Editorial policy
The rules we hold ourselves to when researching, writing and correcting everything published on this site.
Verification before publication
Every material factual claim on this site is checked against an authoritative source before it goes live. For licensing — the facts that matter most — that source is the Gambling Commission's own public register: we confirm the operating licence, the legal licensee behind the brand, the licence account number, and that the domain we link to is one the licence actually covers. We record when those checks were made and repeat them periodically.
Where a fact cannot be verified to that standard, we leave it out. You will notice, for instance, that we do not publish bonus amounts, wagering requirements or withdrawal times: these change too quickly for a comparison site to state with authority, so we point you to the operator's own pages instead of guessing.
Fact and opinion, kept separate
Licence details, ownership and product facts are reported as facts. Letter grades, verdicts and every judgement about quality are editorial opinion, and we write them so that's obvious — they belong to Payline Harbour's reviews desk, not to any regulator, testing house or operator. A good grade here is our considered view; it is not a certification.
How grades are decided
Grades follow the published criteria on our How we rate page: games range, live casino, mobile experience, usability and the presentation of player-protection tools, with licensing treated as a pass-or-fail gate rather than a scored category. Grades are reviewed when we re-check a casino or when significant news — a sanction, a sale, a relaunch — gives us cause.
Commercial separation
The site is affiliate-funded, and our affiliate disclosure explains exactly what that means. The editorial rule is short: operators can affect whether they appear, never how they're judged. No operator previews, approves or edits our copy.
Responsible presentation
We write about gambling as paid entertainment with real risk — never as income, investment or a solution to anything. We don't use urgency, we don't promise wins, and every page of this site carries age warnings and links to free support services.
Mistakes
When we get something wrong, we correct the page promptly and note the change where it's material. The process for reporting an error — and what happens after you do — is on our corrections page.