How We Review Casinos

What We Check

Every CasinoGrounds casino review covers the same core areas, and in each one we're trying to answer a specific question a player would actually care about.

Licensing. Who regulates this casino, and what does that actually mean? Not all licences offer the same level of player protection.
Game library. What's in there, and for what kind of player? We look at providers, formats, and whether the selection is broad or just large.
Payments and withdrawals. Deposit and withdrawal limits, processing times, and available methods.
Customer support. What channels exist, when they're available, and what's missing.
Responsible gambling tools. What's available, and whether it's easy to find and use.

Casino Bonuses

Bonuses are where the gap between what looks good on paper and what's actually fair tends to be widest, so we look at them closely. Every casino is held to the same standards, and the score comes from the actual offer, not from any commercial relationship.

Bonus size and bonus terms are scored separately and deliberately. Fairness carries more weight in the rating than size does. A 200% bonus with brutal wagering will score lower than a 100% bonus you can actually clear, and that's by design.

We look at nine things in total, and each one carries a different weight depending on how much it typically affects a player:

Category	What it measures
Deposit bonus value	The match percentage and maximum bonus amount — how big the offer actually is
Bonus fairness	The wagering requirement and terms quality — how hard it is to actually keep your winnings
Beginner-friendliness	Minimum deposit, how long the casino has been operating, and how easy the wagering is to clear
Offer reliability	How recently the offer was checked — an offer that hasn't been updated in a long time is less likely to still be accurate
Free spins value	How many free spins the offer includes
Bonus variety	How many different bonus offers the casino runs
Currency coverage	How many currencies the casino supports
Game providers	How many game studios the casino carries, compared to other casinos in the same market
Payment methods	How many deposit and withdrawal methods the casino offers, compared to other casinos in the same market

Two of those work a bit differently. Game providers and payment methods are judged against other casinos in the same market, not a fixed target. That's because 40 game studios might be plenty in one country and thin in another. These two carry the smallest weights in the rating, so they nudge the score rather than drive it.

The weights above reflect how we currently rate casinos and may be recalibrated over time.

What earns full marks

Every casino is scored against the same fixed standards. Here's what it takes to score at the top of each category:

What we look at	Full marks	Scores nothing
Wagering requirement	20x or lower	70x or higher
Bonus match percentage	200% or higher	Scales up from 0
Maximum bonus amount	€1,000 or higher	Scales up from 0
Free spins	200 or more	Scales up from 0
Minimum deposit	€10 or lower	€100 or higher
Offer last updated	Within the last 30 days	Untouched for 18 months or more
Years in operation	15 years or more	Scales up from 0
Number of bonus offers	8 or more	Scales up from 0
Currencies supported	6 or more	Scales up from 0

Everything in between scales evenly. Going higher than the full marks threshold doesn't earn extra credit — a 400% match scores the same as 200%.

Wagering that applies to the combined deposit and bonus is harder to clear than wagering on the bonus alone — the total turnover requirement is much higher. The rating accounts for that difference.

What we rate and what we don't

A casino gets a rating only if it has at least one live, rateable bonus offer. A casino with no bonus isn't given a low score: it simply isn't rated. No rating isn't a verdict.

To count toward the rating, a bonus must be live and have at least one term we can measure. That means a wagering requirement, a match percentage, a maximum bonus amount, or a free spins count. Paid promotional placements are excluded — they don't affect the score either way.

Multi-tier welcome packages are scored on the offer's main tier.

Star Rating

The star rating you see on every review reflects all nine categories above, not just the bonus. It's a starting point: the written review is where everything comes together into an actual verdict.

You might notice the same casino carrying a different rating in different countries. That's not an error. Casinos offer different bonuses in different markets, payment methods vary by country, and the game provider comparison is drawn from casinos available in that same market. The rating you see reflects the offer you can actually claim, not a global average that may not apply to you.

What We Do Not Speculate On

If we can't verify something, we don't include it.

Bonus offers aren't covered in the review text itself. Where an active offer exists, it appears in the dedicated bonus panel on the same page, kept up to date on its own.

We do it this way because bonus terms change often and without warning, and we'd rather show you the current offer in one place than have the review say something that's no longer true.

We also don't make up our minds before we check. A casino with a well-known brand gets the same scrutiny as one nobody's heard of.

How We Form a Verdict

Our verdicts don't pull punches. If a licence offers less player protection than the name suggests, we say so. If withdrawal times are slow or a game library is thinner than it looks, that goes in too. We've written critical reviews of casinos we have affiliate deals with, and that won't change.

CasinoGrounds readers know their way around bonus terms. The verdict assumes that and gives a straight answer, not a soft overview.

Shaped by Our Community

The star rating and the written review don't always move in lockstep, and that's deliberate.

If a casino scores well but players consistently tell us the actual experience doesn't match, the review says so. The rating reflects what's measurable; the verdict reflects what we're hearing, and the gap between the two is itself useful information.

A newer casino with a shorter track record isn't automatically at a disadvantage in the written verdict. If players are reporting a good experience, the review reflects that regardless of what the score says.

Keeping Reviews Accurate

The casino industry moves constantly. What's accurate today may not be accurate in three months, and we can't monitor every page in real time.

What we can guarantee is that when something important changes and we find out about it, whether through our own monitoring or because a community member flags it, we update the review quickly. Every review includes a last reviewed date, so you know how recent the information is.

If you spot something that looks wrong or out of date, let us know.