How does draftkings Casino work?

DraftKings is often referred to as a fantasy sports betting brand, but many are still unaware that they have branched out into sports betting and casino gaming. Specifically for this review, we took a much closer look at their casino product range and we were impressed with our findings. See the full review right here!

Unlike season-long fantasy sites, DraftKings offers daily and weekly contests, giving contestants a chance to win instant cash prizes without a season-long commitment. Contestants can enter fantasy games with entry fees as low as 25 cents or as high as $10,000

Casino Games Available

Before we jump into the facts and features of this review, we must first inform you that casino gaming with DraftKings is currently only available to New Jersey players. But while this is the current state of play for casino games, there is strong talk about this product range branching out to players based in other states including PA, IN, MI, KA and IL. Now – onto the main features!

DraftKings has recently advanced their casino offerings to cover some absolute classics. By heading into the casino section you will see games such as three-card poker, roulette, blackjack, baccarat and slot games. But there is a catch to the casino play right now; the games are limited in terms of variety. While it’s great that they have these listed games available, there aren’t different versions or extensive varieties to any of them.

Right now it seems that DraftKings is heavily promoting their live casino action, which we can confirm is definitely their best feature. And dealers are on-hand 24 hours a day, meaning that you can play at the tables day and night if you desire. It’s also quite cool that there is no minimum player number before the tables are open. You could quite literally play one-on-one against a dealer for hours if nobody else joined you at the tables – which is very useful to know!

But for those players who prefer a less attention straining casino experience, there is always video poker and mainstream slots available with DraftKings. The site has managed to incorporate a solid range of slots thanks to the partnership with Evolution Gaming, and this has paved the way for classics like Cleopatra Plus and Elephant King games to take center stage.

Gameplay Performance

If we face facts, there are plenty of casino platforms out there that have rushed to market and created poorly performing games. Well, DraftKings isn’t one of those platforms. Yes they may be brand new to casino gaming compared to other providers, but they have done things correctly.

The casino platform is essentially divided up into live casino play and standard play, so let’s look at the live casino play first of all. We already mentioned that dealers are available 24 hours a day, which is already an awesome feature to have. But there are further attractions to using the live casino games with DraftKings.

The general graphics for the live games are fantastic, whether you are playing roulette or speed baccarat – and the dealers are actually quite engaging with customers. You can chat to the dealer via the in-game messaging system, and you can even talk to other players at the tables to have some more fun. There is also a minimum wager requirement of $1 per hand / spin with the live casino.

And before we delve into the description for the standard casino games, we can happily state that there is no need to download any special software to use the casino. This isn’t the case with other providers, and software can often take up lots of space on your device. So this is already convenient for DraftKings casino players.

Finally, we come to the standard casino games. You can play 2D slots and 3D slots with DraftKings, and it is really easy to change the amount per spin too. This can be done with just one click, and wagers drop as low as $0.02 per spin if desired. You will also experience four and five reel slots, with varying in-game bonuses to add to the excitement. Slot games like Cats and DaVinci Diamonds offer some particularly explosive graphics and intriguing bonuses, so we would recommend checking these two out!

Additional Features

Welcome Bonus

When starting out with any new casino platform, it’s always nice to receive a nice reward just by signing up. And with DraftKings, this is precisely what you will get. How does a potential $500 first deposit match sound as a nice welcome reward? Well, by depositing $2,500 as your first time deposit this is what you will receive in bonuses! That is large to say the least, and all deposits made between $5 and $2500 will be matched thanks to this promotion. Towards the beginning of January 2020 Draftkings added another $500 to their sign up offer, elevating their total reward value to $1,000. See how to qualify for this new offer here.

To get specific, this is a 20% first deposit match promotion. The bonus amount received is released incrementally, since every $25 played across any DraftKings products will release $1 of the bonus amount. So to unlock the full bonus amount you need to play through a grand total of $12,500 – which is quite a hefty amount.

Mobile App

Mobile casino play is absolutely available with DraftKings, so there is no need to be stuck to a computer or laptop to enjoy these games anymore. To access the casino games you can simply download the DraftKings sportsbook app, which has all of the casino games readily integrated. iOS users can just download this app from the standard app store, but Android players need to download the Android app from the specified link on the mobile site.

The good news is that after you have successfully downloaded the app onto your device you can enjoy the full scope of DraftKings casino games. Live casino play is accessible from the app too, as well as the standard video poker and slot games. And we didn’t really notice any differences in terms of the available graphics between the desktop site and mobile app.

In addition to having access to the full scope of games, DraftKings has optimized the app so that you can use full-screen play. This is a must for mobile casino gamers these days, as there is nothing more frustrating than trying to optimize the site yourself by zooming in and out!

The only thing we would mention if you are planning on using the live casino from the mobile app – it does demand a lot of battery power! This means that you may find your battery draining rather quickly, so be sure to have some sort of charging point readily available if you plan to play for long periods of time.

Banking Options 

It’s one thing being able to play casino games for real money, but it’s an entirely different thing to fund your account easily. Because let’s be honest – you won’t always be on a winning streak in the casino, and the likelihood that you will need to add funds to your account at some point is pretty high. So take a look at the banking options below:

MasterCard / Visa debit
Prepaid Card
PayPal
ACH / ECheck
Skrill
Bank Transfer

This is a more than satisfactory choice of banking methods, and it’s even better that DraftKings doesn’t charge any fees for deposit transactions.

Conclusion

DraftKings has evidently come a long way since the early days of fantasy sports betting. We were aware that they had developed the platform by offering sports betting, but the casino was still a bit of a mystery. Well, it isn’t a mystery anymore – and we certainly didn’t leave the platform disappointed.

By a large margin, it is the live casino offerings that are saving the DraftKings casino product range. With dealers working the tables 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, it’s comforting for casino lovers to know that they can always play something! And the graphics combined with the speed of these games really is a testament to the quality of the DraftKings brand as a whole.

Clearly the DraftKings casino range has been developed well, but they aren’t without the need for improvements. To address the elephant in the DraftKings casino room, the product depth definitely needs to improve before they become a casino leader in New Jersey. Yes it’s admirable that they have implemented an ‘open all hours’ live casino, but the general product depth is lacking. This is true for the live casino games as well as the slot games.

With less than 20 available games in the entire casino, it’s fairly certain that members will get bored quite quickly. So despite how good the graphics may be, they do need to advance the product depth in order to retain member’s interests. And if we are going to split hairs, they could do with lowering the minimum wager requirement in the live casino. For some people, a minimum wager of $1 is not much, but for beginner’s or newbie’s to online casino play this could be quite a lot.

With all of this said, it would be unfair to be overly critical for the DraftKings casino range. They’ve done an excellent job in transferring their range to the mobile app, and considering how new they are to the online casino game; they really are off to a good start.

last update : August 2021