UK Online Casinos List 2021

Our Approach to Casino Reviews

In the UK, Online Casinos are the most popular form of gambling, second to sports betting. Thousands of games, a variety of bonuses and promotions throughout the year, and cutting-edge design – online casinos offer more than all hotels in Las Vegas combined. As a result, new casinos launch every week and makes it even more difficult for players to find the best ones. This is where online casino reviews come in.

Where you are a first-timer or seasoned player, finding the needle in the haystack, that is picking the best casino out of all of them, has become incredibly difficult. From the outside, many online casinos look the same. They offer similar bonus packages, partner with the same games developers, and all claim to be better than the rest. However, in casino reviews, it’s important to look underneath the hood since the devil is usually in the details.

We understand that an online casino needs to tick a lot of boxes – from mobile-friendliness to fast withdrawal times – and only if it passes all our tests, we can consider it one of the top online casinos in the UK.

Below, we have put together six criteria that we look for in our online casino reviews. There is much more we test, but it gives you an idea of how we rate operators and come up with a UK online casinos list of the top websites.

How We List Online Casinos

Now that you have gained a first understanding of how we review casino sites, it’s time to explain how we come up with online casino lists.

Once we have completed our 20-step review, our expert panel scores each subsection that we looked into during the process. For instance, we assign separate ratings to the following sections, among others:

• Welcome bonus & ongoing promotions
• Fairness of games and wagering requirements
• Game selection
• Withdrawal speed
• Safety & security
• Customer service

When our expert panel has agreed on a final score for each category, it’s time for the combined rating. To do this, we use a specially weighted formula that attributes a different level of importance to each subsection. We don’t want to go too much into detail but think about it this way – the fairness of games should be more important than the number of games. Would you agree?

The Best Online Casino Reviews

Often people are asking where they can find the best online casino reviews. Frankly, there is no right or wrong answer to this. Every independent expert team that provides casino reviews puts their emphasis on different elements, and it’s common to find reviews with completely different ratings. However, what we can say is that if you pick an online casino from our site, you have the experience of over 12 industry experts and 19 years of casino reviews experience behind you.

BGO Casino Reviews

Some of the best gambling companies run more than one casino, and it’s important to look at each brand with a fresh set of eyes. For example, BGO Entertainment Limited runs five different websites, but it doesn’t mean that all our BGO casino reviews are the same. Whether it’s BGO, Chilli Casino, Vegas Luck, Power Spins or 7 Casino – we put each one of them through our extensive 20-step review process to determine a standalone score. There is no exception to this rule!

List of Blocked UK Online Casinos

Over the last couple of years, the Gambling Commission announced a number of measures that gambling operators need to comply with to run UK online casinos. Besides rock-solid security mechanisms and fairness in all their games, the Commission now requires online casinos to verify new customers the moment they register with their site and before they are allowed to make their first deposit. As of April 2020, casinos will also no longer be able to accept credit cards as a payment method.

As a consequence, many online casinos have ceased operations in the UK since they cannot afford to enforce these new measures. Here is a list of casinos that are no longer available to British players:

• Casino Heroes
• Evoreels
• MoPlay
• Slotty Vegas
• Pink Casino
• SuperLenny
• Vera & John
• WinStar

This is not a complete online casinos list of operators that block players from the UK, but if it gives you an idea of just how many casinos have started to discontinue their services in Great Britain.

Tips on How to Spot a Good UK Casino

Sometimes you don’t follow in someone else’s footsteps and instead find your own way. We fully support you in your quest for the best online casinos and thought it would help to go a little more into detail about what we look for in our online casino reviews. You don’t need to follow it step by step, but perhaps it gives you a little guidance along the way.

Games and Software Providers

One of the main reason you’re registering at an online casino is to play games such as slots, blackjack, roulette and more. This is why a casino’s game selection and their chosen providers are one of the first factors we look at during our online casino reviews.

A good online casino should provide their customers with a wide range of quality casino games including slots, jackpots, table games, dice games, scratchcards and live casino games. Besides, UK online casinos should balance out their selection of games and will offer multiple variations of games to prevent players from getting bored and feeling unsatisfied. It’s also important to look at whether the casino regularly updates its catalogue to offer customers the latest releases and what game providers it has partnered with since providers focus on different game features.

Welcome Bonus & Promotions

Most gamers are happy to join any casino that offers a quality selection of games, but it’s the bonuses that pull people to particular sites. UK online casinos are now more than ever trying to out-do each other when it comes to bonuses and promotions. Welcome bonuses are generally attractive and exciting, and other promotions offered at the site are just additional benefits to the user.

However, most people forget to read through the terms and conditions and fail to realise that the wagering requirement is overly high or that they just don’t have enough time to wager the bonus successfully. This can sometimes lead to the bonus being forfeited and a very dissatisfied customer. In our online casino reviews, we always thoroughly read through the terms to ensure that any wagering requirements attached to bonus offers are fair and player-friendly.

It’s also important to note what kind of promotions the online casino is offering – no deposit bonuses, free spins bonus or match deposit bonus – and whether the reward is for new players only. For top scores in our casino reviews, a site must reward existing players as well. It’s just not enough to get a customer through the door and immediately shift focus on other players.

On top of that, wagering requirements, withdrawal restrictions and time limits are also relevant along with whether or not the UK casino site runs a VIP or loyalty scheme where long-term players can earn exclusive rewards. After all, everyone should be rewarded and treated fairly at an online casino.

We cover all of the above in our online casino reviews and many more aspects, however, if you get answers to those questions and still think the bonus offer is enticing, then it probably is.

Payment Options

Next on the list are the payment options. Whether it’s depositing or withdrawing money – the website must give you a range of options so that you have a choice. You might prefer e-Wallets over a bank transfer or vice versa, and it’s important that no matter your preference, you can deposit and withdraw real money.

For high scores in our casino reviews, operators need to offer at the very least debit cards, prepaid credit cards, and three different e-Wallets, e.g. Neteller, Skrill, and Trustly. In reality, the best online casinos offer you various other options for financial transactions.

Good UK casino sites will also keep their fees to a minimum or not charge anything at all, which is much more attractive to customers. Besides, casinos that process withdrawals fast are much better in our eyes since this lowers the chance of a user cancelling their withdrawal.

Customer Support

Online casino sites are a complicated business, and a problem can occur at any moment whether it’s a glitch with a game or an issue with depositing or withdrawing money. It means you’ll eventually require the assistance of a customer support agent who will provide you with advice or fix your problem.

Make sure that the online casino site you are reviewing offers you more than one way to get in touch. Ideally, a website should have a live chat that is available to unregistered users, an email address or contact form, and a (free) telephone number.

When we’re writing our online casino reviews, we contact the UK online site directly and ask multiple questions before comparing their answers to what we find on the casino website. We rate our experience on our reviews and explain exactly how you can contact the support team and access these services. In addition, we’ve even ranked each casino’s live chat support service so you can see which casino offers the superior service.

Usability & Design

Another important factor we look into during our casino reviews is the site’s usability. The best online casinos should feature an easy-to-use website that players can browse through without a problem and they should not hide key information such as payment options, wagering requirements and general terms and conditions or contact methods. It’s also important in today’s age that online casinos are mobile-friendly and can be played either in-browser or through a dedicated mobile app.

In our online casino reviews, we explicitly state whether or not a casino is mobile-friendly and how it can be accessed on smartphone devices. Make sure that when reviewing a site yourself, that you visit the homepage on your smartphone to get a feel for its mobile user-experience. It’s a given that at one point you will end up playing from your mobile phone so this test is absolutely critical!

Safety & Security

Safety and security are incredibly important, and it’s the final factor we consider during our online casino reviews. However, it doesn’t mean that it gets the least attention. It’s quite the opposite.

During this step, we check whether the online casino is in possession of a valid UK gambling license. If not, the operator automatically ends up on our blacklist. Besides the permit, we look into their overall IT security, e.g. SSL certificates, and whether the online casino partners with leading third-party institutions such as eCOGRA to guarantee absolute fairness of all their casino games.