Slots.lv is a gambling website that holds a gaming license from the Kahnawake Gaming Commission. The site is owned and operated by Lynton Limited, and Slots.lv is the only online gaming property that group runs. The site uses a blend of software designers, including some proprietary designs. Only customers from the United States and Canada are allowed to open accounts or place real-money wagers.
Pros and Cons
Slots.lv earns a thumbs-up for me, especially for US customers starving for sites that accept their business and don’t take forever to pay out. But I’m just one guy, and one guy’s opinion doesn’t mean there aren’t some warning signs to consider. Read about the pros and cons of slots.lv below.
Pros – The site accepts American and Canadian customers, who represent a big chunk of the world online gambling market but are both limited in terms of legitimate places to play. I like that the site uses a blend of software providers for their games, though upon further inspection most of the titles are designed by RTG. Both download and instant-play titles are available, as is a mobile-capable website for access on smartphones and tablets.
I want to make a special note about the surprising lack of complaints and issues posted by slots.lv users at forums and review sites. This is a very good sign. I can’t think of the last time I typed a US-facing casino’s name into the Casinomeister forum and didn’t get a ton of complaints (even resolved ones) to sift through. Go ahead and search for yourself – apparently, they handle their business. It must help to have such a small and specific market to work with. Still, kudos to slots.lv for not creating a bunch of customer complaints like so many of the other names in this business.
Read enough reviews of slots.lv and you’ll come across the opinion that the site is somehow connected to Bovada. I’m not sure that this is a major “pro,” but it’s worth mentioning. While I couldn’t find any hard evidence connecting the two, there are some interesting similarities. Both sites are licensed in Kahnawake, both market exclusively to Americans and Canadians, and they have similar game libraries. If slots.lv were connected to Bovada, that’d be a plus in my book, and so I list this weird detail here.
Cons – I’ll start with the only real red flag related to the site at all, in my opinion – its licensure. If you’ve read many of my reviews, you know that I just don’t trust the Kahnawake Gaming Commission. The Kahnawake Mohawk tribe is a branch of the larger Mohawk tribe that inhabits large portions of North America. This particular branch is tiny – a few dozen square miles on the US-Canada border – and basically exists just to sell gaming licenses. The fact is that this is a jurisdiction governed by a handful of tribal chiefs from a microscopic tribe that’s done business with fraudulent sites in the past, and still has what are considered low standards for licensure.
On the topic of KGC licensure, ThePogg.com says: “There are still several less that reputable casinos operating with a Kahnawake license, but the Gaming Commissions more active approach to dealing with player complaints is certainly promising. Still short of the top tier group made up of the Gibraltar Regulatory Authority, the Alderney Gambling Control Commission and the Isle of Man Gambling Supervision Commission but far better than the likes of Costa Rica.”[sic] That pretty well sums up how I feel about it, except he’s maybe a bit more optimistic than I am.
Another downside is the fact that some Americans don’t actually have full access to the site, but that information isn’t made readily-available and so it tends to tick people off. Check out this guy’s complaint at AskGamblers.com: “I was pretty bummed to find out after practicing for an hour playing their slots, I downloaded and installed their software…only to learn when I was creating an account they don’t accept players from the state of New York. It would have been nice if someone, somewhere would have mentioned this so I didn’t waste so much of my time with this crap!!” [sic]
I called up customer service (at their listed toll-free number, 1-855-446-3770) to get the full list of restricted states and regions. This is what I found out:
The site claims that only the American state of New York is restricted, “due to the unavailability of payment methods” that work for New York Citizens. This according to the agent I talked to, a very nice woman named Sue who spoke very quickly but answered my question thoroughly and without hesitation. I have some doubts about New York being “the only restricted state,” considering a dozen US states have laws that can be interpreted to make all Internet-based betting illegal. But I digress.
I have some nitpicky stuff to complain about beyond licensure and accessibility. For starters, you all know that I dislike Real Time Gaming titles, and slots.lv depends heavily on RTG for slots and video poker, two of my personal favorite game categories. I also don’t like their mobile site, which looks too much like every other nearly-identical RTG-built site. More proprietary software (and more BetSoft slots) would be a huge step in the right direction.
Slots.lv Games Available
Slots.lv blends RTG, BetSoft, and proprietary software for its gaming platform, and that’s usually a good thing. Unfortunately, there is way too much RTG and not nearly enough of any other designer. It feels a little like they didn’t want to be “just another RTG casino” so they included a few awesome BetSoft and proprietary games to confuse me.
At my last visit, the site categorized games under the following headings:
Slots
I both love and hate the collection at slots.lv. They have plenty slots to pick from – the word is in the name of the casino after all – but sheer variety isn’t the issue. The problem for me is that the site has accrued a collection of both awful games (any of their RTG Real Series titles) and some of my favorite BetSoft 3D titles (“A Night in Paris” in particular). I’m torn. I wish the site would include more modern games with high replay value (essentially, more of what they call 3D Slots) and get rid of the Real Series garbage.
Table Games
Listed under this heading at the time of this review:
[ezcol_1half]- Blackjack
- Tri-Card Poker
- American Roulette
- Caribbean Stud Poker
- Craps
- Pai Gow Poker
- Baccarat
- Caribbean Hold’em
- European Blackjack
- Let’em Ride
- 3 Card Rummy
- Single Deck Blackjack
- Double Deck Blackjack
- European Roulette
- Zappit Blackjack
- Face Up 21
- Match Play 21
- Perfect Pairs
- Pontoon
- Super 21
- Caribbean Draw Poker
- Red Dog
- War
A quick browse through this (admittedly-large) list is all it takes to notice that all but three of the titles on this list are card-based games, with the exceptions being craps and roulette.
I have to admit, again, being disappointed by the fact that ALL of the above games are RTG-designed. If you’re going to advertise a multi-platform software setup, don’t have every single table game produced by one mediocre company. It’s a smudge on the site’s otherwise solid record. Besides, I can skip the table games and go straight to my favorite titles – the video poker games.
Video Poker
I was delighted to find not one, not two, but THREE different 9/6 video poker titles available. Before I tell you which ones offer the 9/6 payout, here’s the full list of titles in slots.lv’s large video poker category:
[ezcol_1half]- Bonus Deuces Wild
- Bonus Poker
- Bonus Poker Deluxe
- Deuces Wild
- Double Bonus Poker
- Double Double Bonus Poker
- Double Double Jackpot Poker
- Double Jackpot Poker
- Jacks or Better
- Joker Poker
- Loose Deuces
- Aces and Eights
- All American Poker
- Mystery Bonus Poker
- Pick Em Poker
- Sevens Wild
- 7 Stud Poker
Of all the games above, only three are ideal for the player, based on the sought-after 9/6 payout for flush and full house. This is a very easy way to pick out those titles where the casino has a smaller advantage. At slots.lv, those games are: Double Double Bonus (and multi-play), Double Double Jackpot (and multi-play), and the classic Jacks or Better (but only in single-play mode).
Specialty Games
A thankfully- small collection of long shot bets, including Virtual RaceBook and scratch cards. The other games here are Bonus Bingo, Sic Bo, and Keno. All the “specialty” games on slots.lv’s list are also all those games that tend to give the casino a huge advantage against the player. There’s nothing very special here, especially since they’re all RTG games. Move along.
Slots.lv Bonuses and Promotions
Six promotional offers were being made at my last visit to slots.lv. Here’s info on each of them:
- $5,000 Welcome Bonus – Paid out at different match rates over the first ten deposits made by any new player. The terms and conditions are detailed below.
- $2,000 Casino Games Bonus – Similar to the above bonus but with lower bonus amounts and different wagering requirements. See the site’s T&C page for more.
- Mobile Bonus – A special offer that rewards a free $25 betting chip to any mobile player who wagers a minimum of $500 in any seven day period.
- Sweet Thursdays – This one gets bonus creativity points from me for being the only casino bonus I’ve ever read about that unintentionally references a John Steinbeck novel. The bonus itself is pretty weak, a rebate offer up to $20.
- The Stretched Bonus – Seven match bonuses of 100% up to $100 spread across the seven days of the week, with different games targeted on each day.
- The Facebook Freebie – According to this bonus, Facebook users can earn $10 in free bets for simply interacting with slots.lv on Facebook. From the promo page: “Simply Like our Facebook page, share our profile picture and message us your Slots.lv account number.” This one sounds too good to be true, and it is. The rollover requirement is 100x, and any total winnings over $100 will be voided. This is one of the worst bonus offers I’ve ever read, and it’s due to the crappy terms and conditions involved.
The terms and conditions for all the bonus and promo offers made by slots.lv can be found here. You’ll have to do some clicking around to tailor the T&C’s for different bonuses, but at least all of the information is in pretty much the same place. They closely mirror the industry standard. I’ll go into a little detail here, for second.
To earn the $5,000 in bonus cash promised under the Welcome Bonus rules, a player has to deposit $2,500, then wager 35x the total deposit plus expected bonus. That’s $7,500 multiplied by thirty-five – on my calculator, that means $262,500 in wagers. Sure, that bonus money is going to cycle through as you play, but the condition problems don’t stop there.
This welcome bonus is good on slots, keno, and scratch card bets only, AND if you even so much as place a bet on any other game, all winnings up to the point of that bet are void. That’s just a ridiculous requirement, and it kills what value the welcome bonus had for me to begin with.
The point is – read the T&C’s. This is true for slots.lv the same as it is true for every other casino I review. Do your own homework – use my review as a guide.
Conclusion
I regularly recommend slots.lv to my North American gambler friends struggling to find a legitimate place to play their online slots, video poker, and other games. A big part of the reason for the recommendation is the simple fact that the site is aimed exclusively at Americans and Canadians.
But I also like that I rarely see a customer complaint, payout times appear to be about as stated on the website, and there is some software variety besides the standard compliment of boring RTG slots and table games. Licensure from Kahnawake aside, slots.lv is a good choice for US and Canadian players.
