Editorial Policy

UK Verified Casinos exists to give UK players a single, transparent place to compare licensed online casinos. This editorial policy explains who tests the casinos, how scores are decided, when content is reviewed, and what we will not do for any commercial partner. We update this page each month — last updated April 2026.

Who writes our reviews

Two named editors are accountable for every casino review and ranking on this site. Both have full bios on our About page with photos, expertise areas, and direct contact details.

How we score a casino

Our score is a weighted average of seven categories. The weights are fixed in our test rubric and are not adjusted per operator. The full rubric is published on our How to choose a UK online casino guide; the headline weights are:

• Licence & player protection (25%) — UKGC licence status, deposit-limit tools, GAMSTOP integration, affordability checks, complaint history with the gambling commission.
• Withdrawals (20%) — Real-money withdrawal speed measured by us, KYC turnaround, withdrawal limits, fees.
• Bonus fairness (15%) — Wagering requirement, time limit, max bet during wagering, game weighting, max conversion cap.
• Game library (15%) — Studio coverage, RTP transparency, demo availability, live-dealer depth.
• Payments (10%) — Method coverage (PayPal, Apple Pay, Trustly), min deposit, deposit fees.
• Site experience (10%) — Mobile, search, account dashboard clarity, customer-support response time.
• Trust signals (5%) — Years licensed, parent company transparency, public complaint resolution rate.

Each category produces a 0-5 sub-score; the weighted total becomes the published 0-5 site score. We do not apply hand-picked “editorial adjustments” after the rubric runs.

What we test, with our own money

Every casino we cover is opened with a real deposit from one of our test accounts. We do not rely on press materials, screenshots provided by operators, or testing accounts handed to us by affiliate teams. For each review we record:

• One real deposit (typically £20–£50 depending on minimum).
• At least 30 minutes of play across slots, table games, and live dealer.
• One full KYC submission with timestamps for upload and approval.
• One full withdrawal of remaining balance, with the time-to-bank recorded to the minute.
• One customer-support ticket on a non-trivial topic (e.g. bonus T&C clarification) with response time logged.

If an operator fails any of the licence-protection or withdrawal categories, the review does not go live and we do not earn commission from that brand.

Correction policy — 24-hour SLA

We make mistakes. When a reader, operator, or third party flags a factual error, we follow this process:

1. Within 24 hours of receipt: Sarah Reynolds (or, if she is unavailable, James Mitchell) acknowledges the report by email and opens an internal ticket.
2. Within 72 hours: the relevant claim is independently re-verified against primary sources (UKGC register, operator T&Cs accessed directly from the operator site, payment-processor documentation, etc.).
3. If the correction is needed: the page is updated with a visible “Updated [date] — corrected [claim]” note at the top. The previous version is preserved in our internal revision log for 12 months.
4. If the original claim is correct: we reply to the reporter explaining the source, but we do not change the page.

To submit a correction, email the editorial team at the contact address on our contact page with the URL, the specific sentence, and your evidence.

Monthly review schedule

We re-run a compressed version of our test rubric on every published casino review every 30 days. The review checks:

• UKGC licence is still active (verified against the public register, not the operator’s footer claim).
• Bonus terms have not silently changed (we keep a hash of the T&C page content).
• Withdrawal speed has not regressed (sample one withdrawal per quarter from a fresh test account).
• Customer-support response time is still within tolerance.

If anything has materially changed, the review is re-scored and the date at the top of the page is updated. If a casino loses its UKGC licence, the review is taken offline within 24 hours of confirmation.

Editorial independence and the affiliate model

UK Verified Casinos earns commission when a reader registers at an operator through our links. This is a standard affiliate relationship and we believe transparency about it is more important than pretending it does not exist. Three rules govern how the commercial relationship interacts with editorial:

1. Scoring happens before commercial discussions. A casino’s score is finalised on the rubric before we open any conversation about commission rates. We will not move a score to win a higher payout — and operators know this because we have, on multiple occasions, declined to list operators that offered above-market commission.
2. Commission rates are standardised, not auctioned. Every listed operator pays into our commercial framework at a comparable rate. We are not running a bidding war for top placement; placement is determined by the score alone.
3. The “Best Buy” rosette is not for sale. The casino we award the Best Buy designation is the highest-scoring operator on the rubric for that month. Period. If the highest-scoring operator does not have a commercial relationship with us, the Best Buy is still awarded — we earn nothing from that placement.

Conflict-of-interest disclosures

Some honesty about edge cases:

• None of our editors hold equity in any UK-licensed casino operator or in any affiliate network we work with.
• We do not accept paid product placement, paid “sponsored” review slots, or operator-written guest content. If a brand wants coverage, the only path is to be tested and scored.
• If an editor has previously worked at a casino we are reviewing (e.g. James’s past compliance consulting), the review is reassigned and the disclosure is noted at the top of the review.
• We accept access to operator backends for compliance verification — but only on the explicit condition that we may publish anything we find. We have never accepted access on confidentiality terms.

What you will not see on this site

• “Top 10” lists generated automatically without testing — every operator on our lists has been opened, deposited at, and withdrawn from by a named editor.
• Operators that target UK players without a UKGC licence — we will not link to them even if commission is offered.
• “Risk-free” or “guaranteed win” framing — we follow the UK Advertising Standards Authority guidance even on pages where it is not strictly required.
• Bonus T&C summaries that hide the wagering requirement, time limit, or max-bet rule. If a bonus has a 50× wagering requirement, that number appears in our review.

How to contact us

Editorial questions, factual corrections, accessibility issues and complaints all go to the address on our contact page. Commercial enquiries from operators go to the same address but are routed to our commercial team, who do not have editorial sign-off.

This policy is the live version. We update it whenever a process changes. Page last reviewed: April 2026.