About us and how we test the casinos
Online-Casinos.ws has been online since 2002, a guide to the online casinos of the international market, signed by its editorial team rather than by a person. This page says who writes it, what has been tested and how, the source of the money and what the stars mean (and what they do not), since a review is worth what its method is worth.
Who writes these pages
The site is written by a small editorial team that has followed the sector since the "download" casinos of the early years (a disc, a "lobby" of twenty games) to the "instant play" of today. Nobody signs with a name. The judgement belongs to the team, and nobody who writes here is employed or paid by an operator.
What has been tested, and what has not
Every casino reviewed or listed here was tried by the editorial team in "demo" mode (the free play opened by most lobbies without a deposit), which shows the games, the languages and the "cashier", but not the payments.
The terms were read in full, and the licence was looked up on the register of the authority that issued it, as our guide to legitimate online casinos explains. The published offers were then compared with those of the other houses that appear on the same page.
The exceptions are two. Casino Classic and Jackpot City were tested with real play by our collaborators from two Canadian markets, before 2025, from registration to withdrawal, and their reviews carry a box that says so. Everywhere else we did not deposit, withdraw or write to support, so that what the reviews say about payments and service comes from the operator's own documents (terms, banking pages, licence conditions) and from public sources.
The slots were all played in "demo" mode as well, Thunderstruck Gold Blitz Extreme included (on Lucky Nugget, the only game that keeps an editorial rating, 4 out of 5), and a review written this way describes mechanics, volatility and published return, not the luck of one afternoon. If you meet "tested" or "our tester" on these pages, the box saying who tested, when and from which market should stand beside the word, and without it the word is worth nothing.
How the stars are given
The stars are conservative, because the licence sets their ceiling before any offer does. An operator licensed by the UK Gambling Commission, the Malta Gaming Authority, the AGCO with iGaming Ontario or a European national regulator (Sweden, Denmark, Germany) may receive between 3.5 and 4.5, while a house whose only licence comes from Curaçao (or from Anjouan, Costa Rica or Kahnawake alone) stays between 2.5 and 3.5, and the text says why.
Within that frame the stars move with the terms (the "wagering", the "max cashout", the limits on withdrawals), with the software, with the age of the house and with the public record of its complaints; no operator has ever bought a half star, and none has lost one for paying a smaller commission. A casino that is worth five stars has not been found yet, and a review that gives the maximum has usually stopped looking!
How the site is paid for
The site is free to read and lives on "affiliate" commissions (the fee an operator pays when a reader registers through one of its links and plays), and every page with such links says so in the same words: a click may earn us a commission, at no cost to the reader and with no effect on any rating. The commission decides neither the stars nor whether an operator appears here, and the page on affiliate programmes explains these agreements ("revenue share", "CPA", the clauses to read).
Every list of offers carries our sentence on markets: the houses we list serve the international market without a licence in each of the countries from which our readers connect, and the player must check, before registering, whether the local law allows an account with one of them. The site does not recognise the country from which the reader arrives, and shows everyone the same pages.
What this site does not do
There are no "tested" badges where nothing was tested, no ratings borrowed from other sites or from the programmes' material, no promise that every offer is "verified weekly" (the offers are the operators' published ones at the time of writing, they change, and the casino's own terms prevail), and no page written to be found rather than read. The figures come with their source, and the licences with the authority that issued them (and often the year).
How to reach the editorial team
Corrections are the most useful messages this site receives: an expired offer, a licence that changed hands or a wrong figure is corrected as soon as it is checked. The address is on the privacy page, and the FAQ gathers the questions that reach us most often; a dispute with a casino cannot be settled from here, but each review names the regulator and the complaints body behind it (an "ADR" provider, the MGA's Player Support Unit).
Frequently asked questions
In "demo" mode, all of them, which means the games, the lobby and the cashier were seen without any money passing; only Casino Classic and Jackpot City were played with real money, by our collaborators from two Canadian markets before 2025, and the box in each review says which case applies to the casino you are reading about.
Because a licence is worth what its authority does when a player complains, and the Curaçao Gaming Authority, which replaced the old "sub-licences" (permits resold by four master licensees) on 24 December 2024, has yet to build the record of the UK Gambling Commission or the Malta Gaming Authority. The ceiling says that, whatever the offer, the protection behind it is thinner than it looks.
It cannot, since the commission is paid by the programme after a player registers, while the rating is decided before, on the licence, the terms and the games, and a house licensed only in Curaçao pays its commission like any other but stays at 3.5 at most.
By the Online-Casinos.ws editorial team · Online since 2002 · Last updated: 9 October 2026