Honest Online Casino Reviews

First, we take a quick look at the casino homepage. We assess the aesthetics, functionality, and user experience. Menu design, image choices, visual themes – we look at all of this in just a few well-spent minutes.

It’s also important to see which games, promotions, and features the casino chooses to put on the landing page. This shows us what aspects of the site they are most proud of and what they want to keep less visible.

Next, we complete in-depth research. We look up customer feedback on various online forums, as well as a casino’s ownership records on sites such as Companies House in the UK.

From here, we can find out who owns the casino, whether it operates any other sites, and any licensing information provided by parent companies.

This step is important as it allows us to weed out casinos that are not secure or those run by untrustworthy individuals early in the process.

A fully licensed, secure, and reputable place to play is the bare minimum you want from an online casino. Thus, we regularly drop unsuitable sites from our list at this point.

Once we’ve established that a site is among the majority of safe and above-board online casinos, we can get down to the attractive stuff for you – the player.

Welcome bonuses are the tool of choice for many casinos looking to bring in new players. Some players get extreme value from them, while others don’t but still continue to play at the casino.

This is a win-win situation for both parties. You get the opportunity to start your casino experience with some free games or a boost to your bankroll, and the casinos get to build up their customer base.

There are four welcome bonus types:

• Deposit-matches or deposit-locked free spins (often subject to a min first deposit)
• No-deposit bonus cash or free spins (normally 1 bonus offer per player and only first deposit)
• Free bets
• Free spins (normally 50 free spins with low wagering requirements is a great bonus for new players)

We run through these in more detail in any individual review or on one of our specific bonus pages dedicated to this topic.

No-deposit bonuses are typically smaller in value, but you can obtain them without putting any of your own funds down. Deposit-match bonuses can reach $500 or more (or your own currency equivalent) but often come with more restrictive terms, such as wagering requirements or maximum wins.

Our casino reviewers go straight to these offers’ terms and conditions and sift through the small print. We find the most valuable and straightforward promotions that give you the best chance at coming out a winner.

With many years of experience, our team knows what clauses and options you need to look out for to ensure you choose the right bonus for your needs.

We don’t want you to get stung by 75x wagering requirements on $5 of free money, 100 bonus spins or end up stuck playing slots to clear your bonus win terms when you want to be playing blackjack with your new winnings. The wagering requirements are an extremely important part of the bonus.

So, whether you’re a high-rolling slot player or a lower-budget live roulette fan, we’re here to help you select the right offer with wagering requirements, welcome bonus, casino games and all other hundreds of aspect taken into consideration when you will pick the best real money online casinos.

A casino can offer all the greatest bonuses in the world, but that isn’t enough if they limit withdrawals to $20 at a time, charge you 15%, and make you wait two weeks for the money to arrive in your account.

Our reviewers look at the stated withdrawal time and compare it to how long it takes in reality. A great casino banking system should complete PayPal or other e-wallet withdrawals in less than 24-hours and process bank card withdrawals within five days.

There should be no charges for withdrawals and a high weekly or monthly limit. We also check whether any limits apply to progressive jackpot wins.

For example, imagine you lucked out and won millions on NetEnt’s Age of Gods or Microgaming’s Mega Moolah, only to find the casino imposes a $10,000 monthly withdrawal limit. In that case, it would take you nearly nine years to completely withdraw a $1 million win.

We can help you avoid situations like these before they arise by expertly analyzing every aspect of a casino’s banking system and then using it to see if they stick to their word.

A varied game collection is the most important factor for many players. However, as experts, we know that other things come first – but a good casino should never skimp on their game selection either.

A top-tier online casino should feature:

• At least several hundred slots, including licensed pop culture games, progressive jackpot titles, and traditional three-reel games from various developers.
• Dozens of table games, including casino classics such as blackjack, roulette, baccarat, and more.
• Video poker terminals, especially in North American markets.
• A live casino section, usually powered by Evolution Gaming or NetEnt, that includes live-streamed blackjack, roulette, and other games.

All games should be organized efficiently into categories so that you can find your preferred titles quickly and easily. A search option is the minimum requirement, and a filter menu is a nice extra feature.

Many modern online casinos also let you favorite your chosen games to return to them every time you log in with just one click. This is a useful feature that we’ll always point out when we see it.

Lastly, if you’re a fan of Keno, Sic-Bo, Craps, or other lesser-known titles in the online world, you can rest assured knowing we’ll always discuss them when a casino chooses to feature them.

These might not be the most popular games, but as a dedicated fan, you deserve to be able to play them a top-tier online site – just like slots or blackjack fans do.

In the modern market, every average or top-tier online casino should be accessible on mobile devices. A simple but optimized mobile browsing experience is enough for most players.

Whether it’s on a larger tablet screen or a budget smartphone, casino gaming shouldn’t be too intensive for your average modern device. If you start running the latest big-budget video slots with full-screen special effects, you might see some lag on an older device. However, most of the time, you should be perfectly fine.

Our reviewers make sure that the site loads correctly on various screen sizes. We also test for user experience snags, such as fiddly buttons to hit on a touch screen or overly complicated menus.

Lastly, some bonuses are exclusive to mobile players. You can often claim them if you’re already an existing customer of the casino’s desktop version. Check out our no-deposit bonus page for a few tips on how this works, what wagering requirements they have, if it’s only for new players and all you need to know to find the best casino for you.

At the very best online casinos, your free stuff doesn’t start and end with the welcome offers. Many casino sites provide weekly or monthly promotions, loyalty rewards, and special tournaments for slots or live casino players.

These promotions can include:

• Point-based loyalty systems that can offer you free spins, cashback, prize wheel spins, raffle tickets, physical prizes, and even luxuries such as VIP account managers and holidays if you’re a high-roller.
• Regular promotions such as “pull three blackjacks in one weekend” or “play 100 spins on a specific game and get another 100 for free.” The possibilities of such promotions are only limited by the casino’s marketing team’s imagination.
• Tournaments typically revolve around the highest turnover in a particular time frame. These are difficult for low-rolling or even average players to win.
• Luckily, some casino tournaments run off the highest multiplier wins or other metrics, which can balance the field.
• Customer Support & Problem Gambling Tools

This is typically the last thing our reviewers look at, but it’s by no means the least important.

At a great online casino, there should be no need to contact customer support until this step in the process.

Of course, sometimes these things are unavoidable. However, if we have a reason or question to ask the casino’s support team, then our reviewer always explains why in their review.

If not, we make something up to test out the various methods of contacting support and see how efficient and quick their replies are.

Most casinos offer 24/7 live chat support. If a casino doesn’t feature this, we’ll let you know.

Email support can be vital for more complex queries or problems, and the best casinos should reply within one hour.

In the last part of this section, we see what opt-out methods a casino offers for those who are concerned they’re tempted to gamble more than they can afford. These methods should include a simple way to permanently or temporarily shut your account, as well as monthly or weekly deposit limits for those who need them.

Just because our reviewer had a good experience at a casino doesn’t mean that every other player online shares that opinion. This is especially true for players who deposit small but get lucky and win big.

Most of the time, we can sniff a bad casino out in the first stages of our review. However, it’s important we take this last step to ensure that nothing slips through the cracks.

We talk to our reviewer friends and look at customer feedback reports to gain a wider picture of what the casino is like for everyone.

We don’t discard a site for one bad casino review, though. After all, mistakes happen, and someone might even hold a grudge after going on a losing streak.

However, a pattern of bad reviews and negative opinions is something we always take into account. We aren’t afraid to drop a casino from our site if it doesn’t live up to the high standards that we (and you) expect from them.