How We Rate
Neighbourly advice should come with receipts. Here is exactly how every score on this site gets made – detailed enough that you could redo our homework yourself.
Twelve categories go into every score
Each site is graded across twelve categories and the weighted blend becomes the number you see: redeemable value at signup, ongoing free-coin flow, timed payout speed, payout reliability, playthrough and minimum terms, games depth and variety, mobile behaviour, support quality, clarity of the small print, state coverage, ownership transparency, and responsible-play tools. A big welcome headline is one grade out of twelve – it has never once carried a site up our list by itself.
Real accounts, real dollars, real stopwatches
We don’t review from screenshots. We register genuine accounts at all 18 sites, claim the actual bonuses, play the balances through their terms, submit real redemption requests with a timer running, and file real support tickets to see who answers and how well. One consistent finding worth sharing: gift cards clear fastest at nearly every site, while bank transfer times vary a great deal – both go into the payout numbers we publish.
What we’re really checking, question by question
- Redeemable value, not GC fireworks. Only Sweepstakes Coins can ever come back as a prize, so only the SC math anchors a value grade.
- The stopwatch versus the promise. An advertised payout window is a claim; our timed cash-outs test it, and we grade honesty of the claim alongside raw speed.
- Depth over length. A games list earns marks for genuine variety – mechanics, studios, volatility – not for the raw count.
- The phone in the kitchen drawer. We test mobile play on ordinary mid-range hardware, because that’s what real evenings look like.
- Names and addresses. Which states a site serves, and how plainly it says who owns it, are graded categories – vagueness costs points immediately.
Scores get stale, so we re-do them
The list runs on a fixed maintenance schedule: front-runners re-measured monthly, the entire list quarterly, and an immediate re-check whenever any site changes its bonus, terms or payout behaviour. When a site moves on our list, there’s a dated measurement behind the move – never a hunch.
And who pays for all this?
Affiliate commissions do: when a reader joins a site through our links, we may get paid. That covers the test accounts, the redemptions and the hours. It buys exactly zero influence – commercial terms are not one of the twelve categories, scores come straight off the measurements, and no operator has ever bought a spot on this list, though a few have politely inquired. Ownership details live on our About page.