Guide to Choosing the Best Online Casinos for the UK

In the year 2019 alone, UKGC rolled out a number of significant changes to the relationships between a player and a casino. Loyal to guarding the best interests of a player, it obliged a brand to verify the client first, to make sure the person is not underage and is not falling into gambling addiction. It also fined quite a few renowned brands for allowing their players to recklessly deposit thousands of pounds and to spend them on slots. Over the years, the UKGC worked on protecting the privacy of the credit cards data of the players, as well as on resolving other issues.

Bottomline being – you want your casino to be accredited by UKGC. If not them, look for permits from the jurisdictions of Alderney, Gibraltar, or the Isle of Man

We will randomly feature an unlicensed operator in our database, and only if the peculiarities of the market it targets and the reputation of its owner outweigh the absence of a permit. In the case of UK online gambling, we would strongly recommend our community staying away from unlicensed operators or from those holding weak licenses from jurisdictions like Costa Rica or Panama

Top online lobbies always make sure they have all the recognizable products connected. These are Visa, Maestro, and MasterCard cards, bank transfers, the Paysafecard voucher, and the most popular e-wallets. One of them is PayPal known for its high standards and demands for all the potential partners.

Getting all of these creme de la creme payment methods to be featured means that the team seriously invested in building gateways, compliance, and safety of the financial transactions.

It also means that the company considered the needs of its clients. After all, nothing is as exhausting as jumping between unknown payment methods and wandering whether your sensitive financial information is safe.

One of the first signs that you should run for the hills is the long withdrawal time. To establish it, we usually check the forums. If an online operator takes up to 7 days to send wins via an e-wallet, there is definitely something shady about it.

Another red flag is only a couple of payment methods. This immediately raises questions of the owner’s experience in the industry. Another thing to be concerned about is several deposit methods and only one reserved for cashouts, as well as a complex switch between different deposit and withdrawal methods.

Delivering wins back to the player is an art, a skill that indicates how good a website truly is.

Having a good help desk section does not necessarily mean offering all of the three channels – e-mail, phone, and 24/7 live chat, although this is always the best-case scenario. But many popular brands successfully combine e-mail with the detailed FAQ section, and in case their clients still want to ask questions, the statistics for good responses on such websites is usually high.

The top brands also employ help desk representatives speaking several languages, which may not exactly be the case for the UK, but is generally a good sign of an international, big, and customer-friendly label.

Absence of FAQ, a hard to find contact form and feedback on forums about slow or rude responses are usually the red flags for us. Lack of information is particularly shady if it is about payment, wagering requirements, and withdrawal limits. If this is the case in the lobby you are considering we suggest you avoid such places to bet and win at all costs

Developers like Playtech, Evolution Gaming, Net Entertainment, and Authentic Gaming are the absolute markers of a great brand. These are all huge, certified, experienced studios with stellar reputations and thousands of fans across the markets. 

Playtech is one of the trailblazers of the industry. Evolution Gaming definitely has one of the biggest selections of innovative blackjack and roulette variations, as well as their signature wheel and board games, and NetEnt offers something for any betting limit.

Smaller studios have less sophisticated software. it loads slowly, lacks interactive interfaces, multiple cameras, mobile adaptations, and in some cases, even licensing and RNG-compatibility. So, unless you’ve double-checked an unknown provider and found evidence on the leading gambling portals and forums that this is the rising star worthy of attention, we would recommend not to bother and to move to another lobby.

…a collection of at least 40 live table games covering variations of blackjack, baccarat, and roulette, as well as table pokers and wheel games. The top-notch quality of the lobby is when it can also afford private customized tables. Such is the case with Mr. Green, for example.

A good library will also have a quality mix of slot machines with classic, themed, and progressive new and established releases, as well as at least 20 variations of non-live table games, plenty of scratch cards, and video poker games.

…a collection of about 80 games, without any live lobby. In certain markets, like the USA, this is, unfortunately, an inevitable reality as this sector is only developing and still has a lot of room to evolve. For the UK market, however, we see no reason why a brand would limit its players to such a poor choice of options. Even studios specializing in mono-lobbies, like Microgaming or Playtech, manage to deliver over 400 releases each within their portfolios.

At least a single cash match deal on the initial deposit must be included in the list of promotions. It is much better when a cash match is replaced by a package with deals for two or more deposits. Finding online lobbies with no-deposit deals like cash and bonus spins is getting harder and harder, but we do have quite a few of such websites, so don’t miss out!

Also, when an online lobby has a special welcome or ongoing deal for the live deals, it is a true gem! Live content is currently gaining more and more traction and it only makes sense that a brand would include at least one of the deals in its menu.

Just like it is important for a brand to have a good welcome, we only judge it by the way it supports its registered regulars. Our preferences go to the labels that have daily propositions and the VIP packages.

Naturally, with all of the promotions included, it is essential that a website also has manageable wagering requirements and clear terms and conditions.

…a website has only a welcome deal, and it is small with the overrated wagering requirements. Of course, you can double-check with the help desk representatives, but do you really want to stick around a place to bet and win that does not value its returned customers?

Also, complaints of non-payments, as well as small wagering time and high requirements are on our stop-list.

Lastly, be wary of casinos that don’t make the bonus conditions clear – we know just how tiresome scrolling through pages of terms and conditions can be, and that’s not something casinos should make you do.

A good example of this is Unibet Live Casino where they offer a VIP Unibet Blackjack with maximum bet per hand of £50,000. Yet, they also have live blackjack for as low as £1 – this is what we mean when we mention flexibility in terms of betting limits.

Their live casino is tailored to all player segments. Those that want to play for pennies, but also the highest of high rollers.

We would recommend steering clear of the lobbies that only offer high stakes as this is a total violation of the UKGC safety rules. Also, if an online operator hosts high roller releases but has low monthly withdrawal limits, it will take longer to cash out all the wins if you are lucky to score a jackpot.

For a brand to have a lightweight and instant portable mobile lobby. Top providers adapt their games for smartphones and tablets without sacrificing any of the releases.

To register for the sake of live games but to not be able to launch them on the go or to launch a smaller version of a full desktop collection.