There are many things that define a good casino from a bad one, on this page we will discuss what you should be looking for when you’re about to change from one casino to another. We will also present a few casino reviews of casinos that we think is good and explain why they’re good.
Bonuses
The first thing that catch peoples eyes is the bonus, whether they catch a tv-commercial or find it somewhere on the internet it is the first thing that the casino themselves try to highlight and try to make it seem as good as possible for you to take the first step to visit the casino online and try it out. It is fairly common that the casino even gives up totally free bonuses only by you registering on their site, this is called a “no deposit bonus” and is the ultimate way to try and get players to register but is most oftenly resulting in players only getting the bonus and never depositing any of the money.
After you’ve made an account on their site they will in almost every case offer you a deposit bonus. The deposit bonus is exactly what it sounds like, a bonus you will get by making a deposit at the casino. In most cases it’s a matching bonus based on how much you deposited, e.g 100% matching bonus will give you double the money to play with.
There is two things that define what a good bonus is.
- How much free spins / bonus you actually get from it.
- How many times you need to wager the bonus to be able to withdraw money from it.
The best bonus you can get will be a bonus where there are absolutely no wager requirements, but there are barely any casino in the world that offers this since it will make it a 100% money loss if people would just withdraw the bonus instantly without even using it.
Wagering requirements means that you need to wager the bonus or the deposit + bonus x number of times before you can withdraw the money. A common wager requirement that casinos use is around 35x. This means that if you got £100 in bonus you will need to play for £3500 before you can make a withdrawal.
A good bonus will look something like this:
- 10 free spins on starburst on registration
- 200% deposit bonus up to £200 – meaning that you get £300 if you deposit £100.
- Wager requirements around 20x the bonus amount.
A bonus like this will give you a fair chance to wager it and be able to withdraw winnings.
Who is behind it
After you’ve checked out the bonus it is a wise choice to do some background checking on the casino to determine how serious the casino is. Many casinos today is run by bigger corporations which will have several online casinos. If you’ve seen any of the casinos they run on tv-commercials or other kinds of advertisements it often indicates that it is a serious investor behind them and it is very unlikely that they will ever scam you or try to hide any hard to read terms and conditions, since the gambling licenses prevents them from doing tv commercials without being a sincere company.
Licenses
One other important thing that you should always look for on an online casino is what kind of license they have. The license is almost always written in the footer of the webpage.
If you’re from the United Kingdom the casino needs to have a gambling license from the UK gambling commission, otherwise you will need to pay taxes on any winnings that you might aquire when playing.
If you’re in the EU, then for most countries you should look for a Maltese gambling license unless your country has created their own gambling commission and then that is the one that you should be looking for. The Malese license works on the free trade act in EU that roughly means that you can offer your product to any country, unless you have made it possible for them to request a license from that country specificly. A few examples of countries that you need specific licenses for is Italy, Denmark, France, Spain, Portugal and soon Sweden aswell.
Payment methods
Another important thing to look for is what kind of payment methonds the casino offer, this is also a strong indicator of how serious the casino is. If they for example does not offer Visa, Skrill, Mastercard, Neteller i would stay away from it since it proves that they are doing some kind of shady business and can not be trusted.
Tech
A casino is only as good as it’s tech. Before you change casino you should check that they have the necessary game providers, that the games run well on the platform and that the look and feel is well made to your liking.
The most common game providers that pretty much every good casino today has is:
Net Entertainment – look for games like Starburst, Gonzo’s Quest, Jack and the Beanstalk.
Yggdrasil gaming – look for games like Power Plant, Jokerizer.
Playtech – look for games like Buffalo Blitz, Great Blue, White King.
Quickspin – look for games like Big Bad Wolf, Spinions, The Wild Chase.
Except for the games, the casino should look like it’s at most a few years old since they designed it, this shows that they are still upgrading the software and design of the casino to fit todays market standards for how things should look and work.
Mobile casino
Another important thing is to check if they have support for mobile devices and that almost every game they have also works on mobile devices. Tablets are also included as a mobile device.
Summary
What you should look for in a casino is how good the bonus is, how serious the people behind the casino are, that they have the right license so that you don’t have to pay taxes on any winnings or get in trouble otherwise, that they have payment methods that suits you and gives a serious impression, that the software is up to date and that they have all the games that you search for in a casino, whether it is live casinos, videoslots, slots, table games, video poker, lottery, sportsbetting, scratch cards or bingo. And last but not least that they have a good mobile version of the page available.