Sky City Casino Review

Table of Contents

• Welcome Bonus
• Betting
• Software & Games
• Withdrawal Times, Limit and Methods
• Deposit Methods
• Casino Licenses
• Rewards System and VIP Treatment
• Player Protection
• Winners
• Conclusion
• FAQs 

Welcome Bonus

Sky City are in the enviable position as being both a land-based and online provider of casino products to New Zealanders. Sky City has found itself in this position as the New Zealand Government has placed its trust in Sky City to run four physical venues in Hamilton, Auckland, and Queenstown.

Because of this Sky City Casino has massive exposure in New Zealand and therefore has to do little to drum up custom. I suggest that this is the reason why the Welcome Bonus that Sky City Casino has in place is less substantial than some of its rival offers. 

When you sign up to Sky City Casino online and make a minimum $10 deposit you can instantly claim a 100% matched deposit bonus of up to $100. Not only this, but you also qualify for seventy free spins, with ten offered every day for a week, 150 Club Points and 100 Sky Coins, that can be used to further your progress through the platform’s player reward scheme.

Free spins are valid on some of the industry’s leading pokies. You can try before you buy on features such as,

• Sweet Bonanza
• Gates of Olympus
• The Dog House 
• Fruit Party

To be able to withdraw any wins that are associated with the Welcome Bonus you must meet the wagering terms that Sky City sets out. To do this, you must make bets that total x35 the bonus that you claim. However, 100% of all stakes do not count towards this effort for all gambling products. 

• Slots – 100%
• Table Games – 20%
• Roulette and Live Dealer Roulette – 35%
• All Blackjack, Baccarat & Casino Hold’em – 10%
• All other Table games and Live Casino games – 20%
• Video Poker – 20%

The inclusion of table games in this list is interesting though. Many table games give casinos the smallest profit edge, so there is the potential for you to benefit by meeting wagering requirements while you bet on these games.

In summary, Sky City, the place to be for Live Table bonuses! 

Betting

Quality provides the backdrop to everything that Sky Casino offers. Sky Casino makes great use of the GiG gambling platform to bring land-based casino quality to your home or office. The emphasis on a superior content mix is apparent as soon as you search the Games lobby of the site. The options that meet you at this point include,

• Live Casino
• Daily Drops
• Roulette
• Baccarat
• Slots
• Virtual Sports
• Blackjack
• Scratch Cards
• Table Games

By presenting this breadth of content, Sky Casino online delivers content that will be seized upon by most. However, Sky Casino does fail in one area. There is no sports betting facility available on this platform. For online casinos that serve Kiwis, this is not unusual, only a handful of providers such as William Hill, Betway, and Leo Vegas allow sports bets to be placed on its casino sites.

The reason for this may lie behind the near-monopoly position that TAB NZ has for accepting sports bets in New Zealand. The TAB is where generations of Kiwis have placed their horse-racing bets, so its expansion to providing odds on a wider range of sports fixtures is something of a natural progression, and where many New Zealanders will initially look to place a bet on sports events.

Software & Games

One thing that Sky City Casino has against it is the number of games that it hosts. In all, there are only around 200 unique games supported on this site. Once again, this is perhaps unsurprising. Sky City Online casino is all too aware of the restrictions that are placed on casino outlets per the 2003 Gambling Act in New Zealand, so it takes caution with everything that it does.

After all, Sky City would not wish to upset the authorities in New Zealand in any way for fear of losing its land-based licences. So a range of 150 slots might be a little restrictive, but the presence of Sky City in an online format provides much-needed competition in the New Zealand iGaming market. 

Among the top slots available on this site are variants such as,

• Starburst
• Book of Dead
• Wolf Gold
• 9 Masks of Fire
• Beowulf
• Break Da Bank
• Kingmaker MegaWays

For fans of table games, it is of great benefit that games developed by Evolution Live Gaming have found a place on Sky City’s website. Blackjack Live Lobby and Speed Roulette Live are both likely to attract their fair share of custom.

Withdrawal Times, Limit and Methods

Payouts are not a problem for Sky City Online Casino. Sky City are among the quickest payers of all of the brands that offer their services to Kiwis at this time.

Although the Sky City Casino online terms section suggests that all pay-outs are subject to a six-hour processing term, this is not a substantial detriment. The first point to make is that there are very few casinos currently available in New Zealand that commit to paying out within six hours.

And, secondly, at whatever point the processing of a pay-out is confirmed with Sky City, cash hits your account almost instantly. Any pay-out request by e-wallet methods that include Skrill, NETELLER, and ecoPayz, is invariable paid on the day that a request is made, and for those of you who require money to be returned to a Card or a Bank Account, a two-day wait is standard. 

The pay-out limits that are applied at Sky City Casino online are also well within the expected norms of the New Zealand market. Sky City asks that its members withdraw a minimum of $20 each time they make a pay-out request. Some casinos are a little more helpful and agree to make payouts of $10 and above, but few customers will have any complaints about this aspect of the firm’s rules.

Sky City Casino is also reasonable when it comes to upper limits. By allowing pay-outs of $5,000 to be requested for every transaction, nearly all of the players that utilise the Sky Casino platform will be fulfilled. For those players who require bigger limits, these are bestowed as you move through the website’s reward system.

Deposit Methods

Sky City casino is as flexible as is necessary for an online casino to be when deposit practices are reviewed. Sky City accepts $10 deposits. The benefit of this is that players of all budgets can experience the thrills that are available at Sky City because almost all fans of casino content have this level of disposable income to put at risk.

As a further boost, you can use all of the most popular transaction methods to top up your bankroll whenever you desire. Paysafecard is popular with Kiwis as a means of making online payments, so it is great that Sky Casino accepts this pre-paid method as a way to add funds to your online pot. 

The only downside that can be found concerning the banking options that Sky City have in place is that PayPal transfers are not included in this list. PayPal is a highly respected network for making payments online, so it is a pity that SkyCity has been unable to get PayPal on board at this time.

All deposits that are sent to Sky City Casino are processed on a fee-free basis and the vast majority of these are ready to use for real money bets instantly.

Casino Licenses

Sky Casino does everything that it can to offer you the highest levels of customer care. The mindset that accompanies this ideal also extends to the choice of gambling licence that Sky City Casinos online entity holds. Sky City Online via its owners MT SecureTrade Limited operates under a gambling licence that has been issued by the Malta Gaming Authority (MGA). Sky City Casino has been awarded licence MGA/CRP/257/2014.

An MGA licence offers online casino players in New Zealand several additional protections. 

In the first instance, most casino operators that are deemed worthy of holding an MGA licence are well-respected names within the iGaming industry. It is not the case that these casinos receive no complaints from their customers, but the levels of serious complaints that are made against these operations are significantly reduced when compared against unlicensed operators. 

The MGA also compels sites that are associated with it to work within the confines of local gambling laws. In New Zealand, this means that operators should run their business in the ways that are set out in the Gambling Act of 2003.

Finally, if Kiwis do feel the need to complain about an MGA site, the MGA can act as an arbitrator to settle any dispute. If the MGA sanctions one of its operators they have a legally binding obligation to comply or face being hit with a significant fine.

Rewards System and VIP Treatment

Sky City’s online rewards system is still in its infancy but appears to model itself on multi-tiered schemes that are in place at many other platforms that serve New Zealanders today. 

The effort at Sky City comes under the banner of The Online Club. It is explained that the Online Club provides rewards as you progress through the tiers, with these rewards having a somewhat random nature.

In all there are ten different levels to navigate, so ten opportunities to accrue free spins, Super Spins, or cash. On top of this, several tournaments and bespoke promotions are run at regular intervals where clients can amass all sorts of goodies. 

Player Protection

The Play Responsibly page that is embedded within Sky City Casinos website is one of the most comprehensive player protection portals that I have witnessed on any site that serves the New Zealand population. The page is packed with reams of information about why problem gambling is important to recognise and what steps can be taken to mitigate this issue. Sections on the page include,

• Our Commitment
• We’re strictly 20+
• The best way to begin
• Keep track of your transactions
• Take a self-assessment test
• Reality Check
• Financial Limits
• Time-out
• Self-exclusion
• Help and support

Some sites appear to simply go through the motions when it comes to providing information on how you can best ensure that gambling remains the fun pastime that it should always be, so it is a refreshing change to see a site engage with these issues head-on.

If you wish to set up any of the player protection tools, including,

• Deposit Limits
• Net Loss Limits
• Wagering Limits
• Session Limits

You can do this by clicking on embedded links on the Play Responsibly page or by contacting the customer support team.

Winners

The Sky City Casino blog is the place that you need to head if you wish to be kept up to date on all the biggest wins that have emanated from the site in recent times. 

What you are likely to notice from this regular stream of press releases is that many clients at the Sky City online site win big on Microgaming’s renowned progressive pokie, Mega Moolah. 

One such example of this came to the world’s attention on September 23, 2021.

It was on this date that the press team at Sky City announced that one lucky customer had collected a $5.1 million prize on the aforementioned Mega Moolah slot. Perhaps, unsurprisingly, the punter in question extolled the virtue of Sky City in the accompanying interview.

One particular comment of note was that this individual first began to play at Sky City online as he was aware of the land-based brand, something that suggests that Sky City could easily be the biggest online casino brand in the country through recognition alone. The fact the multi-millionaire was going to invest his shock win in planning for his retirement also seemed an entirely appropriate move.

Conclusion

If you want to play at a casino where your safety is assured, Sky City Casino is potentially the right venue for you. Normally the MGA licence that Sky City holds would be a good illustration of the brand’s philosophy on player protections, but due to Sky City’s unique position within the New Zealand iGaming market, this platform goes much further. Sky City has a licence from the New Zealand Government to run four land-based casinos at various locations throughout New Zealand.

Therefore, Sky City needs to be seen as being squeaky clean when it comes to its online operations. It does not want to upset New Zealand authorities in any way. The manifestation of this is a great player protection page and assurances that nobody under the age of twenty can enter the site. However, this means that the rest of the site is a little dull. The Welcome Bonus is alright, the content of slots is good but limited, and the rewards system is a little ad-hoc. All in all, Sky City online would be a great casino if it was sprinkled with a little razzmatazz. 

FAQs