Search for any casino comparison and you will find dozens of lists claiming to be independent. Plenty of them are paid placements with a numbered list on top. The difference matters, because a ranking someone paid for tells you who spent the most on marketing, not where you should play.

The good news is that you can usually tell them apart in a few minutes, if you know what to check.

Start with the licence

A genuine reviewer names the licence each casino holds and checks it against the regulator’s public register. A paid list mentions “licensed casinos” in passing and hopes you will not look closer. You can run the check yourself, since every serious regulator publishes its register online. If a list ranks unlicensed offshore sites next to regulated ones as if there were no difference, close the tab. We touched on how licensing works in practice in our guide on finding the best online casinos in the UK, and the same logic applies everywhere.

Look for a methodology you can check

A search for “trusted online casinos Canada” brings up pages of rankings that look interchangeable, and the honest ones stand out by explaining how they were built. Some publishers state their criteria and hold themselves to them. trustedonlinecasinos.ca, for example, lists licensing, security and payout reliability as its review criteria, keeps its Canadian rankings to provincially licensed brands, and maintains a public blacklist of operators it warns against. Stated criteria are not the same as a full audit trail, but they give you something concrete to hold the list against, which is more than most comparison pages offer.

Payout claims are easy to make and expensive to prove

Anyone can copy a casino’s stated withdrawal time into a table. Actually depositing money, playing through a bonus and timing the payout costs real money for every site tested, so very few publishers do it. A ranking that has never once reported a slow or refused withdrawal has not tested anything. Treat bonus claims with the same suspicion, because the headline number means little until you have read the small print. Our guide to identifying the best casino bonuses covers what wagering requirements actually do to a bonus’s value.

Disclosure is the law, not a courtesy

In Canada, the Competition Bureau treats undisclosed paid promotion as deceptive marketing, and gambling content is not exempt. Real disclosure names who pays the publisher and says whether that money affects ranking positions. A vague commission line buried below the footer does not count. And if a page that calls itself a review spends most of its energy pushing you to deposit quickly, that is your answer. Set your own limits before you sign up anywhere; our responsible gambler guide explains how deposit limits and break tools work.

None of this takes long. Check the licence, look for the methodology, ask where the payout evidence is, and find the disclosure. A list that survives all four checks is worth reading. A list that fails the first one was never a review at all.

Casino games were and are developed for every gambler’s fun. In this industry, slots, table games, bingo, or live game shows are the ones that attract most of the punters. Add to that bonuses, top-notch tournaments with real money prizes, huge jackpots, and you’ll get why people love to try out their luck so often at a casino. But, gambling with real money should remain a fun activity! Some people gamble excessively and even lose a lot. To overcome this, you have to play responsibly by following some simple rules. Read the next paragraphs and find them out!

How to play smart and safe?

Sometimes, you have to be very careful with your spendings at an online casino. There are lots of games to try and many jackpots to catch but, you need to realize that there are equal chances to win or lose. You should start your gambling journey with a budget and stop playing whenever you lose sight of your money. Below, we selected the best tips and tricks that will help you.

Put some deposit limits first

Even if you just opened an account or you are already a veteran gambler, impose deposit limits. Try to do this to limit your losses and stop adding more money each time you consume your budget. Each legal casino should come with this option – to select the amount of money you would like to gamble on a daily/weekly or monthly basis. Once you think about a budget and complete the deposit limit form, the settings will be saved and you will not be allowed to surpass that budget.

In case you are not a fan of putting all sorts of deposit limits, you can always use a prepaid card like Paysafecard. This way, you gamble with a limited amount of money and, once you use the funds, there is no way to add more money and play furthermore.

Don’t play with huge stakes

A mistake made by lots of gamblers is to add money and play with big stakes. Gamblers should know that each slot is volatile and each table game comes with a house edge. Not each spin or game round/hand on poker or blackjack will come with a favorable outcome unless you are quite lucky. It is recommended to play with small stakes, see how the game is paying, and after that to increase your bet.

Keep track on your transaction history

Next in line is to track your transaction history. Take a closer look at how many deposits you make monthly, sum them up, and see how much money you gamble on casino games. On the other hand, take a look at your withdrawal history as well and verify if you managed to make a profit or not. Then, make a decision and see if you are willing to limit your deposits or take a small break from gambling.

Take a short break

If you feel overwhelmed, lose control, and wish to play with more and more money just to claim back your losses, it is time to take a break. Don’t make any harsh decisions that will affect your daily life for an entertaining activity. The best thing you can do is to log out from your player account, close the phone or laptop, and do other things. Maybe it will be better to take a long walk in the park, listen to some music or watch your favorite TV series.

In case you don’t feel like doing it, go to the account settings menu and select the responsible gambling section. Pick the pause menu and choose how much you will like to take a break from gambling. You can select a few hours, a day, a week, months or, the account closing. For the last option, punters have to contact customer support via live chat, phone, and email and ask for it.

If you persist in depositing and playing more although you lose, and see some major changes in your behavior you may ask for help. Usually, online casinos provide a long list with professional website help. Moreover, you can find questionnaires that will help you realize if there is/isn’t a gambling addiction problem.

Remember that gambling responsibly is not just a piece of advice; it’s a rule that keeps addiction and other problems away. Set up limits, ask for a break, play smart, and don’t be ashamed to ask for professional help if needed. In the end, gambling should be fun, relaxing, and interesting for everyone that’s into it.

Online casinos come with an epic video slots portfolio but, sometimes punters find it hard to pick a good game. There are hundreds if not thousands of slots produced by high-end or new software providers at the best gambling platforms. Even for a veteran punter, the choice will be difficult. Below you can see some of the most important criteria you should consider before betting with real money at any slot at an online casino.

Theme matters

Wondered what type of slot you will fancy? Taking a closer look at the themes is a great starting point in selecting a slot. Your favorite TV shows, live game shows, movies, games, legends, or childhood stories are present in lots of slots. Add to that the classic red-sevens and fruit-inspired games, the Megaways impressive selection, and you’ll see that there is a game for everyone.

For example, some people try their luck on Jumanji in hopes to trigger the random features while others pick Mega Moolah just to win the jackpot. Once you figure out what theme will suit you, it should be the perfect moment to make your selection and verify the payout potential. See what is the maximum win, and what is the symbol payout. You can find all of this information by hitting the information button (often represented by the “i” icon).

Bigger RTP, bigger chances to win

Yes, the payout rate is the most important criterion that leads you to pick a good slot! A game that has a payout rate of over 94% has a pretty good potential to pay, and it may be profitable for you. We will even take a concrete example to help you understand how an RTP works. A 95% payout rate should pay back 95% of the money the players played in that game in time. This amount of money is calculated even for tens of thousands of spins and will later be paid to players who are lucky that day.

We can also take the example of the famous Mega Moolah slot (crafted by Microgaming) which has a very low Return to Player Rate. Although many players avoid it, others try their luck just for the grand jackpot that pays millions of dollars. Its rate is 88.12%, and the winning spins are quite rare. However, you never know when the jackpot game can be randomly activated.

Verify the volatility

The slot volatility is an important element every gambler should consider. Note that the variance reflects the frequency a slot makes its payouts. A slot can have a small, medium, or high volatility. Small volatility slots will pay often, but the winnings are quite low. Then, medium volatility slots can pay you much money but not too often. Lastly, high volatility slots have impressive payouts, but they are caught rarely.

If you are the type of player who wants a big win, you can opt for the high volatility games but, make sure to keep your bets in control. In most of the cases, you will like to play on the biggest stakes just to trigger the jackpot or to claim an epic win. Be careful and use the bets that will not consume your budget too fast. Please note that these types of games are excellent for those who have larger budgets.

Try new games with bonuses

Licensed casinos battle up in special bonuses that attract new punters on their platforms. Some of them offer tens or hundreds of free spins at registration, while others reward money. Most of these rewards are credited the moment a punter passed the KYC verification process. Note that each promotion has an entire list of terms and conditions, along with turnover requirements punters should complete to withdraw winnings.

If you happen to play at an online casino for the very first time and wish to test some game first and see the real payout potential, a bonus will be good for you. There will be a small selection of slots you can bet on with the money bonus or just a game to try out with free spins.

The RTP, volatility, and special features count more than you think at an online slot. Try to select the game that appeals to you the most and analyze the rest of the criteria described above. Maybe using a free spin bonus or a deposit offer will also let you test a large selection of slots and will make your choice easier.

One of the best things about playing at online casinos is the generous and rewarding bonuses that are up for grabs. As there are hundreds of casinos on the internet, operators use these special offers to encourage you to join their casino, rather than opting for another. Yet with so many to choose from, how do you decide which is the best offer for you? Well believe it or not, there is more to consider than simply which is the biggest. When it comes to casino bonuses, bigger does not always mean better. All bonuses come with certain conditions attached to them, and by familiarising yourself with the following criteria, you can identify which is the best bonus to cater to your requirements.

Bonus Amount – Some operators provide a free, no-deposit bonus to welcome you. This type of offer gives you chance to play some games and win real money before making a deposit. Yet most welcome bonuses reward your first deposit by matching it with bonus funds. Casinos will match your deposit by a certain percentage. Therefore, generally speaking, the more you deposit, the bigger the bonus. However there are different maximum bonus amounts provided from one casino to another. You should therefore consider how much you intend to deposit and choose a bonus that will give you the best value for your money. You will find a list of some of the best online casino bonuses at www.realmoneyonlinecasino.co.uk

Wagering Requirements – Any bonus will need to be played through a certain number of times before you can withdraw it. This condition is applied by operators to ensure that you use your bonus to play games, and do not simply withdraw it. If you try to make a withdrawal before fulfilling the playthrough requirement, then you could forfeit your remaining bonus plus any winnings you have made with it. This requirement can vary from around 10x up to as much as 100x your bonus amount. Generally speaking, the lower the wagering requirement, the more favourable the bonus is towards you.

Weighting of Games – As a general rule, when you play slots, any money you bet will contribute fully towards meeting the wagering requirement. However, there are casino games which have an incredibly small house edge, like blackjack and roulette. Therefore, these types of games generally contribute just a small percentage towards fulfilling the wagering requirement. In some cases, you may find certain games excluded from the bonus altogether. Therefore, you should check that you can play your favourite games before accepting a bonus and familiarise yourself with how much they contribute.

Bonus Validity – The majority of casino bonuses have a time limit attached to them. Given that you have to play through your bonus a set number of times before you can make a withdrawal, it is important to check how long you have to meet those playthorugh requirements. Many operators give you around 30 days to use your bonus, yet there are others that may be valid for just 24 – 72 hours. You need to consider how often you are likely to play casino games to determine if the bonus is suitable for you.

After last year’s harsh laws on online and land-based gambling, Russia is going at it again with tightening rules on online payments. This will of course make life even harder for the remaining bookmakers in the country. If you remember, back in 2014 there were some threats to ban just about anything the western world has to offer. Then by December the following year over 50 online gambling destinations were blocked, including sites belonging to giants like PokerStars, William Hill and Ladbrokes. Ladbrokes and Betfair officially announced their withdrawals from the Russian market as a result. To top that there is the ongoing Bitcoin story.

To put things simply, they are trying to put some order in online payment methods and providers. A new centralised online betting payments hub was introduced to achieve that. It’s called TSUPIS and is handled by the QIWI Group, which operates over 175k electronic payment terminals across Russia.
The new system was supposed to kick in last month but was postponed indefinitely as operators line up behind rival self-regulatory organizations (aka SRO). A number of bookies, including well-known names like Fonbet, Atlantik-M, Bingo Boom and Johnny Game, recently quit the group known as the First SRO and joined different ones with experts in the field pointing at the reason for that being a concern that members of the First SRO will be required to pay higher commissions for TSUPIS. The information was publically denied by the head of First SRO Oleg Zhuravsky. He insisted that all bookmakers will be treated fairly and charged the same rate.

Rumours have been spreading that the government is going to increase taxes on gambling more than ten times in the not too distant future. Even though the information has not been confirmed by officials, what has been made officially available is that casino operators and bookmakers will be required to submit annual and interim financial statements to the Ministry of Finance and the Federal Tax Service. So it doesn’t really look good, does it now.

As if all that wasn’t enough, operators from abroad have voiced suspicions that the Russian bookies have planned an operation to prevent them from accessing TSUPIS in the first two years of it being put in place (ahem, if and when that ever happens) in order to allow the domestic market time to adjust to the new reality without before being swiped under the more experienced foreign competitors.

Another brilliant rule introduced for bookmakers was the addition to the Physical Culture and Sports law, whereby all bookies have to now contribute 5% of their betting revenue back to Russian sports federations. Each sporting federation has to be paid a minimum of RUB 3m ($44k) per quarter with the total minimum for all federations exceeding RUB 15m. That means each operator has to put in yearly at least RUB 60m (US $888k). One has to wonder what on earth are they going to do with all that cash since they are banned from the Olympics…but you know, Russia.

Well that’s all for now, I know, I know, I promised you an article on online mobile casinos but bear with me, I just couldn’t help writing this. I will get you that one soon enough, stay tuned.

In the United Kingdom, online gambling is legal and exclusively regulated by the government authority UK Gambling Commission (UKGC). If an online operator wants to offer real-money games to players residing in the UK, then it has to get approved and licensed by the commission. As of today, there are over 420 remote gambling operators in the UK which hold over 700 activity licenses. For the last year, the gross gambling yield generated from online gambling operators in the UK alone was over £1400m, over £800m of which were generated from casino games (the rest is distributed between betting and bingo as follows: £500m+ for betting and £80m+ for bingo).

As for the biggest names on the online casino market, more often than not they come from the betting world. The hands-down biggest gambling operator in the UK, both online and offline, is William Hill. This is also the oldest company on the market, having been founded in 1934, and today it is worth an estimated 5.17 billion dollars. Their casino is hugely popular in the UK, it features the game collection of the biggest software house in the industry, Playtech, and has even won the prestigious EGR ‘Best Online Casino 2015’ Award. The other big fish in the pond are, again, betting operators that also have casino sections: Paddy Power, Betfair, Bwin and more. One big operator that isn’t primarily a bookmaker but a casino is 888. This operator is actually considered by many to be the best online casino in the United Kingdom.

Sure enough, the above-mentioned operator worth billions of dollar and generate millions in revenue on a yearly basis, but the fact to the matter is that they don’t develop their own games and software (with a couple of exceptions), but rather pay for the products developed by external companies. I already mentioned the biggest one, Playtech, which today is worth over three billion dollars and is the casino software supplier of a huge percentage of online casinos. The other big software house which offers whole software platform is Microgaming while in the live-development field Evolution Gaming are the ones to watch out for.

A big name in the casino development field is also NetEnt (worth over 1 billion dollars). This provider won itself a spot among the biggest companies in the casino gaming field not by offering all types of products and solutions, but rather focusing on only one – the games. They truly offer the hands-down best games in the field which also have the best mobile versions.

Speaking of mobile this is an aspect of online casinos that is getting more and more important as more and more players prefer to play on the go. As of today, absolutely every online casino has a mobile-friendly version but, of course, not all are all that great or feature enough games. Still, this is a very long topic to discuss so I plan on tackling it in a separate article which you can expect to be published sometime next week.

Want to know more about online casinos and take full advantage of the experience of playing real-money games on the Internet? Then you’ll surely find this blog very useful, especially if you are a British player. Here, you’ll soon be able to find news reports about the current state of the biggest and most popular online casinos on the market and articles presenting the latest promotions that you can find there. Also, you’ll find many useful tips which will help you wager the bonuses you manage to get your hands on faster and with better chances for a win. Not to mention that we’ll present to you the latest real-money game releases and compare them to the most popular ones that are already on the market. Sure enough, we’ll try and warn you about the latest dangers and scams in the field and about the rogue casinos that we’ve found so that you can avoid some big troubles in the future.

So what’s the starting point? Today, the state of the online gambling industry around the world, and especially in Britain, is the following: 90% of the gambling operators have reported revenue growth, many of whom record ones; online casinos are offering huge bonuses and many other gifts to attract even more new players; mobile gambling is exploding which creates new opportunities but also new challenges for operators and players alike; regulatory bodies around the world make sure they keep the players safe and the casinos – responsible toward their customers and the society as a whole. All in all, these are exciting and truly dynamic times in the field and there is a lot to cover.

As every new endeavour, this casino blog won’t be perfect from day one. We hope that you’ll stick with us and help us make it more useful to you and to the other players, so make sure you follow us and don’t hesitate to contact us in case you have a question, want to give a suggestion or simply want to say hi!