Before we explain our review process, please note that we have affiliate partnerships with some of the casinos we review and will include affiliate links to their websites. These links earn us commission if a user joins the site - and this is the only way we make money. Affiliate links don’t alter our reviews or lead to preferential treatment; each site still gets tested properly and fairly, and nobody pays for a rating.
Learn more about all of this in our Advertising Disclosure.
The Full List of Scoring Criteria
So, what determines if one casino is rated higher than another? While we include our personal experience in the reviews, overall scores are based on the full list of scoring criteria you’re about to see. Each one carries weight towards the final rating - those with more weight are therefore more “valuable” in the sense that they can increase a site’s rating more effectively.
How did we decide which criteria should be weighted more heavily than others? It comes down to our knowledge of the industry and the elements we believe are the most critical for anyone when they join an online casino.
Safety, Licensing & Security
We know this isn’t the most exciting feature, but it is the most important thing to consider when reviewing an online casino. Operators must pass safety checks to make it onto our list, and the more features they possess to encourage safety and security, the better.
Furthermore, licensing carries a lot of weight; casinos with valid and reputable licences are going to score higher in this category than those with unknown offshore licences.
Responsible Gambling Tools
Again, you may not see this as the “best” feature to look for in an online casino, but it is one of the most important. Sites that invest in responsible gambling and provide users with a wide selection of tools will always score well in this category. Some of the key tools we like to see are:
Deposit limits
Session timers
Reality checks
Detailed payment histories
RG resources for users
Self-exclusion and cooling-off programs
We talk more about the self-help tools available on our Responsible Gambling page, so give that a read if you’d like a breakdown of what each of these tools can do. Operators that do not possess a good array of RG tools are likely to score poorly for this category, and that could result in them getting a much lower score than expected.
Furthermore, we also score operators very well in this category if they have the RG Check accreditation handed out by the Responsible Gambling Council. It shows that the site has passed detailed safer gambling checks and has the tools in place to help you stay in control. For reference, all casinos in Alberta’s regulated gambling market must have this accreditation, and those operating in Ontario’s regulated gambling market need it within two years.
Payment Methods
Casinos that display a good variety of trustworthy payment methods are on track to score well here. We also look at things like deposit minimums, withdrawal times, and any frequent issues players may encounter when using a platform’s banking system.
We will also conduct Canada-specific payment checks to be sure the casino accepts CAD accounts and lets you deposit through some of your more favoured methods - like Interac e-Transfer or iDebit. The sites that accept CAD payments with no need for currency conversions are going to perform better than those that accept CAD but pay out in EUR, leading to currency conversion losses.
Game Library Quality
When it comes to assessing an operator’s game library quality, we look at a few key things:
Trusted game developers/brands (E.g. NetEnt, Pragmatic Play, Quickspin, etc.)
Good game functionality - no lag or glitches
Clear game fairness tests in place
A versatile selection of games
The site’s score within this category will be based on how well it performs in each of these subcategories. From our perspective, the number of games is the least important factor in assessing game library quality - we’d much rather see a site with half as many games, but double the number of trusted game developer partners.
Bonuses & Promos
While bonuses and promotions are nice to see, they’re not “essential” in seeing if a casino is worth joining or not. That’s why they’re not as highly weighted as the top three factors in our criteria, but we still think they’re important enough to fit in here. An example of a casino that scores well in this category is one that has generous wagering terms, a low minimum threshold for claiming bonuses, and very honest bonus conditions displayed for all to see.
Customer Support
Customer support is an important factor, though it’s weighted quite lightly because most players shouldn’t need to use it. Ideally, you won’t ever have to contact customer service, but if you do, then it helps when the site has a good choice of contact points with speedy response times.
User Experience
The user experience factor groups lots of things into one, such as:
Mobile casino availability
General page loading speeds
General website usability
Aesthetics
A Quick Look at Our Casino Testing Process
The scoring criteria give us a framework for when we’re testing casinos, but what does this process actually look like? The table below gives you a quick rundown of what we do during our reviews:
Verify the Casino
We begin with a thorough verification check that ensures the casino is legitimate. The easiest way to do this is to look at the site’s licence and then consult the relevant authority’s website to see if it is listed as a licensed operator.
Create a Real-Money Account
We’ll make an account with the operator and then deposit real CAD to use as we test the rest of the platform’s features.
As part of this step, we also check the KYC requirements for the casino and time how long it takes to verify your account.
Play Games & Check Other Features
Next, it’s a case of using the site as any regular player would! We check out the game library, play as many games as possible, and then test other features - like bonuses, loyalty schemes, and so on.
Test the Withdrawal Process
A big part of our testing phases involves testing how a casino handles withdrawals. To do this, we need to meet the withdrawal criteria, which may mean we have to deposit more CAD until we win enough money to trigger a withdrawal.
Analyze Responsible Gambling
It’s a big factor in our scoring criteria, so we will analyze the platform’s RG tools and features. This includes looking at and using any tools that are clearly available, as well as contacting customer support to ask about any additional tools.
Contact Customer Support
We’ll contact the casino’s customer support team through every available method, and then we’ll time how long it takes to get a response. We’ll also make a note of the responses and how effective each method was at helping us.
As part of our Editorial Policy, every test is conducted independently and fairly - we never get paid to test a casino, nor do we accept payments to inflate a casino’s overall rating.
When testing casinos, we will always consult our scoring criteria and give each operator a score for each category. These scores are then combined and averaged out - with the weights taken into account - to determine an overall rating for the site.
We will spend an average of 14 days testing each casino before writing a review. In terms of how much money we deposit each time, it depends on a few factors. As noted above, we need to test the withdrawal process, so we have to try to win money, which may mean we deposit more at one casino than another - it depends on how lucky we get while testing the games!
Generally speaking, we start with a deposit that’s enough to claim the casino’s welcome bonus or welcome package.
Rejected Casinos - What Disqualifies a Site?
You may discover a casino during your personal research and learn that it isn’t present on our website. Sometimes, this is because the site is very new and we haven’t published a review yet, but other times it is because the casino has been either rejected or disqualified from our listings.
We do this when a platform no longer provides a safe gaming experience, or it has some red flags that lower its score to the point that we don’t feel comfortable displaying it on our site anymore. On that note, here’s what can disqualify a casino:
Our policy on rejected casinos is that we do not want to create a public blacklist, as this risks giving the site more exposure than they deserve. So, if you find a casino that claims to be for Canadians but can’t find a review on our site, that likely means it has been either rejected or disqualified.
If a casino is rejected/disqualified but then makes future improvements, we will re-review and test it to see if it now meets the necessary standards to make our list.
How Often Do We Update Our Reviews?
We will update our reviews whenever there’s new information that impacts the review. Most commonly, this happens when a casino makes changes to its welcome bonus or additional promotions.
A full list of factors that trigger updates can be found below:
Changes to bonuses or bonus terms
Updates to minimum deposits
Updates to banking methods available
Changes to withdrawal procedures
Changes to KYC verification
New games available/games become unavailable
Alterations to customer support methods
New features added
Licensing changes
RG tool changes
A review update will then mean we re-evaluate the casino’s score, which will be reflected on the page. You will also see a note at the top of each review that tells you when it was last updated.
Who Tests the Casinos?
All casino tests at Can-Do Casino are carried out by members of our team. We don’t employ third-party testers or reviewers to do this, so every review you read has been done by someone working for our company.
You can Meet Our Team to see who currently works for us - and each review will tell you who tested it at the top of the page.