CasinoExpert provides independent reviews of UK online casinos. Read our online casino reviews and get informed when it comes to choosing an online casino you can trust.
In case you have not yet noticed, there are tons of UK casinos out there online. For every casino, there will be at least one review. For the larger casinos, that ratio will be like 1:1000.
Reading online casino reviews can be an excellent way to get a rundown on a new gambling site. What is better than having all of this information at your disposal before you sign up? Rather than having to spend hours of your time and hundreds of pounds only to find a casino is awful, online gambling reviews can give you this information for free. Well, at least that is what some will tell you.
When it comes down to the facts, some UK casino reviews are nothing more than bloated advertisements. These will be full of hyperbole and over-exaggerated statements designed to get you to sign up. These should be avoided.
The type of online casino reviews you want to aim for are those which are fair, objective, and unbiased. Here is why we provide online casino ratings and gambling reviews for you to make an informed decision.
There’s a lot to consider when it comes to picking a UK casino site to play at. That’s where UK online casino reviews come in.
The industry knows that players are flailing around with a load of choices to make. And they know that they need information. Information usually makes for good choices because informed consumers are empowered casinos who know when to say no to bad sites.
All UK Online Casino Reviews updated 2021
Why You Should Read Casino Reviews?
We haven’t checked, but it’s a fair bet that by the time you finish reading this article – thank you for stopping by! – at least one more new casino site will have launched.
In many ways, that’s great news for players of online video slots, casino games, live casino games, bingo and more. But in other ways it’s tough.
Barriers to entry in a business sector might be a bad thing in some ways – they reduce the overall choice – but they also make it tougher for people to operate in bad faith with little or no personal risk.
So we know that on the Internet you can set up something that looks pretty convincing as a casino site in a few hours. Stick in a means of accepting payment and you’ve got yourself a decent scamming machine going.
That’s just one of the reasons that online casino reviews are good news for consumers. If a new site’s launch isn’t accompanied by some genuine publicity and reviews from an online gambling reviews site that you trust, then there’s a fair chance that it’s not what it appears to be.
And once you go beyond the outfight scam sites there are a whole bunch of sites that should have online casino ratings of zero because they’re such bad quality. Getting a site up and meeting the bare-minimum standards of legality and safety shouldn’t be enough to bring customers.
No! You need to be good quality too. And casino ratings are a great help in weeding out the bad from the good.
Why You Need a Legal Casino Site
The legality of gambling is a long, complex and – depending on your interests – fascinating subject that has been debated around the world for centuries.
To distil the modern debate to its essentials: it is now widely accepted that gambling is potentially harmful; players can become addicted and get themselves in serious financial trouble and worse; that means that ways of protecting consumers must be strong, and gambling businesses must offer high quality and honest services.
That’s the short version of an argument that has morphed through a lot of moral posturing to a medico-legal position that puts gambling in a similar position – in most developed countries – to cigarettes and alcohol.
There is usually a lower age limit under which people are not allowed to gamble. There is usually a local licensing body, without the approval of which players should not be able to access a site. And there may be other restrictions on the sort of claims that gambling businesses can make or obligations for them to fund support services for problem gamblers.
That, of course, needn’t bother you. This is the Internet, right? The 21st-century version of the Wild West, where you can do pretty much what you like, and if it’s legal somewhere it’s legal everywhere.
Well, hold your libertarian horses a second.
Gambling legally is the only way to gamble really safely. It is possible that by by-passing legal safeguards you will be able to have a good and rewarding gambling experience. It is also extremely likely that you will be ripped off by people – often in a country very far away – who know you have absolutely no legal recourse against them.
And you can complain all you like because it won’t do you any good.
So the first duty of any online casino rating service is to let you know where a site is licensed.
Why you need to be a Legal Gambler
That’s their duty. But it’s your duty to make sure you’re keeping up your side of the bargain, or even at a perfectly legal gambling site you might find yourself on the wrong side of the law, and stranded without legal recourse in exactly the same way.
The restrictions on gambling in your country might not be to your taste. You might think that at 17 years old you’re wise enough to gamble. If your government tells you that you need to be 18, unfortunately, you need to listen.
You should also avoid any attempt to get around geographical restrictions. Players use VPNs and other proxy access to get to sites in other jurisdictions. And scam sites pop up all the time that offer a way to get around the rules – this is a particular problem for American gamblers, where a patchy federal picture on legislation complicates matters even further.
A site that openly offers to bend or break the law is almost certainly unsafe to deal with. And if you bend or break the law yourself by fooling a legitimate site, then you could see your account frozen with no explanation and no comeback.
There’s no worse feeling.
Why you need to be a Wise Gambler
Scammers usually target the vulnerable. The vulnerable are usually on the lookout for a way to get something for nothing.
That’s no moral judgement. It’s all too easy to get into financial troubles or feel you have no chance of getting out of a bad or unfair situation. That’s when people start grasping at straws.
And there’s a reason why the phrase “get rich quick scheme” is internationally recognised shorthand for scamming! Scammers love desperate people. It’s just one of the many ways in which con artists are despicable people; taking money from the ill-informed or unlucky is a terrible thing to do.
And here we come to gambling.
People who think gambling is going to make them rich are usually wrong. It can happen. In fact, it does happen every day. But it is very rare.
Many people have fantasies about becoming professional gamblers, who can live off their winnings. There are such people, but they too are very few and far between, and the biggest common denominator in their success is that they start with a huge amount of money.
Really. Short-odds betting very large amounts of cash on sports events is the territory of most professional gamblers. They aren’t relying on pay-outs of millions of pounds from random slot algorithms that are by their very definition very unlikely to happen.
Poker players too can earn a living from gambling, but it’s largely only those at the very top end of the sport who do well, and again, you’ll see a preponderance of people from privileged backgrounds, often who have made fortunes in other areas of their life.
The best way for most players to approach gambling is as a form of entertainment. In doing that you accept that you will pay something for it.
It needn’t be expensive. In fact, wise gamblers should be able to enjoy lots of entertaining play without shelling out too much.
Players who NEED to win in order to put food on the table are much more likely to take foolish risks or stake too much in desperation for that one big win.
Follow the best safe gambling advice: only play for fun, stop when it stops being fun, don’t chase losses, don’t use gambling as a way of avoiding problems or altering your mood, don’t gamble if you’re upset or angry, and you should be fine.
What You Should Look for in a Safe Legal Gambling Site
A good UK online casino reviews site will be your first stop in finding a safe and legal place to play.
They can tell you if a site is licensed. They should tell you where a site is based, so you can decide if you’re happy about sending your money – which is what you’re doing – to that location.
Casino ratings should tell you that a site has a number of good-quality and trusted payment partners. This is always a good sign.
PayPal is the gold standard because they’re known to be very picky about the companies that they work with.
There are lots of other very good standard and legitimate payment companies too. Visa and MasterCard, of course, as well as online wallets like Neteller, Skrill, Entropay and more.
Pay-by-phone options are also getting popular. Boku is a popular option, but you can also pay by putting your casino spend directly onto your phone bill.
As always when you use any payment system be careful, make sure you’re using genuine websites with secure browsing symbols in place, and use the best password security possible.
We don’t want to issue blanket warnings, but it’s not a good idea to gamble on credit. And we urge caution if you see a casino that will only accept payment by Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies. These things have their place and are becoming more legitimate, but they are also – because they’re essentially untraceable – a favourite of criminals and money launderers. A crypto option is a good thing to see at a casino site, but if it’s the only option then beware!
Safe online casinos are generally of good quality. And they don’t just look good they have depth.
It’s very quick and easy to set up a relatively good looking site, but not so easy to set up a site with lots of pages, lots of menus that work, decent security and help pages, and so on.
A site that looks and feels good is more likely to be safe than some single-page thing full of flashing lights and a good UK casino reviews site will help you spot those sites.
Why UK Casino Reviews are Worth their Weight in Gold
The UK online casino market is enormous. There are thousands and thousands of UK casino sites. There are countless games from countless developers.
In a restaurant with 1 million items on the menu, you end up choosing nothing!
And that’s why you should keep your eye on the UK casino reviews sites and check the latest casino ratings.
A competitive market is good for players, but it also means sites can tend to over-promise and offer everything to everyone. That might mean they end up giving you nothing that you want.
So if you want to focus on a good range of slots from a particular developer in your casino choice then a good UK casino reviews site that will let you know what Microgaming or NetEnt sites have just been launched is worth its weight in gold.
From classic slots and instant wins to the very latest surround-experience, live casino games players in the modern game want to specialise more and more, so casino review sites can save them hours of browsing sites that don’t quite tell the truth about what they offer.
How to Find Good UK Casino Reviews
Just as the gambling world itself is open to scamming, so is the casino review market.
We’re sorry to have to tell you this, but not all reviews are equal.
You’ll soon pick this up as you start to browse around casino rating sites. Some are very poorly written, containing little more than the cut-and-pasted nonsense that looks like it was written in a language that was the writer’s poor third.
In fact, all those rules we’ve listed for finding safe casino sites should be on your mind while you look at casino rating sites: does it look good? Does it have a lot of choices? Is it well designed and easy to navigate?
Check all those things. And also make sure that the site seems to be based somewhere traceable. While a site might offer you the choice to sign up for email alerts, it shouldn’t really need to take personal information from you.
Another bad sign is a UK casino review site that is too focused on just one site or family of sites. That might be a site that you shouldn’t trust the casino ratings from.
The Truth About Casino Reviews
This is probably not a revelation to you, but we’ll share it nonetheless.
There is a commercial imperative to a lot of casino reviews.
The market is packed with sites. So it’s hard for sites to stand out. One way for them to stand out is with a lot of good reviews at review sites. And so, they pay for good reviews at review sites.
If you look at the front page of any casino site you’ll probably find a link to their affiliate programme. That is a programme that allows other websites to refer customers to the casino in return for a reward, usually a small fee.
The UK casino review sites might well be in those affiliate programmes. In fact, if a site doesn’t charge you to join and use it, or it doesn’t carry advertising then it is going to run at a loss unless it has another form of income.
In the case of most gambling review sites that means that it is probably part of an affiliate network. So in this case, lots of advertising or an entrance fee might be a good sign for a customer!
Why You Can Still Trust Casino Reviews
But let’s not get carried away with this – not very revelatory – revelation. Affiliate reviews can be perfectly legitimate!
Yes, that’s right.
This sort of relationship exists and has existed in almost every business in some form or another. If you’re old enough and ugly enough to remember so-called GamerGate you’ll remember that the supposed cause of this unfortunate hate storm was “ethics in gamer journalism”.
That’s right! There is an inherent possible conflict of interest in any publication that covers a particular business because it is going to inevitably develop personal and business relationships in that business area, and it is inevitably going to be funded by advertising from that business.
So, the affiliate scheme should be seen in that context. It’s already a new and broadly accepted way of doing business in a load of other commercial sectors, from banking to mobile phone markets to utility suppliers.
So casino rating sites that are linked to actual casino sites can be perfectly legitimate and perfectly honest. Or they can be less than that, but the link is not proof of collusion.
What You Should Take From Casino Reviews
With all that in mind, you should approach casino reviews with your eyes open and your mind open and your head screwed on right.
Not with outright suspicion, and not with a completely credulous trust.
Look to take what you can from casino reviews – the same is true of game reviews – and be aware of what might not be trustworthy.
For example, if a single online gambling reviews site is giving over-the-top praise to a casino site or a massively high casino rating to sites that you don’t rate then maybe try to find your reviews elsewhere.
Online gambling reviews should be well written and substantial. But more important than thousands of words is quality of information: a child of three can produce thousands of words for you, but it’s good to know some actual facts and figures along with the blah blah blah.
Look out for things like that. Look out for reports of the theoretical return to the player from a game review. What’s the maximum bet? That’s something every player wants to know.
And when it comes to casinos you need to know what sort of games they have and what sort of banking services they offer.
All of this is useful information.
And you need it to be honest. Nothing is perfect – though my mother thinks I am – and a review that includes no negative information is probably not completely honest. You should expect to be warned about the downsides of a casino as well as told how many great games it has.
It’s also responsible to keep safe, legal gambling at the forefront of any online gambling reviews, and that’s a great sign of a good quality casino review site that you can trust.
UK Online Casino Reviews and Bonuses
Is this why you’re here? Sorry to keep you waiting!
Yes, the bonus market is a great way to save money and to get a head-start when you sign up at any online casino site.
There are so many bonuses these days that casino review sites are probably the only realistic way to start to make sense of them.
This too is all part of the affiliate’s business. By offering better deals to users from certain sites, casino sites can reward those sites for delivering customers to them.
Again, it’s hardly corrupt – no more than putting restaurant vouchers in a food magazine, for example – but it’s something to bear in mind.
Look for online gambling reviews and ratings that give you a realistic picture of bonuses that are available. And the reality is that there are restrictions of some sort on every bonus.
Even no deposit bonuses are not the free money that the headline offer might lead you to believe. And it’s the duty of a good online gambling rating site to let you know that and to tell you what to expect when you sign up and collect your bonus.
There’s a Lot of Good News Too!
Be cautious, be careful, be safe, be legal, be sensitive, and be informed.
Those are the basics you need when you play at online casinos, and when you check them out at online gambling review sites.
That’s about it though. The rest is all good news.
There have never been so many sites. There have never been so many good sites and so many games. Plenty of gaming innovations. So many convenient ways to fund your play. There have never been better licensing and regulatory rules.
So enjoy your gaming and use good quality casino review sites to make the best of your experience.
Things to read in an online casino review
Online casino reviews – if they are honest and unbiased – help you to figure out if a casino is right for you. The purpose of this article is to show you how to identify a good review and what you should be looking for when judging an online casino for the first time.
To do this, we will break down this article piece by piece according to the best things to look out for.
How reviews are written
So, we, the reviewers, want to write the best reviews on best UK casinos and online betting sites out there. These reviews are written by UK casino experts and based on a particular rating system which looks at how a casino performs overall. In order to do this, we will look at things such as casino games quality, software, security, deposit methods and much more.
This info will provide readers with enough information to make an informed decision to before you sign up. The devil is in the detail, so the saying goes, so everything will be examined in as much detail as possible.
Promotions and bonuses, customers services and support, and all other factors of a casino’s functionality will be covered.
Weighing up the pros & cons
One of the best ways to break down how a casino works, is by pointing out the pros and cons of the gambling site.
For example, you might see something like this:
Pros:
- Excellent bonuses and promotions
- High-end customer support
- Great choice of games
- Numerous deposit methods
Cons:
- Poor live dealer games
- Low withdrawal limits
A site’s casino games
If we are impressed with the number of games a site has, this will contribute to a positive review. We take a look at the main casino and any live dealer option where players can play roulette, blackjack and baccarat just as they would inside the confines of a landbased casino. We look for any poker options in the casino and relay all of this information to the reader.
This is usually one of the first things to look at when reading UK online casino reviews.
If the amount of slots available is eye-catching, we take a look in detail to see just how good the quality of those games is under scrutiny. Does the casino feature the best of the classics, Jackpots and progressives? Will slots aficionados be pleased with what they find here? Will players run out of choice easily, or will there be enough to keep everyone entertained? These are, once again, factors which will come into play.
With games like Poker, we check how these are available to customers. Is there a necessity to download software from the site, or can players play through their browsers?
What other games does the site have, or are they simply catering to the basics? If a player wanted to play some of the more obscure titles or versions of games, are these available? All of these details will contribute towards the final rating which we give an online casino. All of this information, therefore, matters.
A site should have a fair reach of casino games and not just be restricted to the bare minimum.
Free Spins & Promotions
UK casino players who are big on bonuses and promotions will want to know just what they can expect for signing up with a new gambling site. This information is perhaps the most searched for when it comes to reviews. A site’s promotions and casino bonuses warrant a look. A welcome bonus should be suitable for players with big and small bankrolls.
Many UK casino sites offer deals such as a 100% match up to a certain amount of cash. Players who prefer to deposit the absolute minimum to avail of a bonus should not suffer as a result. Many sites do tend to reward those who bet more. This is not uncommon.
There are terms and conditions which should always be read in order for customers to understand how they work. These should always be available on a website. They should be checked to ascertain if they are restrictive or unrestrictive. For example, bonus terms placed to meet wagering requirements should not be too high so as they are effectively impossible to overturn. This represents poor quality.
A site’s bonus structure may look impressive from a distance but may not be. Reading through the terms and conditions will determine if they are as good as they seem. Any casino can offer an incredible 200% up to £1000 welcome bonus, for example, which would seem above and beyond the standard for any casino. If you have to overturn these bonuses x100, you might be lucky and convert them to cash in 30 years.
Mobile compatibility
As you can see from your calendar, we are not in the 1990s anymore. Casino mobile sites and casinos apps, therefore, are givens these days.
We look to score a site against their functionality and operational qualities of the mobile and apps covered, and how the games run. Are they powered by good software? Is the all-around performance compatible with the modern age of technology, or was it put together in the dark with a blindfold on while dancing on hot coals? These things matter.
A casino’s mobile and their app should be able to handle the demands of modern age gaming with simplicity and ease. This will underpin a player’s satisfaction when playing their favourite games on the go and prove a good choice when deciding to play on mobile. All types of games should be tested, including roulette, poker, baccarat, blackjack and many others.
Our online casino reviews will confirm if a site’s mobile and app offerings can perform well on devices like the Apple iPhone 8, Apple iPhone 7, Samsung S9, Samsung Galaxy, Samsung S8, Blackberry models, HTC, Fire tablet, Nokia Lumia, Surface Pro and others. We will also look to establish if you can download the app on Android or iOS from the Play Store and iTunes easily enough.
Banking methods
This is a majorly important aspect of our reviews and casino ratings. It might sound obvious, but a range of options will keep plenty of customers happy. If you sign up for a site and don’t find your favourite payment options, this could easily affect your ability to play. A site should always at least be giving the impression that it is doing everything to cater to as many players as it possibly can.
The main methods for depositing funds into your account on a website should, at very least, cover most of these: Visa, MasterCard, Debit Cards, PayPal, Neteller, Skrill and Bank Transfer. There should pretty much be an option for everyone in order to keep players happy. This is why choice matters.
In order to find out details pertaining to the level of options available, you can check these on the casino’s website. Everything from minimum deposits and maximum withdrawals, limits, and timeframes relating to casino’s banking processes are available.
Security
A gambling site should ensure that customers have the peace of mind they need by providing the best level of security procedures around. The company which runs a casino should be fully licensed and regulated by an appropriate entity, such as the UK Gambling Commission. This establishes trust and is very important if a casino wants to be considered as one of the best out there.
A website should be protected by sturdy and industry-leading security software. This is important for settling any fears over money that can later be avoided with the right systems in place. Sites should feature a 128-bit SSL encryption to safeguard the transmission of all data. This is important for a company that hopes to stay one step ahead of fraudsters and security threats.
Any UK online casino worth its salt should always train their staff to identify potential fraud. Our UK online casino reviews will aim to identify if sites are safe and secure. While many factors are taken into the equation when reviewing a site, security is one of the most important. If security on a site is very poor or non-existent, we will not recommend it at all.
To recap, important security procedures include:
- 128-bit SSL encryption to safeguard data in transmission
- Licenses and regulations by an appropriate commission
- Suitable training of staff on security and safety
- KYC and ID requirements for all customers
- All transactions processed by a trusted third party
Customer support
There is no doubt that a great customer service and support team can really be the difference in how a customer feels about a company. This attitude towards customer satisfaction is no different, regardless of what industry a company is in. In online gaming, however, it is arguably more important.
It is no secret that UK online casinos and betting sites do their best to improve their customer service if they are legitimate. This is because many bettors and players will be happier for the most part when they are being looked after. Conversely, negative experiences can really affect customers, who will eventually leave the site.
Any of the major sites for UK players will have a solid 24/7 Live Chat function in addition to telephone numbers and email addresses to contact the company in the case of any problems. The Live Chat service should not just be available in English, but other commonly used languages such as French, German, Spanish, Swedish, Chinese and more if this is possible.
In Conclusion
When reading an online casino review, you want to feel as though the reviewer is not blowing smoke up your rear end. If they do not pick at least some holes in the performance of the site, it isn’t a review. No site is absolutely perfect, so avoid anyone who tries to tell you otherwise.
Casinos are businesses and exist to make money from you. There tends to be at least something lacking with most sites. You should know what this or these are by the review, even if they are minimal.
When you read a Uk casino review, ideally you want it to tell you what you could find out for yourself, but without having to fine comb through a casino for the info. A website should be well-designed, games in abundance and all of the highest quality; the technology, customer support and security, banking options, mobile site and app and everything in between should warrant you signing up! It is that simple.
Not all websites will be as good as others. Not all casinos have the means to produce the most glittering and jam-packed products, but there are plenty of smaller sites that shows you don’t have to be Hulk to smash it. Providing the basics are well taken care of and the site is dedicated to providing a good place for customers, websites should be able to attract a loyal player base.
The online casino reviews and the online casino ratings we provide, as you can see from the information above, are taken very seriously. The information we provide to you is objective and put through a number of tests to make sure that you have the right information when you need it. Gambling reviews should be honest and to the point. Anything else should be of no importance to your decision-making process.
