How we rate

Why we publish this page

Most casino sites rank operators and never explain how. That makes the ranking impossible to argue with, which is convenient for the site and useless for the reader.

This page sets out exactly what we measure, what each component is worth, and what we deliberately do not measure. If you disagree with our order, this page should tell you why we reached it.

Every score is out of ten. Four weighted components produce it.

Bonus fairness — 40%

The largest component, because it is where the gap between what an offer looks like and what it is worth is widest.

We score the wagering requirement first. A bonus at 0x is paid as cash and can be withdrawn immediately. A bonus at 35x is not. Take a £20 win from free spins: at 35x you must stake £700 before you can withdraw any of it, and at a typical 96% return-to-player you would expect to lose around £28 doing so. The bonus is worth less than nothing in expectation.

We then look at what surrounds the number:

• Maximum conversion or cashout caps. A £30 bonus capped at £300 withdrawal is a different
• product from one with no cap.
• Expiry windows. Seventy-two hours to use 100 spins is a meaningfully worse offer than
• thirty days.
• Game weighting. If slots contribute 100% and table games 10%, the stated wagering is not
• the real wagering for most players.
• Deposit method restrictions. An offer that excludes PayPal, Skrill and Neteller is
• narrower than one that does not.

A large headline number with punitive terms scores below a small headline number with clean ones. That is the single biggest reason our order differs from sites that rank by bonus size.

Entry cost — 20%

The minimum deposit, and the minimum stake needed to actually trigger the welcome offer.

These are frequently different numbers and the gap is rarely advertised. An operator may accept a £5 deposit but require a £10 stake before any bonus lands. We record both and score the real cost of entry, not the advertised one.

We also weigh whether the qualifying stake must be spent on a narrow set of games.

Regulatory record — 20%

Every casino on this site holds a current UK Gambling Commission remote casino licence. That is the entry requirement, not a scoring component — no licence, no listing.

What we score within that is:

• How long the licence has been continuously active. Several of our operators have held
• one since 1 November 2014, the day the current UK remote regime began.
• The breadth of licensed activities. An operator licensed for remote casino, bingo and
• betting under a single account is running one regulated business, not three loosely
• connected ones.
• Whether the licensee is clearly identifiable and matches the brand you are actually
• depositing with.

We verify all of this against the Commission's daily register download rather than the operator's own marketing, and we publish the licence number on every review so you can check it yourself.

Transparency — 20%

Whether the operator states its key terms up front, on its own site, without requiring a reader to reconstruct them from an affiliate.

We score higher where wagering, caps, expiry and excluded methods appear on the promotions page rather than three clicks into a terms document. We score lower where the headline is prominent and the conditions are not.

This component exists because it correlates with how an operator behaves when something goes wrong. A company that hides its bonus terms is not usually the company that handles a disputed withdrawal well.

What we do not score

Payout speed. We would like to. We do not currently hold verified per-operator withdrawal times, and we are not prepared to publish an operator's own marketing figure as though we had measured it. Where we quote a withdrawal window on a review, we say plainly that it is the operator's published figure. When we have completed our own payout testing, this will become a scored component and this page will say so.

Game count. A library of 9,000 titles is not four times better than one of 2,000. Beyond a few hundred games, the number stops describing the experience. We report it as a fact and leave it out of the score.

Design. Not because it does not matter, but because we cannot score it consistently and it is not what causes people to lose money.

What does not affect the score

Commission. We earn a commission when a reader opens an account through a link on this site. It does not move rankings. No operator can pay to be listed, to move up, or to be removed. Where we work commercially with an operator we have criticised, the criticism stays on the page.

Bonus size in isolation. See bonus fairness, above.

How often scores change

Licences are re-checked against the Commission's register on a regular cycle, and the date of the most recent check appears on every ranked list. Offers are re-checked against each operator's own promotions page and carry their own date.

When an operator changes its terms materially — a wagering requirement moves, a cap appears, a deposit method is excluded — the score is recalculated and the ranking may change.

If an operator's licence stops showing as active, it comes off the site.

Tell us we are wrong

If you think a score is unfair, or you have found something we have missed, email corrections@thecasinorank.com. Where we correct a material error we note the change and the date on the page rather than quietly editing it.