How We Rate and Review an Online Casino - CasinoMentor

Why Are Our Reviews Different from Others That You Can Find on the Internet

If you are looking for the answer, welcome to the CasinoMentor website, an essential guide that any gambler should have a closer look at before setting foot on any casino site. 

To be unique and stand out from the massive casino review sites out there, @ct has gone along its own way. We target exact and continuously updated information above anything relevant to an online casino, such as game selections, bonuses, interface, etc. 

The source of information about the gambling industry as well as online casinos never remains stable. The gambling industry is a swiftly-moving and ever-changing landscape that entirely looks different in a matter of minutes. Should there not be any update, it will no longer be useful, practical, and fresh for players to base on to make up their minds when it comes to choosing a casino site. That is why we merely focus on providing players with the most reliable and the latest knowledge so that they can totally make full use of it.

With a view to boosting players’ experience, we hope that gamblers will find the most trusted destination that suits them most to quench their gambling thirst.

Factors Considered in Our Reviews

There are seven categories that we mainly focus on during our review process: casinos’ reputation, trustworthiness and fairness, products, services, bonuses, complaints, and affiliate programs. Each category will be classified into many smaller segments, including information of owners, year of establishment, licenses, data protection and so much more, which are continuously updated to be correct and practical.

If you want to understand how we rate an online casino deeply, let’s go through everything below to let the cat out of the bag.

The reputation of an Online Casino

It is apparent that an online casino’s reputation has a dramatic effect on players’ choices, and it also presents one of the most important criteria for our review team to evaluate if this casino is worth your time and your money or not. As a gambler, you understand best why a long-existing casino has managed to pull a great crowd around it. The popularity of a casino indicates how players are treated and how they can be able to let their winnings out. That's why online casinos with a long history generally have higher reputation reviews against newbies.

Apparently, in comparison with veterans in the industry, new online casinos need more time to prove that they are worthy of confidence. Therefore, for the sake of players, we opt to rate certain new kids on the block a bit low reputation evaluation until their quality and capacity become clearer.

License

The fastest way to check if a casino is honest and responsible is by looking for the license that this casino is holding. You can easily find this important information by scrolling to the footer of the casino site. Generally, licenses approved by the UKGC and the MGA are the most reliable as the two legitimate bodies outrank others as the strictest in terms of auditing a fair online casino site. You can also find other popular governments that certify an unbiased operator such as Gibraltar, Curacao, and much more.

Established Year

How long an online gambling site has been in official and legal operation is also one of the additional factors that we take into consideration during our rating. The established year partly describes the casino’s experience and capacity of competing in order to stay on par with other formidable rivals in the ruthless war of the gambling industry. However, it is only a relative measure for us to resort to rate and evaluating an online casino if there is little information revealed. Many veterans rest on their laurels while several more modern ones continually revamp their image and quality to cater to players’ demands, so the year of foundation cannot fully tell what a casino is capable of.

Revenues

During our process of reviewing and rating an online casino, revenues come as an indispensable criterion. High revenues indicate a casino’s affordability of paying out to its aspiring gamblers, especially when scams at limited revenue casino sites are no longer a rarity.  Thus, it is important to take revenues into account when it comes to rating an honest casino site.

Moreover, sibling sites from the same owner can use revenues from one to pay out winnings in another, enabling smaller casinos to gain such a prestigious position thanks to being a part of a bigger group.

Owner/Operator

For casinos that belong to a big group, we assume that the quality and prestige of the owner will exactly tell about their properties. However, it is a small element that we take into account when rating a casino site.

For example, an online casino under the operation of a regarded group in the gambling industry will attract more gamblers to come to play thanks to its high affordability of paying out.

Domain 

Our review team finds that each valid and legal online casino site comes with a unique domain. Domain age is necessary, but not enough to estimate an online casino site. It tells us how long a site has gone live, but we have no idea if it is updated regularly to provide useful and practical information for players. 

Moreover, in terms of a casino’s domain, we have deeply got insights into an online casino’s “Uptime” or also known as the time that a casino is available to be accessed by utilizing StatusCake and Loadimpact. These two tools significantly help us surveillance a casino site’s accessibility in order to inform aspiring players in the fastest way.

In order to check if a legal domain’s registration matches with the time the casino officially goes live, we make use of the “Who. is” to ensure that the information provided by the casino is honest and trustworthy.

For example Alexa, and SimilarWeb

Alexa and SimilarWeb are currently the best tools that we utilize to rate and evaluate an online casino. These two useful tools indicate the traffic of an online casino on a global and local scale. Therefore, we are committed to endowing players with the most appropriate information and statistics about the trustworthiness of an online casino. 

eCOGRA

eCOGRA certification usually comes as the first thought of almost all players when pondering a legal site to play at. It is an independent regulatory body in the gambling industry and one of the vital bedrocks that we base on to rate a casino site. Once the logo of this agency is found at the footer of the casino site, it can be totally sure that the casino you are visiting operates fairly and responsibly under industry authority. 

Trustworthiness and Fairness

• Fair Return to Players Ratio: In order to make sure that a casino is able to offer players a decent payout rate, we focus on checking the average RTP of the casino and games that are available as well. This information shows how much players can expect to touch when they win against the casino or games offered there. It leaves no doubt that good and trusted casinos will have no problem displaying this information right on their site.

• Data Protection: Data protection has always been “a hot potato” for gamblers. When you provide your personal information to an online casino site, it is apparent that you want to be assured that your sensitive data is used for the purpose that you have intended to. Our @ct team is making every effort to test a large number of online casino sites out there and only recommends the safest ones, where there is no unauthorized person who can leak or steal your information.
• SSL encryptionS: SSL encryption is one of the most adapted tools at almost all modern online casinos nowadays. There are two existing primary encryptions: 128-bit and 256-bit ones. This advanced tool ensures that any data transferred between players and casinos remain highly secure and protected. Thus, once our review team is sure that an online gambling site holds this certification, there is no doubt that the casino is not at stake in being seized by any third party. Or in other words, players can make sure that they are playing on safe ground.
• Gamblers’ Health: We promise to recommend gamblers to the most responsible gambling site to play by carefully testing if these casinos have partnerships with respected organizations whose priority is players’ health. “GamblerCare”, “Problem Gambling Support,” and “BeGambleAware” are examples of outstanding third parties. Should any punters indicate their abuse or suffer from health issues due to gambling, they can contact experts from these agencies to ask for help, and advice and even self-exclude from gambling practices.

All Products that are Offered

Gaming software providers significantly contribute to a casino’s success and distinguish one site from another with its own gaming products. NetEnt, Microgaming, and Playtech are amongst the most regarded companies thanks to their outstanding games that are well-packed with seamless graphics, stunning soundtracks, superb animations, and interesting RTP. 

We appreciate online casino sites that provide a tremendous selection of casino games powered by top-leading providers. We want to make sure that casino sites always try their best to offer players a hot and fresh source of entertainment so that no one will get bored when playing at these sites.

Game Selections

For aspiring players, a wide range of game selections is what they have been looking for. Therefore, it is vital for casino sites to be engaging sites to keep their game selection fresh and diverse. We always look for sites that offer a miscellaneous range of casino games with different variants in terms of slots, blackjack, roulette, baccarat and poker, live dealer, and keno games. In consequence, what players can make sure about our trusted casino reviews is they will not be fed up with and tired of gambling due to the endless source of entertainment.

Progressive Jackpots: If you are a thrill-seeker who always gets excited about life-changing rewards, then progressive jackpots will undoubtedly fit the bill. These thrilling games will definitely make you indulge but also present such a risk. That is why we check the big progressive jackpots such as Mega Moolah, Mega Fortune, and the Age of Gods series on a frequent basis to give players the most informative and handy knowledge. To us, our team would rather drink more coffee at night to test if a game is fair and totally random, rather than hear a complaint about a bad experience. 

Interface and User Experience

When it comes to interface and use experience, our team has tested the quality of instant play on various devices to evaluate if one casino’s site is highly compatible and user-friendly. What we want to see when reviewing an online casino is the mobile version can run smoothly and flawlessly on desktops, tablets, smartphones, and many screen sizes. Besides, we also check these casinos’ interfaces manually to see if players can easily navigate between categories in the same site and if these categories are classified in a convenient and appealing manner.

Bonuses and Promotions at Online Casinos

In terms of bonuses and promotions, players should always pay attention to the T&Cs to know how to claim an amazing bonus and how to use it efficiently. Having carefully read a lot of T&Cs, our team finds that some of them are too long and complicated for players to understand, as not all players have enough time and patience to dive into these T&Cs offered by casinos. Even in some cases, the T&Cs section presents a gimmick that prevents players from claiming their winnings. Indeed, it is vital for us to impose many strict criteria on the T&Cs provided by online casinos to give exact reviews.

Welcome Bonuses

Every gambler looks forward to touching incentives of welcome bonuses right after signing in a casino site. Keeping this in mind, we don’t cease to find the most enticing casino bonuses to add to our review list. Deposit match bonuses, free spins, cashback, or no deposit offers all can totally boost your gambling experience to the maximum.

In order to provide players with the tastiest bonuses, we thoughtfully researched the terms and conditions attached and redeem the code to test if it really works. A good casino will have no problems showing the terms and conditions required for players to meet and make full use of.

Banking Methods: How Players Interact with the Real Money Casinos

It goes without saying that easy and speedy transactions are of great importance to all gamblers when playing at an online casino. Deeply understanding this, our team has gone through the whole process of deposits and withdrawals at a bundle of casino sites. Keep reading the following part to see how we rate a site in a more detailed way.

What do We Consider at Deposit Methods of an Online Casino? 

Available deposit options, accepted currencies, deposit limits are what we focus on to conduct a casino review. Furthermore, they are what players care about when funding their accounts in order not to get into any monetary problems. 

What do We Consider at Withdrawal Methods of an Online Casino?

Regarding withdrawals, we are interested in an expansive banking selection, permissible currencies, and especially withdrawal time. Our local testers have checked several sites to see how soon the funds reflect in our account.

While almost all deposit requests are processed instantly, it is not the case with withdrawal ones. Therefore, we want to check if an online casino keeps its promise in the processing time.

How Does Support Service Speak up for Good Online Casinos? 

If customer support is the big deal that you take into account to choose a site that you wish to spend your time and your money on, we will give you a clear overview of how we test this aspect of thousands of online casino sites out there.

• Language Support: Many casinos’ customer service is not available in several popular languages. We have sent our queries in many languages to the team via different ways to test how many languages are supported. 
• Available time: Similarly, the fastest way to know when players are able to reach the support team is to contact the casino’s team.
• Support Options: We always remain true to our word of providing players the most trusted casino with as many support options as possible (FAQ section, live chat, telephone, email, social networks).

Attitude: When approaching the customer team, we are curious about their attitude and competence in solving issues from players. They should be professional, friendly, and able to give players informative and needed information.

• The website’s and app’s languages: Certain casino sites are only available in some languages on both browser and mobile apps. To make it more accessible to worldwide players, we try our best to look into the long list of casinos and sort them into specific sections tailored to players’ languages and locations.
• Players’ Feedback: Our team has conducted a lot of surveys on players’ experience to make our reviews more reliable. This feedback will give players an objective overall about the casino they intend to play at.
• VIP Players: A number of casino sites keep players stuck to it by offering a lot of exhilarating VIP promotions. Diving into these casinos to explore if these ongoing exclusive promotions are real is exactly what we concentrate on.
• Complaints/dispute: Our casino review team has been finding and collecting all relevant complaints from players on a variety of forums, clubs, and websites for gambling enthusiasts. These complaints give us a good idea of how online casinos treat their players. We enter all complaints into our system and assign them a classification based on our perception. Besides, the number of disputes caused by these complaints is what we take into consideration when it comes to rating an online casino site, as they tell us existing downsides that an online casino has to deal with.
• Affiliates: It is of course a no-brainer that many online gambling sites cooperate with the same affiliate sites. These online casino affiliate programs are responsible for promoting online casinos’ images and make them more accessible to gamblers all over the world. Our team has put a lot of thought and time to review and rate these mediations with a lot of strict rules and conditions to see if players can trust and stand by their brand.

How We Collect Data about Casinos and Keep Our Reviews up to Date

We promise that all information that you read about online casinos on our site is really trustworthy and unbiased. Here is how we collect and process casinos’ data to create this unique list that you are looking into. 

• Revenue: Good casinos will have no problem providing data about their revenues. Moreover, we also collect these important data from annual reports or estimate the traffic of their site.
• Complaints: As stated above, these complaints from players’ sides are accumulated from different websites, forums, and our complaint resolution center where players can send their complaints directly.
• Blacklists: Information about bad casinos that are listed in the blacklist is summarized from respected online casino blacklists.

All information about win limits, withdrawal limits, the fairness of T&Cs, licenses, game genuineness, customer support quality, and a number of other factors is collected first hand from casinos’ websites and via contact customer support.

With a great number of local testers in every corner of the world, we are proud to say that all information you find on our site is truthful and relevant to players from specific countries. In addition, we prioritize countries that casinos appear in higher positions in our casino list.

Periodical Updates of Casino Reviews

It goes without saying that we cannot always make sure that online casinos’ information stays practical and correct all the time. Therefore, it is essential for our team to return to casino reviews, again and again, to ensure that they are all up to date and provide the most useful and informative information on a frequent basis. 

Keeping highly detailed information of thousands of online casinos hot and fresh out of the kitchen is not a simple task, but we have been making every effort to check them periodically. Luckily, by classifying these primary groups of casino sites, everything seems to be under control. 

• Bad Casinos: For some of the casino sites that are below players’ expectations and receive low ratings from gamblers, we do not have to update their data frequently. It is visible that we do not highly recommend these cases to players. 
• Good Casinos: Certain casinos are really good thanks to its peerless services and laudable game quality and as a result, they are displayed right on the top list of our reviews. These casinos deserve to be reviewed as frequently as possible to keep the information fresh and useful.
• Between the two groups: There are a number of casino sites that are much better than atrocious ones but somewhere not as superb as some. In this case, we keep reviewing them on a relatively frequent basis, or in other words somewhere between the two first groups.

More importantly, many casinos want their information on our site to remain updated regularly. This accounts for the fact that they inform us of some important changes, for example, restricted countries, welcome bonuses, and so on. Thanks to that, we can modify and update our reviews as soon as hearing from the casino’s side.

Last but not least, our visitors also let us know something new on a casino site, so we can bring our review up to date continually.

Read more: All Blackjack Terms You Need to Know When Playing the Game

Our Independent Casino Review Team

In order to maintain a rich source of fresh and exact information, our review team of more than 20 dedicated members has been working regardless of day and time to collect, refine and enter data into our system. 

IMPORTANT: You can find all members of the review team on our "Author" team data. 

Taking advantage of the ever-growing technological advance, we have developed our own complicated and specific tools to collect, scan, check, and verify a great deal of online casinos’ information before players can get it right on the tips of the fingers. This process is conducted on a frequent basis so that players will not miss out on any useful and exact information.

Moreover, we also undertake many surveys on real players’ experiences via many platforms and social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and so much more. This will allow us to summarize the most objective reviews about online casinos that players can choose from.

Furthermore, it is important to say our team not only focuses on collecting information about online casinos but also considerably helps players with their complaints at firsthand with our complaint resolution center.

All team members are well-trained and are all familiar with complaints before the complaint resolution center is opened. As a result, it leaves no doubt that they are always ready to deal with similar situations during the casino review process, where complaints are truly inevitable. Our professional team quickly becomes experts in terms of evaluating complaints and judging which side is right, as well as getting insights into a casino’s T&Cs to see how it treats its own players. Therefore, what players can make sure about our team is we are the ones that will give players a hand to resolve conflicts with casinos on our site. 

More importantly, our team is committed to staying independent. Therefore, when you take a glance at our review site, you will not find any demonstration of advertisements, scams, or any seeding activities relevant to financial reasons. Players will find nothing but transparency throughout the reviews displayed right on our site.