Online casino reviews: how we review a casino, and the nine we've done

What a review checks

Every casino review runs on one template, so you can set two side by side and compare the same lines. It asks who the casino takes, what games it runs and who makes them, whether it has live dealers, how you pay in and how you get paid, the minimum deposit, the welcome bonus, when it started, whether it plays on mobile and how you reach support. Each line in the at-a-glance box names where it came from, usually the operator's own website, or says "Not stated".

Then the text does what the box can't. It asks who the casino says it is: a company name, an address, a licence, a testing lab. Not one of the nine names all four, and each review says plainly what's missing. It works the welcome bonus through in dollars, at a stated slot return of 96 percent, because the headline percentage tells you almost nothing. And it reads the payout rules for the caps, the holds and the one-off clauses that decide how a big win comes home.

The review methodology sets out how we research: facts from what anyone can read, every source dated, and a blocked page recorded as unknown rather than worked around. Two of our casino reviews hit exactly that, at BookMaker and JustBet, whose terms sit in a help centre that refused access. The rating method for casinos isn't published yet, so the casino lists run A to Z for now, and every review reads ATB Tested: No until a test of ours is documented. I'd rather show you that than a score nobody can check.

What I look for first

If you read only one part of a casino review, read how it pays. I'd go there before the games and long before the bonus. A casino that caps payouts at $5,000 a week, or won't say what its cap is, has told you how it plans to handle a winner. The bonus section comes second, because in all nine reviews the welcome bonus costs more to clear than it gives, by the reviews' own arithmetic. Where a smaller offer or a rebate comes out ahead, the review says which.

The nine reviews

BetNow Casino: a 200 percent bonus at 25x, a 10 percent weekly rebate, and casino wins over $5,000 in a day paid at $5,000 a week.

Bookie.ag Casino: four casino rooms with named studios, including Betsoft and Pragmatic Play, one payout every seven days, and a bonus ladder that caps what you can redeem. AskTheBookie and Bookie.ag share a business network, and our conflict-of-interest policy applies.

BookMaker Casino: a sportsbook's casino with a weekly $25,000 slots tournament from a $40 entry, and a slots bonus at 50x to be played in 72 hours.

Bovada Casino: published bonus weighting and withdrawal limits, up to $90,000 a week in Bitcoin, and three different slot counts on its own pages.

Everygame Casino: Casino Red and Casino Classic on one account, a 30x bonus on deposit plus bonus, and no withdrawal limits, fees or times on the pages read.

JustBet Casino: one balance with the sportsbook, the same $25,000 weekly tournament format, and welcome bonuses at 50x and 80x.

MyBookie Casino: a 200 percent bonus at 40x with a $100 cap on wins from bonus-only bets, and Bitcoin payouts of up to $5,000.

Xbet Casino: a 300 percent bonus at 40x, a game-by-game rollover table, free spins at 1x, and a $10,000 weekly payout ceiling.

YouWager Casino: several casino rooms, every bonus with its weighting and cashout cap printed, and a daily cashback of up to $100 with no rollover.

Reading them

A review is a reading of the casino's pages on one date, and the date is on every review. Terms change, and offshore casinos change them without notice, so I'd check the line that matters to you on the casino's own site before you deposit. Whether you may play at any of them depends on where you live, which the review can't settle for you.

The list below holds all nine casinos we've reviewed, with each one's games line.