How we rate online casinos
Every grade on this site is built the same way. This page shows the machinery, so you can decide how much weight our opinion deserves.
Step one: the licence gate
Before a casino can be scored at all, it has to clear a gate that isn't scored: current authorisation from the Gambling Commission for online casino play in Great Britain. We look the brand up on the official public register, record the legal licensee and account number, and confirm that the exact domain we link to is covered. A casino that fails any part of this doesn't get a low grade — it doesn't appear on the site at all.
We treat licensing as a gate rather than a category for a simple reason: a brilliant casino without a GB licence is not a casino we're willing to send anyone to, and scoring it would imply otherwise.
Step two: what we weigh
Casinos that clear the gate are assessed across five areas. We deliberately don't reduce them to a formula — a serious weakness in one area can outweigh polish everywhere else — but these are the questions we ask:
- Games range. Not raw title count, but breadth and organisation: slots across styles and stakes, table games, jackpots, and how easy the library is to actually navigate.
- Live casino. Table variety, stake range and how the live offering is integrated rather than bolted on.
- Mobile experience. Most play now happens on phones. We look at speed, layout and whether anything important gets lost on a small screen.
- Usability and clarity. Registration flow, how findable the important terms are, and whether the site design informs or obstructs.
- Player protection in practice. Deposit limits, reality checks, time-outs and self-exclusion are legally required — what varies is how visible, usable and genuinely encouraged they are. Casinos that surface these tools well score better here.
Step three: the grade
The result is a letter grade set by the reviews desk, with a written verdict that explains it — the verdict matters more than the letter.
Excellent across the board. We found very little to fault, and we'd recommend it without caveats to most players.
A good casino with a clear weakness or two — worth joining if its strengths match what you care about.
Adequate but unremarkable, or strong in one area while lagging noticeably in others.
Licensed but hard to recommend while better options exist. We explain exactly why in the verdict.
Plus and minus modifiers (A−, B+) mark the edges of each band. Grades are reviewed when we re-check a casino and whenever significant news gives us reason to look again.
What we deliberately leave out
You won't find bonus amounts, wagering requirements, withdrawal-speed promises or payment-method tables in our comparisons. These details change frequently and are stated authoritatively only by the operator's own current pages — republishing them here would trade accuracy for the appearance of completeness. Where a fact can't be verified, our editorial policy is to omit it.
The commercial question, answered straight
This site earns affiliate commission, and commercial relationships can influence which casinos we cover. They cannot influence the grade: no operator sees a review before publication, and none can pay for a kinder verdict. The full picture is in our affiliate disclosure.