered office address at 14 George Street, Huntingdon, United Kingdom, using the license of its holding company Audeo NV (Curacao gaming license 8048/JAZ)”.

While the name, "Punt" is the same, this could be two entirely different operations at some level.

This might actually portend good things, we just have no way of knowing yet. Historically, Punt has not had the most sterling reputation for player fairness. We’ll dig in presently and find out if the new (?) site has certain terms and conditions that the name is historically associated with such as “player class”, low cashout limits, slow payout processing, and terms that would allow them to seize winnings based on unverifiable accusations of “bonus abuse” by other operators with no way for players to defend themselves.

Let’s do a quick rundown on those items before spending too much time looking at the neutral and positive aspects so you can cut and run if those terms are murky or predatory in any way.

✅ Player Class - This term of art is not found in the conditions. In the past, it has been used by less-than-transparent operators as a bait and switch, but thankfully we don’t find it here! On other sites, we have seen terms such as “You may withdraw up to $1,000 per week depending on player class” The operative words are “up to”. There is no such term here. 

✅ Maximum withdrawal per transaction - €2,500 weekly. This is not great but it is in line with most other sites on the RTG platform.

⍰ Slow payment processing - This will take proof of process as there are conflicting statements. In one place they speak of instant cashouts - in another place, it is stated as 5-10 working days.

⍰ Bonus abuse - Nearly all online gambling sites maintain a caveat that states that they can, at their sole discretion or in their unfettered opinion determine who is a “bonus abuser” and steal your winnings.

This would probably be a ✅ if the term was more clear. It simply states “if you have been determined to be a bonus abuser” (whatever that means), it does not state: “as determined by other operators or if you appear on a negative player database” - so this is neutral.

While that addresses the “old” terms at the “old” Punt and clears the way for an unbiased objective review, there are other terms that we’ll examine a little further, that should be considered. Most of them have to do with minimum withdrawal amounts when using a bonus and other things like that.

Historic complaints from the former ZAR-only Punt site are not hard to find on the internet and although they do include the usual retinue of sour grapes and sore losers along with players who simply didn’t understand bonus rules, there are others as well, more serious in nature. If the brand is indeed new it might behoove the operators to go around behind the name and clean up any lingering messes. Some of the complaints are 7 years old and were never properly addressed in the public forums.

These are indeed two very different sites - ZAR here, and crypto at the other.

What we’ll do here is look at the current terms and conditions and let you know about anything that rubs us the wrong way, gets the hackles up, or simply makes us go, “hmm…”

But first, let’s take a look at the…

Software and Games

The public lobby is set up to provide step-by-step access to over 200 of the best-known and highest-paying slots and jackpots on the world wide web. Look for time-honored favorites from the days when Realtime Gaming studios were located in Australia near NextGen, Aristocrat, and other international favorites.

New games are released on the RTG platform at a rate of more than one each month so game selection never goes stale. Spin Logic churns out some cutting-edge games with advanced mechanics and progressive bonus features, but they have also been re-imagining several legacy favorites and releasing them in “Deluxe” versions. More on this later.

All of the games are delivered in HTML5 for instant play in any browser on any system connected to the internet. Being “mobile optimized” works both ways - the games also scale up beautifully to fill just about any sized screen or projection, and can be played from within VR headsets like Oculus 2 using a screen mirror agent like Immersed. Choose your surroundings, set the screen or screens as large or small as you want them, curve the screen to fill your field of view, or play different games on different screens - it’s up to you.

To get a sense of how the lobby operates without registering an account, simply click on “Instant Play”. There are no mobile apps or desktop download clients, it’s all secure browser-based play.

Once you’ve entered the lobby just tap in mobile or hover over any game icon with your mouse to choose Real Money or Practice. The paytables, random number generator, maths, and mechanics are all exactly the same in practice mode as they are for real money play, so what you see is what you get.

The main lobby offers a variety of games and includes a small section with the current top bonus offers. Along the left you’ll see a vertical menu that contains the following choices:

• Lobby
• Online slots
• Table game
• Video Poker
• Specialty Games
• All games
• Promos

All of the game-type categories have a sorting option that includes alphabetical, release, date, and popularity. Slot pages can also be sorted by the size of the jackpots showing the biggest first. This section also offers the ability to filter slot titles by theme. There are more than a dozen options for the times you just might happen to be in a sports mood, action, or adventure.  The list includes fantasy, history, Asian, cartoons, etc.

New slots, Spin Logic

Sort slots by newest to oldest to get all of the SpinLogic, and thus any new games, to the top of your screen. Games from this studio go back about two years, so as of early 2022 we find about 30 titles. My guess is that these titles go back at least as far as 5 Wishes, or right around there. It’s hard to be sure because the company neglected to announce a change in or rebranding of the game studios, copyright information is spotty and trademark info is almost non-existent.

Legacy revamps include Twister Wilds (Triple Twister) Asgard Deluxe, and Achilles Deluxe as well as network progressives like Spirit of the Incas and Megasaur with new artwork. 

Boding well for the operator’s relationship with the provider, we do see a few of the network progressives here whereas black sheep casinos are not allowed to carry them. As of today, Aztec’s Millions is sitting close to a million dollars - Megasaur is holding about that much of your money as well. Spirit of the Inca has more than one “boiling point” jackpot that is reaching its “must win by” state.

Being a new launch or a new relaunch, the random jackpots here are not overly big yet. With that knowledge, there’s not much sense in discussing a Real Series random jackpot strategy in great detail. Suffice it to say in general you want low volatility, high RTP slots, and the biggest jackpots on the board. Low V games allow you to recycle your deposit through the machine multiple times, buying more chances - and a high theoretical return to player percentage gives you back more, on average, each cycle resulting in even longer playtime ergo more chances to win the random. Of course, it’s obvious why you would want to pick the highest-paying pots, to win more money!

Not all jackpots are seeded at $1000. Many have higher starting points. You might notice that all of the Jackie Chan branded slots have jackpots starting at $5,000 and all three have the same sized prize. This is by design. Since the seed is 5x larger than a standard real series slot, any win is going to be a big win. Now, add the fact that the jackpots are pooled - when a penny goes into one it goes into all three - and it’s easy to see why these are the fastest-growing local progressive jackpots on the board.

Jackie Chan titles are as follows:

• Fantasy Mission Force
• Eagle Shadow Fist
• Fire Dragon

Since we’re discussing the inimitable Jackie Chan, I might as well pop in to see the Asian slot assortment. I’m pleased with what I find for the most part but I can’t imagine why they would forgo including Shanghai Lights - it’s a brilliant game and comprises some of the best bonus mechanics of any RTG or RTGAsia game. Fortunately, we do see Three Kingdom Wars - it has similar bonus mechanics.

Many of the Asian games are tough nuts to crack - they can present very high volatility. Yes, when you do finally hit something it can be very very good, but some of these games are so volatile you can go more than one session without triggering the feature. Let’s look at the payout potential on Cai Hong and Gods of Nature to learn just why that is.

Cai Hong

While it’s absolutely true that you can’t describe the multiverse from a macroscopic perspective, and luck is always the major player, I would guess that this game triggers a feature about every 1000 spins rather than every 100 or so.

I’ve never seen the data on this game but it has 30 paylines, stacked wilds, and pays 10,000x line bet for five wilds. Five scatters pay 500x total stake. Taking into consideration the fact that this is one of the games with a max win limit set by the provider of 50,000x line bet power paid spin, and it would only take five lines of wild symbols to reach the payout limit, we can see that in that respect alone the game is 6x more volatile than it has any right to be.

Of course, without the 50k line bet limit they’d have to tune down all the elements to make sure the theoretical RTP would ever meet the actual RTP in any player’s lifetime.

Another way to look at that is… some of these games are just cherry bombs waiting to go off! 

Keeping in mind that volatility can and usually does extend into the bonus round - and - it’s always possible to be on the wrong side of the numbers even after spinning 1,000 times to trigger a bonus, let’s look at the upside to this potential slingshot game.

3, 4, or 5 scatters award 8 free games with x2 multipliers. You also get  2, 3, or 4 bonus picks respectively. There are five 3-coin ‘charms’ to pick from. Two of them have multipliers (x5 and x8) and three of them have free games (7, 10, and 15).

A highly desirable result here would be to get both multipliers (5+8+2 base x15) and the top two free game possibilities (10+15+8 base 33 spins). It’s achievable, I’ve done it.

You would start the free games with 33 spins and payouts x15. Any retrigger adds 15 free games at the current multiplier.

Suffice to say, Cai Hong can be an all-or-nothing game, it’s not for the faint of heart, and it can and will eat you alive far more often than it will pay out well, but when it does - expect to hit that 50,000 line bet cap more often than not.

Gods of Nature is much like Cai Hong. It is rare to trigger the bonus, when it happens it can happen BIG.

A brief note on Panda’s Gold - Only try this game at home if you have a high appetite for risk

Saving grace

There are plenty of low-volatility games here too! Sometimes you just want to spin, spin, spin, and just maybe catch a jackpot. A big bonus and plenty of patience can make games like Fruit Frenzy, Mermaid Queen, and Wild Hog Luau just as profitable for players in the long run, especially if you are willing to try new things when you play them.

Blackjack, video poker, specialty games

All of the legacy RTG table games have been revamped for instant play. None of the odds or pay tables, bet limits, or gambling mechanics were changed. They have redone the user interfaces to make them not only mobile-friendly but sensible on the desktop and the artwork has been replaced and improved.

Video poker now plays full screen with smooth animations and no need to log in and out of the frame to change bet size as was required from the 1990s up until a few months ago. The paytables are some of the best on the planet, and now the presentation is up to par.

For blackjack, you’ll find…

• Suit ‘Em Up
• Perfect Pairs
• Classic

Poker games here include Let Em Ride and Tri Card Poker. You’ll find Caribbean Stud, Draw and Hold ‘Em in the specialty games section along with roulette and a few oddities like fish shooting, etc.

Bonuses and Promotions

Please check the above for the most current offers. 

We found a step-by-step guide for crypto gambling as well as a sort of raffle with 50 prizes - one crypto deposit earns one entry.

We’ll go into the T&C for the welcome bonus. As we mentioned earlier, there are conflicting terms but we will ignore any that would not apply. The site still seems to be in some sort of transition because the official terms aren’t really related to the current offers.

• Minimum deposit 30.00
• Wagering 30x d+b (larger percentages like 150% can be more)
• Plenty of terms were found for max cashout coupons but no such coupons were found
• Free chips/spins max cashout 1x chip or 100.00
• Weekly cashback isn’t cashback it’s a bonus with 30x wagering on slots, 60x tables, and VP. Crazy rules on weekly and monthly cashback cashouts - 2x CB, minimum $100
• Comp points aren’t comp points, they are a bonus with 30x, 60x wagering requirements, and a max cashout of 1x the points awarded

General slot bonus terms

If “all allowed games” are allowed you must play at least 50% on slots

All bonuses

Withdrawal requests must be for at least d+b. If you deposit $100 and get a $100 bonus, d+b= $200. No cashouts will be processed for less than $200 in this example

Bonus restrictions - Banana Jones and Fish Catch cannot be played with any bonus funds

Banking and Customer Service

We may have run into some mud here folks. On the intro pages, they tell us about instant deposits and withdrawals - and I guess that might be true a couple of weeks after you request your money they will probably give it to you instantly. This is some 40 below molasses or February Tupelo honey…

Withdrawal requests are reviewed within 7 days. No ‘pay period’ is defined yet but the maximum you can withdraw within that ambiguous time frame is $2500. After looking it over for a week, “Hey Jed, you want to bring that withdrawal slip over here again, I’d like to give a little closer look, thanks Jed” they give themselves an arbitrary  7 to 10 business days after approval to mosey on over to the internets and push that pay button. If you have more than $2500 coming but less than $5000.01, the balance will be sent the next week. That must be the pay period, one week.

Sometimes your $2,500 will be split up into multiple payments, each with a separate approval time - it’s not their fault really, the processors make us do this - to paraphrase.

They might charge you $40 to get your money.

The amount they pay or process on a monthly basis might vary, again that’s not a choice, the processors make them do it.

Now I do wish I would have dove deep before we shared our precious time here, and I apologize dear reader if I seem to have lost my objectivity in that last section. It is what it is.

Shall we go straight to the pitfalls?

Pitfalls

• Conflicting payout speed info (Instant or up to 17 business days?)
• Possible withdrawal fees ($40)
• No clear statement of how much you will receive weekly or monthly (it can vary)
• Withdrawals may be split up, each with its own approval time (whatever that might be)

The Final Word

Punt Casino is an international online gambling site that caters to the South African ZAR market. The best way to find the site intended for players in your area is to simply visit and you will be directed to the one that will accept your play.

I found it odd that when visiting the site from a South African IP address, the license is valid, but not when using an American IP. This has been the case for two full days now as I‘ve explored Punt. However, the new iteration for crypto gamblers was in its infancy.

The games are great. Who doesn’t love RTG?

The welcome bonus is “meh”. A match of 150% is awesome (they don’t explain the 500 ‘free spins’) and if I didn't have much else going on and if they had big random jackpots I’d take that offer with no max cashout, all other things being equal. 

All other things are not equal. The “approval of withdrawal” section of the terms is an outrage. Seven business days to look at it and another potential ten business days to pay it - that’s three and a half weeks -and- they can break it up into any size payments they want to - $2500 a week is a guideline but nothing set in stone - and they can take three and a half weeks to get around to any of those payouts.

I’m just speechless. I can’t say anything about that. I think I’ll punt.