“138 Casino, a great place for slot lovers”

When it comes to luck, the Asians believe in this fallacy more than anyone. I may have ruffled some feathers by calling luck a fallacy, but I’m a firm believer in making your own luck. Now if only I could figure out how to make that luck, I will be much better off.

For now, I’ll have to rely the Asian style of luck and let it come to me.

138 Casino is an Asian infused casino designed to provide those who want to find out how lucky they are, the chance to do so. I see 138 online casino much like a Chinese restaurant in the United States. You get food using Asian names, but it’s not what real Asians eat. Its Americanized for their pallets.

The 138 casino is much the same in that it has the Asian theme, but it’s been designed more for European players. The only real Asian aspects are the name and the bits of Chinese writing found throughout the site. The name 138 by the way, stands for triple prosperity in Asian cultures.

The site itself is fairly new, having only been in operation since 2012. They are fully regulated and hold licenses from both the Isle of Mann where they are located; and, the UK Gambling Commission.

I’m seeing a trend in new casinos in how they design their site. Ones that have been around for a while like 888, and Ladbrokes still use an older style design. The newer ones are using more of a blog style atmosphere. 138 follows this trend with its flowing page layouts and easy to navigate buttons.

The entire suite of games are flash based and can be played without download, or from mobile devices. However, it shouldn’t be hard to do this if you only offer a handful of games. I was very disappointed to see so few games at 138.com.

They are using decent software providers, and the games seem to be cherry picked to bring you only the best from these companies. But, the sheer lack of volume is distressing.

I noticed an eclectic mix of games that although limited, there were many games that are hard to find elsewhere. Especially the 50/50 sports games that I have yet to see at any casino.

The site supports English, Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese languages. But, they only support British Sterling Pounds and Euros currency.  This is because the site is geared towards the English market, but also wants to support the Asian community that lives in the UK.

Games and software

This section may be on the shorter side than what youre used to. I generally love talking about casino games and won’t stop until my editor says that’s way too long.

In this instance we shouldn’t have that problem.

The small library of games is made mostly of slots. I’ll give them props for having a decent selection of video slots that include Thunderstruck I and II. As well as slots like Game of Thrones.

The best thing 138 casino could have done was add some jackpot slots. They did add the largest paying progressive jackpot slot online – Mega Moolah. And while I’m happy to see this, it’s the only one you can play. If I could only choose one progressive jackpot slot to play, that would be the one.

Other games include limited supplies of table games: Blackjack, Roulette, Baccarat and Craps.

Those are the only table games available. They do offer card games like Red Dog, Caribbean Stud and a few others. As well as video poker and scratch cards.

By now, you may be wondering what are these unique games I was talking about. The 50/50 games are realistic sport style betting games that let you wager on the outcome of a random event. Some of the games available are Golf, Ricky Hatton’s Boxing, and Michael Owens Football. Among others.

The general idea behind these games is to bet on the outcome of the video that is played. For example, the boxing game has you bet on whether or not the boxers will exchange equal punches. All bets are paid at odds of 1:1.

One of the coolest games I found myself playing were the Real Sports games. These are arcade like games that let you be on the outcome of a random generated sport. I only played the football and golf games, but assume the rest are the same.

The football game lets you pick 2 real teams from the Premier League and bet on the outcome. You can wager on multiple endings such as a team winning, draw, over under and even if a yellow card will be issued.

The golf game lets you bet on where the ball will land, paying higher odds for harder to make shots.

Overall, I’m ok with the low game selection given the quality of games. They do have a live dealer section, but at the time of this review, it was being re formatted, so I could not play any of the games. I have been told that it is quite good and you can specialty Asian games from the live casino.

Promotions and bonuses

 Holding true to an Asian theme, the bonus for new players at 138 is £880. Eights are one of the luckiest numbers in Asian cultures in case you did not know.

The bonus is broken down into 3 deposits.

• 1^st deposit 100% match up to £200
• 2^nd Deposit 50% match up to £340
• 3^rd Deposit 50% match up to £340

The bonus does have special requirements that must be met in order to be eligible. I’m not going to sugarcoat my feelings towards these dictator style rules, but I’ll just say they are a bit odd. It does have a benefit, a very large one actually, which is the only reason I’m still talking about this bonus.

The rollover requirements are only 20x the bonus + deposit amount. This is among the industry’s lowest rollover requirement, and should be fairly easy to clear.

Now for the North Korean style limitations that could have you screaming if you didn’t know about them.

Most bonuses will have certain games that won’t apply towards the rollover requirements. This is standard. But 138 only allows certain slot games to count towards the rollover. If you play any game not on this list, you forfeit the entire bonus along with any winnings won from the bonus money already earned.

Most sites simply won’t count your play on games that don’t count, not completely force you to forfeit the bonus. But, they do make the list of games very clear; and, the rollover requirement is very small.

For the record, the list of games can be found under the promotions tab. Be absolutely sure to read the list so that you don’t make a costly error.

They do allow the option to not take the bonus, which does make sense, and I’m glad they have this in place. Otherwise, I wouldn’t even bother talking about it. To get the bonus you will need to enter the following bonus codes.

• 138slots1gbp for Pounds
• 138slots1eur for Euros

You will also need to deposit a minimum of £20. And finally, the last exclusion is that you can’t use an EWallet to make the deposit claiming the bonus.

I know this may sound like a lot of restrictions, but trust me when I say that the bonus is one of the easiest, and most valuable of any deposit bonus I have seen in my 15+ years of gambling.

Customer Support

Support is offered in both English and Mandarin. The best option is using the toll free number which is available 24/7. You can use email, but I hear average response times are in the 3-day range.

There is no live chat feature, which does baffle me a bit. You can however use Twitter to contact them. This is a unique style of support I have yet to see. Simply tweet @138help and you should get a tweet back.

Security and Payments

Security concerns are pretty much a thing of the past in today’s online casino world. You can rest assured that if I’m reviewing an online casino, they are safe and secure. I would never play at a casino if I didn’t trust them. Let alone recommend them to you.

138 is fully regulated, licensed and complies with multiple gaming commissions. The one thing I don’t like is that they do not make their pay outs public. It’s not a huge deal, and other sites follow the same procedures. You can contact them directly to request a report on their audits. They are being done, which is the important thing.

The cashier is on the smaller side, only accepting Visa, MasterCard, Neteller and Skrill for deposits. All withdrawals can use the same methods with the exclusion of MasterCard.

Cash out times are fair and up to industry standards with Skrill taking 24 hours after processing. Visa cash outs fall into the 3-5-day period which is standard across the board for most online casinos.

What I liked about the cashier is that limits must be set as soon as you sign up for an account. Before you even make a deposit, you need to set your betting limits. This is proof that they are diligent in curbing irresponsible gambling.

The limits can be large and should never be too little for most gamblers. But the fact that they make you do this, is a good note in my book.

Pros and Cons

138 online casino does have the best jackpot slots. This does negate the lack of games somewhat, and offers you the chance to play the largest progressive jackpots online. They also have very unique games in the 50/50 sports section that can be a lot of fun.

When I compare their betting limits to other online casinos, I have found that 138 has some of the highest available.

Obviously, the cons to 138 are their small library of games, and the limited currency options.

Conclusion

I have mixed emotions when it comes to 138 online casino. It has more pros and cons than I’m used to, and some aspects of the casino are baffling. The overall design, ease of use and actual casino part are perfectly fine Games are great, the site is one of the easiest to use, and I trust them 100%.

I do feel they need to add more games, which they are doing; albeit slowly.

Overall, I would have to say that 138 is a great place for slot lovers who like to play the occasional table game. The real sports games are also worth the sign up alone. And finally, the bonus is great if you play slots and should be the next bonus you go for if this is your niche.