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Casino Site Reviews

Casino sites are in the business of earning your trust, providing a safe gambling environment and making it fun to play real money games online. With at least 600 gambling sites operating right now, it is a competitive business. Our goal with these casino site reviews is to help you navigate the crowded marketplace and find a casino worthy of your business.

We intend to achieve that goal by giving you factual, unbiased reviews of the biggest names in the business. You can count on these reviews to give you the real deal no matter what. We’re not interested in selling you on one casino or another. We want to give you the facts so you can make an informed decision and enjoy your time playing online.

Our favorite casinos are those that offer a well-rounded experience. Safety and security play the biggest role in our recommendations, but we also look at things like software, game selection, jackpots and promotions. We like to stick with casinos that get all the important things right. There are enough options out there that we can afford to be picky.

Objectivity is one of our primary goals with these reviews, but remember that we don’t even touch casinos that are unsafe or suffer from major defects. All of the above casinos will treat you well. What we recommend is to use our reviews to find the gambling site that works best for YOU.

Casino Reviews of Sites We Cannot Endorse:

How We Review Online Casinos

We like to start our casino reviews by taking a big picture look at each gambling site. We look at the overall reputation of the site, the game selection, deposit methods, bonuses, promos and software. This big-picture approach gives us an idea of the overall quality of a gambling site. Then, we like to drill down and take an in-depth look at each of those factors. We download the software, test it, play there, research other reviews and then write about our findings.

How Fast Withdrawals Are Processed

One thing we always look at is how withdrawals are processed. The online gambling industry has a sort of hit-and-miss record when it comes to speedy withdrawals. Some casinos take forever to process cashouts while others send your money out right away. Faster is always better for obvious reasons.

You could make the case that withdrawals are more important than any other single aspect. Without a reliable payment system in place, a casino would be hard-pressed to offer anything else that could possibly make it a worthwhile place to play. The whole reason we gamble our hard-earned money is for the chance to get lucky and win a bunch of cash. There’s no upside if a casino can’t even pay out your winnings.

It is the duty of the casino to always stay on top of payments. It’s true that casinos operate in a complex legal environment. The laws and banking systems vary from country to country. Even so, there’s simply no reason to gamble online if a site does cannot guarantee prompt payments every time.

Quality of Software

When testing the software, one thing we check is the stability of the software. Does the software run smooth at all times or does it have a tendency to freeze and disconnect? The quality of the software says a lot about how much a casino actually cares about the customer’s experience.

Some casino websites develop their own software in-house while others contract development out to third party companies. In either case, we consider it a “must have” for a gambling site’s software to function properly and be easy to use. Low quality software is irritating and distracts from the experience. With so many choices out there, there’s no need to deal with weak software.

Competency of Customer Service

Along those same lines, customer service plays an important role. It’s easy to dismiss the importance of customer service when everything is running well. But if you ever have a question or problem, customer service can make or break the experience. Casinos that respond quickly to questions with useful answers get major bonus points.

Have you ever e-mailed a business for help with something only to have them write back with some automated response that doesn’t even address the issue? We sure have, and we don’t like that kind of thing at all. It’s a waste of time and it shows that the company in question doesn’t truly value its customers.

Overall Reputation and History of the Brand

Any casino operator can make big promises about safety and security, but a reputation can only be built by old-fashioned hard work. Longstanding companies that are known for offering quick cashouts and hosting fair games don’t become known for those things overnight. It requires a serious determination to build a reputation over the long term.

Brand new online casino sites may be trustworthy, but there’s no way to actually verify that they stick by their promises. They are simply too new and unknown. It’s impossible to do any meaningful research on a company that has only recently come online. We make it a point to only review casinos that have been online long enough to build some sort of verifiable reputation.

One factor we consider is how many customer complaints a casino has. Discussion forums and industry websites are great resources for researching complaints from past customers. Every business in the world is bound to have unhappy customers, but sites that have an unusual number of complaints are best avoided.

Value of Bonuses and Promotions

Bonuses and promos may rank low on our priorities list, but these are still factors worth considering. There are enough reputable gaming sites out there that it’s possible to narrow down the list even further based on what they give to new and loyal customers.

If you have two otherwise equal online casinos but one has a much juicier deposit bonus, the choice is obvious. The best casino bonuses give you more chances to play and win. There’s no shame in letting a casino work to earn your business.

First time deposit bonuses always come with terms and conditions, also known as “the fine print.” For example, the majority of welcome bonuses have a stipulation that requires you to place a certain amount of wagers. This is called the “rollover.” It is not uncommon for a gambling bonus to have a rollover equal to 15 or 20 times the bonus amount.

The Most Important Factor When Choosing Where To Play

Trust is the hidden currency in the online gambling industry. We may focus our attention on the money, but trust is the oil that lubes the engine. Trust cannot be traded, demanded or used in bribes. Trust must be earned through hard work, customer service and reputation.

Our casino site reviews cover a variety of factors, but at the heart of every review, it’s all about trust. Is this a safe casino to play at? Does the casino pay fair odds on all games? Does the casino honor withdrawals? All the extras are nice, but these questions are the ones we make it a point to address in detail. If a casino does not rank 10 out of 10 on the trust factor, we won’t list it here. Period.