MENUHow We Recommend and Rank Sites
Most websites with online casino and gambling site reviews never tell you exactly what they look for or how they go about coming up with their list of recommendations. This should be a red flag.
Without full transparency, you never know if they’re being paid to give false reviews or if they even know what they’re talking about.
At Gamblingsites.net, we operate differently. We don’t ever want to be like the other guys, and we never want to leave you wondering how we go about conducting our reviews and how we arrive at our conclusions.
In the sections below, we’ll talk about what we do with our reviews, what we don’t do, and the criteria that we use to determine whether an online gambling site is worth recommending to you or not.
Ultimately, we want to show you that you can count on our reviews to give you the most honest and accurate picture of what you can and can’t expect when you join and use an online gambling site, sportsbook, or online casino.
Before we get into the things we do with our reviews and what we look for, we’d like to address the things that we don’t do. It’s important to know how our reviews are different and to understand some of the pitfalls that plague the rest of the industry.
We hate sounding like an infomercial saying “the other guys,” but it is, unfortunately, the truth that the other guys out there just don’t do a good job delivering you accurate and honest information that you can take to the bank.
Let sites pay for a better review or recommendation
There’s a scary practice in the online gambling review business where gambling sites will pay review sites for better reviews and higher recommendations.
They’ll take payment from sites and in turn will fabricate their reviews to paint an inaccurate and more positive picture. This means the reviews and recommendations you’re getting from them are not truthful but are nothing more than glorified advertisements pretending to be reviews.
What you see is what you’re going to get when it comes to the site.
When gambling sites contact us and aren’t happy about parts of their review, we don’t let them push us around and get us to change it.
We politely tell them we’d be happy to update our review as soon as they fix the problem with their site. If they don’t fix the problem to our standards, the review stays as is.
We like to think we’ve had a pretty positive impact on the gambling site industry as a whole getting sites to fix their errors and ultimately offer a better product.
Not everyone wants to play ball, but they will never find themselves on our recommended lists until they offer a superior product.
Ignore the bad and the ugly
Sometimes this is done maliciously, and sometimes it’s just done out of ignorance. Have you ever read a review for an online gambling site that was nothing but rainbows and unicorns but when you got to the site the picture wasn’t as pretty as what was painted? Yea, this annoys us.
Too many of the “other guys” (we’re just going to own the infomercial thing now) out there have a tendency to only focus on the positives and never make any mention of the negatives.
There are a few unicorn sites out there where we’ve had to dig to find improvements, but they exist everywhere.
In our reviews, you’re going to get the full picture. We’re going to show you the things that we love and think are awesome, but we’re also going to show you the things that are terrible, and we think need to be corrected.
We hold no allegiance to any of the sites that we review, so we have zero problems laying the hammer down and telling it like it is.
In our opinion, it’s unfair to you as the reader if we don’t give you the complete picture. You’ll end up joining an online gambling site that is not the right fit for you and you’ll be angry and unhappy and ain’t nobody got time for dat.
With our reviews, you’re getting the full picture all day, every day. We’d even rip apart a site built by our mom if it was warranted. Luckily, our moms aren’t in the industry.
Make unsupported statements
Part of the reason we are even making this section of our site is because we don’t want you to think that our reviews and recommendations are just coming out of thin air.
In fact, we never want to make unsupported statements of any kind. You’ll see a lot of reviews out there where they will claim certain things or make statements about how awesome things are, but they’ll never back it up with proof or the reasoning behind how they got to that conclusion.
This is something we never do. If we make a statement, there is research and backing behind it. We’re not just pulling things out of thin air to try and fit the narrative we have.
We might not always put the entire process we underwent to get to the conclusions due to the fact that it would make the reviews entirely too long, but know that we vet all of our reviews to ensure they are all backed by the truth.
So, the above things are what you should not be expecting from us in our gambling site reviews. But, now we want to talk about what you should be expecting from us.
To be clear, we didn’t just write these things here to sound cool or to sound like we know what we’re doing. These are the things that all of our reviewers focus on every single time they put pen to paper to review an online gambling site.
These are the things that you can count on from us on every single review we produce for you.
Honest and accurate reviews
We’re not here to blow metaphorical smoke up your tailpipe. That’s a fancy redneck way of saying we are not going to feed you a line of bologna which is a fancy old person way of saying we are not going to lie to you.
You are going to get the truth in our reviews whether that is pretty or downright ugly.
We make sure to check and double check any information that we put out about a gambling site. You’ll also see in the next section here that doesn’t mean we just check it when the review is written and published.
Regularly updated reviews
Online gambling site reviews are a lot like computers whereas the second they are created they are already outdated. Online gambling sites change fast.
They update banking options, offer new promos, and change the way they do business sometimes seemingly overnight.
If we were to just produce a review and leave it untouched for months or even years, it would be worthless to you as the information would be outdated and inaccurate.
Both of these are situations that you’re going to want to be aware of if you’re trying to pick out a new online gambling home.
We obviously can’t update our reviews every single day, so we do recommend you verify any information that is of importance to you. But, we do work hard to update them as regularly and as quickly as possible especially when we get notice of a major change.
Expert analysis and opinions
Would you ask someone who has never been around cars for mechanic’s advice? Would you ask someone who’s never been in a plane for advice on how to become a pilot? The answer to both of those questions is probably a resounding no.
So, why would you want to take online gambling advice from people who have not spent extensive time within the industry? The answer to this question is also that you wouldn’t.
Too many of the online review sites out there employ people who might be great writers (sometimes not) but have zero idea of what they are doing when it comes to the online gambling world. You need experts conducting these reviews, and that’s what we deliver.
We have people on our staff who have spent countless years in all facets of the online and brick and mortar gambling industries. If you read through some of our reviews, you’ll quickly be able to see why this is such a big and necessary asset.
Now that we’ve covered what we do and don’t do with our reviews and recommendations, we’d like to talk about the criteria we use when analyzing online gambling sites.
Reviewing a site is a lot more than just logging on and clicking around a few of the pages. It involves a careful and meticulous process of analyzing way more than you probably imagine.
Below, you’ll see the main criteria that we look at when breaking down an online gambling site. This is not everything we look at, but these are the major components that help us to decide if a site is worth using or not.
Trust and Reputation
The top of the list of criteria we look for is trust. You have to be able to trust the online gambling site you are using in all facets or else it is a serious waste of your time.
This means that you need to be able to trust that your money is safe, your personal information is going to be kept private, and that your bets will be honored in the manner in which they should be.
You would think it shouldn’t be that hard to operate in a trusted manner, but we have run into quite a few bad apples in the industry that just don’t have your best interests at heart.
Why would you ever want to play somewhere that you couldn’t fully trust that you were getting what you expected? This is why trust is number one on our list.
The reason we listed reputation as well is that the easiest way to figure out if a site is untrustworthy is by their industry reputation and their reputation with customers.
It’s certainly not the only way that we analyze the trust factor, but it is one of the quickest tell-tall signs that something isn’t right.
Security and Safety
Something that goes hand in hand with trust and reputation is security and safety. The only way for your money, bets, and personal information to be safe when gambling online is if the online site is taking the right precautions when it comes to security.
This means things like using the right type of encryption, constantly updating software to cover new security threats, and utilizing third-party companies to help offer the best in security.
You wouldn’t put your money in a bank that looked like it had lax security, so why would you ever put your money into an online gambling site that had lax security? You need to know that your money and your information are secure and safe.
This is not just the software and systems that they have in place. While it’s harder to analyze, we also look at the processes the company uses to operate.
This includes who they bank with, how they handle money, how they process information, and what they disclose they will do with that information.
Internet security is a beast to tame, and if a site is not working hard to stay on top of things, you are the one who will suffer.
We put all of this together to determine whether the site’s security and safety measures are up to snuff. If they aren’t, they’re not going to get any sort of positive recommendation from us at all.
If they’re on top of things and offering a safe and secure gambling and betting environment, then they’re one step closer to making our recommended sites lists.
Pay Out Speed
In the early days of online gambling, sites had issues getting people paid. It wasn’t so much that they weren’t paying people, but it just took weeks sometimes to get your money.
In today’s world, though, this is unacceptable. You should be able to get and enjoy your winnings quickly and without having to bang your head against the wall to make it happen.
This is not okay with us. With where technology is nowadays, you should be able to get your winnings in no time. You should have access to your funds in a timely fashion so you can truly enjoy the spoils of winning.
What fun is gambling or betting if it’s going to take weeks for you to get your money.
This is why when we review online gambling sites, we put a lot of weight on how long it takes winnings to reach the winner. We understand that not every method can be instant as computers can’t just print out money.
But, there are a lot of great digital options. If an online gambling site hasn’t figured out how to get its people paid quickly, then we’re not interested in ever recommending them or giving them much of a positive review. It’s too important of a criteria.
Banking Options
Not only do we want you to be able to get your money quickly, but we also want there to be a lot of different options for you to fund your account or withdraw your money. Yes, you only need one option on each end that works for you.
But, not every option is going to work for everyone, and we think it’s the online gambling site’s job to accommodate as many people as possible.
The brownie points for quantity only count if the quality is there as well.
It is important to point out that this is the first criteria on the list that would not be a complete disqualifier if a site was lacking here. If a site is not trustworthy, has bad security, or pays out slowly, they’re instant no’s from us.
But, with this criterion and most of the others on this list, it’s not an instant disqualifier. It’s surely not going to help them get to the top or even on our recommended list, but it’s not going to instantly blackball them.
There are some great online gambling sites out there that operate with just one form of banking like PayPal betting sites or cryptocurrency betting sites.
The User Interface
Imagine going to a grocery store that has everything you could ever need, but everything is just randomly thrown on the shelves and tossed all over the floors. Are you going to be a fan of this store?
Probably not because you’ll struggle to get in and out of there efficiently and you’re going to struggle to find everything you’re looking for even though it’s in there somewhere.
This is a great analogy to show why the user interface (how things are digitally organized) is so important to the quality of an online gambling site.
If you can’t find the games you want, the bets you want, and anything else you’re looking to do in a quick and efficient fashion, then the experience is going to be no fun.
This goes further than just being able to find the games you want to play. It also includes the quality of those games and how they are laid out. The game should be as easy if not easier to play than it is in person.
You shouldn’t have to learn a bunch of confusing controls to get in the action. It needs to be graphically appealing, easy to use, and have a shallow learning curve.
Anything less than this is unacceptable, but unfortunately, far too common. This is why we take user interface seriously when analyzing and reviewing online gambling sites.
Games Offered
We love options, and that is especially true when it comes to the games that are offered at an online gambling site. The bottom line up front is this; we want a lot of high-quality games to choose from.
If you just have one game you like to play or one sport you like to bet, this probably isn’t that important to you. But, since we know we’re writing reviews for a lot of different people with different tastes and interests, it’s important that an online gambling site has options.
Notice as well that we said high-quality options. Just because a gaming site has 500 slots to choose from does not automatically mean they are a great slot betting site.
We’d rather see fewer options and those options be higher quality if we had to choose between the two. But, in today’s climate, we really shouldn’t have to choose between the two.
There are plenty of top-notch online gambling sites out there that not only check off the quantity requirement but also the quality requirement as well.
Customer Satisfaction
While we can’t talk to every customer that’s ever played at an online gambling site, we do our best to try and get as much feedback as possible. Usually, this feedback comes from forums, personal relationships, and insider industry knowledge.
Yes, we know that a lot of times all you’re going to get on forums are the people that are angry, but interpreting the polarized reviews is still important as long as you know what you’re looking for.
If we find a legitimate concern, then you best believe that is going to be included in our reviews and will severely diminish a site’s chances of making any of our recommended lists.
Customer Service
The ideal situation when gambling online is that everything goes according to plan and you never need any help getting anything done.
The reality, though, is that at some point in your online gambling career you are going to have questions or need help getting something taken care of. This is where the customer service should come into play to help you out.
But, as we’ve seen, the quality of customer service is really going to be all over the place with online gambling sites. There are a few specific things we’re looking for when analyzing the quality of an online gambling site’s customer service.
Second, these options need to be able to get you connected with someone who can help you quickly. If it takes days or dare we say weeks to get help, that’s garbage.
You should be able to get help in 24 hours max and ideally a lot sooner. In fact, we’re at the point now where we want to have at least one form of instant option like live chat or phone support where you can get someone on the horn quickly to address your problem.
Lastly, the quality of those customer service agents needs to be high. You can have all the options in the world and be able to get ahold of someone quickly, but if they are clueless or unable to help you get anything done, then what is the point?
Sadly, there are a lot of great online gambling sites out there who skimp when it comes to customer service. A few seconds into your chat and it becomes very clear that they outsourced their customer service to the lowest bidder.
This is unacceptable to us. Part of the rake that you pay when you play is to pay for competent customer service. If you can’t get help with the issues and questions you have, then we’re not happy.
Customer service is one of those criteria that many might think is low on our totem pole of importance, but it is actually much higher. Hopefully, you never have to use it, and everything goes amazingly smooth, but that is just not realistic no matter how awesome the online gambling site is.
As you’re now well versed on what we do and don’t do with our reviews and what we look for when reviewing and making recommendations, the next logical step is to start looking at our reviews.
The link below will take you to our main reviews page where you can access all of our reviews including the good ones, the bad ones, and the downright ugly ones.
If you’re ready to get started gambling online, this is the best place for you to go to find a great fit for exactly what you’re looking for!
