SLOTO STARS CASINO HIGHLIGHTS

Licensed in Curacao
Wide selection of games including slots, table games, specialty games, and video poker
Download casino option available – a rarity in 2022
Customer support available 24/7 including US toll-free number, live chat, and e-mail support
Limited payment options offered: Credit/Debit cards, Bank Wire, and surprisingly: Bitcoin (BTC)
Three-stage welcome bonus awards up to $2,900 in bonus funds on a player’s first three deposits

CASINO REVIEW OF SLOTO STARS

Visitors to Sloto Stars can look forward to an excellent first impression. The casino’s website was developed using responsive design techniques, which aim to provide identical functionality regardless of the device each visitor is using. This includes Windows computers, Apple Macs & MacBook’s, as well as smaller devices such as tablets and smartphone.

It is unclear who is operating this casino, however. The casino uses the Real Time Gaming software suite, which previously had a poor reputation in some circles. The relatively low price of licensing the software made it attractive to some shadier operators who could not afford pricier packages from the likes of Microgaming and Playtech.

Nevertheless, a casino should not be judged by its competitors – the only genuine reason to be dubious about this casino is the fact that they are operating with a Curacao license. This type of certification is amongst the least respected within the online casino industry; however, there are still plenty of trustworthy casinos who behave both professionally and successfully whilst also operating with a Curacao-issued license.

GETTING STARTED

Register an account at the casino – the form is quick and short, but you’ll need to complete further personal details before you can make withdrawals. It’s recommended to do this immediately after completing the initial registration, to avoid delays later.
Complete second-layer registration – this usually involves submitting identity documents. The most secure way to do this is using the live chat functionality which is accessible after you have logged in to your casino account. Depending on your country, there may be some additional requirements as well.
Make a deposit to your casino account – at present, you can do this using Bitcoin or a credit or debit card. The casino promises more options are coming soon, though these two options should be sufficient for most players anyway.
Start to play! Be sure to use your new player bonus code and coupon here. Hopefully, by the time you have finished working your way through your free chip and deposit match bonuses, your documents will have been verified and you will be able to withdraw any winnings straight away.

DESIGN & LAYOUT

The Sloto Stars website has been designed in a very modern style. Color and contrast are used effectively, and the consistent design language used throughout the various pages makes for an impressive and intuitive arrangement. This level of attention to detail suggests that presentation was one of the primary goals of the designers of this online casino, which is a rarity amongst RTG-based properties.

The header of the site promises both an $8,000-dollar welcome bonus and a no deposit free chip – it is intriguing to find out more about these offers. The homepage also highlights the casinos current top progressive jackpot, which stands at over $8 million dollars. This is an impressive sum for what is currently a small and relatively unknown casino, so it seems likely to be pooled with other sites using RTG’s casino platform.

The remainder of the homepage is divided into multiple sections which highlight the advantages of playing at Sloto Stars. This includes the casino’s current most popular games, their commitment to fast withdrawals, and their unique loyalty, cashback and other regular generous promotions.

There are also several testimonials, although it is impossible to verify if these are genuine.

MULTI DEVICE COMPATIBILITY (E.G., MOBILES, TABLETS, AND SMARTPHONES)

Sloto Stars do not have a dedicated mobile app yet, but their website is cleverly designed so that it works extremely well on all kinds of devices. The site was tested using a Sony Xperia 1 MK3, which displayed perfectly despite the unusual aspect ratio of that phone. A relatively common Lenovo 10” tablet was also tested with impressive results; the site’s layout adapted perfectly. This testing was comprehensive and included a variety of games including slots, table games, and video poker, all of which functioned without issue on all of the test hardware.

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

Online casinos are becoming increasingly difficult to tell apart – this is because every casino is having to implement the same games and features as their rivals if they wish to remain competitive. In this modern online gaming marketplace, there are three things which separate the best casinos from the rest of the pack:

Promotions – and not just the frequency or raw numbers, but the rules attached to them a well
Withdrawal Methods, Rules, Pending & Processing Times, and Reliability
Quality of Support

How does Sloto Stars stand up in these three critical areas? Well, early indications are certainly good. The frequently asked questions page features just sixteen questions, but the casino has done an excellent job of phrasing those questions in such a way that each one answers multiple common queries. Most players should be able to find answers to their questions straight from this page, without ever needing to contact support.

TELEPHONE SUPPORT

The casino offers a toll-free number for North American players, but those from outside the US should be careful before calling it. This is because some network operators charge extremely high rates per minute when calling US “toll free” numbers.

There is a fantastic little life-hack which can be used to get around this, however; Microsoft Teams (formerly Skype) is free to download and use on all platforms and does not charge a fee for calling US toll-free numbers. For those who need to call the casino but live outside of North America, this is a great way to do it.

E-MAIL SUPPORT

The site provides E-Mail support too, which is staffed 24/7. This ensures that you can be sure of a quick response – especially outside of peak hours in the US. For example, Europeans start their day at 8AM, which is 4AM in New York and 1AM in California. The most common time to engage in online casino play in both Europe and the US is around 8-10PM, and once again, 8PM in London is 4PM on the US East Coast, whilst those in Silicon Valley will still be on their lunch break.

LIVE CHAT

By far the most common (and popular) method of obtaining support at online casinos in 2021 is via Live Chat, and Sloto Stars offers 24/7 live chat staffed by humans. During testing, an enjoyable conversation was had with one of their reps, Kyle, who was more than happy to answer any queries regarding their customer support, withdrawal mechanics, and promotions for new and existing players.

Overall, Kyle’s knowledge of Sloto Stars was extremely impressive. His knowledge of all aspects of the casino were on par with any other member of casino support staff, but his understanding of Bitcoin was particularly strong – Kyle was also clear that all customer service reps are equally well trained in all thing’s cryptocurrency related.

CONTACT FORM

This is just a frontend for the e-mail support, but it is a nice convenience to have this form available to save time and hassle when you do not want to talk via live chat. It seems that Sloto Stars have all of their bases covered when it comes to customer support – full marks once again.

PAYMENT METHODS

Sloto Stars currently only offers a handful of methods for depositing and withdrawing from the casino, and whilst Bitcoin and Debit/Credit cards are both very useful and satisfactory methods, the deposit and withdrawal pages do not adequately explain the pitfalls which may befall some customers using them.

For example, customers making a deposit using a card that is denominated in a currency other than USD may find they are charged a very high fee by their bank when making a deposit at Sloto Stars. For this reason, customers with cards that are issued in USD should consider using the Bitcoin option instead.

Deposits

First, let us look at their deposit methods:

Method
Currency
Funding Time
Minimum Deposit
Maximum Deposit
Fees / Notes

Visa
US Dollar Only
Instant
$25
$2,500
None, however, your bank may charge for converting to USD

Mastercard
US Dollar Only
Instant
$25
$2,500
None, however, your bank may charge for converting to USD

Amex
US Dollar Only
Instant
$25
$2,500
None, however, your bank may charge for converting to USD

Bitcoin
Converts to USD after depositing
Usually, 20 to 60 Minutes*
$25
$10,000
None, however, the blockchain network upon which Bitcoin depends requires a fee to be paid to process the transaction. On 21/10/2021, the average fee was $4.17**

* Depending on how you transfer your BTC to the casino, you may or may not be given the option to set the transaction fee yourself. A higher transaction fee incentivizes the network to process your payment more quickly, though this does not matter if the network is running under capacity. Different deposit methods may also be subject to different deposit bonuses.

On the other hand, when BTC jumped around 5% in one day on October 7th this year, trading volume was so high that it was taking an average of 150 minutes for transactions to be processed. Those with lower fees were waiting up to 48 hours until trading volume dropped down to its normal level before their BTC was delivered to the casino. During this period, if you wanted your funds to reach the casino quickly you could expect to pay a few of up to $20! Clearly, BTC has some scaling issues which desperately need to be addressed.

Also, whilst the BTC protocol is designed to generate a new block every ten minutes, this is not a guarantee – sometimes a new block can take more than an hour to be created and added to the chain, meaning even those who opted to pay large fees could still be waiting up to two hours. This is because Bitcoin transactions require two new blocks to be added to the blockchain before they are confirmed as settled. This is an integral part of the Bitcoin protocol, so it remains to be seen if the developers can find a way to circumvent this issue.

** As mentioned above, congestion on the Bitcoin network usually results in higher transaction fees being necessary if you wish for your payment to complete faster. Those with lots of BTC will happily pay a few thousand extra Satoshi (analogous to a cent in BTC) to get their payment pushed through faster. At the time of writing, the average charge to make a BTC transaction is $4.17, but, as mentioned previously, we have seen it go as high as over $20 on some occasions! The average fee over the past twelve months is around $1.50.

Withdrawals

Now we must look at the withdrawal options offered by Sloto Stars. Some aspects of the information on this page could be described as being somewhat disingenuous at best, so be sure to read carefully. This is where we found the Sloto Stars website to be, at best, disingenuous. The information provided is as follows:

Method
Currency
Funding Time
Minimum

Withdrawal

Maximum Withdrawal
Fees / Notes

Bank Wire
US Dollar Only
5-10 Days
$65
$10,000
This is not mentioned on their banking page – $35 USD. This is an extremely high fee for a bank wire, and virtually guarantees that those making smaller deposits will not bother to withdraw their winnings unless they are in the three figure range or higher.

Visa
Unavailable
N/A
N/A
N/A
Stated as Coming Soon*; See Below.

Mastercard
Unavailable
N/A
N/A
N/A
Stated as Coming Soon*; See Below.

Amex
Unavailable
N/A
N/A
N/A
Stated as Coming Soon*; See Below.

Bitcoin
Converts to BTC before withdrawal
2-24 Hours
$100
$10,000
Again, not mentioned on their banking page, this 2-to-24-hour period begins AFTER a 48 hour pending period. Also not mentioned is the source of their conversion rate from BTC to USD; on the day of testing, their exchange rate was average at best.

The key issue with the bank wire option is explained in the notes section above but think about it carefully – the 5-10 days’ of time stated is actually 5-10 business days – IE 2 calendar weeks – and does not include the standard 48 hour pending period applied to all withdrawals.

In the worst-case scenario, you could play on Friday the 1st of some month, and not receive your funds until Tuesday the 19th – via bank transfer! This is slow, although the casino does deserve some credit for the fact they are having to jump through a lot of hoops in order to operate in their primary US market.

*COMING SOON

As for the “coming soon” debit card withdrawals, North Americans should not hold their breath for this feature appearing any time soon. The casino claims to be working on finding a payment processor which will allow them to make such transactions, however they no doubt fully aware that this will be difficult if not impossible.

Finally, unlike some other casinos which accept BTC, all bets made at Sloto Stars are resolved in dollars. This requires that all BTC deposits be converted to USD at the time of deposit, and then converted back into BTC when withdrawing. The casino does not state which source they use to determine the value of BTC/USD, and it appears that players can expect to lose a couple of dollars at each end of the transaction.

A cynic might suggest that this is a deliberate method of extracting just a little bit more profit from the player – after all, there are no payment processors involved here.

Additionally, a 48-hour pending period for a BTC transaction is much too long. These transactions should be immediate, or close to it, and the casino would do well to consider improving on this in the future. Bearing in mind the scaling issues and high transaction fees associated with Bitcoin, it would also be sensible for Sloto Stars to implement an alternative cryptocurrency or two in the future. The casino states that this is something “that is being investigated”, but no plans have yet been confirmed.

BONUSES AND PROMOTIONS

Although the deposit and withdrawal pages hid a few disappointments, things get much better when looking at the welcome bonuses and promotions offered by Sloto Stars. The much hyped $8,000 bonus IS real, however you would need to deposit a total $3,650 to receive the full amount of bonus funds.

It is difficult to imagine many regular players would be willing to invest this much in obtaining casino bonuses, but for those who specifically target large bonuses, Sloto Stars is surely a dream come true – with a wide variety of welcome bonus offers, and additional bonus codes to use too.

New players at Sloto Stars are also offered a $30 free chip as part of their exclusive bonuses and welcome bonuses too, although the code stated on their website did not function correctly during testing. Live Chat were happy to add the chip to the test account though, so if you experience a similar issue, do not hesitate to contact live support – they had this issue resolved in mere seconds.

It was later discovered that the free chip is normally reserved for players who have completed all four of the regular match bonuses, however, Live Chat was quite happy to add the free chip to try their games before making a deposit. How is that for customer service?

With regular promotions for existing players, a generous VIP scheme, monthly special promotional offers, and even an “All Star” shop whereby you can buy various products, casino bonuses, and free chips using the loyalty points you accumulate from free play, Sloto Stars has a lot going for it as far as its promotional offerings.

You might think that with all this generosity going on there must be a catch, but the bonus rules are remarkably similar to the majority of other online casinos on the market today – 40x Deposit + Bonus wagering requirement, no maximum Cashout on the match bonuses, withdrawing before completing your bonus will forfeit your winnings etc.

You should of course read the bonus terms in full, especially if you intend on making an exceptionally large deposit, but there does not seem to be anything obviously out of the ordinary when looking over the terms and conditions.

GAMES

Whilst some RTG sites have begun to implement Live Dealer games via partners such as viggames.com, Sloto Stars have yet to take advantage of this new addition to the RTG casino platform. Whether they will choose to do so in the future remains unknown, but it would surely be a great addition to what is already shaping up to be an excellent online casino.

One option notable missing is with live casino games, they’re a common occurrence across most casino website offerings but not something that slotostars casino offer, and this does bring the Sloto Stars casino review down by a small amount.

ONLINE SLOTS

Real Time Gaming have long separated themselves from their competition by offering Random Jackpots in all of their slot games – a technique which no doubt contributes enormously to their popularity in their biggest markets of North America – who adore progressive jackpots – and South Africa, where the prospect of winning thousands of dollars is near enough as good as a lottery win for many lower-paid workers and with many of the best Realtime Gaming options, these slots are a great pick.

Almost the entire catalogue of RTG slots have now been converted to HTML5, so you shouldn’t have any problems finding your favorite RTG classics available for play at Sloto Stars even though they only offer the RTG web platform, and those playing progressive slots and real money slots will have a smooth experience – there is no download casino available here, unfortunately.

The most popular games at Sloto Stars are all slots, and, funnily enough, they all tend to be towards the top end of the range in terms of the RTP that RTG offers from their games:

Game
Style
Paylines
Max Win
RTP
Notes

Cash Bandits 3
5×3 Reels
25
115,000x Stake
96%
Win up to 390 Free Spins

Achilles Deluxe
5×3 Reels
20
2,000x Stake
95.7%
 

Frog Fortunes
5×3 Reels
243 Ways
150x Stake
96%
 

Witchy Wins
5×3 Reels
243 Ways
10,000x Stake
96%
Win up to 50 Free Spins

Cash Bandits 2
5×3 Reels
25
50,000x Stake
95.3%
Win up to 190 Free Spins

TABLE GAMES

The list of casino table games available at Sloto Stars is a little short, but it is difficult to blame the casino for this – RTG have been dragging their feet a little when it comes to converting their many, many classic table games into HTML5 format, so Sloto Stars can only offer the games which RTG make available to them.

Nevertheless, players can already choose from multiple versions of Blackjack, several Caribbean table poker variants including Draw, Stud, and Hold’em, Let ’Em Ride, and Three Card Poker, many of these being favorite casino games amongst sloto stars online casino players.

Like RTG’s slot machines, you will even find progressive jackpots attached to some of these games, making them much more exciting than the table games offered at most other casinos!

VIDEO POKER

Real Time Gaming initially announced that they would not be converting many of their video poker games to HTML5, but smartly performed a sharp U-Turn in response to the outrage amongst their regular player base.

Real Time Gaming have always been known for their wide selection of video poker games, and whilst the library has not yet reached the enormity of the older Flash-based casino platform, more titles seem to be being added each month, and RTG are wisely working through their back catalogue in order of popularity.

Currently available are Aces and Eights, All American Poker, 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, Sevens Wild.

SUMMING UP

Sloto Stars is the best RTG casino to  hit the web in a long time – the BTC deposit option is a huge advantage and worked incredibly smoothly during both depositing and withdrawing.

PROS:

Excellent customer support available round the clock, including toll-free phone support
Multi-device support is excellent and really shows off the attractive website design
Generous promotions available for both new and existing players

CONS:

Only RTG games are available, limiting you to around 170 different titles.
Banking terms page is not 100% accurate and could confuse some inexperienced players.
Extremely limited deposit options; Even less withdrawal choices.
$35 fee for a bank wire is a real turn-off for players who do not want to or cannot use Bitcoin.