Shaking up the UK review market

A cynical person might claim that once you have seen one online casino or review site, you have seen them all. However, as any iGamer knows, you only have to take a shallow dive to realise that there are huge disparities. Anyone interested in taking a deep dive will find that there are fathoms between the very best and the very worst ones. So, while it seems that every affiliate out there is looking to rank and rate the online casinos, sometimes it is hard to tell them apart.

There is an old saying that if it ain’t broke, you shouldn’t fix it. Yet some iGaming experts believe that the current review system is no longer fit for purpose.

As the UK’s modern, regulated online gambling market hits the grand old age of 21, casino.net is launching in the UK. This is a brand-new service that is taking a different approach. We invited the platform’s Head of Product, Katya Vasileva, who has worked in the industry since 2013, to talk us through what sets this site apart from the crowd.

CasinoMentor

Hi Katya, thank you for taking the time to come and talk to us. This new site, casino.net, claims to be breaking the mould, but does it have any heritage, or is it a total ‘new-kid-on-the-block’?

Katya Vasileva

Hey, thanks for letting me share our new service with your readers. casino.net is a new product, but there is plenty of experience behind it. The team has been testing, rating and reviewing online casinos for many years, and I have been in this industry myself since 2013. We have already tested and reviewed over 100 UK operators, and the others are in the pipeline, all to provide a comprehensive guide to those that are safe. And the UK is just the beginning. More markets are coming up next.

Our mission is to build and support a community of players who want to make the most of their online casino experience. By the time someone finds us, they have usually already decided to play. Our role is to help them make an informed choice in a sea of operators, not to persuade anyone to gamble. And while the UK’s Gambling Act 2005 requires operators to hold a licence, we believe there is much more to a great online experience than licensing alone. It is the first step, but many others need to be in place.

Thanks, Katya. Testing and reviewing all the UK’s online casinos will be no mean feat! How many are there, and what makes your approach different?

According to the Gambling Commission’s latest figures, there are 175 active operators licensed to accept bets in the UK. Our methodology is guided by our core values. Transparency and honesty come first, followed closely by player focus, safe entertainment, and responsible, ethical marketing. We also hold ourselves to quality, reliability and full compliance, and we put real weight on education, sharing our expertise, and actively engaging with players and listening to their feedback.

Those sound like pretty lofty ideals, which we trust you will meet. What will it look like in practice, and what makes casino.net different from the other affiliates?

Most affiliate sites give casino scores but never show how they are calculated. We show the exact breakdown, and it is published openly on the site. Every casino goes through the same evaluation process, and each area is weighted before we arrive at the final score, so players can see exactly why a casino scores what it does. Safety carries the heaviest weight by far, about a quarter of the overall score, because it is the foundation of whether a casino can be trusted at all. The rest is spread across games, return to player, bonuses, payments, user experience and reputation, and the full weightings are there on the site for anyone to check.

And this is not just something produced by a machine. Human input is essential. The final score blends four inputs. Our own algorithm, our expert team’s ratings and our user ratings each contribute roughly an even third, and a small remaining share comes from external web ratings on platforms like Trustpilot and the app stores. That external element is unusual. Most affiliates just use their in-house systems and editorial judgment.

As you incorporate external data, is it possible for an online casino to manipulate its ranking?

No, the overall score cannot be manipulated through the user ratings. Firstly, because users only get one vote. They are free to change their vote, but it only counts once. In addition, user ratings are only about a third of the whole picture, so if an operator attempted to manipulate the score, they would not have sufficient sway to change the overall result. No single element decides the ranking.

It also works the other way. There have been cases where we uncovered additional negative information and demoted a casino’s score, because for us objectivity has to come before the commercial side.

Is the site static?

I think this is one of the most exciting innovations. Most affiliate top lists must be updated manually. Our rankings recalculate automatically when the casino data changes. If scores fall below a certain threshold, a casino can drop out of the rankings without any human intervention. What you see on the site really is up to date.

You talk about expert ratings, but how does the expertise work? Are you all just online casino experts?

Again, this is an area where we stand out and have taken a different approach. Most affiliate sites have generalist reviewers, but we have a team of specialists. There are 15 casino experts across distinct disciplines. While there are the ones you might expect, like slots and table game experts, we also have product, legal and payment specialists. Each expert contributes from their own professional domain and gives a named personal recommendation with a stated reason.

In addition to the rankings, we also have personal recommendations. Named experts with photos and LinkedIn profiles, real people you can look up, make personal picks from the chart positions and give specific reasons for their choices based on their own area of expertise. We believe this transparency is a trust signal that other sites cannot and do not offer.

Is it just a UK service?

While the UK market is hugely important, there is a big, wide world out there. However, from a UK player’s perspective, all the information they receive pertains to their home market. The site is country-specific, and the algorithm and expert input are localised. People want to know about licence requirements, payment methods, currencies and regulations for the market they are playing in. Many affiliate sites use a single universal scoring framework. We do not.

Is there anything else that makes this site particularly special?

I think the relative scoring is pretty special. Casinos are scored against each other, not against absolute benchmarks. So a casino is not just “good” in isolation. It is good relative to the current market. This makes the scores more meaningful as the market evolves.

Thanks, Katya, and good luck with the site!