How we rate casinos and sportsbooks

1. Licence and who stands behind it

We start with the licence, because it decides what happens when something goes wrong. For a site serving Ontario that means an AGCO registration plus an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. For operators outside the Ontario market we record the offshore regulator (Malta, Curaçao, Kahnawake and so on) and say plainly that a Canadian regulator is not involved.

We also note the company behind the brand and how long the licence has been held. A brand that changed operator twice in two years is a different risk than one that did not.

2. Deposits and — more importantly — cash-outs

A casino is only as good as its withdrawal. We check whether the site really supports the methods Canadians use: Interac e-Transfer, InstaDebit, cards, and where relevant crypto. We record the minimum deposit, the minimum withdrawal, the stated processing time and whether the operator asks for verification before the first cash-out or only later.

3. The bonus, written out in numbers

Headline offers are marketing. We convert them: bonus percentage, maximum amount, wagering multiplier, what the multiplier applies to (bonus only, or deposit plus bonus), game weighting, maximum bet while wagering, and the expiry window. A C$1,000 offer at 50× on deposit + bonus is a much larger commitment than a C$300 offer at 25× on bonus only — and we say so.

If an operator does not publish the terms in a place a player can find, that counts against it.

4. Games, studios and live tables

We look at who supplies the games rather than counting titles. Studios such as Microgaming, NetEnt, Evolution and Playtech publish return-to-player figures and are tested by independent labs; a lobby stuffed with unknown brands and no RTP data is a flag.

5. Support, and what we do not score

We contact support with a real question about withdrawal limits and note the channel, the hours and whether the answer was specific. We do not score «atmosphere», we do not publish user star ratings we cannot verify, and we do not accept payment for a position in a list. Commercial links are marked and never change the order.

Pages are re-checked when an operator changes its terms, and at least once a year. The date on a review is the date of the last check, not the date it was written.