How we test and rate casinos
Last reviewed on by Kaisa Vartiainen, editor-in-chief.
Who tests the casinos
Our reviews are written by a small team working under pen names. The casino reviewers rotate between operators, so no single person rates every casino, and the editor-in-chief checks every page before it goes live. The authors page lists each writer and the pages they signed. The profiles claim no degrees or employers, so judge us on whether the figures hold up.
How a casino test runs
A test is done with a real account and our own money, in the market the review is written for. The reviewer works through the same steps at every casino:
- Open an account the way a new player would, through the casino’s own sign-up or a bank login where the casino uses one.
- Deposit our own money, usually two or three small deposits in the methods that market uses. The record notes how many, roughly how much and in which method.
- Play the games the review goes on to cover, and note which ones.
- Ask live chat a real question, such as the licence number or where the deposit limits are, and time the first human reply.
- Look for deposit limits, loss limits and self-exclusion in the account settings.
- Request a withdrawal and time it from the request to the money arriving in our wallet or bank account, network confirmations included, not to the moment the casino marks it processed.
- Note whether identity checks (KYC) were asked for, and at which step.
Every withdrawal from the same account is timed the same way. The test date and the length of the test go into the record with everything else, and the review is written from that record.
A real record from our tests
This is the record from our test at Hype.bet, read live from its review, so it changes if that casino is tested again:
- Tested on: 10 October 2026
- Test period: 7 days
- Deposits made: 2 crypto deposits, ~0.002 BTC and 100 USDT
- Withdrawals completed: 2 withdrawals, 60 USDT and 0.0015 BTC
- Measured payout time: About 7 min and 3 h from request to arrival
- Live chat response: Live chat answered in a few minutes, in English.
- Verification (KYC): No KYC at these crypto volumes; ID required above the verification threshold.
- Tested by: Emilia Sarkola
What “Not tested yet” means
Some casinos are listed before our real-money test there is finished. In that case the casino tables say “Not tested yet” where the measured payout time would be. It means we have not timed a withdrawal at that casino yet. Its review and rating rest on the operator’s published terms and its licence, not on a payout we measured, so read them as provisional. When the test is done, the measured payout time replaces the label.
Where the other figures come from
Not every number on the site comes from our own account. Slot RTP, volatility and maximum win come from the studio’s game sheet, and the slot pages say so. Bonus terms are read from the operator’s own terms page, not from its banner. Licence details are checked against the regulator’s public register where one exists. When a casino’s advertised payout speed and our measured time disagree, our measured time is the one we stand behind.
How casinos are rated
The rating is a weighted score across five criteria, and every casino review is scored against the same five:
| Criterion | Weight | What it measures |
|---|---|---|
| Payout speed | 30% | Timed from the withdrawal request to the money arriving, not to the operator marking it processed, and repeated on every later withdrawal from the same account. |
| Bonus terms | 20% | Whether the terms match the banner: sticky or non-sticky, the wagering multiple and what it applies to, the cashout cap, game weighting and the expiry. |
| Account experience | 20% | Signup friction, how verification was handled and when it was asked for, the spread of deposit and withdrawal methods, in-account limits, and what support answered. In-account limits are deposit and loss limits, reality checks and self-exclusion. A casino with none of them scores 2.5 at most. |
| Licence | 15% | Which regulator licensed the operator, and whether a dispute body exists and answers a complaint. A casino with no gambling licence, only a company registration, scores 1.0: there is no regulator and no dispute body to turn to. |
| Game library | 15% | Studio spread, coverage of the headline releases, the live-casino provider, and whether the RTP build in use is published. |
Ties are broken by payout speed. Ratings carry a last-checked date; a rating older than four months is flagged for re-testing. Every licence in that table has a page of its own in the licensing hub, which covers what each regulator does when a complaint reaches it.
How lists are ordered
The toplists on the front page, on the casino list and on most category pages are put in order by our editors, separately for each market. That order is a pick, not a sort by rating, so a casino with a lower rating can sit above one with a higher rating. The rating is on every card, and the casino tables show the licence and whether we have timed a payout, so you can compare on the numbers yourself. Two kinds of page work differently: pages that promise the fastest payouts are sorted by measured payout time, tested casinos first, and the bonus pages put an editor’s picks first and the rest by headline value.
How we make money
We are an affiliate site. Most casinos we list pay us when a reader signs up through our links, usually a share of the net revenue from that player, and every page says so in the disclosure above the footer. Commission never changes a rating, a test result or a fact on a page, and an operator cannot pay to skip the test. Because the casinos we list pay us, treat the order of any list as our pick, and check the rating and the test record yourself. If a partnership required us to soften a criticism, we would end the partnership.
Corrections
When we get something wrong, we correct the page and its last-updated date moves with the correction. Send the page link and what is wrong through the contact page; a screenshot helps if the casino changed something recently. If a rating was wrong enough to have influenced a reader’s decision, we say so on the operator page and test the casino again.
One example: in October 2026 we corrected the Duel review, which had repeated the casino's own claim of crypto payouts in under two minutes. Our test timed 7 min 22 s and 12 min 28 s from request to wallet, and the review now says so.
News and guides
News covers changes we can verify: a licence granted or lost, a payment method added or dropped, a promotion that actually paid out. We do not run rumour or unsourced trade-press stories. Guides explain the parts of casino play worth explaining slowly: RTP, volatility, bonus terms, licences and how to complain. Neither rates a casino.
Gambling is for adults aged 18 and over. If it stops being fun, our responsible gambling page lists free help in each country.
Who runs Velatonmies
Velatonmies is a casino review and comparison site run by a small editorial team. Everyone on the team writes under a pen name, and the editor-in-chief, Kaisa Vartiainen, checks every review, guide and ranking before it is published. Every writer has a profile showing what they cover and which pages they wrote or checked.
The name comes from a meme about Andy Pyro, the Finnish casino streamer. Andy Pyro is the main figure of Velatonmies, the face of the site, and he promotes it on his streams. He does not own the site.
The casinos we list pay us commission, as the commercial disclosure above explains. Questions about the site, corrections and press requests go to hello@velatonmies.com.