Captain Spins Games

I opened a Captain Spins account on a Tuesday evening, deposited £20 with my debit card, and had the lobby open on my phone within six minutes. The lobby holds about 600 Captain Spins games, and slots make up four in five of them. Table games, live dealer rooms and instant-win titles fill the rest, and the mobile site mirrors the desktop layout tab for tab.

How to Play Captain Spins Games Online

Getting from sign-up to your first spin takes about ten minutes if you handle the paperwork at the right moment. Follow these steps in order:

• Click Register on the Captain Spins homepage and enter your name, date of birth, address, email and password. Click the confirmation link in the email Captain Spins sends you to activate the account.
• Open the Cashier and choose a payment method. Captain Spins takes Visa and Mastercard debit cards, PayPal and Pay by Phone, with a £10 minimum deposit. The site does not accept credit cards, which UK law bans for gambling.
• Upload a passport or driving licence and a recent utility bill in the Verification tab on day one. Captain Spins asks for both before your first withdrawal. I waited 14 hours for approval because I left the upload until I wanted to cash out.
• Browse the lobby with the tabs for Slots, Table Games, Live Casino and Instant Win, or type a title into the search bar.
• Set your limits before you play. The Responsible Gambling page in your account menu lets you set deposit limits, reality checks and time-outs. GamStop self-exclusion covers Captain Spins, and BeGambleAware offers free advice if you want to talk to someone.
• Use live chat if something goes wrong. An agent answered my verification question in under three minutes, though email replies took most of a day.

Load the demo version of any slot before you stake real money. Ten minutes of free spins shows you how often a game pays small wins and whether the bonus round deserves your cash. Captain Spins also runs a Monday slot tournament with a £5,000 prize pool, and entry costs nothing beyond your normal spins.

Captain Spins Slots Overview

Captain Spins slots come from NetEnt, Pragmatic Play, Play'n GO, Big Time Gaming and about 40 other studios. In my first week I spent most of my time on Big Bass Bonanza and Starburst, and both loaded in under three seconds on 4G.

Classic slots suit you if you like three reels and no bonus rounds. Video slots add five reels, free spins and multipliers, and the ones I checked list RTPs between 95.5% and 96.5%. Mega Moolah, the best-known progressive, has paid jackpots above £10 million, but the base game pays small wins, so expect to burn through a lot of £1 spins before anything lands.

Captain Spins online slots come in five formats:

• Classic Slots: three reels, few paylines, no bonus features
• Video Slots: five or more reels with free spins and multipliers
• Progressive Jackpot Slots: a shared prize pool that grows with every bet
• 3D Slots: animated characters and cinematic bonus scenes
• Branded Slots: games based on films, bands and TV shows

Captain Spins slots online run in your browser with no download. The filters sort by provider and release date but not by volatility or RTP, so open each game's info panel before you spin. I wish Captain Spins would add that filter.

Captain Spins Table & Card Games

Blackjack tables at Captain Spins start at £1 a hand and climb to £500. Spanish 21 removes the tens from the deck and pays bonuses for five-card 21s, so the basic strategy chart for standard blackjack stops working. I lost £30 finding that out.

Roulette comes in European and French versions. Both have a single zero, which gives the house a 2.7% edge against 5.26% on an American double-zero wheel. French roulette also returns half your even-money stake when the ball lands on zero. I found no American wheel at Captain Spins, which works in your favour.

Baccarat runs as Punto Banco with fixed drawing rules. You bet on Player, Banker or Tie, and the hand closest to nine wins. Banker pays 1:1 minus a 5% commission, and I stuck with that bet because it carries the lowest house edge, around 1.06%.

Captain Spins casino games in this category cover both ends of the skill range. Blackjack rewards study, and baccarat needs none.

Live Dealer Games at Captain Spins

Evolution and Pragmatic Play Live supply the live tables. I sat at a Lightning Roulette table on a Friday night with a 50p minimum chip, and the stream stayed sharp on home broadband and on 4G. The dealer greeted chat messages by name. Popular blackjack tables fill up after 8pm, so you may need to bet behind another seat until a space opens.

• Live chat with the dealer and the other seats
• HD streams with several camera angles
• Blackjack, roulette and baccarat, plus game shows such as Crazy Time and Monopoly Live
• Table limits from 50p up to £5,000 at VIP tables
• Past-results panel on every roulette wheel

Live tables count for 10% of each bet towards bonus wagering, so avoid them while you clear a welcome offer.

Instant-Win & Specialty Games

Instant-win and specialty titles sit under their own tab at Captain Spins. They suit a five-minute break better than a long session.

Scratch cards cost from 20p to £10. You click each panel to scratch it, or hit Reveal All, and you see the result at once.

Keno asks you to pick up to 10 numbers from 80, and the game draws 20. Matching all 10 pays the top prize. I hit three or four numbers in most rounds and recovered about half my stake.

Bingo rooms run 90-ball games from 10p a ticket, with a chat host who announces each winner. A full house takes around 50 calls, so a round lasts a few minutes.

Demo slots and bonus-round games complete the section. Demo mode needs no deposit, and you can test a game's volatility before you stake real money.

Captain Spins adds new instant-win titles each month. I saw two new scratch cards in the three weeks I played.