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Editorial Standards

How We Rate Casinos,
Games, and Rankings

Our ratings determine which operators appear at the top of every ranking and comparison on this site. If you are going to use them, you deserve to know how they are produced. Every casino review on CanadaCasinos.io is built from five equally-weighted sub-scores, each on a 1.0 to 5.0 scale, shown line by line on the review page.

Last updated April 21, 2026  ·  Companion page: Editorial Standards & Independence

5.0 Max Rating
5 Dimensions
0.1 Precision
Q'ly Deep Re-score
Game Library 1/5 User Experience 1/5 Bonus Fairness 1/5 Live Casino 1/5 Payout Speed 1/5
Rating X.X / 5.0
Game Library 20%
User Experience 20%
Bonus Fairness 20%
Live Casino 20%
Payout Speed 20%
Real-Money Testing
Our reviewers fund real accounts and test every operator end to end.
Equal Weight
All five sub-scores carry the same weight in the final rating.
Not for Sale
No operator can pay us to be rated higher. Paid slots are labelled separately.
Quarterly Deep Re-score
Every sub-score is re-audited each quarter, with immediate updates on AGCO actions.
Named Reviewers
Every review carries a byline. Author background is on each profile page.
Defensible Line by Line
All five sub-scores are shown alongside the overall rating on every review.
The Scoring Framework

Five Dimensions, Equal Weight

Every casino review produces an overall rating out of 5, derived from five sub-scores. Each sub-score is 0.0 to 5.0 in 0.1 increments. The five are weighted equally. No dimension is worth more than any other in the final calculation.

Game Library

0.0–5.0

Breadth, depth, and quality of what you can actually play.

What goes into the score
Total game count
Provider variety
Category coverage (slots, live, table, specialty, jackpots)
Average published RTP
Release cadence and freshness

User Experience

0.0–5.0

Friction from first visit to first withdrawal, measured on every device.

What goes into the score
Registration flow
Lobby load speed
Mobile parity with desktop
Live chat accessibility
Deposit and withdrawal UX
Prominence of responsible-gambling tools

Bonus Fairness

0.0–5.0

Whether the headline offer is worth claiming once you read the terms.

What goes into the score
Wagering requirement
Game contribution rates
Maximum bet while bonus is active
Expiry window
Opt-out clarity
VIP programme transparency

AGCO Standard 2.17 compliance is scored separately.

Live Casino

0.0–5.0

Studio partners, table variety, and streaming quality under load.

What goes into the score
Number of live tables
Studio partnerships (Evolution, Playtech, Ezugi, Pragmatic Live)
Game show variety
Mobile live-streaming quality
Salon privé access

Payout Speed

0.0–5.0

Time from withdrawal request to cleared funds, timed by us, not claimed by them.

What goes into the score
INTERAC e-Transfer time (average and maximum)
Visa withdrawal time
Pending review period
KYC turnaround
Weekend and holiday processing
The Calculation

One Formula, Five Inputs

Each of the five sub-scores is averaged. The result is the overall rating shown as X.X / 5 on every review page. Final ratings are capped between 1.0 and 5.0. Every sub-score is shown alongside the final score so the rating is defensible line by line.

Game Library 4.2
User Experience 4.5
Bonus Fairness 3.8
Live Casino 4.0
Payout Speed 4.7
4.2/5
Displayed overall rating
Rating Scale

What the Scores Mean

Overall ratings are capped between 1.0 and 5.0 and shown as stars on every review page. This is how our editorial team translates each band of scores into plain English.

4.5–5.0
Exceptional

Best-in-class across every dimension. Fast payouts, strong bonus fairness, deep library, live casino depth.

4.0–4.4
Excellent

Strong on four of five dimensions with at most one moderate weakness. Recommended without reservation.

3.5–3.9
Very Good

Above average overall. Usually one dimension, often bonus fairness or live casino depth, holds the score back.

3.0–3.4
Solid

A competent operator for specific player types. Typically strong in two dimensions and average across the rest.

2.0–2.9
Below Average

Licensed and functional, but with weaknesses across multiple dimensions. Usable, but not something we recommend first.

1.0–1.9
Poor

Material shortcomings across most dimensions. Noted on our site for transparency, never promoted.

Editorial vs Paid

Two Kinds of Content, Clearly Separated

We publish two distinct kinds of content. A paid-placement operator does not automatically get a higher rating. They get visibility in a clearly labelled slot, separated from the editorial ranking on the same page.

Editorial

Editorial rankings

Driven entirely by the five-dimension scoring framework above. These appear in casino reviews, comparison tables, category rankings (best slots, fastest payouts, and so on), and every ordered list on the site where you would expect one.

  • Scored by editorial team against the five dimensions
  • Not for sale under any circumstances
  • Unlabelled by default: if a slot has no label, it is editorial
  • Ordered strictly by final rating, ties broken by most-recent re-score
Paid

Paid placements

Some slots on the site (featured position boxes, sponsored cards, top-of-money-page slots) may be paid commercial placements. These are always clearly labelled. Paid placements do not affect editorial ratings.

  • Clearly labelled on every placement
  • Do not influence the operator's editorial score
  • Separated visually from the editorial ranking on the same page
  • Subject to the same licensing and compliance checks as any operator we cover
Labels you will see: Sponsored Featured Paid placement

The simple rule: you can always tell the difference by the visible label. If a slot is unlabelled, it is editorial.

Testing Protocol

What We Actually Test

Our reviewers complete each of the following at every rated operator. Every step is documented. Every step feeds at least one of the five sub-scores.

01
Sign-Up & KYC

Sign-up and identity verification end to end, timing each step from landing page to verified account.

02
First Deposit

First deposit via at least two payment methods (INTERAC e-Transfer plus one alternative).

03
Real-Money Sessions

Real-money sessions across slots, live dealer, and, where applicable, table games.

04
Support Contact

Customer support tested by live chat, email, and phone where offered, with a non-trivial query to gauge depth of response.

05
First Withdrawal

First withdrawal, timed from request to funds-received on the same payment rail used for the deposit.

06
Responsible-Gambling Tools

Deposit limit and time-out activation tested directly to confirm AGCO-mandated behaviour is present and functional.

07
Bonus & Wagering

Bonus claimed and wagering progression tracked to verify the published terms match live behaviour at the cashier.

Refresh Cadence

How Often We Re-verify

Different data decays at different speeds. We update each type of data on the cadence that keeps it accurate.

Weekly
Game counts, live table counts, and payout-speed claims verified against operator terms pages.
Monthly
Full re-score if any of the five dimensions has materially changed. Bonus terms reviewed in full.
Quarterly
Deep editorial review of every sub-score per casino, including Reddit sentiment audit and a customer-support test-call.
Immediately
Re-published without delay when an AGCO enforcement action, licence change, or major T&C update is announced.
Excluded

What We Don't Factor In

Editorial ratings do not factor in any of the following. No operator can pay us to be rated higher.

  • Affiliate commission rates. Operators paying higher commission do not score higher. Several of our top-ranked operators are lower-paying than ones we rank below them.
  • Operator marketing spend. Brand recognition and TV-advertising budgets are irrelevant to whether an operator pays fast or runs a fair bonus.
  • Paid commercial relationships. Paid placements are shown in labelled slots only and never alter the operator's editorial rating.
Sources

Sources & Evidence Standards

Every claim of fact in a review traces to a source. Sources are ranked by independence and verifiability.

Primary Sources
  • Direct testing by our editorial team: timings, screenshots, transaction receipts.
  • Operator terms pages, bonus terms, cashier pages, read directly, not paraphrased.
  • Publicly available official materials: AGCO, iGaming Ontario registry, provincial lottery corporations, federal gambling-regulation pages.
Supporting Sources
  • Reddit and operator-specific forum discussion, treated as anecdotal player-reported sentiment.
  • Used as a ground-truth check on operator claims, never as primary evidence for factual data points like licence status or payout speed.
  • Aggregator rating sites (AskGamblers, Casino Guru), synthesised; outliers filtered out.
For regulatory, legal, and compliance content, we prioritise publicly available official sources where applicable and apply editorial analysis to explain what those materials mean for players in practice. This is editorial information, not legal advice.
AI Disclosure

AI Use in Our Process

We use AI tools in our editorial workflow. We tell you exactly where, and where we do not.

Where AI is used

  • Organising and indexing research material
  • Summarising long source documents for editorial review
  • Drafting assistance: outlining, clarity passes, redundancy detection

Where AI is never used

  • As a source. AI output is not evidence for anything we publish.
  • To generate final scoring. Scoring is performed by named editors against the framework above.
  • To publish without human review. Every piece is reviewed, edited, and approved by a member of our editorial team before it goes live.
Who Reviews

Named Reviewers, Visible Bylines

Every review is produced by a member of our editorial team and carries a byline identifying the writer and, where applicable, the fact-checker. Author background and other work on the site is visible on each author profile page.

For the full editorial team, see the About page.

Corrections

Spotted a Factual Error?

If you spot a factual error in one of our reviews, email us. Substantive corrections are logged, dated, and noted at the foot of the corrected page.

Contact editorial@canadacasinos.io with specifics. See our corrections policy for the full process.

Editorial Independence

CanadaCasinos.io earns revenue through affiliate commissions when users click our links and sign up at partner casinos. This never affects our editorial scores. Operators cannot purchase placement in editorial rankings, request score changes, or influence editorial decisions in any way. Paid placements exist and are always clearly labelled. Our commercial relationships are fully documented in our Affiliate Disclosure.

Questions about our methodology? Reach our editorial team directly.