How We Review UK Online Slots Sites
Reviewing online slot sites is a major part of what we do here at TopRatedCasinos. We’re committed to providing accurate, honest, and thorough accounts of the top slot sites available to UK players. In order to do so, we take a look at a number of salient factors, all of which combine to offer a reliable overall impression of a casino. Here are our main areas of concern during the reviewing process.
Licensing
We’re only interested in reviewing safe and reputable online casinos. For a UK audience, this means the site must have a licence from the UK Gambling Commission — one of the leading regulators of the online gambling industry. Licences of this kind commit casinos to standards of fair play, regulation of games and payout speeds, as well as certain safeguarding conditions around responsible gambling.
You won’t ever find an unlicensed casino in our list of recommendations, which means you can be confident your information is protected when playing at one of our reviewed casinos. Never place a bet at an unlicensed site.
Slots Library and Other Games
Naturally, an in-depth review of the casino’s slots library is essential in determining the best sites in this field. Modern online slot machines not only play around with themes and bonuses, but also with the very mechanics that underpin these games. We want to see variety across all of these creative options: themes stretching from ancient Rome to outer space; free spins rewards and other bonus opportunities; and slots that run on three reels, Megaways paylines, and everything in between.
Of course, slots aren’t all that’s on offer at online casinos. Table games such as blackjack, roulette, and baccarat must be well covered, and there should be a healthy volume of live casino experiences available too. Slingo, bingo, poker, scratch cards, and lottery-style instant games round out the libraries at the best performing casinos in this category.
Bonuses and Promotions
Our readers are perhaps most interested in this part of our review, but our overriding message here is not to be seduced by the headline offer. Welcome bonuses are often a great way to kickstart your time at a new casino, but make sure you’ve read the terms and conditions in full so that you understand what’s expected of you. Stipulations like wagering requirements, game weightings, payment restrictions, winning caps, and time limits will play their part — these are all areas of interest during our reviewing process.
We also value those sites that reward existing members with consistent promotions. There are many ways sites can provide this, and we give full marks to those that do so with creative flair. Duelz and VoodooDreams are leading examples of casino sites excelling here thanks to their unique player-vs-player loyalty schemes.
Software
Closely tied to our assessment of games libraries is a review of the casino’s partnerships with software developers. The popularity of online gambling has given rise to a rich ecosystem of creative studios all vying for the attention of casinos and their players. Titans of the industry include names like Microgaming, NetEnt, and Evolution Gaming — we always expect to see names as big as these — but diversity of software is a great way of ensuring diversity of entertainment, which is why we also like to see space given to smaller names looking to muscle in on the competition. After all, you never know when the next powerhouse will emerge.
Fast Withdrawals and Payments
It’s quite simple: we want to see as many payment options as possible in a casino’s cashier section. Not only does this provide customers with the greatest convenience, but it’s also the best way of opening up players to the possibility of fast withdrawals. In our minds, a fast withdrawal is one that lands within 24 hours of the request — but full marks go to sites that achieve this feat within four hours or even instantly.
We expect to see debit cards and at least one e-wallet available, but the top sites here will include many e-wallets, as well as prepaid cards, Google Pay or Apple Pay, bank transfer systems like Trustly, and even pay by phone providers such as Boku. The more the merrier, but it’s the ability to process withdrawals at speed that really stands out during our reviews.
Mobile
Online casinos today are enjoyed on desktop and on mobile in equal measure. Therefore, every casino we review must have a well-optimised mobile site catering to the modern player. This means the mobile casino has been adjusted for smaller screens, and that the playing experience is free of technical glitches and slow gameplay. We expect this as a minimum.
Going above and beyond are those slot sites that have developed their own dedicated mobile app for both Android and iOS devices. There’s a whole host of player benefits to using these apps: faster loading times, customisable homepages, app-specific offers, and the ability to keep abreast of every bonus and promotion through the app’s push notifications. For these reasons and more, we favour casinos that add this string to their bow, and encourage players to download apps wherever possible.
Site Design and UX
There are a lot of online casinos out there. One way in which the best sites distinguish themselves from the rest is by taking extra care when it comes to aesthetics. This might not be the most important consideration when you’re searching for a new slot site, but there’s no doubt that quality design makes a noticeable difference to the overall experience of signing up, browsing the library, and playing casino games.
Bold colour schemes, unique themes, and sensible and helpful categorisation is what we’re looking for here. And of course, we expect sites undergoing our review to be free of technical glitches — particularly during gameplay.
Customer Support
Every now and then you might need to get in touch with the casino with a simple query. In those instances, you don’t want to be waiting for an email response for several days, or to be held on hold at the end of the phone line. The highest performing slot sites in this part of our review solve this problem through live chat services, where polite and prompt customer agents are on hand to solve any problem, big or small. Full marks to those sites that offer this service round the clock.
We appreciate that some customers prefer older forms of customer support channels, so we still like to see email and phone support made available. A helpful FAQs section is always good, and extra points go to those casinos resolving customer queries through active social media accounts.
Our Experience
There are other areas of our reviewing process — not least our general experience of the casino. Were there any standout features of the site we hadn’t seen anywhere else? How did we feel during the sign-up process, while browsing the games, and in the cashier section? Were there any technical or aesthetic issues? If so, how good was the quality of the live chat service? These things all combine to paint an overall impression of the casino.
At the end of the day, it’s our reviewers’ personal experiences that are why our readers trust us. By testing out each casino for ourselves, we’re in the perfect position to give you our unbiased and honest opinion of every site we recommend.