SparkleSlots Review: Scam or safe?

SparkleSlots is an online casino which was launched in 2017. At the time of writing, though, that makes it six years old. Can it be said that the gaming house still holds up? We aim to explore this question in the following review of the casino, which will go deeper into its most important aspects. These are the regulation, the payment policies of the casino and the bonuses it offers. The games you can play will be outlined too. So, without further ado, here is everything you need to know about SparkleSlots:

Bonuses

As far as its amount of bonuses goes, this casino has a lot to offer. However, there is more to them than their number. Here are the most important conditions of all of the bonuses with SparkleSlots:

They have a couple of things in common which we'd like to mention before examining each promotion in more detail. The first of them is their cash out limits. Every deposit bonus which has you receive either cash or free spins restricts how much you can profit from them. For Free Spins, this restriction is £20 at most for the entire bundle. We consider this to be way too low. The bonuses have a different, higher cash out limit of 3x. One of the promotions has a limit of 1x, and both of these are comparatively low. Yet they are not as bad as the restriction on Free Spins, which makes them far less compelling. Cash out limits are not unusual, and it makes sense for casinos to place them, but we usually see them be higher than this!

Another condition about the majority of deposit bonuses with SparkleSlots which makes them far less compelling is the wagering requirement of 50x. These kinds of requirements are also common with casinos, and represent the number of times you are required to wager a  bonus before being allowed to cash it out. Usually, we see them set to lower values than 50x, though! In fact, the range we consider to be acceptable is between 30x and 40x. The bonuses which don't have a wagering requirement with this casino normally don't have such restrictions with other houses either.

So, with these specifics in mind, here are all of the bonuses with SparkleSlots:

• The first time you cash in with the casino, you'll have access to a generous Welcome Bonus. These kinds of promotions are pretty common in the industry, and are usually more spectacular than what SparkleSlots has to offer. It grants the player a 100% bonus on their initial deposit, up to £100 as well as 20 Free Spins. What's more bothersome is the fact that the house has actually completely failed to mention what the minimum deposit requirement is.
• Next, the Bankroll Booster Bonus is actually a set of four different promotions. They need to be claimed in a sequence, and the first gives you a 25% bonus up to £500 for your deposit. The second through fourth bonuses are different amounts of Free Spins. The minimum deposit requirements for these bonuses are £20, £10, £20 and £50 for bonuses 1-4 respectively. We don't appreciate how this makes for a rather high amount of money you are required to cash in to claim what is an overall mediocre bonus. You can only get this sequence of bonuses three times per account too, which is a pretty lackluster recurring bonus.
• The mysterious Double Delicious bonus can be claimed twice, with a minimum deposit of £10 or more each time. As to what the bonus actually does, your guess is as good as ours – the casino mentions it will send the specific conditions of the promotion to the mailbox of eligible players. This is not really good enough, and we would have liked to know how much you can get for the said deposits.
• There are two Tournaments that SparkleSlots runs. These give you a chance to wager on slot games and compete against other players. The rules are simple – whoever wins the most for the duration of the tournament wins. Let's start with the Slot Magic Leaderboard competition. It is run every Tuesday, and you can take part by depositing £10 or more during the day. The player who scores the most by the end of the day will receive the first prize of £150, while the runner ups will get a prize of £75 and £25. This money is free form any restrictions, and can be cashed out instantly.
• The other tournament is called Royal Spins Leaderboard and runs for a week instead of a single day. The stakes in this competition are higher and the top ten players are awarded different prizes from a total pool of £850. The winner of the competition gets £300. To take part in it, you need to deposit before it starts, with a special bonus code. The minimum qualifying deposit is £10. Once again, winnings from the competition are free from restrictions and can be cashed out instantly.
• Another set of Deposit bonuses is available for players. It is called Wild Fortunes, and constitutes of four promotions, which grant you 25% of deposited funds up to £500. This is a pretty low conversion rate. The minimum deposit requirement is £20.
• Next, SparkleSlots has two Cashback bonuses. These are a staple of casinos nowadays and present you with a chance of winning back some of your losses from over a period of time. The first of these promotions is called Cashback Weekends. You can claim it by depositing £25 or more during either Saturday or Sunday. The bonus recovers between 10% and 15% of your losses in any of the live games with SparkleSlots, based on your total wagered amount. To get the bonus, you need to have lost £10 or more. There is no wagering requirement for this bonus and you can cash out an indefinite amount of winnings with it.
• The second such bonus, called the Midweek Cashback requires a minimum deposit of £20 to be made on a Wednesday and recovers up to 10% of the losses in any slot game you play during the day.
• There is a really simple bonus called Saturday Spinner. Its conditions are incredibly straightforward – deposit £10 on the sixth day of the week and get 10 Free Spins.
• The Sunday Funday Bonus lets players get 20% of their cashed in amount, up to £500 as bonus money. You can claim this promotion twice, as long as both deposits you make are on Sundays. The cash out limit for this promotion is just 1x the bonus, though, which makes it pretty lackluster.
• Finally, we'd like to cover the Choose your rewards promotion. Every time you deposit and complete special daily missions by SparkleSlots, you can win points. The daily missions are different – you can be asked to play a certain game or to wager a certain amount of money. The points can be spent for bonuses in the Rewards store of the casino, and you can get both Bonus money and Free Spins there.
• The Friday Points Boost Bonus enchances this promotion by allowing players who deposit on Fridays to get twice the points from completing missions. You need to cash in £10 or more to do so.

License

As far as regulation is concerned, SparkleSlots is stellar. Here is what the casino has to say about who it has licensed with:

The Malta Gaming Authority (MGA) and the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) are two of the most respected casino regulators out there. Let's find out if the house is licensed with them. Here is the entry of the casino operator ProgressPlay Limited in the MGA register:

This is one of the biggest casino operators out there nowadays, and it has over a hundred registered domains. We were easily able to find the one SparkleSlots operates from, as you can see below:

We then checked with the UKGC. Once again, here is the license of ProgressPlay Limited:

And once again, here is the domain of the casino we are currently covering:

So, the claim made by the casino definitely checks out. This means a certain amount of protections can be expected, because there are certain rules the MGA and UKGC set for casinos. Here is how that is beneficial for you as a player:

• The games you play with licensed houses are audited. This means independent professionals, selected by the two bodies, have gone over their random number generators. This way, they can ensure there is no undue bias within any of them.
• Next, players' mental health is very important to both the UKGC and the MGA. That's why they require casinos to provide a variety of resources on problem gambling. Also, you have to be offered a lot of self exclusion options. For instance, you need to have access to the ability to set custom deposit limits or to opt in to time out warnings. What's more, you need to have the ability to close your account if you feel like you need to.
• Last but not least, the data you share with casinos as part of their business model can include a lot of sensitive information. This needs to be safeguarded, which is why casinos under licensed by these two regulators are required to use some of the tightest encryption measures available nowadays for said data.

As you can see, there are a lot of reasons why you would be better off with a licensed casino than when you are playing with an unregulated house. In general, we strongly recommend such casinos over their unlicensed peers.

Back to SparkleSlots, though, here are the languages its website can be seen in:

Languages: English

And here is a list of all the countries where it does not offer its services to:

Restricted countries: A1, A2, Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, American Samoa, Andorra, Angola, Anguilla, Antarctica, Antigua and Barbuda, AP, Argentina, Armenia, Aruba, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belgium, Belize, Benin, Bermuda, Bhutan, Bolivia, Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Bouvet Island, Brazil, British Indian Ocean Territory, Brunei Darussalam, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, Cape Verde, Cayman Islands, Central African Republic, Chad, Chile, China, Christmas Island, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Colombia, Comoros, Congo (Brazzaville), Congo (Kinshasa), Cook Islands, Costa Rica, Croatia, Cuba, Curaçao, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Côte d'Ivoire, Denmark, Djibouti, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, EU, Falkland Islands, Faroe Islands, Fiji, Finland, France, French Guiana, French Polynesia, French Southern Lands, Gabon, Gambia, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Gibraltar, Greece, Greenland, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guam, Guatemala, Guernsey, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Heard and McDonald Islands, Honduras, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Isle of Man, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan, Jersey, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kiribati, Korea, North, Korea, South, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Latvia, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libya, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macau, Macedonia, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Malta, Marshall Islands, Martinique, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mayotte, Mexico, Micronesia, Moldova, Monaco, Mongolia, Montenegro, Montserrat, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nauru, Nepal, Netherlands, Netherlands Antilles, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Niue, Norfolk Island, Northern Mariana Islands, Norway, O1, Oman, Pakistan, Palau, Palestine, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Pitcairn, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Qatar, Reunion, Romania, Russian Federation, Rwanda, Saint Barthélemy, Saint Helena, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Martin (French part), Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, San Marino, Sao Tome and Principe, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Sint Maarten (Dutch part), Slovakia, Slovenia, Solomon Islands, Somalia, South Africa, South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands, South Sudan, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Suriname, Svalbard and Jan Mayen Islands, Swaziland, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Togo, Tokelau, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago, Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Turks and Caicos Islands, Tuvalu, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United States, United States Minor Outlying Islands, Uruguay, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu, Vatican City, Venezuela, Vietnam, Virgin Islands, British, Virgin Islands, U.S., Wallis and Futuna Islands, Western Sahara, Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Åland

Basically, only players from the UK can sign up here. As per the Terms and Conditions of the casino, every country outside of it is a Prohibited Jurisdiction. This is sensible, and we believe houses can freely pick where they want to operate. However, it also means that not a lot of people have access to the casino. If you are living outside the UK and are interested in a casino with similar conditions, we have covered a series of other houses by the same operator, which you can check out instead:

ProgressPlay Limited Casinos

• 21LuckyBet 
• Slot Lux
• JesterBet 
• Winissimo 

Deposit and Withdrawal

Here is every means of payment accepted by SparkleSlots, as well as the currencies you can pay in:

Currencies: British Pound Sterling (GBP)

From e-wallets to PayByPhone, this is a great selection of means of depositing. Speaking of which, PayByPhone has a 15% fee for cashing in. No other payment method has such a fee, but you will be expected to cover the charges by third parties like payment providers.

The minimum and maximum deposit amounts are only made clear for some of the means of payment, which is pretty bothersome. Still, from what we saw, SparkleSlots required £10-20 to be cashed in. That is in line with other casinos.

Now, let's take a look at what withdrawing from SparkleSlots looks like:

The casino's conditions are a lot worse here. Between it not mentioning whether you need to wager the deposited funds and its unclear minimum and maximum withdrawals, there is a critical lack of transparency on display. What's more, there are withdrawal fees – 1% of the amount you are trying to cash out or £3 will be deducted, whichever is lower. While this fee is not high at all, we are opposed to it in principle. There is no reason for casinos to charge such fees nowadays!

There is also an inactivity fee:

These kinds of maintenance charges are not unusual, and their size here is pretty much acceptable too, so at least this fee is a bit more player friendly.

Games and Game Suppliers

Here is a list of the Game suppliers which SparkleSlots partners with:

Game providers: 1x2gaming, Alchemy Gaming, all41studios, Aurum, Big Time Gaming, Blueprint, Buck Stakes Entertainment, Crazy Tooth Studio, ELK, Evolution, Eyecon, Fortune Factory, Foxium, Gameburger Studios, Games Global, Gamevy, Switch Studios, Thunderkick, Tom Horn, Triple Edge Solution, Oros Gaming, Pear Fiction, Play'n GO, Playtech, PragmaticPlay, Rabat, PulseB, Red Tiger Gaming, Skywind, Slingshot, Snowborn, Spinomenal, Spinplay Games, Gold Coin Studios, Gong Gaming Technologies, Hacksaw, Infinity Dragon Studios, Ino Games, Iron Dog Studio, Just For The Win, Lightning Box, Microgaming, Neko Games, NetEnt, Nolimit City, Northern Lights, Old School Studios, Other

This is a decent amount of developers, but they are under 50. Most casinos nowadays offer the titles of more suppliers, while SparkleSlots has a merely acceptable amount. Here is what you can play:

• Slots: There is a good amount of these games available, and you have access to classics like Book of Dead. However, the collection has not been kept up to date, and some of the latest installments in popular series like Big Bass Bonanza are missing.
• Table Games: Live and virtual dealer versions of Baccarat, Poker, Blackjack, Roulettes and so on are available. These games are the backbone of any casino nowadays.
• Casual Games: There is a bunch of Scratch ticket games, as well as several dice games which are playable from this category of relaxing games.
• Game Shows: There are no game shows available, which is a huge missed opportunity for the casino!
• Crash Games: None of these are available either, which make the casino's catalog look dated.

Conclusion

It would be fair to say that SparkleSlots has not stood the test of time well. It is not available to non-UK players. And the fraction of people who have access to the casino would be better served by a modern house with a better catalog of games, more generous bonuses and a lack of deposit and withdrawal fees!