Sands - Online Casino Review

November 14, 2004

OK, I've just got done reviewing Piggs Peak and the boss gives me a new casino to review. This time it's Sands of the Caribbean. I go to the site looking forward to a new review and, well… how can I say this… the site looks like cheap crap. The colors are drab, the outside frame is flat while the inside frame has depth. This is my first impression only. I haven't played the games yet, I haven't even read anything on the site. I hope it gets better than this.

Overview

Sands of the Caribbean has been online since 1997. The software is by Cryptologic. They are registered license-holder by the Government of Netherlands Antilles and the game servers are in Curacao. PricewaterhouseCoopers reviews their payout percentages monthly. They offer Live Help (which I love) as well as a phone help and email. There's a lot of information on their site, but it's not particularly well laid out in my opinion. I had to ask Live Help whose software they use (I already knew but I couldn't find it on the site). Their Live Help is fabulous. It only requires a name; you don't have to put in your email address. They also have a picture of the person helping you in the upper right corner. Abi (whose picture was just adorable) helped me look for the software information on the site. She couldn't find it either (which says a lot for their sites navigation). They accept US dollars, Pounds Sterling, and Euros. In Customer Care – Subscription you can choose which emails (if any) you receive from them. Of course in their terms and conditions (which were an ordeal to read) they basically say they will do what they want with your information.

Deposits

I'm really not enjoying the navigation of this site. I'm looking in "Getting Started" and there doesn't seem to be a deposit information area that clearly lists what methods you can use to deposit. Instead they give you an overview of the process. Everything is written in "Marketingspeak" which I hate. You know marketingspeak – it's the way marketing people take the simplest thing and turn it into the most complicated in order to make something seem more interesting and themselves more important.

I'm getting fed up so I click on Site Map (on the bottom navigation bar) in the hopes that something, anything, would look like a deposit information page. Play for Money tells you all about ECash, but nothing about what method of deposits ECash accepts. HURRAH!!! I found it in Customer Care "Banking Information". Personally I would have made that into one of the choices in the right-hand navigation bar. OK, now that I can see what they have I have to say that I am impressed. They offer a lot of choices for depositing:

Neteller
PrePaid ATM
FirePay
Credit card
Citadel
Bank wire
ECP (Electronic Check Processing)
And checks

The minimum deposit is $20. The daily deposit limit for credit cards is $1000 and the weekly limit is $5000. One bizarre statement in the credit card area " If you wish to switch credit cards, you will be required to have a zero balance on the current card before being allowed to register another credit card." This means that you have to have a casino balance of 0 before being able to deposit with another card. Why they couldn't just say that I have no idea.

If you deposit via ECP you can not do a cash-out for 5 days as they need to know your money has cleared. If after 5 days they do not receive your funds they will void your transaction and charge you $25 for the voided transaction. You get a $5 bonus for your initial deposit with this method, but you have to wager $10 or more before being able to cash it out.

Checks are only available for US and Canadian residents. You will receive a 10% bonus for depositing via this method. Checks are accepted in US Dollars only (sorry Kanucks). You can only cash out 30 days after your deposit date for checks.

Withdrawals

I may not like the navigation of this site much, but I have to give them credit for being thorough and doing their research. They have a lot of detail in their deposits / withdrawal area. You can withdraw via the methods below:

Neteller – Only if you deposited via Neteller previously. If you deposited via Visa previously they will credit that first (fair enough).
FirePay - Only if you deposited via FirePay previously
Visa – If you live in one of the countries that they allow your card to be credited back (and they have an entire list of the countries on the site). Otherwise you will receive a check.
Citadel – Only if you deposited via Citadel previously (see a pattern here) and only to the initial account you deposited with

The PrePaid ATM withdrawals are paid out via check, which I don't understand as you can credit back to a PrePaid ATM account. On the other hand checks are processed and sent out within 2 – 3 business days. That is extremely fast and efficient. This casino is starting to look a lot better…

Terms and Conditions

I only found the main Terms and Conditions when I went to sign up. Some of these are just silly, such as " The Service Providers reserve the right to amend your nickname and/or alias in its absolute discretion if it believes the same to be defamatory, offensive, pornographic in nature or intended to impersonate a real person or brand name." No Nike nicks for you!

As with everything on this site, the terms and conditions are especially long-winded. Painfully so. Basically the terms and conditions say that they are allowed to do anything to your account and monies whenever they want for whatever reason they want to. This contract covers their ass in ways I didn't even know were possible. Most of it is pretty standard. They are doing their best to stop fraud, such as credit checks on customers, sharing your information in a fraud database if you do something wrong, etc… Most of this will never affect the average honest player.

One thing I caught "In addition, the Service Providers may make Personal Data available to other Service Provider affiliates, parents and subsidiary companies for the purposes of statistical and market analysis and for informing you about products and services offered by such undertakings. If you do not want to receive any marketing communications you should contact the Service Providers using the contact details set out in Clause 14.5." Basically they are admitting to sharing your information with others. The thing is, this terms and conditions contract is so long I can't imagine most people reading it fully and that is the problem. Things like this would be overlooked. Not only are they sharing your information but you have to go to point 14.5 (14.5!!!!! will this never end!!!) to find out how to fix that!

And finally I get to the famous point 14.5 " You will send all communications required in connection with any matter relating to this Agreement and/or any services provided hereunder by the Service Providers by regular mail to the address below, or by electronic mail to the email address below. Any such communication shall be deemed to have been received by applicable Service Provider upon actual receipt thereof." Only there's no regular mail address or email address listed below the point. Brilliant.

Later in another point they state that if they want to change something and they feel they need to notify you they have decided that you will receive the information via whatever method they choose to send it within a reasonable amount of time. Make sense? They only receive information if they receive it, you receive information from them, as far as they are concerned, whether you received it or not.

This painful trial of reading goes on and on past point 4.12 to 15.1. There are 78 points and sub points in total. This does not include the sub-sub points of which there were plenty. I read them all and I have to admit my head is spinning right now. Did I mention how wordy this site is?

Bonuses

Time to look at what bonuses I would get, if I were to get a bonus (remember, I'm from Israel so no bonus for me). They are offering a few regular promotions:

$50 for referring a friend – they have to deposit $100 and wager $2000. You can refer a maximum of 50 friends. (I don't have 50 friends – do you?)
$2000 Simply slots contest – the one who wagers the most in slots wins $1000. Second place wins $200, etc… Of course it will cost you $2000 to win the bloody tournament, but whose counting?
"All new players will receive a 30% match bonus on their initial deposit of $20 or more (maximum bonus of $100)." This one made me laugh. Match bonus means 100%, but it's only 30%. It's not a match bonus. It's manipulative writing.
$1000 Blackjack tournament. This one is interesting. You pay a fee of $25 and they give you $1000 in free chips for you to make as much money as possible in 45 minutes (it doesn't have to be in one go). The person who wins the most at the end of the month wins $500 in real money. This one sounds pretty good.
$1000 Video Poker tournament. Same as above but for Video Poker.
"Returning Player $100 Match Deposit Bonus!" Another misleading bonus title. It’s not a match bonus but another 30% bonus.

The wagering requirement is 25X the bonus amount. In other words, if you get a bonus of $100 you have to wager $2500.

Bonus Terms and Conditions (called Terms on the site)

I am ineligible for a bonus. Due to bonus abuse they don't give bonuses to people from the following countries: China , Denmark, Latvia, Hungary, Croatia (Hrvatska), Bulgaria, Israel, Finland, Malaysia, Hong Kong and the Ukraine. I'm in Israel, so no bonus for me. Having experience on the casino side of things I can understand why they would ban Israel from bonuses so I'm not taking this personally at all.

The maximum bonus they will give per month is $500. Personally I think it's silly to make this statement, but I'm sure that if they have an amazing client who wants more they will make an exception to that rule. It's probably just to avoid bonus abusers.

All Roulette, Baccarat, and Craps games are excluded from the wagering requirement. The thing is, the site states that this rule has been in effect since 2003. It took them 6 years to figure out that these games shouldn't be part of the wagering requirement??!!

Here’s a tricky one: " The minimum wagering requirement to cash-in promotional bonuses begins immediately after the free money has been credited to the player's real account, but not until such time." So if you made a deposit and are expecting a bonus DO NOT START PLAYING until you received that bonus. All of your game-play before hand will not be counted in your wagering requirement. And in the same point " To be in compliance with a monthly promotion, players must either meet the minimum wagering requirement or lose 2 times the promotional amount during the month the player received the bonus." In other words, if you get a bonus of $15 you have to lose$30 before you would be able to cash out. Otherwise you have to meet the wagering requirement.

You also have to be sure to make your wagering requirements within 30 days of getting your bonus or else they will take back your bonus and you will not be able to receive any further bonuses. On top of that, if you attempt a withdrawal before meeting wagering requirements you will be considered a bonus abuser and you could lose your rights to any further bonuses. They take this bonus abuse thing quite seriously, don't you think?

Signing up

My boss already told me not to bother with their browser games because they were crap. Always the curious one, I decided to try their browser games in Fun mode. It was easy to sign up, just give them your email address and a play for fun username and you're in!

I did the actual signing up in the download casino. This was quite easy. I clicked on Register, filled out the forms and was in. The directions were clear, easy and fast. At least they made one thing simple on this site.

Playing – Browser Casino

They offer 27 play for fun games in their browser version. I tried their slots first and went for Flower Power. Well, I haven't enjoyed the rest of the site much, and their games seem to stay consistent with that. The noise of the spinning slots sounds like a drill at the dentist and the game itself – that is just too sad for words. The movement of the slots… there was none, it was just taking the graphic that was there and making it blurry, but no real movement. The blah-ness was consistent with all of the games in the browser play. They were slow to load. The play itself was fast and easy. Overall nothing spectacular compared to other casinos.

Playing – Download Casino

The casino took 5 minutes to download on a weekend with an ADSL line. An "upload assistant" pops up, which is a window with a checklist of all the games on the casino, when the initial download is finished and you can choose which games you want to download. You can choose those games before you sign up.

The first thing I noticed about the casino was again, the navigation. It has a better design than the website, but if you want to go back to anything else on your computer you have to exit the casino completely, you can't minimize the window. That makes things especially hard for me as now I have to exit the casino completely whenever I want to write anything about a game. I also don't like it because you can't multi-task. No chatting with friends on messenger or looking for anything on the web while you are playing. It's just too much of a hassle.

The games themselves are ok. Not as flashy as other casinos and the sound isn't so great but it's a nice game. Nice. Ok. Not fantastic, nor amazing. I went into the multi-player Poker and opened up a chat. No one answered. No one else was there.

OK, now I know why people like these games. As I mentioned in my previous review I like games where you can think. Video Poker is my personal preference and I'm up $75. I don't qualify for a bonus so I can simply cash it out. How nice is that? My exit strategy is this: I will play until either my money goes down to $100 or up to $150. After a few more hands I'm up $100. I love 3 hand Poker! 5 hand isn't so bad either!

I want to see my game history. I go to Games, scroll down to log viewer and see my game-play. Now this is done well. It has my game-play in its entirety and has all of the information I need. Well done Cryptologic!

Time to cash-out, I go to the cashier and try to cash out. I don't have my PIN number. Ah, the catch, there's always a catch. I have to wait until I receive my PIN in the mail (snail mail which in my neighborhood could very well take forever) to be able to cash out my winnings. Nevermind, at least I won. In a few days I will receive my PIN and be able to finish this review.

Overall

I feel like I should be given an honorary law degree for reading their terms and conditions in their entirety. Either that or a medal. The site navigation was a hassle, the terms were a chore, and the marketing-speak was a nuisance. To their credit their customer service was fast, friendly, and helpful. You can see every ounce of information you could desire regarding your game history. Their games are simple, but rewarding. I like their download casino 3 hand Poker double down. It seemed almost impossible to not win something. Of course, as I follow the cardinal rules of online gaming I had an exit strategy and left once I reached my goals. The biggest thing is I won. And THAT makes everything else irrelevant. As such I recommend this site. I even recommend it highly. I rate it a strong A.

Play now at The Sands