Methodology

Every check on CasinoProofDesk answers the same five questions about a casino brand, from documents anyone can open. This page explains what those questions are, where the answers come from, how we read them and what we do when we cannot confirm something.

What we check

1. Operator. The company named in the brand’s terms and footer, with its registration number and country.
2. Licence. The regulator and licence number the site displays, and what the licence seal links to when you click it.
3. Domain. The address we type, the address the browser ends up on, and any other domains the site, its terms or its seal name.
4. Canada in the terms. Whether Canada or a province appears in the brand’s list of restricted or excluded countries.
5. Payments for Canadian players. Currencies, minimum deposit and the withdrawal rules the terms state.

For operators on the iGaming Ontario directory, we also record the address the directory links to and the company named in that site’s Ontario terms.

Where the facts come from

We use sources in this order:

1. Regulators and provincial lists. iGaming Ontario’s directory of regulated sites, the Alberta iGaming Corporation’s list of registered sites, AGLC’s register of gaming registrants, and licence registers abroad where they exist, such as Malta’s Licensee Register or the Tobique Gaming Commission’s list of licence holders.
2. The brand’s own documents. Terms and conditions, footer, licence seal validation page, payment and support pages. We quote the section and the version date where the terms give one.
3. Provider documents. When a dossier mentions games, the provider’s own game page.
4. News reports, only where no primary source exists, and labelled as such.

Review sites, forums and affiliate listings are not used as a source of fact about a brand. Where two primary sources disagree, the page shows both and says which one the table uses.

How and from where we read

Casino sites often show different content, or none, depending on where a visitor is. We therefore read brand sites from Canadian connections, in Quebec and Ontario, and record the date of each check. We read without logging in. We do not create accounts, make deposits, fill in forms or accept terms on casino sites; the only thing we decline is optional cookies. Anything a site shows only after login is outside what we can confirm.

What “Not confirmed” means

A table cell or statement marked Not confirmed means we could not verify that detail from a public source on the date shown. The page gives the reason in plain terms, for example that the terms did not load for us or that the information appears only after login. Not confirmed is a statement about our evidence, not a finding about the brand.

What we do not do

We do not rate or rank brands, and we do not describe a brand as licensed, registered or authorized in a province unless that province’s own list shows it. We do not give legal advice. A brand dossier describes what the brand states and what official lists show; it is not a recommendation.

Featured casinos are not part of a check

The lists of featured casinos, the header button and the bar at the bottom of the screen are advertising. The brands in them pay us commission, and which ones appear, and in what order, is set by commercial arrangements and by the country of the reader’s connection, not by the five questions above. A featured brand is checked the same way as any other. A welcome offer in a list is shown as our affiliate partner listed it, with the date; it is not one of our checks.

Dates and changes

Brands can change domains, terms and licences. Each table row shows the date it was last checked, and each page shows the date of its oldest fact. When we recheck a row, the date changes with it.

Corrections

If you find an error, send the page address, the detail that is wrong and, if you can, the source that shows it, using the address on our contact page. We check the claim against the source. If the page is wrong, we correct it and update its date. Our editorial policy covers how we write and how drafts are prepared.