- Absolutely huge gaming catalogue
- Instant play casino
- Mobile optimised
- Fast withdrawals!
- 4/7 customer support
- Promotions are thin on the ground
- Wagering requirements are high!
- The welcome offer is not an offer open to all!
- There is a maximum to what you can spend when you have an active bonus
Casino Lab Review
Casino Lab launched in 2020 with a view to take players on an epic gaming adventure, and with more than 1500 game to choose from, they certainly do that! From slot machines to live casino tables, big jackpot paying titles to new and exciting table games, Casino Lab has the formula needed for epic wins, but whether you land one is down to your own experimenting
A fun theme awaits with Philomena, Professor Slot and Wesley, the three science-loving addicts who know how to deliver shock-value, and it starts with a lavish welcome offer. All new players are treated to a two-in-one package which not only boosts deposits but triggers free spins too! Easy to navigate, uncluttered and bright – three things many people look for in an online casino, but what about the stuff that really matters?
Live support is there when you need it whether it be early hours of the morning or early afternoon. Bonuses are generous, even if the terms attached are not and the choice of games is astronomical! Powered by iSoftbet, Microgaming, NetEnt, Play’n GO, Push Gaming, Quickspin, Red Tiger Gaming, Skywind, Yggdrasil Gaming, Big Time Gaming, Evolution Gaming, Ezugi, Gamomat and we suspect many more will join suit, Casino Lab rivals that of any long-standing online casino, despite only launching in 2020.
Pros & Cons
Advantages of Casino Lab:
+ Absolutely huge gaming catalogue with some 1500+ games to choose from. Video slots with an eye-watering number of ways to win per spin to classic slots with bars and bells, Casino Lab caters to the masses.
+ Instant play casino. Why wait for the software to download and in the process clog up your device when you can play instantly through your browser? Casino Lab offers quick and easy access to its full portfolio of games on any browser and on any device.
+ Mobile optimised. Despite the lack of mobile apps, Casino Lab allows for gaming on the go on virtually any mobile or tablet device! As long as you have an internet capability on your smartphone or tablet and a reliable internet connection, the full suite of games will be readily available to you. Advantages of playing on mobile include an increased level of security because unless someone has access to your eyes or fingertip, they won’t be able to gain access to your Casino Lab account!
+ Fast withdrawals. This is the case for the PayPal e-wallet payment service only. Once the processing period is complete, it takes on average 24-hours to receive your winnings back to the PayPal account. For those of you who are unaware, once funds reach your PayPal account, they can be transferred to your bank instantly! In order to request withdrawals via PayPal, you must have funded your account via this method prior to requesting a withdrawal.
+ 24/7 customer support – and it’s live! Not only can you get answers to most commonly asked questions via the extensive FAQ guides, but customer support representatives are on hand 24/7! Help staff are fluent in English, Finnish, German and Norwegian and can guide you through any difficulties you are facing through chat, email or telephone. Chat is by far the quickest and can be accessed with a press of a button!
Disadvantages of Casino Lab:
– Promotions are thin on the ground once the welcome offers have been claimed. What does the returning player have to look forward to? Not a lot judging by the empty-looking promotions page.
– Wagering requirements are high! The welcome bonus and any other bonus that may be offered to players will carry a 40x wagering requirement. All wagering must be complete before a withdrawal will be permitted. Example: You deposit £100 and receive £100 as a new player. The bonus of £100 will need to be played through 40x, that’s a sum of £4,000!
– Free spins as part of the welcome package are worded cleverly! New customers assume they’re getting 100% up to £100 deposit bonus and 300 free spins, when in fact, those free spins will be awarded very differently! Thirty free spins will be credited instantly and the remaining spins will be credited at a rate of 30 per day for 9 consecutive days. Free spins are valid for 72-hours and the remaining free spins must be used on each consecutive day from the point of activation or you lose them. Max withdrawal from free spins is £100, but that’s after clearing the 40x wagering requirement.
– The welcome offer is not an offer open to all! If you use an e-wallet such as Skrill, Neteller, Paysafecard, PayPal or EcoPayz, you will not be welcome to claim the welcome offer! So it’s a not-so-welcome offer after all.
– There is a maximum to what you can spend when you have an active bonus. Even if that active bonus is just 1p. The max you can spend on a slot game is £5 per spin or 50p per win line. All other games have a limit of £30.
– If Casino Lab think players are displaying unusual gaming behaviour, winnings can be declared void and a fee of 10% can be applied to accounts! This could put a lot of people who enjoy slot strategies at risk – going from small bets to high bets could put you at risk of losing everything! What is deemed unusual gaming behaviour?
- Moving from a low weighted game (25% or less) to a high weighted game (100%) after the balance is 50% or higher compared to the balance when commencing playing with low weighted games.
- Delaying any game round inside any type of game, including free spin features and bonus features, to a later time when there are no more wagering requirements and/or performing new deposit(s) while having free spins features or bonus features still available in a game is prohibited. Players doing so agree to have their bonus and associated winnings declared void.
- Low-risk Roulette bets – any outside bet spread combination on Roulette games covering 25 or more (67%) of the 37 unique number spots on the table.
– Closing accounts results in a fee of 3% with a minimum of £2.50p being deducted. So, Casino Lab are charging players to close their own accounts? Seems pretty drastic. Tempted to leave it dormant? There are fees for this too! According to the terms and conditions, the company – Casino Lab, “is entitled to charge a monthly account maintenance fee of £5, starting on the 13th month of inactivity.” They also reserve the right to charge a 10% fee for their own costs (including the cost of the deposits) for withdrawals of funds that have not been put into play.
– Withdrawal transactions will be hit with a fee of 2% at the point of processing, with a minimum fee of £1.70 or equivalent in the player’s own currency. More fees again! Terms also state administration fees of £10 and 2% on withdrawals, so we’re not sure which one it is – is it £1.70 minimum or £10? Seems a little unclear!
– It’s always nice to be able to follow a casino brand you love on social media and you can do this with Casino Lab, right? Wrong! There are four links to follow them on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Twitter, but when you access them, it’s quite disappointing. Facebook page has been removed; the Twitter page has the following message “Account suspended. Twitter suspends accounts which violate the Twitter Rules”, Instagram has no posts and neither does YouTube!
Games and Software
Powered by iSoftbet, Microgaming, NetEnt, Play’n GO, Push Gaming, Quickspin, Red Tiger Gaming, Skywind, Yggdrasil Gaming, Big Time Gaming, Evolution Gaming, Ezugi and Gamomat make for a vibrant games lobby, but where do you start with so many games to choose from?
To make narrowing down that substantial list of games a breeze, Philomena, Professor Slot and Wesley have created the following categories:
- Hot Games: A section dedicated to the hottest of games – games that are played more often than any other! Titles will change as they grow in popularity, but one thing won’t change – classics such as NetEnt’s Starburst, Play’N Go’s Book of Dead and Pragmatic Play’s Wolf Gold will always remain a popular gaming choice!
- Slots & Jackpots: This section is a little misleading as all games offer a jackpot. Thank goodness the scientific boffins have added further categories to help reduce the number of games on display!
- Video Slots: Technically, this is just a full list of every slot machine available to play at Casino Lab. You may be there a while going through it all!
- Jackpots: Progressive jackpots are housed in this section and despite the games being different – different themes and bonus elements, they all have one thing in common: progressive jackpots can be won randomly on any spin of any value! Mega Moolah with its four additional jackpots and Hall of Gods with its mighty smash and grab cash pots are among the most popular here.
- Classic Slots: If it has reels, win lines, just one iconic symbol (diamond, cherry or bell) and offers a more traditional gaming experience, this is where you’ll find it! Mystery Joker 6000, Fire Joker, Diamond Duke and Chronos Joker are top of the prize-paying list as ever.
- Megaways: The most exciting slot invention of them all – the Megaways! Did you know Megaways slots are not restricted to just 117,649 ways to win per spin? There are titles out there delivering as many as 1,000,000 ways to win per spin! Bonus rounds are not only limited to free spins with an increasing multiplier either! Take Fruit Shop Megaways by NetEnt for example, free spins are generated on any medium to high value win spin during the base game and Fu Fortune Megaways by iSoftBet has a jackpot feature that can be won by lifting the lid on the centre pot!
- Must Fall Jackpots: A section dedicated to Red Tiger Gaming titles where jackpots can be won hourly, daily, by a set level and the biggest one of all – the pot that keeps on growing until it decides to erupt!
- Live Casino: Get that bricks-and-mortar experience in your own home with immersive, interactive, and innovative titles! Evolution dominates this category with the super-sized Dream Catcher wheel, Crazy Time with it’s four fun-fair style bonus rounds and Mega Ball – the live online bingo game with mega multipliers in every round! All live casino games offer a chat facility where you can interact with the host as well as other players plus customisable camera angles.
- Roulette: From Lightning Roulette with multipliers of up to 500x to Double Ball roulette where the winnings could be double, all games in this section are based on the popular game of roulette.
- Blackjack: Getting that perfect 21 can be done on a variety of tables – from VIP to parties, the tables in this category cater to the masses!
- Baccarat: A simple game with several variations, all of which with fun hosts and big win potential.
- Other Games: A spot reserved for live game shows, including Monopoly Live, Craps Live and Football Studio.
- Casino Games: Like the live casino section only without the live host. Table games here allow you to control the speed of the game with all the live casino elements you love – chat, camera angles and history of previous gaming rounds.
- Game Providers: A section allowing you to filter between the games by their developer.
Bonuses at Casino Lab
Casino Lab offers two types of bonuses – a bonus sum in the form of a percentage and free spins.
New players are welcomed with a package of extras to help kick-start their spinning and winning adventure. The package consists of a 100% boost up to £100 and 300 spins. A minimum deposit of £10 is required to trigger this offer and the 100% effectively doubles what you do put in. So, new players who were to deposit £100 would get £100 in bonuses giving them a total of £200 to play with. That’s not all, 30 free spins on the Reactoonz slot by Play’N Go will be credited instantly too with a further 30 added to the account every day for 9 consecutive days.
New customers are also able to claim a welcome offer when it comes to the live casino too, but you can’t claim both! You must decide on the casino welcome offer of the live casino welcome offer. Make a deposit, select live casino and your deposit will be boosted by 100% up to £100. The only thing that separates this from the previous offer is the lack of free spins. The live casino welcome bonus can only be used on live casino games (live Roulette, live Blackjack, Dream Catcher etc). All other live casino games (Baccarat, Poker, Top Card, etc.) are excluded.
Live Casino
Live casino brings that Las Vegas casino floor feeling into your own home, whether you choose to play on mobile, desktop or tablet. The range of games with a live host vary in theme with games to suit all budgets and levels of play. Gameshows are a popular destination with epic win potential ploughed into a live gameshow style environment. Deal or No Deal (DOND) Live is based on the Channel 4 gameshow where 22 identical sealed boxes hide values ranging from 1p to £250K. DOND Live features suitcases instead of boxes, a mystery banker and an offer of deal or no deal!
Crazy Time by Evolution is styled on their original Dream Catcher wheel only it packs more fun, more winning opportunities and more cash. There are betting options on the wheel of 1x, 2x, 5x, 10x plus four bonus games: Cash Hunt, Pachinko, Coin Flip and Crazy Time. When activated, those bonus games are interactive and encourage players to get involved with the play, especially when it comes to the cash hunt! Take aim with your cannon and shoot the symbols to reveal your prize! Multipliers are generated prior to each spin of the wheel to offer more value for money gameplay.
Banking
Deposits and withdrawals can be made through a variety of payment methods with a minimum of a £10 deposit accepted.
Visa, Maestro, Boku, Paysafecard, Skrill, Neteller, ecoPayz, Trustly, PayPal, MuchBetter, MiFinity and Jeton can be used to credit your account.
Withdrawals are subject to a minimum of £10 and £5,000 per transaction and take on average 24-hours to process. The overall completion time for withdrawals will vary, with e-wallets taking up to 48-hours and debit cards and all other routes taking up to 7 working days.
Casino Lab Mobile & Apps
Casino Lab is accessible on mobile despite the lack of apps. Open up the browser on your device, head to the casino and log in or register to start playing.
The layout is a mirror-image of the desktop casino only a little more compact. Games may need to load in landscape mode and when it comes to the live casino, the live feed will appear and cover the betting table. A few flicks of a finger will move the video but it’s not as immersive as playing on a laptop or desktop.
Customer Support
Support pages are packed with FAQs with answers to the likes of how to play certain games, how to claim free spins, how to make a deposit or withdrawal, how long will you wait for your withdrawal and much more.
If you can’t find the answer to your query listed, you have the option of contacting support through telephone, email or live chat. Customer support representatives are available to help 24-hours a day, 7-days a week.
- Freephone from the UK: 0800 7555 348
- Telephone for European players: 00356 2778 0065
- Email: support@casinolab.com. Try to add as much information as you can such as your username, your email address, what happened if game related for a quicker response.
- Live chat: This is a link of its own within the support and cannot be accessed via the ‘contact us’ page. Click chat beneath the rules in the menu bar and a pop-up will appear to the lower right of your screen. A chatbot will welcome you and aim to assist but you can bypass the robot by typing ‘agent’ into the message panel. Your email, first and last name and date of birth are required before you will be transferred to a live chat agent.
The Verdict
Bonuses are thin on the ground after the VIP scheme was scrapped in-line with gambling regulations soon after the casino launched, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing! With wagering set at a hefty 40x, the only way you can keep 100% of your winnings is to opt-out of absolutely everything! Choosing not to claim any offers of spins or boosts will guarantee you a hassle-free withdrawal!
Be wary of offers of 30-seconds of free spins on a £50 deposit – these are often featured at Casino Lab, here’s why; not only do the spins come with a win cap of £100, but those winnings also carry a 40x wagering requirement. Add to that the fact each spin takes on average 2.5 seconds and maybe even 3 seconds from start to finish and that offer isn’t as lavish as it seems. UK Gambling regulations dictate how fast a spin can spin, and based on each spin being 3 seconds, this whole offer translates to spend £50 and get 10 free games with 40x wagering!
The design and theme may be unique and very exciting, same goes for the games, bonuses and jackpots, but when you get down to brass tacks, Casino Lab is a place where fees are thrown around willy-nilly and bonuses, even if there are hardly any after that welcome offer, are capped and tied with red tape. Add to that the fact they can confiscate winnings if they think your ‘gambling behaviour is odd’ and you’ve got a bit of a hit-and-miss casino experience on your hands.
All UK Online Casino Reviews updated 2021
