How We Rate and Assess Casinos
This page explains how a rating on this site is produced, and — at length, and without hedging — what it is not. The second part matters more, because almost every other site in this market writes a methodology page describing testing it did not do.
The short version: we read the published terms, check the licence against the regulator’s register, check the operating company against its home commercial register, and score what we find on six fixed criteria with fixed weights. We do not open accounts, deposit money or play the games.
The title of this page says “rate and test” because that is the phrase people search for. We do not test casinos. We do not open accounts, deposit money, play, or attempt withdrawals. Nothing on this site is based on a first-hand trial, and we will not pretend otherwise. The next section sets out what we do instead.
What we actually do
Every score on this site comes from published material and public records. That is the whole method, and it is deliberately narrow: we can only assess things an operator has committed to in writing or that a registry confirms, and we cannot assess anything else.
- We read the published terms — all of them. Not the marketing page. The bonus terms, the withdrawal section, the general terms and the complaints section. This is the part most reviews skip, and it is where nearly everything that matters is written down.
- We check the licence against the regulator’s register. Where a register is public and searchable, we take the authority and licence number the operator publishes and look it up. A number that is not on the register is a finding, and we report it as one.
- We check the operating company against its home commercial register. The terms name the legal entity holding the licence. We look that entity up in the commercial register of the country it says it is registered in, and record whether it is current. This check is why this site was able to report that the operator behind its own top-listed casino had been removed from the Curaçao commercial register while the site continued to trade — a finding that is uncomfortable for us and is published anyway.
- We apply the same criteria, in the same order, to every operator. The six criteria and their weights are published below, do not change from site to site, and do not change depending on whether we have a commercial relationship with the operator.
- We say when sources disagree. Bonus sizes and payout times in this market are frequently reported differently by different sources, and often do not match the operator’s own published terms. Where that happens we say so rather than choosing the better-looking figure.
- We date everything and re-check. Terms change, licences lapse and registers are updated. Every page carries a last-updated date, and we re-check licence and operator details rather than assuming last year’s finding still holds.
What we do not do
This is the section most review sites in this market do not have, and it is the most useful one on this page.
We do not open accounts at the casinos we list.
We do not deposit money, play, or attempt a withdrawal.
We do not contact support to measure response times.
We do not have a testing team, an expert panel, or anyone who plays the games.
We are aware this makes us less impressive than the competition. That is the point. A site claiming to have “deposited and withdrawn to test the payout speed” is making a claim you cannot check, about an activity that would be expensive to perform across dozens of operators, in a market where the same claim appears on hundreds of sites with identical wording. You are entitled to ask what evidence is offered. Usually, none is.
What that means in practice, stated as consequences rather than principles:
- Anything we say about payout speed is what the operator publishes or what third parties report. It is not a measurement. We label it as the published figure wherever we can, and where we quote a reported range we say that too.
- We cannot tell you how a casino behaves when something goes wrong. Whether support answers at 3am, whether a withdrawal is processed in the stated window, whether a complaint is handled fairly — none of that is visible in published terms, and we have not tested any of it.
- Our ratings can be wrong, and they can be out of date. Terms change without announcement, and a licence can lapse between our check and your deposit. Treat every rating here as a starting point for your own checks. The ten-minute routine on our how to choose page is designed to be run by you, on the day, because we cannot run it for you continuously.
- We do not assess “safety” as a score. There is no number here that means “this casino will treat you well”. We can score what is written down and what the registers say. We cannot score behaviour, so we do not invent a figure for it.
The six criteria and their weights
Each casino is scored out of 10 on each criterion. The weights are set before we look at any individual operator, and they have not been adjusted for any operator.
| Criterion | Weight, and what we look at |
|---|---|
| Licence and operator | 20%. Which authority issued the licence, the licence number, whether it appears on the regulator’s register, the legal entity behind the brand, whether that entity is current in its home commercial register, and what the licence actually obliges the operator to do. This criterion is capped — see below. |
| Bonus terms | 20%. The wagering multiplier and what it applies to (bonus alone, or bonus plus deposit), the maximum bet while clearing, game weighting, the time limit, any maximum-win clause, and whether the headline figure in the marketing matches what the terms actually commit the operator to. |
| Withdrawal terms | 20%. Minimum and maximum withdrawal amounts, the stated pending period before processing begins, which payment methods support withdrawals as opposed to deposits, any processing limits, any fees, and what identity verification is required and when. |
| Payments | 15%. Which payment methods are accepted, whether the account can be held in GBP, deposit and withdrawal limits per method, and whether UK-issued cards work — for deposits, for withdrawals, or for both. |
| Support and player tools | 15%. What contact routes are published and over what hours, what languages are covered, and whether deposit limits, loss limits, session limits, time-outs and self-exclusion are offered — and specifically whether a limit can be raised instantly, because a limit that can be raised instantly is not a limit. |
| Small print | 10%. Dormancy or inactivity fees, withdrawal caps, maximum-win clauses attached to bonuses, the operator’s right to amend terms, and how disputes are handled and where they can be escalated. This criterion most often produces the unwelcome surprise, which is why it is scored separately rather than folded into the others. |
Why we cap the licence score
An offshore licence cannot score full marks on the licence criterion, however well run the operator appears to be. This is deliberate and it applies to every operator in this market, including the one we have a commercial relationship with.
The reason is not that offshore operators are dishonest. Many are not. The reason is that a licence is not a character reference — it is a set of obligations and a route to recourse, and an offshore licence does not deliver the things a UK Gambling Commission licence delivers: customer funds held at a declared protection level, a mandatory dispute-resolution route that can bind the operator, tested game outcomes with published return-to-player figures, and a regulator with jurisdiction over the business and a track record of using its powers.
So we cap it. A strong offshore casino can still reach a high overall score on the things it controls — bonus terms, withdrawal terms, payments — but it cannot reach the very top of the scale on the strength of a licence that does not carry those protections. The full comparison of what each regulator requires is on our are they safe page.
The same logic runs in reverse for the UK market. A UK-licensed casino would score well on the licence criterion and would be inside GamStop, which is why no site on this website holds a UK licence — if one did, it would not belong here.
How we make money
We earn a commission when a reader follows a link from this site to a casino and signs up. That is the entire business model: no subscription, no paid placement, and no charge to the reader.
What that does not affect, concretely:
- The criteria and weights are fixed in advance and published above. They are not adjusted for any operator.
- The licence cap applies to every operator, including our partner. It is the single largest reason our own top-listed casino does not score higher.
- We list and score casinos we have no relationship with. Most operators in our comparison tables pay us nothing, and their scores are calculated the same way.
- We publish the findings that count against our own partner — the offshore licence, the removal of the operating company from the commercial register, the fact that the headline bonus figures are not stated in the published terms — in the same place as everything else, not in a footnote.
What it does affect, honestly: which casinos we write full reviews for rather than listing in a table, and where our links point. That is a commercial decision, and we are not going to describe it as anything else. If we have no affiliate relationship with an operator, there is no financial reason to spend hours reading its terms in detail, and we generally do not.
The full arrangement, including how commission is structured, is on our affiliate disclosure page.
Corrections and complaints
If something on this site is wrong, we want to know, and we will fix it.
- To report an error, email [email protected] with the URL of the page, the specific statement you believe is incorrect, and a source if you have one. A link to the published term or the register entry is the fastest possible route to a correction.
- What we will do: check the claim, correct the page if it is wrong, and update the last-updated date. Factual corrections are made promptly.
- What we will not do: remove a negative finding because an operator would prefer it were not there. If a licence number is not on the register, or an operating company is not current, we will say so — and correct it when the position changes, which is a different thing.
- If you are an operator disagreeing with a rating rather than a fact: point us at the term you think we have misread, and we will re-read it. We do not change scores on request, but we do correct misreadings, and a misreading is a real possibility given that we work from documents rather than from experience of the site.
Related reading
Frequently Asked Questions
Do you test the casinos you review?
No. We do not open accounts, deposit money, play or attempt withdrawals. Every score on this site comes from published terms and public registers. If a site tells you it deposited and withdrew to measure payout speed, ask what evidence it can offer — that is an expensive claim to make honestly across dozens of operators.
So what is a rating here actually based on?
Four things: the operator’s published terms read in full, the licence checked against the regulator’s register, the operating company checked against its home commercial register, and the same six criteria with the same fixed weights applied to every operator. Where sources disagree, we report the disagreement rather than picking a figure.
How much is each criterion worth?
Licence and operator 20%, bonus terms 20%, withdrawal terms 20%, payments 15%, support and player tools 15%, and small print 10%. The weights are set in advance and are not adjusted for any individual operator. The full table, including what we look at within each criterion, is above.
Why can an offshore casino never score full marks?
Because we cap the licence criterion for any operator without a UK Gambling Commission licence. An offshore licence does not deliver segregated customer funds at a declared protection level, a mandatory dispute-resolution route, tested games with published RTP, or a regulator with jurisdiction over the business. That is a limit of the licence, not a judgement about the operator, and it applies to every site in this market.
Does commission affect your ratings?
It does not affect the scores. The criteria and weights are fixed and published, the licence cap applies to our own partner as well, and we list and score operators we have no relationship with. What commission does affect is which casinos get a full review rather than a table listing, and where our links point — and we say so on our affiliate disclosure page.
How do I report a mistake?
Email [email protected] with the page URL, the statement you believe is wrong and a source if you have one. Factual errors are corrected and the page is re-dated. We do not remove accurate negative findings because an operator would prefer we did.