Cooper Hill

Expert Reviewer

Hamilton, Waikato

Cooper grew up in Hamilton, second of three kids — dad drove trucks, mum worked in admin at the local council. He was never much of an academic but scraped through NCEA and ended up at Auckland Uni on a commerce degree, mostly because it seemed like the practical thing to do. After graduating he bounced around a bit before landing in digital marketing, which suited him down to the ground — he liked the data side of things, the testing, figuring out what actually worked versus what just sounded good. These days he works for a mid-sized agency in Hamilton handling paid social and SEO accounts for a handful of clients. He's got a partner, Mel, two kids under six, a section in Chartwell, and absolutely no free time — which makes his online casino habit feel slightly irresponsible but also completely justified. He got into online pokies a few years back when a mate pointed him toward a site offering $10 free no deposit. The experience was sweet as until it wasn't — the casino stonewalled him on a withdrawal for three weeks with excuses that kept changing. That burned him enough to start reading the fine print everywhere. Now he's the bloke people message when they want to know which NZ casino is actually worth signing up to. He'll tell you straight up: Sky City's fine for a night out but the online sites are a different beast entirely.