Methodology: The Cashout Report
Every casino we review is scored with The Cashout Report — a 0-10 rating built from six published sub-scores, centred on the thing players care about most: getting paid. The weights are fixed and identical for every casino, so a score cannot be quietly bought.
The six sub-scores and their weights
- Licence & Safety — 25%. The licence verified against the regulator’s public register, ownership, track record, and any documented incidents (breaches, sanctions, unpaid-winnings disputes, licence changes).
- Payout / Withdrawal — 25%. Documented or aggregated withdrawal-speed evidence, KYC thresholds and known holds. This is the metric we foreground.
- Bonus Value & Terms — 15%. The real value of offers after wagering, max cashout, game weighting and expiry — read from the operator’s terms, not the promo page.
- Games & Providers — 15%. Library breadth, notable studios, live-dealer range and provably-fair availability.
- KYC & Support — 10%. Verification friction, support quality and responsiveness.
- Crypto Support — 10%. Coins and networks accepted, and deposit/withdrawal mechanics.
The overall score is the weighted average of the sub-scores you can see on every review. Expect a real spread and the occasional sub-7 verdict — uniform 9s are a sign of affiliate inflation, not quality.
Research-based vs field-tested — the integrity core
Each review states its evidence standard plainly. A research-based review verifies the licence against the register, reads the bonus terms from the operator’s terms of service, confirms supported coins, and presents withdrawal-speed as documented or aggregated player-reported evidence with a source and date. A field-tested review means a reviewer genuinely deposited real funds, timed real withdrawals and documented KYC and support first-hand. At launch, every review is research-based; we never present research as a field test, and we never fabricate a payout time, screenshot or rating.
The publishing checklist
No review publishes until: the licence is verified against the regulator’s register (or clearly flagged as unverifiable); bonus terms are confirmed from the operator’s terms of service; supported coins are confirmed; the evidence label is set; the affiliate disclosure and responsible-gambling context are present; and the desk has signed off.
Licence verification
We check the claimed licence number against the regulator’s public lookup — Curaçao (CGA), MGA, UKGC, Gibraltar and others. Where an operator blocks automated access, we pull its licensing footer from a Wayback-archived snapshot and cross-reference the register, and we attribute it as an archived footer — never as a live first-person fetch.
Independence and updates
Scores are never adjusted for affiliate revenue. A licence suspension or revocation drops the Licence & Safety sub-score immediately and is posted to the Wire within 48 hours of confirmation. Every review carries a “last verified” date and is re-reviewed at least annually. Corrections are logged publicly at corrections, and our commercial relationships are disclosed at affiliate disclosure.
AI policy
Editorial body content is written and edited by humans, with AI-assisted drafting and human accountability for every published word. We do not publish AI-generated reporting passed off as first-hand work, and we do not claim our content is “100% human.”