SI Casino Review (Not recommended)

Most Americans are familiar with the Sports Illustrated brand, and since its introduction in 2023, SI Casino has rapidly grown in popularity.

There are more than 500 casino games available from multiple providers here, including live dealer titles and table games, and a great bonus to boost your bankroll before you try a few of them out. All of the action is fully licensed and regulated by the Michigan Gaming Control Board.

For all of the details, check out our in-depth SI Casino review for 2024.

We were pleased to see a good range of games in the lobby during our SI online casino review. Along with table games and live dealer titles, there are literally hundreds of online slots to check out.

With games from Playtech, NetEnt, and other software providers, you’ll feel right at home if you’re already used to online gambling, and will see some great fresh titles if you’re new to casinos. There are also branded SI exclusives like Sports Illustrated Arcade and Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Party to try.

We were less impressed with the range of jackpots currently available. There’s the SI Daily Jackpot to play for – which regularly hits more than $1,000 – and Millionaire Genie Megaways, with a progressive jackpot that’s usually in the range of tens of thousands of dollars. But there doesn’t appear to any millionaire makers available right now, which might leave jackpot hunters a little cold.

Here are some of the games you can enjoy playing for real money or in practice mode:

Live casino

There are SI live casino games to try too, with new games being added all the time. From what we can tell, this is a mix of Evolution Gaming titles and proprietary games with a Sports Illustrated angle. Live games are always a welcome inclusion for those missing the lights and sounds of a brick and mortar venue, so we’re happy to see some included here:

The SI online casino games are filtered by theme, as well as by game mechanics and providers like Megaways and Playtech. This is a nice touch that might expose you to some interesting new games. Scroll down far enough and you can also view them all A-Z.

All in all, we saw an impressive lobby at SI casino considering the range of themes, bet sizes, volatility, and bonus rounds. No matter your experience level, you’ll find a game to suit you here.

We've given SI Casino 4.6 for its software and games. Despite having many different titles and variants in their library, it would be great to see SI partner with a few other software developers. To be fair, with their recent addition of Slingo, it does seem like this is something the brand is actively doing.

New players to the site can get a competitive SI casino welcome bonus when they sign up. The offer here is a 100% deposit match up to $1,000, with 15x wagering requirements that must be cleared within 90 days. Those wagering requirements are lower than many comparable bonuses out there, and the time to clear them is higher than average, which is a real boon.

First timers will also score a $50 free play voucher, essentially a no deposit bonus, to use on SI Exclusive games. These are also subject to 15x wagering requirements and expire in 7 days.

Slots, arcade, and dice games all count 100% towards clearing wagering requirements, poker table games stand at 20%, live casino games and most other table games count 10%, except for craps which counts for just 5%. All of this is pretty typical for the industry, and makes it abundantly clear why bonuses have the most value for slots fans.

Other promotions, such as free spins, appear from time to time and all players can spin the SI Casino prize wheel daily to win free spins, bonuses, and free bets. All of the T&Cs are very clear on the main site, but here’s a brief summary of some key small print relating to bonuses:

• 100% match bonus up to $1,000
• 15x wagering requirements
• Minimum deposit of $10
• Cash bonus expires in 7 days if not used
• New players, aged 21 and up, only
• 90 days to meet wagering requirements

We’ve been assured that the SI VIP program is on the way, but it’s currently in an invite-only beta phase. Eventually, more players will be able to take advantage of VIP exclusive bonuses, a dedicated account manager/support, higher deposit limits, and faster withdrawals.

Even though they could very easily just cash in on the value of the Sports Illustrated name, SI Casino actually offers players (particularly new players) a really solid bonus, hence our score of 4.7/5. We’re hopeful that they’ll continue to refresh their promos for existing players.

We noted a decent range of casino payment methods during our SI Casino online review, with options for depositing and cashing out that include debit cards, e-wallets, and prepaid cards. There are no fees for depositing cash or withdrawing your winnings.

Minimum deposits and withdrawals are $10, which most players won’t find restrictive. It’s rare to find minimums lower than this in any online casino. We’re a little surprised to see the fastest payouts coming via bank transfer, as opposed to e-wallets, but they’re all pretty quick.

With appropriate licensing and regulation by the Michigan Gaming Control Board in place, you can feel comfortable sharing your payment information with SI Casino – there are plenty of security measures in place here to protect your personal information.

Deposits

Withdrawals

This is a good range of payment methods overall, but folks who like to keep their gambling activity separate from their other spending are limited to PayPal and Play+ for cashing out. SI's cashier section thus scores 4.2/5 from us. The minimums are good, but we’d like to see a couple more banking options added.

SI Casino is operated by VHL Michigan, LLC and owned by 888 Holdings – and this represents an early foray into the US market for 888. Of course, it’s the company’s partnership with Sports Illustrated that allows them to use SI branding.

VHL is licensed by the Michigan Gaming Control Board, with residents of a handful of states able to sign up to use Sports Illustrated’s online gaming brands. The headline here is that SI Casino is able to offer totally legal online gambling to eligible players.

The site has an average RTP of around 97%, which is pretty standard for the industry, but it doesn’t currently provide much information about this (or the results of any third-party audits). SI Casino is, however, very new so we wouldn’t necessarily expect to see this yet.

SI has a solid self-service support center that covers everything from registering an account and making deposits to how their location verification services work. It’s all useful information, and we expect they’ll add more walkthroughs and FAQs in the months to come.

If you can’t find the answer you’re looking for there, you can get help via an email form. The site offers live chat support from 10am to midnight EST, redirecting users back to the help center or said email form outside of those hours, and there’s a toll-free phone number tucked away there too. Whenever we had questions or issues we found SI Casino’s customer support team to be friendly and helpful.

SI Casino scores 4.8/5 for security from us. We’re being sticklers here by docking points for limited information about the site’s RTP, RNGs, audits etc., as it’s highly likely more of this will be added over time. The main thing to note here, however, is that the site is fully licensed and regulated. SI Casino is already doing a very good job with customer care. They could expand their telephone and/or live chat support to be 24/7, but the average player probably wouldn’t find that necessary.

It’s possible to access all 500+ games on the SI mobile casino site. Players will likely also want to check out the dedicated SI Casino apps that are available for iPhone/iPad and Android.

With scores of 4.1/5 on the Google Play Store and 4.4/5 on the App Store, these apps are generally well-received. That’s not surprising, since most titles (including all of the site’s live dealer games) perform very well on smartphones and tablets.

There are no major game omissions or other obvious issues with either SI Casino app, so they’re a great option for players who like to take their gambling on the move.

We scored SI Casino's mobile gaming options 4.5/5. The presence of SI Casino apps for both iOS and Android users is a clear indicator of SI Casino’s forward-thinking attitude, and their high quality overall presentation makes for a very satisfying mobile gambling experience.

Overall, we were pretty impressed when writing our SI Casino review. It's a compelling casino experience that feels cohesive across laptops, desktops, smartphones, and tablets.

There are more than 500 games to try here, which should be enough to keep any gambler happy, and the inclusion of SI exclusives like Sports Illustrated Arcade and Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Party is icing on the cake. Plus, the powerful SI Sportsbook is always just a click away.

Our only complaints – the lack of 24-hour support, the desire for a few more payment options and software providers, etc. – are very minor, and it feels like SI is off to a great start. None of those complaints are enough to stop using closing out our SI online casino review with a big thumbs up.