What Exactly Makes a Top Online Casino Site?

With so many online casinos available to players, it can sometimes be difficult to mark out the best sites from the rest of the field. To home in on the best casino sites, you need to look at a number of different things, each of which will be vitally important to your overall playing experience.

Of course, you don't have to do all the work yourself though, as we've created reviews of many of the best casinos around. This means you can locate the perfect casino for you in just a couple of minutes. On this page, we'll let you know what we look for when trying to find a great online casino, plus we'll also go through how we rate and review every gambling site.

What Makes a Good Online Casino?

So, what exactly makes a good online casino? Well, as you're about to find out, there are many different factors to consider. Only the sites that excel in all the areas mentioned below will be recommended to our readers…

Range of Games

The first and most important thing to look at is the range of games. A good online casino will have upwards of 500 different titles for you to choose from, and the majority of these will be slot machines. Slots fans should find everything from classic slots through to progressive jackpot machines, meaning that everyone will find something to play.

Table games should also be found, including live casino table games, plus the best sites will also offer video poker, keno and scratchcards. What's more, the best casinos should be constantly adding new games to their portfolio, just to ensure that the site always remains fresh and exciting.

Selection of Bonuses

Bonuses play a huge role when choosing a new online casino, and the best sites will offer many different bonuses to players. The biggest of these is usually the welcome bonus, which can offer massive cash rewards, as well as loads of free spins. You'll then also find reload bonuses, cashback bonuses and much more. Essentially, players should always be able to get something extra at the top places to play.

The best sites will also have fair terms and conditions for their bonuses - terms and conditions that give you a chance of actually withdrawing winnings. So, you should find that the wagering requirement is low (35x or under) and that you're given long enough to use the bonus funds. Also make sure that there's no cap on the amount of money you can win.

Security and Safety

Players should always be completely safe when playing at an online casino. This is why the best gambling sites are regulated by a reputable external organisation, such as the UK Gambling Commission or the Malta Gaming Authority. These bodies keep a constant eye on companies they oversee and ensure that these casinos are treating players fairly and properly.

When looking at safety and security, you should also look at a site's history. This is because you can gauge the reliability of best online casinos by looking at their past. The best sites will have very few blemishes, plus they'll have glowing player reviews online.

Mobile Experience

All the best sites also have an extremely good mobile platform. All sites should be accessible via a mobile browser, however, the best will have an intuitive mobile layout, as well as a huge number of mobile games. Mobile players should also be able to grab all bonuses and promotions available to desktop players.

Some sites might even offer a mobile app, which can make playing at mobile casinos using a smartphone or tablet even more enjoyable. These apps should be updated on a regular basis, plus many apps offer exclusive bonuses to those downloading them.

Customer Support

Customer support is also something that must be considered. It doesn't seem important when signing up, but trust us - you'll be glad you picked a site with good customer support when you do have a question or complaint.

There should be many ways to contact a casino, including live chat, email and phone, plus the best sites also respond to comments and queries left on social media. What's more, questions should be responded to quickly - the best sites answer live chat messages within a minute, and emails within 24 hours.

Payment Options

Finally, it is important to play at a site with many different payment options. By doing so, you'll give yourself the best chance of finding a payment option that you can use. All good sites allow credit/debit card payments, plus Neteller, Skrill, PayPal and Paysafecard are also usually offered. An increasing number of sites are now also starting to accept Bitcoin.

You should also check to see how easy it is to withdraw money. Good online casinos will often offer instant withdrawals when using some methods, plus there should be no fees. The minimum withdrawal amount should also be low if you're someone who plays for lower stakes.

How We Review and Rate Online Casino Sites

When we review an online casino website, we'll always look at the same criteria. This ensures that every single site gets a fair review from us. Take a look below to see exactly what we look at when reviewing…

Check Security and Customer Support

Before anything else, we'll take a look at the site's security. We want to see that it is properly regulated, plus we also want to see if the games have been confirmed as fair by a company such as eCOGRA. We'll also check on transaction safety, by ensuring SSL encryption is used.

We'll then contact customer support using all available options, and we're looking for quick, friendly and helpful responses. If a site can't treat its customers properly, there's absolutely no way we'll be recommending it to you.

Deposit and Claim Bonuses

We'll then deposit. We want to see that there are plenty of different depositing options available, so all players can deposit in their preferred way. We also want to see that there are absolutely no charges for depositing money, and that all deposits are credited to the online casino account straightaway.

As we're depositing, we'll also be sure to claim the welcome bonus. We want to see a big welcome bonus, with fair terms and conditions. While we're on the subject, we'll also look at the other bonuses offered, including any loyalty scheme that the site in question has.

Play Games and Withdraw

Now we get to have some fun, as we play the games and make sure they all meet our exacting standards. We want to see plenty of variety, as well as games from different software providers. It's also important for the games to have large jackpots on offer, especially when it comes to the progressive jackpot games.

Finally, we'll withdraw any money we have leftover in our casino account. We want a hassle-free withdrawal process, as well as one that processes all payout requests quickly. There also shouldn't be any charges attached to withdrawals.

Now we've gone through our entire checklist of things to review, we'll be in a position to assign the casino a score. This is something that we think long and hard about, as we know it's important. If the score is high enough, we'll be comfortable recommending the site in question to our readers. If the score is a poor one, we'll add the site to our list of sites to avoid.