Harrods Casino Review

Many of you, or at least many of your wives, may be very familiar with Harrods from the shopping perspective. They are a name that has long been associated with a high class shopping Mecca catering to those with sophisticated tastes. However, in today’s world, everything is all about brand extension, and how to get the most mileage out of what you are working with. So it should be no surprise really that Harrods is venturing in to the world of online gaming, in the form of their very own casino. The idea undoubtedly is that customers will see that familiar logo and expect the same high flying world that they find in the store. Now we have to go find out if this is one book that lives up to its cover.

We were really impressed with our initial introduction to Harrods Casino. The design team did their very best to go the extra mile and bring the high class feel of the store into a virtual world. The whole place felt a lot like The Ritz Club London Casino, with sophistication just oozing from every pore. One little touch that made us chuckle was that on the registration form your gender is either “Lady,” or “Gentleman,” rather then the more “common” delineation of Male/Female. Yes, it is a little thing, but small touches can add up when you step back to look at the big picture. All and all though registration was quick and painless and in no time at all we were on our way to the fun.

We have to give Harrods credit for the fact that they are not just blindly following the pack in this new venture. Their first big decision made this fact abundantly clear as they have chosen Kismet software to power their site rather than one of the big brand name packages. They are in fact the only UK casino we have seen using this platform to date. We really are not surprised by this move as it fits with Harrods whole carefully cultivated image of only wanting the best. Kismet steps up to the plate here to offer both downloading and non-downloading options, the latter of which is available for Mac users as well. While right now Harrods casino floor is rather sparse with only thirty games to offer, there is the promise of more to come in the near future. And admittedly we would rather see them offer fewer games at higher quality at first than just throw everything out there before it is ready. While there are no multi-player formats, the games do load in a very well designed console. We also like that if you choose to take advantage of the downloading format, you are able to chose which games you want to load rather than being forced into all of them. Craps in currently not available, but there is the addition of surrender Blackjack. This is a favourite that we don’t see very often, and it is nice to find it here. Make sure you look over all the games to find the ones using special rules and margins to make things better for the player.

There are some nice promotions for all player types here, but it is definitely a “the more you play, the more you are paid,” system in place. At Harrods, VIP players can receive 5% cash back rewards on all their losses, and they can even request custom games. Now that is what you call white glove service! Since VIP status is not granted until you wager $10,000 we were not able to try this feature out for you. However we think that it fits right in with the Harrods theme both online and in the real world.

Since Harrods is a retail chain we thought that customer service would be one of their strong suits. We found instead that compared to their competition the choices here are rather limited. The biggest problem is that freephone support is not available 24/7 but is limited to the hours of 5pm to midnight GMT. They do promise to respond to all non-VIP e-mail in less than 12 hours and we have to admit that our inquiries were handled much faster than that. Live chat is also a choice, but the service was down for repairs during our review. The overall level of service was more than adequate, but Harrods needs to work on the details to make things more customer friendly. Especially for all the international business they are clearly trying to attract with their language and currency options.

Harrods motto is “Everything for Everybody Everywhere,” and they have lived up to that in the real world as they once acquired an alligator for a customer’s Christmas present. We think that this may apply to their online casino in the future, just not right now. There are some weak spots such as hard to use customer service and smaller game selection. But there are also some shining moments of greatness such as their player favouring rules and the very lucrative VIP set-up. We think that this is one site which will continue to improve over time as they continually refine their offering. After all, the promise of more games is already in place. And their very original Kismet software is not too bad either. In the end, if you are after a classy setting with quality games you may want to give Harrods Casino a try. It doesn’t matter if you are a high roller or not they will still treat you like royalty.