How we verify and score Canadian casinos

The licence it holds and who issued it, the complaints route that gives a player, and RNG certification.

We start from the licence the casino holds and the body that issued it. A provincial registration — with the AGCO and iGaming Ontario, or the AGLC and the Alberta iGaming Corporation — gives a player the strongest protection. An offshore licence, such as Curaçao or Kahnawake, gives a regulator to complain to but no provincial protection, and scores lower here. We call a casino registered in a province only when that regulator's own record shows it.

Above that floor we look at what registration actually gives a player: a named regulator to complain to, published terms that cannot be changed retroactively, and independent testing of the games themselves. A site marks well here when its licence, its complaints route and its RNG certification are all published where a player can find them without asking. It marks badly when any of the three is only available on request — not because the operator is necessarily hiding something, but because a protection you cannot locate is a protection you do not have.

This is the heaviest weight on the list, at twenty per cent. A casino with no licence we can verify at all is not listed.

What the offer is worth after the wagering requirement, the game weighting and the expiry are taken into account — not the headline figure.

We score what an offer is worth after its terms, not what the banner says. A three-hundred per cent match is a smaller number than it looks once the wagering requirement, the game weighting and the expiry window are applied to it, and those three together decide whether the money is realistically reachable.

So the score follows the playthrough, not the headline. We record the multiplier and what it applies to — thirty-five times the bonus and thirty-five times bonus-plus-deposit are different prices for the same advertised figure. We record the minimum deposit that qualifies, the days you have to clear it, and whether the games most people play count fully towards it or at ten per cent.

An operator scores well here for terms that are short, plainly written and survivable. It scores badly for a large headline attached to conditions that make it decorative.

Range and quality of the library, and which studios supply it.

The library is scored on range and on who supplies it, in that order. A count on its own says very little: ten thousand titles from three studios is a narrower experience than two thousand from thirty, and the studio list is the part that tells you whether the games are ones anybody has heard of.

We record the studios an operator carries, whether live dealer tables are available alongside the slots, and whether the categories are real categories or the same slots sorted twice. Where an operator publishes a game count we record it and say where it came from, because these figures come from operators and they are not audited.

A site scores well for breadth backed by recognisable suppliers. It scores badly for a large number that turns out to be one provider's catalogue listed several times over.

Channels published, hours covered, and whether a real question gets a real answer.

Support is scored on whether a real question gets a real answer, and on how long that takes. We record the channels an operator publishes, the hours each is actually staffed, and whether a route exists that does not depend on being logged in — because the moment a player most needs support is often the moment they cannot get into their account.

Published hours matter more than the number of channels. A live chat that is available around the clock is worth more than four contact methods that all close at six. An email address with no stated response time is worth very little, because it makes no commitment a player can hold anyone to.

A site scores well for staffed hours, a route that works when you are locked out, and a published complaints escalation. It scores badly for a contact form and nothing else.

Methods a player in Canada can actually use, the minimum deposit, and the withdrawal times the terms commit to.

This is the criterion players notice only when it goes wrong, which is why it carries the same weight as the games themselves. We score the methods a player in Canada can actually use, the minimum a deposit has to be, and the withdrawal window the operator's own terms commit to.

Direction matters more than the list. A method that takes money in and cannot send it out is not a payment method a player can rely on, and it is the thing people discover at the point of cashing out rather than the point of signing up. We record deposit and withdrawal separately for every method, and where we have not confirmed a direction we say so rather than assume it.

Payout speed is taken from the published terms, not from the marketing. An operator scores well for Interac in both directions, a low qualifying deposit and a stated withdrawal window it commits to in writing. It scores badly for deposit-only methods, an unstated payout window, or a minimum that prices out the players the site is advertised to.

Canadian dollars, Canadian payment methods, and support that knows which province you are in.

Localization is whether the site was built for this market or translated into it. We look for Canadian dollars as a real account currency rather than a display conversion, payment methods Canadians actually hold, support hours that overlap Canadian time zones, and terms written for the province the player is in.

The provincial detail is the part most sites get wrong. The legal age is eighteen in Alberta and nineteen in Ontario; the regulator is different; the responsible-gambling services a site is required to point at are provincial, not national. An operator that publishes one Canadian page for the whole country is not covering the market it claims to.

A site scores well for currency, methods, hours and legal detail that are all right for the province a player is in. It scores badly for a Canadian flag on an international product.

How the site behaves on a phone, and whether a native app exists and is worth using.

Most play on these sites happens on a phone, so the mobile experience is scored as a product in its own right rather than as a smaller version of the desktop one. We look at whether native apps exist for iOS and Android, and — more importantly — whether the browser experience is complete without them.

A native app is worth points but is not the point. What matters is whether the things a player needs to do under pressure work on a small screen: depositing, withdrawing, reaching support, and finding the deposit limit and self-exclusion controls. Responsible-gambling tools that are only reachable on desktop are the failure we mark hardest here, because they are the ones people go looking for at the worst moment.

A site scores well for a complete browser experience and working apps. It scores badly for an app that is a wrapper around a site that was never made to fit a phone.