Every casino on 99 Casinos gets a rating from 1 to 5, built from six weighted criteria. Licensing counts for 30%, payments and withdrawals for 20%, bonus terms and games for 15% each, and player protection and support for 10% each. Before any score is shown, a casino must also pass market and regulator checks that no score can override. This page sets out both, with a worked example.
The six criteria and their weights
| Criterion | Weight | What we check |
|---|---|---|
| Licence for your country | 30% | Regulator, licence number and status in the public register, the company that holds it, and any fines or bans in any market |
| Payments and withdrawals | 20% | Deposit and withdrawal methods, minimum withdrawal, daily and monthly caps, stated processing time, fees |
| Bonus terms | 15% | Wagering multiple and base (bonus only, or deposit plus bonus), game contribution, maximum stake, expiry, cap on winnings |
| Games | 15% | Range and suppliers, live tables, whether return-to-player figures are published |
| Player protection | 10% | Deposit, loss and time limits, reality checks, time-outs, self-exclusion and links to national schemes where the licence requires them |
| Support and usability | 10% | Support hours and channels, clarity of terms, how the site works on a phone |
Each criterion is marked from 1 to 5 against the facts on the page. The marks are multiplied by their weights, added up and rounded to one decimal place. Older reviews sometimes showed two decimals; we dropped the second because it suggested a precision the method does not have.
A worked example
| Criterion | Mark | Weight | Points |
|---|---|---|---|
| Licence for your country | 5 | 0.30 | 1.50 |
| Payments and withdrawals | 3.5 | 0.20 | 0.70 |
| Bonus terms | 3 | 0.15 | 0.45 |
| Games | 4 | 0.15 | 0.60 |
| Player protection | 4.5 | 0.10 | 0.45 |
| Support and usability | 4 | 0.10 | 0.40 |
| Rating | 4.1 | ||
A properly licensed casino with ordinary bonus terms will usually outscore a flashy one with a weak licence. That is the intention.
Gates that block a listing whatever the score
A rating describes a casino. Whether it may appear on a given page is a separate question, answered by these checks:
- Market eligibility. A casino that excludes a country in its terms is never listed on a page for that country.
- Required local licence. Pages for the Netherlands list only operators holding a Kansspelautoriteit licence. Our Swedish and Danish pages list no casinos at all. No listed casino is presented as available in Great Britain, where only UK Gambling Commission licensees may offer gambling.
- Regulator actions. An operator banned or ordered to stop by a regulator, for example on Spelinspektionen’s list of decisions, is not listed on pages its players could reach. A licence that is suspended, expired or cannot be found in the register means no listing until it is confirmed.
- Operators that stop trading. They are removed from every list, and their reviews are retired or turned into a warning.
- Unconfirmed offers. Bonus details are copied from the operator’s site on the date of the update. If we cannot confirm an offer, we say so instead of printing an old one.
How scores are updated
Scores are recalculated whenever a fact behind a mark changes: a new licence or a lost one, a regulator’s decision, new withdrawal limits, changed bonus terms. Listed casinos are re-checked at least every three months under our editorial policy, and the review’s update date shows when that last happened. A score never moves because of a commercial relationship; it moves only when a sourced fact does.
Where our information comes from
In order of weight: regulators’ registers and decisions (UK Gambling Commission, Malta Gaming Authority, Curaçao Gaming Authority, Kansspelautoriteit, Spelinspektionen, Spillemyndigheden and others); the operator’s own terms, bonus rules and payment pages; payment providers’ and studios’ published information; and, for background only, trade press. Every review lists its sources.
What we do not claim
Our ratings are desk research. We do not claim to have deposited, played or withdrawn at a casino, and we do not print timings “we measured”. Withdrawal times on our pages are the times the operator states, labelled as such. There are no reader ratings either, because the site has no user accounts.
To see the method in use, start with the best online casinos, fast payout casinos or the casino reviews. The bylines that apply it are described on our about page.
Questions about our ratings
What is the highest rating on 99 Casinos?
Ratings run from 1 to 5, rounded to one decimal place. Very few operators reach 5, because that needs top marks for licensing, payments, bonus terms, games, player protection and support.
Why does the licence carry 30% of the rating?
The licence decides which regulator can act if something goes wrong, which dispute route you have and whether a national self-exclusion scheme applies. Nothing else on a casino site matters as much.
Can a casino with a high score still be left off a page?
Yes. Market eligibility and regulator actions are gates, not marks. A casino that excludes your country, lacks the licence a market requires or has been banned by a regulator is not listed, whatever its score.
Do you test casinos with real money?
No. Our ratings are desk research: we read the operator’s terms and payment pages and check licences in regulators’ registers. We do not claim deposits, withdrawals or playing sessions.