The Offshore Score — how we rate
Every brand on this site carries an Offshore Score: a 0–10 measure built from six tested inputs, drawn from real-money play sessions, license-register checks, and documented player experience. This page documents exactly what we measure, how we test it, and why commission can never buy a ranking position.
What the Offshore Score is
The Offshore Score is the single 0–10 number you see on every toplist card and review page on this site. It exists because "rated 9.4/10 by an affiliate site" means nothing without a published method behind it. Ours has one. The score is the weighted output of six measured inputs, drawn from three evidence sources that, taken together, are the closest we can get to ground truth on a brand:
- Our own real-money testing. Each operator is signed up to with the editor's own card or wallet, played, and cashed out — dates, amounts, methods and times-to-payout logged for each cycle. The log is published on every review page and is the raw input to the payout-speed and support pillars.
- Independent research. Licence verification on the regulator's public register (MGA, UKGC, Curaçao GCB, Anjouan, Spillemyndigheden, KSA, GGL, ANJ, ADM), ownership and group-network ties, dispute counts on AskGamblers and CasinoMeister, and game-provider integrations (Evolution, Pragmatic, Hacksaw and the like — the studios that vet who they work with).
- Documented real-player experience. Reader correspondence to [email protected], plus curated Reddit and dispute-board threads. Substantive reports trigger a re-test on the operator in question. If the evidence supports a change, we update or de-list.
Commission rates are identical regardless of where a brand ranks. There is no commercial mechanism by which Offshore Score points can be bought — ranking is editorial, not commercial. The six pillars below are how the number is built, in the priority order they're weighted.
The six things we score
Weighted in the order listed. A weak signal on one pillar can be offset by strength elsewhere; a serious failure on payout speed or licence cannot.
Payout reliability & speed
The largest single input. We measure cash-out time from request to funds-on-wallet (crypto) or funds-in-account (card/bank), on the operator's standard verification flow. Cleared in under an hour is the bar for the top tier; anything over a working day pulls the score meaningfully down.
Licence quality
MGA is the strongest available offshore consumer protection; Curaçao GCB is the most common offshore option, varying by operator; Anjouan is the lightest and demands more weight on the operator's own track record. UKGC and other EU licences appear where relevant. Verified on each regulator's public register before publication.
Game library & providers
Total title count matters less than the providers behind them. An Evolution live-dealer floor is a structural quality signal — Evolution vets who it works with. Pragmatic Play, NetEnt, Hacksaw, Nolimit City and Play'n GO at depth indicate serious cataloguing investment; an unbranded RTG-only library indicates the opposite.
Bonus fairness
The headline percentage is the least informative number on the page. We score the wagering requirement, max-cashout cap, eligible-game weighting and time-to-clear — the structural terms that decide what a player can actually realise from the offer.
Support quality
Response time on live chat, accuracy of the first response, and willingness to escalate. We log timestamps on real questions, not pre-sale enquiries. Twenty-four-hour cover with English (and the local market's language where applicable) is the standard.
Operator track record
Years operating, ownership history, presence on independent complaint boards like AskGamblers and CasinoMeister, and any documented payout disputes. A clean two-year record at scale beats a five-month-old site with a bigger bonus.
How we test, in practice
Each commercial page on the site carries the resulting dated test log — actual deposits and withdrawals our editors ran during the most recent review cycle, with amounts, methods and times-to-payout. The logs are what the Offshore Score is built from; the prose around them is the editorial reading of what the numbers mean. If a log entry contradicts the description, the log is the truth.
We re-test on rolling intervals. Operators that slip on payout speed or pick up dispute-board mentions are re-reviewed early; the bottom of the toplist can change between monthly cycles. The methodology itself is reviewed twice a year, in January and July; substantive changes are noted on this page with a dated revision.
The rating scale
| Score | Tier | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| 9.5–10 | Exceptional | Strong on every pillar; we'd deposit our own money without hesitation. |
| 9.0–9.4 | Excellent | Top-tier across the board, with one or two minor caveats noted on the review. |
| 8.5–8.9 | Very Good | Solid pick with a clear use case; check the caveats on the review page. |
| 8.0–8.4 | Good | Worth considering for the specific strength flagged on the card. |
| Below 8.0 | Fair | Listed for completeness; we'd point most readers higher up the list. |
We don't list operators that would score below the Fair threshold. If a site can't earn at least an 8.0 across our six pillars, it doesn't go on a toplist; the score itself is the publication gate.
Editorial independence
We earn affiliate commission when readers sign up through some of our links, and we disclose that openly on every page. The relevant point is the structural one: our commission rate is identical regardless of where a brand ranks. A brand at position one pays us the same percentage as a brand at position fifteen, and a brand we declined to list pays nothing. There is no commercial mechanism by which ranking position can be bought. Ranking is decided by the six pillars above, on the tested numbers from the current review cycle.
We do not accept guest content from operators, agencies or PR firms. We do not run sponsored editorial. We do not have any operator on retainer for content services. Where an operator is part of a network we cover (PaiWangLuo, Chico, WPN, Dama-SoftSwiss), we say so on the review.
What we won't do
- Inflate bonus headlines. A 600% match behind 60× wagering and a £100 max-cashout cap gets written up for what it is, not what the marketing copy says.
- Invent test data. Withdrawal times are measured. If we haven't tested an operator in the current cycle, we say so and use the previous cycle's data.
- Hide restricted-states or restricted-country lists. Every operator's restricted-list, where known, is on the card. If your jurisdiction is on it, the card flags it before you click through.
- Recommend operators we wouldn't deposit at ourselves. The bar is the same on the page as it is in the editor's wallet.
- Conflate sweepstakes with offshore. They are different products with different mechanics, different legality, and different consumer protections. We cover offshore casinos; sweepstakes platforms are out of scope.
Contact for editorial concerns
If you've been a player at an operator we cover and your experience contradicts our review — particularly on payout speed, support quality or licence compliance — write to [email protected]. We read everything that comes in, we re-test where the report is substantive, and we update or de-list operators where the evidence supports it. Corrections to past pages are dated.