How We Rank Offshore Casinos
Every comparison site says it is objective. This page is more checkable: where our information comes from, what each rating measures, and which claims we refuse to make.
Two different things make this page
The order of operators in our comparison and the writing underneath each of them come from separate places, and keeping them apart is the whole of our method. The order is commercial and we may earn a commission from it; the writing is editorial and it is ours.
Commission does not move the order, and the supplied order does not decide what the research finds. Where the two pull in different directions, the research is what gets written down, which is why an operator near the top of the list can carry a blunt line about something it does not publish.
- The order
- Commercial: a supplied comparison we may earn a commission from.
- The writing
- Editorial: our own research into what the operator publishes.
What counts as a source
An operator entry is built from first-party material: the site’s own terms and conditions, its promotion terms, its cashier or banking pages, its help centre and its published game information. Where a statement concerns something outside the operator, such as how a licensing regime works, the source is that authority itself rather than somebody else’s summary of it.
Two kinds of material are excluded deliberately.
- Third-party payout anecdotes, forum reports and aggregated user scores, because their origin cannot be established and nobody can check them
- Anything filled in by inference. If an operator does not publish its withdrawal processing times, the entry records that rather than quoting a figure that sounds about right
The absence is the finding, and it is usually the finding a reader needs most.
What we look at in a bonus
The headline figure is the least informative part of any offer, so it is not what a bonus assessment responds to. What we look for is whether the conditions that decide the offer’s value are published at all, and whether a reader can understand them without opening a support chat.
- Whether a wagering requirement is stated, and what the terms apply it to
- Whether a game contribution table exists
- Whether a maximum bet applies while a bonus is live
- Whether there is an expiry, and whether it is realistic against the requirement
- Whether a cap limits what the bonus is allowed to pay out
An operator that publishes all of that plainly is rated above one advertising twice the money behind terms you have to ask for. Casino bonuses turns those findings into a decision, and our full guide to offshore casino bonuses works through the mechanics behind each term.
What we look at in banking
The same question in a different place: how much does the operator tell you before you have given it money?
- Whether a withdrawal policy can be read without an account
- Whether the methods that take a deposit and the methods that send a payout overlap usably
- Whether limits, fees and stated timelines appear anywhere
- Whether verification requirements are explained up front rather than after you ask for a payout
What we record is what the operator lists. We do not report that a method worked, because that would require an account and a transaction we have not made. Offshore casino banking explains why these details decide a payout timeline, and payment methods works through the individual options a cashier offers.
What we look at in responsible-gambling provision
We record which player-protection controls an operator documents and where: limits on deposits and losses, session reminders, break periods and self-exclusion, and whether any of it is described publicly or only appears after registering. An operator that publishes how to set a limit has made that limit usable by somebody who has not deposited yet.
This is recorded, not tested. We do not open accounts to confirm that a control behaves as described. Responsible gambling sets out what each of these tools does, what the recognised warning signs are, and where free confidential help is available in the US.
Why we make no claim about licensing
No entry here states that an operator is licensed, names a regulator behind it or reproduces a licence seal, anywhere on this site.
That is a decision rather than an omission. A licence line on a casino site is published by the party being checked, and the only worthwhile version of that check runs on the regulator’s side, against the live site, on the day you are looking at it. A claim copied into our page months ago would carry more authority than it deserves. What an offshore casino is explains how the licensing jurisdictions differ and how the Curacao certificate check works, and evaluating an offshore casino site sets out the order to run your own checks in.
What a category rating is measuring
Where an operator entry carries category ratings for games, bonuses and banking, each one summarises the researched material for that category. It is not a score awarded after a test.
Read a rating as shorthand for the entry underneath it, then read the entry, because the sentence explaining why a number is what it is carries the information and the number only carries the ordering.
- Bonuses
- How completely the terms are laid out, not how big the headline is.
- Banking
- How clearly limits, fees and timelines are published, not how fast a payout arrived.
- Games
- The game information the operator publishes, not any play of our own.
- Responsible gambling
- Which player-protection controls are documented before you register.
What we will not write, and how to read the list
What we will not write:
- A licence, a licence number or a regulator that nobody granted
- Deposits or withdrawals we have not made, described as tests
- Payout speeds an operator has not published
- That a site is safe, or a guarantee that any operator will accept you from where you live
Where a supplied comparison carries a state exclusion, we show it as written and leave the current position to the operator’s own terms.
What follows from that is how to use the page. The comparison is a starting set of candidates rather than a personalised recommendation, and its research has a shelf life: terms, promotions, cashier options and eligibility change without notifying anybody who read about them earlier. Confirm anything that will decide your deposit against the live site.
Common questions
Are you paid by the casinos in this comparison?
Yes. We earn affiliate commission on referrals made through the links here, and the sequence of the comparison is set by a supplied commercial list. Neither of those changes the editorial research, which is written from the operators’ own published material and includes what that material fails to say. We would rather state the arrangement plainly than describe ourselves as independent in a way that is not accurate.
Have you actually deposited and withdrawn at these casinos?
No, and no entry on this site claims otherwise. The research is source-based: we read what an operator publishes about its terms, bonuses, cashier and verification, and we report that. Presenting a payout time or a smooth withdrawal as first-hand experience when nobody made the transaction is the most common dishonesty in this category, and it is easy to write and impossible for a reader to check.
Why does an entry say something is not published instead of estimating it?
Because the estimate would be indistinguishable from a fact once it is printed, and a reader has no way to tell them apart. An operator that does not publish its withdrawal limits has told you something real about how it prefers to be approached, and recording the silence preserves that signal. Filling the gap with a plausible number destroys it.
Why will you not say whether an operator is licensed?
Because a licence claim is only worth anything when it is verified from the regulator’s side, against the exact site you are about to use, on the day you use it. That check takes a couple of minutes and it belongs to you. Repeating a footer claim back to you would look like corroboration while adding nothing, and licence status can change between our research and your visit.
What do the numbers next to games, bonuses and banking mean?
They summarise the researched material in that category, mostly how much the operator publishes and how clearly. They are not test results, they are not audited, and they are not comparable to a regulator’s assessment or a testing laboratory’s certificate. They exist to order the entries, and the writing underneath them carries the actual reasoning.
Would you remove an operator from the comparison?
The list order is supplied, so the honest answer is that removal is not the tool we work with. What we do instead is write what the research found, including the parts that reflect badly, and show any state exclusion we are given exactly as it was given. An entry that mostly describes things an operator does not publish is telling you what we would otherwise be telling you by leaving it out.
Who writes this?
Christoph Huber, who handles casino research and editorial for this site. The research method is the one described on this page, and the pages carry the date they were last reviewed so you can judge how current the material behind them is.