How we rate gambling sites
Every score comes from the same seven criteria with fixed weights. Commission never changes a score. Methodology version 1.0.
The criteria
- Licence and safety25%Valid licence for your location, checked on the regulator's public register, plus ownership, fines and game-testing certificates.
- Payouts20%Median of our last three real withdrawals, fees, limits and how long verification took.
- Bonus fairness15%Wagering, time limits, maximum bet and win caps, game weighting and excluded payment methods.
- Games15%Range, studios, published RTPs and live tables.
- Mobile10%App and mobile site speed, stability and how easy limits are to find.
- Support10%Response time and quality on a real question, by every channel offered.
- Safer-gambling tools5%Deposit and loss limits, reality checks, time-outs, self-exclusion and national scheme participation.
How we test
- We open a real account in a location where the site is licensed and verify our identity.
- We deposit real money, set a deposit limit, claim the welcome offer where one exists and play.
- We request a withdrawal and time it from request to funds arriving. Scores use the median of the latest three tests.
- We contact support with a practical question on every channel offered.
- Every site is re-tested at least every 90 days, and offers are re-checked at least every 30 days.
A site we have not tested yet can still appear where it is allowed, marked "Not yet rated". It has no score, no verdict and no payout time until a tester has done the work above, and it cannot take a top-three position or a "Top pick" badge.
When a site is removed
We remove a site from every listing if its licence lapses, if it fails to pay a verified withdrawal, or if a regulator sanctions it for player-protection failures. Removals are recorded in our corrections log.
How lists are ordered
The score above judges each site. The order of a list is set by our ranking engine, which blends that score with how readers respond to each site over the last 30 days. Each signal's share of the ranking:
- Editorial score: 40%. The seven criteria above.
- Click-through: 12%. How often readers choose the site, corrected for its position in the list.
- Sign-ups: 14%. How many readers who click go on to open an account.
- Earnings per click: 14%. The commission we earn. This is a commercial factor, and we disclose it on every list.
- Freshness: 8%. How recently we re-tested the site.
- Offer health: 12%. Whether its current offer passes our compliance checks.
Guardrails apply on top:
- Only sites licensed for your location can appear. The one exception: Canadian provinces with no regulated private market, where sites licensed in Malta or Curaçao appear with a clear label.
- A site scoring under 7.5 can never take one of the top 3 positions.
- Verified player complaints are a direct penalty, so earnings cannot outweigh harm to players.
- New sites get a small, temporary boost so they can be judged on data rather than ignored.
- Paid Featured placements are labelled and do not change the order or any score.
You can always re-sort a list by score, payout speed or wagering. How we make money.