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Editorial Standards & Ethics

The examination room rules

Every review published on ONLINE CASINO DOCTOR is produced under the standards on this page. They exist because casino reviewing is an industry with a credibility problem: much of what looks like independent review online is advertising wearing a lab coat. The only way to be distinguishable from that is to publish the method, follow it every time, and let readers check the work. This page is that method.

How we test a casino

A casino review here is an examination with a fixed sequence, not an impression assembled from a press kit. The steps:

  • Licence verification first. Before anything else, we confirm the operator’s claimed licences directly against the issuing regulators’ public registers. An operator whose licence claims do not check out is not reviewed further; it is flagged. No unlicensed operator receives a recommendation on this site under any circumstances.
  • Terms read in full. We read the general terms and the bonus terms completely, the way almost no player does, looking specifically for the clauses that bite: maximum win caps, maximum bet rules during wagering, game weighting exclusions, dormancy fees, and withdrawal conditions buried far from the sign-up button.
  • Real registration and real money. Wherever lawfully possible we register as an ordinary player, deposit our own funds, play, and then, critically, withdraw. The withdrawal is the single most informative test in the sequence, because it is where good and bad operators diverge. We record timelines, document requests, and any friction encountered.
  • Support probed, not quoted. We contact customer support with realistic questions at realistic hours and judge the answers we actually get, not the response times the operator advertises.
  • Games and payments catalogued. Library breadth, studio quality, published return-to-player availability, payment methods, minimums, fees, and processing times, checked against what the cashier actually shows a logged-in player rather than what the marketing page claims.
  • Safety tools inspected. We check whether deposit limits, loss limits, time-outs, and self-exclusion are genuinely available, easy to find, and honoured. An operator that makes limits hard to set loses rating points no bonus can buy back.

Ratings follow a fixed rubric across these dimensions so that two casinos scored months apart are scored on the same scale. When an operator materially changes, we retest and the review is updated with a dated note under our Corrections Policy.

Money and the wall

This site earns affiliate commissions, disclosed fully on our Ownership & Funding page. The standards that keep that money out of the editorial bloodstream:

  • Ratings are not for sale. No operator can pay for a score, a ranking position, or a softened sentence. None has. Any operator who attempts it will find the attempt mentioned in the review.
  • Reviews precede commerce. The verdict is written before any affiliate arrangement is considered, and a verdict never changes because a commercial arrangement starts or ends.
  • We review non-partners. Coverage is chosen by reader interest, not by whether a commission exists. Some of our reviews earn us nothing and never will.
  • Affiliate links are disclosed. Pages containing them say so, and our funding pages explain the model site-wide.
  • No sponsored verdicts. We do not publish paid reviews. Clearly labelled advertising is a separate thing governed by our Advertise With Us page, and it never wears editorial clothing.

Conduct

  • Honesty about the product. Gambling has a house edge, and our content says so plainly. We do not describe gambling as an income strategy, we do not celebrate big losses as entertainment, and our reviews include the responsible-gambling context the subject demands.
  • No gifts that could bind. The team does not accept payments, hospitality, or gifts of more than trivial value from operators or studios. Test deposits are our own money.
  • Sources protected. Players and industry insiders who share information in confidence stay confidential.
  • Errors owned. Mistakes are corrected visibly under the Corrections Policy, with the original error described, not disappeared.
  • Human judgement throughout. Software assists with research and drafting where useful, but every verdict, rating, and published claim is made and verified by a person who is accountable for it.

Holding us to this

These standards are public so that failing them is checkable. If you believe any article falls short, write to support@onlinecasinodoctor.com with the specifics. Complaints about standards go to the editor rather than the original author, and the outcome, changed or defended, comes back to you with reasons.