Every rating on this site has to survive one question: could a reader repeat the check and get the same answer? That rules out a lot of what passes for casino reviewing. It also means this page tells you where the evidence behind a score comes from, and, just as plainly, where it stops.
In short: scores rest on registry checks, a full reading of the published terms, and cross-referencing independent review desks. Funded real-money testing is a separate layer, and it is marked as present or absent on every page rather than implied.
What “checked” means here
Checked means a primary source was opened and read on a stated date. For a licence, that is the regulator’s own register rather than a badge in a website footer. For bonus terms, it is the operator’s published conditions or, where those are unreachable, a review desk that quotes them with its methodology on display. Each page carries the date of the check, because a licence status or a withdrawal cap can change in a fortnight.
The Firejackpots licence check is the model. On 19 October 2026 the Gambling Commission’s public register listed 2,632 businesses, and a search of the brand by company name, trading name and domain returned nothing. Anyone can repeat that in under a minute, which is the point.
Where the scores come from
A score out of 10 is a weighted judgement, not an average of vibes. Five inputs carry the weight.
| Input | Weight | What moves it |
|---|---|---|
| Licensing and recourse | 30% | Which regulator, what dispute route, whether the register confirms it |
| Terms and conditions | 25% | Win caps, wagering, dormant-account clauses, anything that can void a balance |
| Cashier | 20% | Rails offered, currencies, published limits, how much the operator discloses |
| Games and software | 15% | Catalogue breadth, studios with their own regulatory exposure, live-dealer depth |
| Support and complaints | 10% | Channels, languages, response evidence, public complaint record |
A single severe failing can cap a score regardless of the rest. An operator with a clause that lets it keep winnings it does not like will not score above the middle of the range, however good the game library looks.
The limits of this review
Firejackpots refuses connections from most countries, and for several weeks that included ours. Every page was therefore written from registers, published terms quoted by other desks, and whatever the operator let through. On 20 October 2026 the site was read directly over a British connection, and the difference was not small: the welcome package turned out to be denominated in pounds rather than euros, promo codes existed, a Monday rebate existed, a coin shop existed, and the company behind the licence was not the one a third-party desk had named. Those pages were rewritten.
What has still never happened is a funded test. No account has been opened here, no deposit made, no withdrawal requested and no payout timed. It would be easy to write “I deposited £20 and the payout landed in 40 minutes”, and it would be fiction. Where a figure would normally come from a funded test, the page says the operator does not publish it.
The correction itself is worth stating plainly, because it cuts both ways. Reviewing an operator through third-party summaries produced real errors on this site, and reading the operator directly fixed them. It also made the terms look worse, not better: the clauses that cap a payout against lifetime deposits were vague allegations before and are quoted rules now.
How testing works when we have access
Where an operator is reachable, the sequence is fixed: register with genuine details, verify the email, deposit an amount worth losing, play a spread of slots and at least one table game, complete verification when asked, then request a withdrawal and time it from the click to the moment the money is spendable. Each step gets a timestamp. The withdrawal clock is the one that matters most, since it is where a casino’s promises meet its finance department.
Sources we treat as primary
- Regulator registers: the Gambling Commission public register for Britain, and the issuing authority’s own listings for offshore permissions.
- The operator’s published terms and conditions, read in full rather than skimmed for headlines.
- Independent review desks that publish their methodology and their complaint records, cited by name when their findings are used.
- Company registries where ownership is in question.
Affiliate pages that exist to sell the brand, including ones trading on the operator’s own name, are treated as marketing and labelled that way whenever their claims appear.
Corrections
Mistakes get fixed in place, and the correction is described rather than quietly swallowed. If a figure here is wrong, or an operator changes a term, write to the address on the contact page and the page gets re-checked. Reader corrections have the same standing as anything else: a verifiable source beats an editorial opinion every time.
Independence
This site earns affiliate commission when a reader registers through a tracked link. That arrangement pays for the work; it does not buy a score. The practical test is simple, and you can apply it to the published pages: an operator we are paid to promote is still recorded as holding no UK licence, still has its unfair clauses listed in a table, and still gets a named anti-recommendation where the evidence supports one. A review site that never says “we do not recommend this” is an advertisement with a byline.
Who writes this
Pages are written and checked by Ellis Hartley, who has spent nine years around online gambling, part of it on the compliance side of a licensed operator. The byline is a person, not a committee, and the same person is accountable for every number on the page. Reader questions about a specific check go to the editorial address and get answered with the source.