Choosing an online casino is filled with pitfalls and disinformation. The huge amount of money involved means that the choices presented to you through search engines or the information given in advertisements either online or offline is so commercially oriented that it is practically impossible to find objective casino reviews or honest and accurate information. Trying to choose a good online gambling site will frequently leave you confused and if you’re unlucky, scammed and ripped off.

Online gambling sites have a relatively long history on the internet and they have traditionally enjoyed the benefits of being completely unregulated except in the UK. This meant that choosing an online casino used to mean a choice between sites that were not accountable to anyone and could take your money and run. How to choose a safe online casino became a huge concern for players and so online portals began to appear that helped players to decide which online casino to choose. karramba

This has helped players make a better informed choice between online gambling sites, as rogue operators become known and casino portal owners can blacklist them. Seeing casino comparisons based on various factors such as which site has the highest bonus, which has the best slots, which has the highest table stakes, which has the best poker and VIP program etc is certainly more useful than seeing a biased advert for just one casino. However there are problems here too.

Almost all guides and portals are in fact partners with the online gambling sites they are reviewing, so although they may be comparing several casinos and reviewing them, they will have some that they would rather you chose over others, because they have been offered a better deal to recommend that you choose a particular online gambling site. The ratings, often out of ten or five stars for example, are fabricated to reflect their preferred choice and so objectively are completely meaningless.

How best to choose an online casino then with the problems of unregulated rogue operators and biased information saturating the search engine results?

Fortunately the UK have fully legalised and regulated online casinos in the UK. In order to avoid the potentially rogue offshore operators based in island tax havens such as Costa Rica and the Cayman Islands, players should choose a casino based and regulated in the United Kingdom of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. These UK online casinos face intense scrutiny into their finances to ensure that all player transactions are above board and all players get paid quickly when they cash out. Anti-fraud checks are in place and the software is tested regularly for randomness. Only after passing all these tests are they given a UK licence.
An online gambling site based in the UK is thus a safe and secure choice, and they welcome players from most countries in the world, but there are still many of these UK casinos to choose from. With UK casino portals offering biased reviews and ratings there are three factors you should bear in mind in order to make an informed choice that will lead you to choose your perfect online casino.

Choose Popularity – which online casino has the most players? Players are the real experts and will naturally drift away from poorer sites and towards the best ones.
Choose Bonuses – which online casinos team really offers the best bonuses? You will find thousands of ‘bonus guides’ but without showing the bonus terms and conditions they are meaningless and the large bonuses are always too good to be true. A bonus guide should rank bonuses by fairness first, and size second.