Casino Reviews for British Players
No gambling market is more competitive than the United Kingdom. British players have massive numbers of play options, but it’s important to shop through gambling sites before depositing real money in an account. It takes a bit of due diligence – reading reviews and shopping for bonus offers. Bettors need to consider several key factors when choosing an online casino, because you’re trusting your hard-earned money to this website.
Read through this UK casino reviews guide to learn the criteria you should consider when choosing a betting site. We state the factors we use when writing reviews, while suggesting you use the same factors. Those factors include the entertainment level of the games, the deposit bonus, other promotions, and player rewards. Our reviews also cite afety, security, licensing, customer support, payouts, mobile gaming and live dealer games. Players who still have questions after reading this article should contact our team to ask questions or share your comments.
Top 5 UK Casino Reviews
| Ranking | Casino Name | Bonus Amount | Review | Payment Options | Minimum Deposit | Actions |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 |
|
USD $5,000 Bonus |
|
$20 Min Deposit | PLAY NOW | |
| 5 |
|
USD $3000 Bonus |
|
$20 Min Deposit | PLAY NOW |
How We Evaluate Online Casinos – What’s in Our British Online Casino Review?
UK gamblers might be wondering how we arrive at our ratings, so for the sake of full transparency, here’s a list of criteria. Players should consider the same features when they read reviews.
Game Content
First of all, the games have to be entertaining. Online slots need to have fun themes, eye-catching graphics and jackpots big enough to get you excited. The table games section needs multiple versions of blackjack and roulette. It also should support real money play of craps, baccarat and table poker games.
Video poker is a must, while online Keno and scratch card games are essential. It helps if they offer sports betting, poker or bingo games, too. Our casino reviews list all the game types available.
Welcome Bonus & Other Promotions
Our casino reviews rate the welcome bonus according to several factors. The bonus should have a high max deposit so high rollers and premium players can have its full benefit. Its deposit minimum should be low enough that penny players also can use it. The wagering requirement shouldn’t be too high, because a high rollover prevents most players from having winnings after the requirement is cleared.
If you prefer table games, the list of playable games should include blackjack, baccarat, roulette and video poker. The match rate should be 100% or higher. The contribution rate might not be high, but these games should contribute to the wagering requirement.
Similarly, reload bonuses should be advantageous to continuing or loyal customers. The daily and weekly bonuses might not have as high a match rate as the welcome bonus, but 50% or higher is a good amount. Remember, these are redeemable many times over, so the reload bonuses often are more useful than the first deposit bonus. Our reviews give extra points if an casino offers promotions like free chips, free spin bonuses, no-deposit bonuses and game-specific bonuses.
Player Rewards
Casinos need a player rewards club, too. These often are called the VIP Club or have a proprietary name, such as 888 Casino’s Casino Club. The rewards club is the online equivalent to the land-based casino’s slots club. It provides cashback and other comps for volume play.
Again, the low tiers should offer benefits for low rollers who play on the site a lot, while the higher tiers should provide special perks for high-stakes gamblers. Our reviews state when a site has a player rewards program.
Software Support
The software support is fundamental to the best sites. Many UK casino sites collect many licensed software providers, so slots players can experience a full range of online slot games: 3-reel classics, fruit games, 5-reel video slots, i-slots, licensed slots and progressive jackpot slots.
For instance, 888 Casino features over two dozen top game design companies and B2B slots developers. NetEnt, Microgaming, Playtech, IGT, Konami, Novomatic, Thunderkick, Yggdrasil, NextGen, Play’n GO, Aristocrat, Ainsworth, Booming Games, Ash Gaming, WMS Gaming, Bally Technologies and Barcrest are some of the top slots designers.
Beyond the number of games provided, a software provider needs to support all the games in a way they’re easy to play. They should be compatible with Windows and Mac computers, at the very least with instant-play games (which load in the web browser). The UK’s online bettors can learn a site’s software providers while reading our casino reviews.
Mobile Casino Games
Similarly, the mobile casino games catalog should be big – at least with 50% of the online games available for betting on the go (100% is preferred). Online casinos design mobile casino apps for the Android and iOS operating systems, so the mobile games should be compatible with Android smartphones and tablet computers, iPads and iPhones. Our online casino reviews also list a site’s mobile games, too.
Live Dealer Games
British online casinos in the year 2020 should support live casino games, too. From the time gambling went online, some players complained that table games use computer simulations and RNGs for blackjack, baccarat, roulette and craps. They hire a live casino provider to offer live-streamed table games that arrive to your computer screen in real time.
Real-life dealers deal hands of blackjack and baccarat using real playing cards. Craps dealers shoot real dice to produce results, while live croupiers spin real-life roulette wheels. Everything takes place in a casino studio somewhere in the world – including Evolution Gaming, which hosts games in London casinos.
The games are filmed from several camera angles and streamed live to your computer as the game happens. In a time of coronavirus, players can play live baccarat, live blackjack and live roulette from the privacy of their own home. Our reviews state if a site has live casino games or not.
Safety and Security
None of this is helpful if gamblers can’t be sure an identity thief won’t steal their passwords and raid their player account. Therefore, we put the safety and security of any casino in a prime position when rating a gambling site.
Casinos need 128-bit encryption and SSL certificates to provide cutting-edge security. Third-party testers need to audit the site for security breaches and give the site a clean bill of health. Our reviews notes a site’s security setup.
Licensing
Other outside parties should test them too. The best sites receive gaming licenses from one or more respected regulatory agencies. UK gamblers should insist their chosen online gambling site is licensed by either the UK Gambling Commission, the Gibraltar Gambling Agency or the Malta Gaming Authority.
Other respected licensing agencies are based out of the Isle of Man, Alderney, Cyprus, Antigua & Barbuda, and Curacao. The Kahnawake Gaming Commission near Montreal, Canada, also is a respected licensing authority. Our reviews should list a site’s licensing and ours do.
Customer Service
Finally, players need to know that customer representatives are friendly, helpful, knowledgeable and fluent in the English language. Our reviews discuss a gaming site’s customer service setup, including those who deal with bonuses and those who deal with technical issues. We hope a site never has issues, but if and when it does, online bettors need to know they’ll receive prompt help. Our reviews state a casino’s customer service.
What to Consider When Trying a New Casino
That covers how our reviewers write reviews. Players might want a handy checklist so they can evaluate an casino themselves as they read our casino reviews. Here’s a list of factors you should consider before depositing your hard-earned money in an online gambling site.
- Reputation: How long has the betting site been around and what do other online players say about the casino? Sites like Bet365 are well known to British gamblers.
- UK-Friendly: It doesn’t matter how good a site is if it doesn’t accept British real money players, so keep this question in mind.
- British Pound: Does the casino operator support play using the GB pound sterling? Our UK casino reviews tell if the British pound is supported.
- Payment Methods: Does the site support deposits and withdrawals using your preferred payment method? If not, does it offer a banking method you find acceptable? Our online reviews always list payment options.
- Welcome Bonus: Is the match bonus a promotion that you can take advantage of? Does it have underhanded terms and conditions or a bad wagering requirement?
- Game Selection: Finally, we return to our first premise with reviews. Are the casino’s games enjoyable and are there enough of them to keep your interest?
FAQ
We publish unbiased online casino reviews, but we encourage our readers to double-check our recommendations at an independent source. We recommend a player-driven review site like Ask Gamblers.
The site aggregates player complaints and player reviews, so much of the information on the site is posted by players like yourself. In fact, there’s a percentage rating of how many complaints are addressed by a particular online casino, along with threads where actual customer reps interact with players. These should supplement the online casino reviews you read.
No. The tax on remote gaming is paid by the UK online casino. Because it has minimal effect, our online casino reviews won’t mention the Remote Gaming Bill much.
RTP stands for return-to-player, the theoretical amount of cash a game or a casino pays back to the player. This is noted in a percentage with 100% as the best (in most cases). If a game’s RTP is 99% in online casino reviews, it means that the game’s expected payback is $99 out of every $100 wagered.
Conversely, this means the house edge would be 1%. Online casino reviews sometimes refer to RTPs in other ways.. One is the payback percentage and another is the expected return.
When you accept an online casino’s deposit bonus, it comes with a wagering requirement. The requirement – sometimes known as the rollover or playthrough – calls for the player to bet the amount of the bonus a certain number of times. This is expressed as a multiplier (35x or 40x) in most online casino reviews.
If you receive a $100 bonus with a 35x rollover, it means you must wager the value of the bonus ($100) 35 times before you can cash out winnings from the bonus offer. In this case, it would be $3,500. That sounds like a lot, but remember that the house edge is small, so wagering $3,500 is very unlikely to mean you’ll lose $3,500 or anything close to that amount.
In fact, the odds are slightly less than 50% you’ll walk away as a winner. Our online casino reviews state the rollover, so you can calculate your odds.
Many UK online casinos have bingo. This exists in two forms. Bodog Casino offers a full range of Keno, bingo, Sudoku and scratch card games in its “Specialty Games” section. You’ll find several online bingo cards among these games.
The second kind of bingo is a full online bingo site — a sister site. If a UK gaming site offers bingo in any form, our online casino reviews mention that among specialty games or the general games section.
No, they aren’t. Many online casino reviews sites are affiliates of a casino, which is an indirect way to be paid. They might not offer unbiased online casino reviews. We list the pros and cons of a gaming site, because players need to know the full truth.