Grace Media Casino & Slot Sites
Who are Grace Media?
Many years ago a company called Nektan started out by writing their own slot games, specifically for mobile phones, to be played in their own casinos only. Chomp Casino was one of the first Nektan mobile casinos – the name chosen to emphasise “bite size” play – and it featured games such as Best of British, Candy Swap and Meow Money. It was not long, however, before Nektan had a change of direction; although they continued to develop their own slot games, they also signed deals with a number of other slot providers in order to offer a white label casino platform. By 2019 there were dozens of Nektan casino sites offering popular slot games by Net Ent, Blueprint, SG, Microgaming, Pragmatic Play and other providers as well as their own exclusive Nektan slots, and a steady stream of new Nektan casinos launching. The head office of Nektan was in Gibraltar but they also had offices in the UK (as well as in the US and India) and had an AIM listing on the London Stock Exchange.
In early 2020 the casino platform management part of the Nektan business was taken over by Grace Media Ltd who are based in the UK and the platform itself is now supplied by Markor Technology (again as a result of a takeover). Some players still refer to the casinos as Nektan casinos and we expect this to continue into 2025 and beyond.
What differences are there between Grace Media casinos?
- Grace Media Casinos all have much the same extensive range of slots including a few exclusives, with a search/filter tool for finding the game you want.
- There is a standard Grace Media welcome offer, but a lot of sites replace or enhance it with slot spins.
- Promotions at Grace Media sites are mostly run by the network and there is little scope for casinos to run their own.
- Some Grace Media casinos have a live casino product courtesy of Evolution, but many don’t have any live dealer games at all
- A new version of the lobby was introduced in 2021 which means that the Pragmatic Play bingo rooms either have to be given pride of place (as at BOGOF Bingo) or dropped entirely. Almost all have dropped bingo entirely (a wise decision as the chat rooms that many players would consider essential to the bingo experience were removed prior to the lobby upgrade).
What do Grace Media Casinos do well?
- The standard network offer isn’t so great any more but some Grace Media sites still have better and more competitive offers and/or No Wagering offers
- There’s a wide range of well curated slots from different providers (though not as many as there used to be)
- In the case of slot games with a variable Return To Player, Grace Media have tended to set it towards the upper end of the range (but that has now slipped a bit so do check before you play).
- Easy play on all devices
What else do I need to know?
- Grace Media casinos have a sizeable list of games that cannot be played with bonus. As well as all table games, the list includes popular slots titles like Guns N Roses, Gorilla Go Wild and Thunderstruck II. There’s also a list of “Premium Slots” than only contribute to wagering requirements at 75%.
- At some sites the welcome bonus can ONLY be used on “welcome slots” – a selection of around 20 games all of which are quite high variance. They have their own area in the lobby so finding them is much simpler than having to check up on which games count at 75% and which not at all. But then again, you might not like many of the games on the list and you will be stuck with them until you’ve completed the wagering requirements.
- Grace Media no longer offer any progressive jackpot slots at all.
- There are limits on what you can win at any Grace Media site. The max convertible from bonus play is 4 x the original bonus (2 x in the case of some promotions) and the maximum payout on any spin apart from progressive jackpots is £250,000.
- There are also limits on what bonuses can be claimed across the network and they reserve the right to exclude players from receiving any more bonuses anywhere on the network.
- If you deposit using an e-wallet (and this includes Paypal) or prepaid voucher your maximum spin value while playing through wagering requirements is just 50p. Stake more and you risk having your bonus and winnings voided.
- In July 2019 they introduced a £2.50 fee for withdrawals of less than £30. This has now been reduced to £1.50
- Nektan casinos used to have the Medium level of player funds protection but in the course of the transfer to Grace Media this was downgraded to “Not protected” (meaning that should the network go into administration, players would be in the same position as any other creditor and might not get any money in their account back at all, let alone in full).
- They were amongst the few to accept deposits via Boku but this was not as great as it sounded. For a start, it only worked if your phone service was EE, 3 or O2. There was also a hefty 15% fee. Boku was subsequently dropped as a payment method leaving only Paypal, MuchBetter, Trustly and debit cards as possible ways to deposit at Grace Media casinos, but now pay by phone using a different solution provider is back (and so is the 15% fee).
The Future of Grace Media
We have to be honest and say that the future of this particular casino platform hasn’t been looking great. Following the wave of closures of Grace Media sites when operators chose to cut losses rather than pay to move to the new bingo or casino lobby, another wave of closures took place in Autumn 2022 and they may not be the last. The majority of players clearly didn’t like the new lobby, the welcome offers, the terms and conditions, the limits on what you can win from a bonus, the removal of so many games and payment methods and the downgrading of player funds protection and this may explain why the number of brands listed at the Gambling Commission under the Grace Media licence has declined from a staggering 236 (in 2021 prior to the transfer from Nektan) to 135 today (around 90 of which are inactive).
In 2024, however, there were some signs of a resurgence of interest in the few Grace Media casinos that remained and a number of new ones have opened. Perhaps it’s canny players who have realised that they set their RTP on games such as Starburst several percentage points higher than other networks of skins albeit no longer at the highest rate? In any case, we expect to see more new Grace Media casinos open in 2025.
