Best Online Casino Sites in Australia 2020

Australia is one of the most gambling nations. Casinos of Sydney and Melbourne attract thousands of people from Australia and from all across the world. But what if you’re not the type of guy who has the funds to afford high-roller gambling at Crown Casino? What if you live in the burbs or the country, and a trip to Sydney would draw on your finances? What if you’re making ends meet in Sydney, and visiting Star Casino is too pricey? What if you want to indulge in gambling right now to let off some steam?

All you have to do is draw your smartphone, enter one of the Australian casino sites, and you can gamble anywhere and anytime. The only problem is finding safe, trusted online casinos in Australia. This is where CasinoHEX comes in. We make your life easier. Browse this website to find best online casino reviews.

Our team of the best casino industry experts is working hard to provide you with the list of online casinos in Australia. The reviews you can find on this website cover everything from the bonus system at the casino to the legal details. Our experts conduct a deep investigation in every casino to make it easier for you to choose. Here’s what they base their judgment on.

How we choose and test online casinos

Providing you with the list of the best online casinos for Aussie gamblers is a job we take seriously. Each online casino is reviewed by a casino industry expert who knows the ins and outs of online gambling.

It’s not just about their personal opinion, though. Each online casino has to pass a standardized test that proves it’s a fit choice for Australian gamblers like you. Here’s what on the list.

Casino License

If you know anything about the best online casinos in Australia, you might start wondering now. It’s a sure fact that online gambling is not regulated by the authorities here. You can’t get an online gambling license in Australia. Not if you’re an online casino, at least. It’s only available to sports betting websites. Why would our employees review a license then?

The thing is, even though the Australian government doesn’t issue licenses to online casinos, lots of other countries do. The UK is on the list of countries that do. They don’t let anyone get a license, though. The authorities do a background check and monitor the website’s activity constantly.

This means by checking the online casino’s license, we can confirm whether it adheres to the strict rules set by the license provider. If they do, it’s a pretty good sign of their reliability.

Personal data

Most countries require online casinos to gather personal data of the users in some form or another. At the very least, the casinos need to receive a copy of your ID and proof of residence to comply with the anti-money laundering regulations.

That leaves casinos with quite a lot of sensitive data on their hands. Data that could be dangerous in someone else’s hands. This is why our experts check the casino websites’ database security to make sure your personal data is safe.

Payment security and safety

Payment security in online casinos is even more important than the safety of your personal data. Knowing your place of residence and ID details may be a gateway for a fraud. Knowing your banking information gives the fraudsters full freedom to do as they please with your money.

This is why our experts receive cybersecurity training and detect website weaknesses that could get your banking data exposed. It goes beyond simply checking if there’s an SSL tag on the page. Our employees check for loopholes in code that would allow for SQL injection or cross-site scripting attacks.

eCOGRA

Our job gets significantly easier if a website has a safety certificate provided by eCOGRA or another internationally recognized agency. While some other testing agencies show good results as well, eCOGRA is probably the best one out there. The company runs a full diagnostic of any online casino they review for cybersecurity. Online casinos are their specialty and getting tested is not cheap, so you know you see a trustworthy casino if you see an eCOGRA badge.

If there’s a badge like that, our job is to check whether it’s genuine. Our experts run a database check, and if it’s confirmed, we can safely recommend the casino in question.

Operator reputation

Last but not least, we look into the casino’s reputation online and in professional circles. Online casino sites that can look perfectly fine during a technical audit, may end up being a rogue casino when you start asking around. It may be that the webmaster sells information about the Australian players or the website refuses to pay up because of some made-up rule.

It’s something you can’t see during an audit, so our experts check the online casino’s reputation and look for negative reviews online as well as ask personal opinions of prominent industry experts.

Customer support

Casino support may not seem important for a casual gambler. You get down to gambling a couple of times a month, you win some and lose some. When you win, you can get a withdrawal. You never contact the support, so what’s the big deal?

The thing is, most gamblers don’t use customer support at all. It matters to the ones that do. Maybe there’s a problem with your withdrawal claim. It doesn’t get processed a week after you’ve submitted it. If the casino’s support is slow to answer or not helpful, you can wait another week to see your money.

Good support would solve your problem in a matter of hours. This is why our employees contact the website support from multiple accounts and see whether the manager responds quickly and is fast to solve the problem.

Usability

Good casinos have plenty of games on the platform and ensure they perform well. The best online casinos don’t only host plenty of casino games, they make it easy to find the game you need. The casinos that lead the industry create a website interface that is easy and intuitive to navigate.

The easier it is to find the information you need on the site, and the less time you need to spend browsing it to get to gambling, the bigger the CasinoHEX score this casino gets.

Gaming software providers

Usability is nice to have, but let’s face it, we’re all here for the games. It’s the online casino games we seek online, so the number and the quality of the games is one of the fundamental criteria for the CasinoHEX score.

We check how many casino games are there, what software developers are represented on the platform, and how fast do new titles appear on the platform. Having more games doesn’t automatically mean the score goes up a lot, though. It’s the combination of these factors that makes a casino great.

Read individual casino reviews, and you’ll see more detailed information on the types of casino games available on the platform.

Bonuses and promotions

If there’s a thing that makes us choose a casino it’s the bonus money. We may not like the casino’s design or the number of casino games it has, but if you see that it’s giving away $1000 to anyone who makes a deposit, it’s hard to refuse.

In some cases, taking that welcome bonus and making it work is harder than you may think. This is why our experts take a closer look to make sure the casino has fair rules when it comes to bonuses and moderate playthrough requirements.

Terms and Conditions

This is the section few gamblers care enough to read. Most Australian online casino sites state their terms and conditions pretty clearly and make you check a box that means you’ve read them and agree with them. Most of us do it automatically and don’t even think about it.

But what are you signing up to? What if the terms say you don’t get the right to claim a withdrawal? Of course, nobody would write this in their T&C, but you haven’t read them. For all you know, you may be surrendering your rights to the winnings. Many rogue casinos strip Australian players of their money legally, based on the T&C the players sign.

This is why we’re reading every page of Terms and Conditions to make sure they’re honest and create a fair play environment for the gamblers.

Deposit methods

The last thing we look at is the deposit and withdrawal methods. We’ve covered the security issues already, so this is something different. Our experts are simply assessing what are the options of an average Aussie gambler when it comes to making a deposit at the casino in question.

You can filter the list of top online casinos presented on CasinoHEX by the deposit option to find the ones you can use with your preferred payment option.

Online casino types explained

Our methods of testing the online casinos before they make it to our curated list are the same, but the online casinos may be very different. Here are five types of online casinos you will encounter during your gambling life.

Fast Payouts

If you’re new to online gambling, you may think that getting withdrawal from an online casino is as fast as making a deposit. You simply state the amount of money you want to withdraw, and the casino sends it to you. Unfortunately, it’s not that easy.

Your typical casino account many process payments for up to 72 hours. Some online casinos go as far as make payouts only one day per week. This means you won’t be able to access your money for quite a while if you didn’t make a withdrawal claim in time.

Choose a fast payout casino sites, and you won’t have to face that problem at all. The fastest online casinos may be able to send you the funds in a couple of hours.

VIP casinos

VIP Australian online casinos (also known as max bet casinos or high limit casinos) are a place where you can bet as high as you want. All casinos have a minimum deposit. Most casinos have a maximum deposit as well due to safety regulations and anti-money laundering policies. VIP online casinos can offer you amazingly high maximum deposit limits.

VIP casinos are perfect for high-rollers. Here, you can enjoy the feeling of making your stake count. Bet as high as you want, and win huge sums of money.

Minimum deposit casinos

Not a high-roller? It’s not a problem at all. You don’t need to be super-rich to be able to indulge in gambling for a bit. Choose a minimum deposit casino, and you’ll be able to make a very small deposit, anywhere from $1 to $10.

Wager on penny slots, and you’ll be able to stretch your bill for hours of gambling and meet wagering requirements. The wins may not be as huge as if you were betting more money, but it’s still fun.

Live Casinos

Every Australian gambler who plays at best online casinos instead of the offline ones misses the land-based casino feel. It’s the casual banter with the croupier and making friends with another gambler who sits near you that makes land-based casinos such a sought-after destination.

You don’t get that when you’re playing best online slots. The experience you get online is much more personal than social gambling in a casino. But you don’t have to choose between them. Unlike in many other parts of life, you can have it all.

Choose a live casino, and you’ll be able to experience the social aspect of gambling online. Join a video chat, and you can talk to your fellow gamblers and bet while the croupier takes your wagers live. It’s only available for table games and an odd game like Dream Catcher sometimes.

If you’re after the social interaction, this is the type of casino sites you should be choosing.

Mobile Casinos

What’s the point of online gambling if you have to stick to your PC? If you need to be stationary during gambling, you could as well go to the land-based casino. The beauty of online gambling is that you don’t have to be tied to your device. You can gamble anywhere with your mobile phone, provided you have a Wi-Fi connection or plenty of data to spare.

Not all online casinos work well on mobile phones, though. Some are made for the desktop experience and some are tailored for the mobile. If you’re a fan of having a casino in your pocket, go for a mobile casino, the one specifically designed to perform well on an Android device or an iPhone.

Most Popular Casino Games in Australia

In any of these best online casino types, you can find plenty of casino games. Some online casinos have more games, while others focus on a very small set of games, often from one developer. Some offer every type of casino game out there, while others focus on one specific type. Either way, you will probably find games from these four categories on an online casino website.

Pokies

Pokies, known to people who didn’t have the luxury of being born in Australia as slot machines, are immensely popular in the country. Pokies take up a lot of space in both Australian and US casinos, so you’d naturally expect them to be popular online as well.

But the popularity of online pokies for real money in Australia is even bigger than its land-based variant. The thing is, online casinos are especially good for pokies. Streaming the app online allows for more variations and better graphics than what you typically see in a land-based slot. This is why they’re so popular here.

Blackjack

Slots may be popular, but to a connoisseur, nothing beats the classic casino game, Blackjack. The anticipation when the next card is drawn can be even greater than that when you see a slot free spin. The game doesn’t get boring with time, as there are dozens of rule variations that you can explore when you’re tired of using the same old strategy.

For Aussie gamblers who want to feel the social aspect of gambling, there is the live casino sites mode. It lets you play blackjack with a dealer and chat with other Australian players from all around the world as you’re doing that.

Roulette

Roulette was the ultimate random number generator of the previous century. The wheel is now replaced by a digital RNG, but the game is still popular in Australia. It seems like it relies on pure luck, but the gamblers who know the proper roulette strategy, disagree. Apply your knowledge of the rules and basic probability theory, and winning at roulette wheel will be easier than at pokies or blackjack.

This is why online casinos don’t let roulette bets fully cover the withdrawal requirements. And this is why tens of thousands of Aussies love this game.

Scratchies

Millions of people around the world don’t like pokies, nor do they like table games. But they’re introduced to another form of gambling, a more casual one. It’s the scratchies, a form of gambling you may find at any convenience store.

This game’s premise is simple: wager a spare buck, and you may win a million. All it takes is scratching the shiny coating with a penny. Well, you don’t even need a penny anymore since scratchies entered the world of online casinos.

Best Payment Methods For Ozzies

Often, we want to get down to gambling and don’t think much about everything that stands between us and a pokie-free spin. The deposit method is one of the things that we often discard.

But saving a few percent on your processing fee, getting a small bonus for making a deposit with a particular payment method, or getting access to more online casinos can go a long way. All of this depends on your deposit method. Here are the most popular ones.

Paypal

PayPal is probably the most popular payment method after using a credit card. It’s arguably safer since even in the odd event that someone hacks into the online casino website and gets your personal information, they don’t get your card info.

The big benefit of PayPal is that nearly all Aussie gambling sites accept it. This means you can play at most online casinos with PayPal. The downside is that sometimes the platform has less than perfect customer service like blocking certain payments.

Neosurf

Neosurf is a voucher that you can buy at the store and use online as a throw-away card. The amounts available for purchase are small, $15, $30, $50, and $100. That’s not a good option for a high-roller but is a great choice for a low-roller who wants to use their cash at an online casino, but don’t want to use a credit card.

You can find Neosurf vouchers even in small towns, no ID needed. This makes it accessible to most Australian gamblers. Many Aussie online casinos take Neosurf, so it’s a great choice overall.

Paysafe Cards

Much like Neosurf, Paysafe Card is a prepaid voucher payment system. You get a voucher at a retailer and use it as a credit card online. It’s anonymous since you don’t have to show an ID, and is the quickest way to transfer your cash online for someone who doesn’t want to get into e-wallets.

Even the small towns have a couple of Paysafe Card retailers, and it’s arguably more represented at Aussie online casinos that Neosurf.

Bitcoin

Bitcoin takes a lot of knowledge to use properly. You need to set up a BTC wallet, get a lengthy password you don’t forget, and change the wallet each time you make a transaction. It will take a couple of hours of reading to get into cryptocurrency, but you’ll have access to the most anonymous deposit method out there. Check out our BTC review to learn more about it.

UPayCard

UPayCard is more than just an e-wallet, it’s a full-scale payment system that can track your finances and even issue a physical card. If you choose UPayCard as your deposit and withdrawal method, you can cash in your winnings at the closest ATM that takes MasterCard.

FlexePIN

FlexePIN is another prepaid voucher that you can get at a store and use as a credit card online. The majority of FlexePIN retailers are BP stores, so you may be able to buy one even if you’re travelling.
It’s not as popular as Paysafe Card is when it comes to paying at online casinos, but there are still plenty of websites that take FlexePIN. You can find them on this website.

POLi

POLi is run by Australia Post, and that alone can tell you a lot about the quality of the service you’re going to get. When you get an account and top it up, you can use POLi online instead of your credit card. You don’t even need to fill in your banking info, you only need to use the POLi button.

The payment system includes gambling companies in marketing, so you can safely expect to find plenty of Aussie online casinos that accept it. With no fees paid from your side, this may be the perfect option for Australian gamblers.

Credit Cards

Credit cards are a standard choice when it comes to making deposits in online casinos. If your employer pays you in bank transfers, not in cash, it’s a better way of making a payment than using an e-wallet. You don’t need to do research and look for an e-wallet that has the lowest fees, you don’t need to pay the said fees. If you have a Google Pay or Apple Pay account, you don’t even need to remember your banking information.

Wire Transfer

Wire transfer is the least innovative payment method of the bunch. It’s also the one that takes the longest and requires the biggest fee. CasinoHEX advised using this as your last choice.

What Happened with Online Gambling Australia Laws? – Brief History Overview

Gambling has been in Australia’s history even before the time people started coming in for the gold, shaping the country. In many ways, these gold rushes were a gamble. No wonder Aussies were pleased with online casinos once they started appearing.

Legal status and history of online casinos

There’s a legal gambling problem with online casinos in Australia. The Interactive Gambling Act has a contradictory stance on online gambling in the country. It says that gambling websites are prohibited from providing services to Australian citizens. Nowhere in the law does it say that Australian gamblers are breaking the law, it’s the casinos that do.

It’s a great approach to gambling because it criminalizes the businessman, not the person having fun. The only form of gambling that is allowed online is sports betting. But given the fact that Australia Post’s payment system, POLi features online casino websites on their advertising, you can tell the government is somewhat lenient towards gambling.

Australians have been gambling online ever since Microgaming’s The Gaming Club was established in 1994. As time passed, the number of the best online casinos available and the number of gamblers with an internet connection only grew.

Now, online gambling is big and vibrant a part of Australia’s gambling industry.

Legal status and history of land based casinos

The first bets that we know of were placed some 30 years after the first colony was established, in 1810, on a horse race in Sydney. This makes the history of gambling in Australia almost as old as the country is, especially considering the fact that there definitely was some gambling going on before that horse race.

Since the country’s establishment in 1901, its gambling record has been through British-inspired horse racing craze, the first nation-wide lottery, a boom of sports betting, and the introduction of pokies machines to many bars. After the era of online casinos, Australian gamblers have even more ways to gamble, from visiting a luxury land-based casino to gambling online during your lunch break at work.

Now, over 200 years after the first recorded gamble, Australia is one of the most gambling nations in the world. The news outlets say we’re the biggest losers, but they haven’t counted our wins. Consider the fact that the 20-something land-based casinos in big cities attract big punters from the Asia-Pacific region, and the amount of money lost at our casinos doesn’t seem that big.

After all, out of all gamblers in Australia (and that is over half the population), 84% don’t have any gambling-related problems at all, and only 2% are problem gamblers. Not more than European countries like the UK or Germany show. So that media hype is just that, another hype.