Grand Reef Casino Review

Grand Reef Casino Overview

50 Free Spin + 100% Match Bonus

Billing itself as “Australia and New Zealand’s #1 online casino”, Grand Reef Casino is a downloadable casino that boasts a full complement of Playtech games, access to the networked Playtech progressive jackpot pools, and a bunch of promotions and bonus offers for players to enjoy. Unfortunately it has earned a reputation for extremely slow withdrawal payments that are often strung out for months in small instalments.

Play Now Download

Summary

Full Review

Billing itself as “Australia and New Zealand’s #1 online casino”, Grand Reef Casino is a downloadable casino that boasts a full complement of Playtech games, access to the networked Playtech progressive jackpot pools, and a bunch of promotions and bonus offers for players to enjoy. Unfortunately it has earned a reputation for extremely slow withdrawal payments that are often strung out for months in small instalments.

Pokies and Games at Grand Reef Casino

The Playtech games offered by Grand Reef are plentiful in both quantity and quality. Among the numerous poker machines (slots for the non-Aussies) available for play, the casino offers a full selection of Marvel comic games such as Blade, Hulk, X-Men, Fantastic Four, Elektra and more if you are so inclined. There are also a wide selection of progressive jackpot games which are tied into the Playtech-wide progressive jackpot pools. This means the jackpots grow as people from numerous different casinos contribute to them every day, and the big ones like Beach Life are often won in the millions (see below for a full list of current jackpots on offer). In addition, Grand Reef sports a bunch of traditional casino table games including various games of Blackjack, Video Poker, Roulette, Craps, Caribbean Stud as well as more exotic table and parlour games that you probably won’t find at Crown Casino or Star City.

While I am comparing things to local casinos, a point worth mentioning is Grand Reef’s payout percentage statistics. Each month the casino is audited by an independent company called Technical Systems Testing which is located in Canada and it publishes a report showing the exact payout percentages across the various games on the site. The average looks to be a shade over 95% which immediately tells you that your money should last longer here than at your average pub or RSL club where the pokies are usually set to pay back in the mid 80s. Chalk one up for online gaming.

So why would an Aussie or Kiwi play at Grand Reef?

Aside from the excellent games and deposit bonuses you are entitled to upon joining, Grand Reef has a few things that set it apart for locals. The casino supports play in both Australian and New Zealand dollars – something that will no doubt appeal to those of you becoming accustomed to the sharply diminishing value of the U.S. Dollar (peso?) which we are usually required to transact in. In addition the regularly run promotions have a distinctly local flavour – for example there have been Ashes Cricket, Australian Open, Waitangi Day, and Queensland Flood Relief Appeal promotions among many others.

On the operations side of things, toll free telephone support and local fax numbers are available in both Australia and New Zealand and the casino supports direct bank deposits from local banks using your “Pay Anyone” internet banking facility. The casino originally opened with an unlimited withdrawal policy, but this has since been changed to a maximum of $25,000 per month. However in practice we have found that the casino regularly attempts to pay players in weekly or monthly instalments of as little as $500 at a time. The money gets there in the end, but its a far cry from what is advertised on the website, and there is no way that they will pay you as frequently or in the amounts that they advertise. Just read the comments below if you need any further corroboration.

Conclusion

Initially we liked what was being offered here at Grand Reef, especially for Australian and New Zealand players. Local support numbers and deposit options are great, as are the regular promotions. However as you can see below in the comments on this page, many players are complaining of slow and irregular payments so it would be remiss of us not to warn prospective players of this problem. In addition our recent discovery that the owners of this casino have a history of defrauding a jackpot winner is more than enough reason for us to warn players to avoid this casino