The Method
Two rankings on this site look nothing alike at first glance and shouldn’t: our free trainer tables, which grade you against fixed mathematical strategy, and our casino operator rankings, which grade real businesses against a mix of hard facts and judgment calls. Here’s exactly how each works.
Blackjack and video poker decisions are graded against published basic strategy tables, the same computer-simulated optimal play used industry-wide, not a house opinion of our own. Every hand’s “correct” answer comes from the identical logic file the on-page strategy chart renders from.
That means the guide and the game can never quietly disagree with each other. Roulette and slots have no decision to grade, since they’re pure-chance games; those pages instead publish the exact house edge and RTP figures relevant to each bet or title.
Every operator in our rankings is checked against four things before it’s listed at all:
An operator failing the license check is excluded outright, regardless of any other strength. The remaining three factors are weighted into the overall ranking alongside game selection and bonus transparency.
Rankings are reviewed on an ongoing basis, not published once and forgotten. A license lapsing, a pattern of slow payouts in player reports, or a new state-licensed operator launching are all reasons a ranking moves up or down.
We don’t accept payment to place or improve an operator’s position. Our revenue comes from standard referral commissions disclosed on our Terms of Use page, applied equally regardless of where an operator ranks.
If you find outdated information, a licensing change we missed, or a strategy error in a chart, tell us. We verify and correct promptly; gambling-adjacent content that’s wrong isn’t just an SEO problem, it’s a real-money problem for whoever reads it.
No operator can buy a listing or a position. We earn referral commission when a reader signs up through a link, and that commission is paid at the same rate regardless of where a casino sits. Failing the licence check removes an operator entirely rather than costing it points.
Against the regulator’s own public register rather than the operator’s marketing — the DGOJ register in Spain, the UK Gambling Commission’s licence lookup, the Malta Gaming Authority’s licensee database, the Secretaria de Prêmios e Apostas authorisations in Brazil, and the equivalent state registers in the US. A licence claimed but not listed is treated as no licence.
The trainers grade against published basic strategy, the same computer-simulated optimal play used across the industry, not a house opinion. The strategy chart on the site renders from the identical logic file the trainer grades with, so the guide and the game cannot quietly disagree.
On a rolling basis rather than to a schedule. A licence lapsing, a run of slow-payout reports or a new licensed operator launching all move a position immediately; payout speed is re-checked most often because it is the figure most likely to slip between reviews.
Because a licence in the market where you live is the only thing that gives you a complaints route with teeth. An offshore site can be perfectly honest and you would still have no regulator to appeal to when it is not, so the licence check is a gate rather than a scoring factor.
From the gap between an approved withdrawal request and money arriving — taken from player reports and our own test withdrawals, weighed against the window the operator advertises. Where the two disagree, the reports win, because the advertised figure is a marketing number.