Rand Casinos

March 3, 2015 - For my South African gambling buck, there is no better two-word phrase in the English language than rand casinos especially because now days there are so many exciting new categories and kinds of land and rand online casinos to choose from.

Gone are the days when the only casino in the entire country was Sun City Casino located in what is now the North West Province, which back in the dark old days used to be the infamous 'homeland' known as Bophuthatswana.

While day, weekend or extended trips to Sun City promised and usually delivered fun for the whole family, they could be costly, particularly if you didn't live in nearby Johannesburg, a mere two and half hour drive.

Rand Casinos Benefited from Democracy

Fortunately for rand casino fans, when Apartheid finally wheezed its last breathes in the mid 1990's, so did the then government's tight grip on gambling freedom. Our new democratic government recognised that by legalising and regulating land casinos in South Africa, it could generate hundreds of millions of rand in taxes for its quickly-depleting coffers.

As a result, heading into Y2K no matter whether you lived in Johannesburg, Pretoria, Cape Town, Durban, Port Elizabeth or any other major city centre in SA, a casino or two was just around the corner, where you could enjoy all manner of popular games from video poker, slots and roulette, to blackjack, craps, progressives and more.

Not only was South Africa fast making up for the severe 'gambling drought' it had to endure for so many decades, but our liberal South African gambling laws became the toast of the global gambling world.

But just when it looked as though land rand casinos had it made forever, they were forced to make way for the newest and most anticipated gambling kid in the playground - South African online casinos.

As 'virtual' casinos accessible by an increasing number of South Africans due to faster, more stable and cheaper access to the internet, online casinos began to change the face of traditional casino gaming in a big way. Now people could access and play their favourite casino games without ever having to leave their home.

Rand Online Casinos Quickly Evolved

Although the very first online casinos were aimed at the American market, pretty soon casino owners and operators began welcoming players from all over the globe by offering facilities in their own language and accepting their currency. It was at this time that 'rand online casinos' were born.

Rand casinos refers to gambling sites that allow South Africans to sign up a play in rand (ZAR), and there are two main types:

The first are purely South Africa-focused sites, where rand is the only currency accepted and English the sole language. Springbok Casino is a prime example of such a site, and as such are hugely popular and successful rand casinos.

The other type of rand casinos are global online casinos, where ZAR is just of one of many currencies and languages available. EU Casino is a prime examples of an international rand casino that welcome South Africans with open arms.

Here at South African Casinos, we only promote the best rand casinos, and regardless of whether you find yourself drawn to one of our featured home-grown casinos or a global giant, rest assured you will be equally welcome and faced with the widest choice of signup bonuses, games, promotions, payment methods, and 24/7 365-days-a-year customer service facilities.

Strict Criteria Used to Pick Casinos

Our team of rand casino experts have personally played at and vetted every single one of our featured casinos using a strict set of criteria designed to determine their worthiness.

For instance, the first thing they look at is whether a casino is licensed or not. Much like you wouldn't visit an unlicensed surgeon or hire an unlicensed architect to design your home, so you should only play at licensed rand casinos, which each of ours are.

Being licensed means the casinos are monitored and regulated by their respective online gambling jurisdictions, as well as audited regularly by leading independent auditing firms like PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Another important criteria used to identify top rand online casinos are their online gambling software developers that they have agreements in place with. A casino's software (a.k.a. its games) is its heart and soul.

Love a casino's games and the chances are good you'll remain a long and loyal player no matter what other incentives it offers. But hate a casino's games, and you'll never return, regardless of how enticing its welcome bonuses, promotions or payouts may seem.

For this reason, we have only chosen to promote rand casino sites powered by top quality internet gambling software giants that include Realtime Gaming (RTG), Playtech, SkillOnNet, IGSOnline and WMS Gaming.

Why Bigger Casinos are Better Casinos

The size of a rand casino games portfolio is extremely important and thus always taken into account. Even with the best games in the world, a small game selection casino would soon grow tiresome as you played your way through its titles in no time at all.

This is the reason that  the expression 'bigger is better' has never been truer than when applied to the game portfolios of top-rated online casinos. Each of the casinos endorsed by South African Casinos boasts a vast game selection, which range from 100+ titles and up. This means you'll always be able to find a game to suit your gaming tastes, whether you're a die-hard table game, card game, slot game or video poker game fan.

And then we come to arguably one of the most important criteria used to identify and pick the best rand casinos - their range of casino deposit and withdrawal methods.

Unless you only intend to enjoy online casino games for play money, it is crucial to have a choice of safe, secure, reliable and discreet payment options available to you that are supported not only by your chosen rand online casino, but by South Africa's banks and financial institutions.

For this reason all of our featured rand casinos welcome South African credit cards (Visa and MasterCard), bank transfers and globally accepted eWallets such as Skrill and Neteller to facilitate quick, easy and reliable casino account deposits and withdrawals.

Play on the Latest Rand Mobile Casinos

So you see folks, the South African casino landscape has certainly evolved over the last two decades for the better.

And while rand online gambling sites are enormously popular, the latest rand casinos to make their mark in South Africa are ultra convenient rand-friendly mobile casinos designed especially for your smart phone or device.

In fact, many of the casinos we promote offer rand mobile casino sites which means you can now truly 'gamble on the go' like never before!