How We Rate
This page sets out, in order, exactly how an operator moves from a shortlist entry to a published comparison on Payline House.
Step one: licensing, pass or fail
We check the operator against the Gambling Commission's public register: is the licence currently active, does it cover the specific product being described (casino, betting, bingo), and does the domain we intend to link to match a domain registered against that same account. Any failure here removes the operator from consideration entirely — this step has no partial credit.
Step two: independence
We confirm the operator has no ownership or control relationship with Payline House. Every operator we compare is a genuinely separate business.
Step three: product and account assessment
For operators that pass steps one and two, we look at the breadth of licensed products (does the account cover casino only, or casino plus betting and bingo), how the account opening and support experience presents itself, and how clearly the terms are written. We do not test with real money and do not claim to have played every game; our assessment is based on published, publicly available material.
Editorial bands, explained
We use three plain-language bands rather than a numeric score we can't fully justify:
- Strong — a broad, currently licensed product range with nothing outstanding in publicly recorded regulatory history that we felt needed separate flagging.
- Mixed — still fully licensed and legitimate, but with something worth knowing before you choose it: a narrow product range, a very short track record, or a recent regulatory settlement.
- We would use Weak for an operator with more serious concerns, though none of the six currently compared on this site fall into that band.
These bands are our own editorial judgement, built from verified facts. They are not a Gambling Commission rating, and they don't predict how any individual session will go.
Keeping it current
We re-check the register periodically and whenever we're notified of a possible change through our corrections route. If an operator's licence lapses or is revoked, we remove it rather than leave an outdated listing live.