Casino guides for UK players

Each post below covers one casino: who runs it, what its licence record shows, what its own terms say and how our team rated it. The explainer, Casino sister sites explained, is pinned first, and the casino posts follow it in turn.

A sister is a casino run by the same operator or owned by the same company, shown on the casinos' own pages or the regulator's record. That is the whole test on Puntide. A shared licence alone never makes a sister. Anything else is a claim, and we label it as one.

For a player, the practical meaning is rules. Casinos under one operator can share account terms, self-exclusion rules and the way a closed account is handled. Jackpotjoy's help page, for example, says a closure may be linked to an account held on one of its other sites. That matters most when a player closes one account and wants to know what happens at the others.

Shared ownership does not mean shared quality. Two casinos run by one company can differ in welcome offer, wagering requirement and games. A post therefore reads each casino's own terms and does not assume the family shares them.

The families covered here range from five casinos under Gamesys Operations Limited to a single casino under Tek Fox Ltd.

A sister is also different from a site like a casino. A site that offers similar games or a similar welcome offer may have an unrelated owner. Looking alike is a matter of design and games, while being sisters is a matter of ownership.

Ownership also says nothing about who may play. A family can include casinos whose own terms bar UK residents, as Kinghills' terms do, and where a post finds that, it says so at the top of the page.

Three kinds of evidence decide it. The first is the operator line a casino prints in its own terms, the sentence naming the company that runs the website. The second is the regulator's record of who holds the licence. The third is a statement by a company that it owns, or is part of, another.

A shared licence or shared software is not enough on its own. A games supplier serves many casinos, so the same provider in two lobbies proves nothing, and sharing a licence is not the same as sharing an owner. Where one of these is the only link, the post calls it a claim and says so.

Puntide checks and quotes the registers it relies on: the Curaçao Gaming Authority's online gaming licence registry and certificates, the Gambling Commission public register, Antillephone's licence validator and the OpenCorporates company register. The pages read for this page are listed in its sources at the foot.

The full method, with the sources read for each casino, is on How we find casino sister sites for UK players.

One row per operator or owner, never per licence. Each row gives the company and the casinos covered under it, with their ratings.

GTW B.V.: both the MyStake post and the DonBet post name GTW B.V., Curaçao, as the company running the casino.

Santeda International B.V.: the company behind Velobet, whose post lists the other three casinos in the family.

IntellogixSoft B.V.: the regulator's certificate names the company for Kinghills, and the other two are Kinghills' confirmed sisters.

Gamesys Operations Limited: each one's own terms name Gamesys Operations Limited as the operator.

LC International Limited: both name LC International Limited in their terms of use.

Tek Fox Ltd: its terms name Tek Fox Ltd as the operator, and its company runs Mr Q only.

No named operator: both posts explain why no sister is confirmed.

Ratings come from each casino's own pages, and a rating built on fewer than six criteria says so in the family notes below.

Each operator has its own heading below. For every casino, the entries give its rating, its welcome offer, the wagering the offer states, where it states one, and whether UK players are accepted, with a link to the post that covers it.

Protection comes first. Registering with Gamstop Online blocks gambling websites and apps licensed in Great Britain, and it is the way to block every site licensed there at once. It does not reach a casino that is licensed elsewhere, so a Curaçao licence, as held by several casinos on this site, falls outside it.

A casino's own self-exclusion is separate, and its reach is set by its own terms. Jackpotjoy's terms bar a member who self-excludes from opening or using an account with any company in the Gamesys Group. Gala Bingo's terms make it a condition of holding an account that the player has not excluded themselves, whether directly with the casino or another Entain brand, or through a multi-operator service such as Gamstop. Mr Q applies self-exclusion to its own account and to any future websites it operates.

Foxy Bingo's terms ask a player to choose between that casino only and every brand the Entain Group runs, and a request that does not specify applies to that brand alone. A player who wants the wider exclusion should say so in the request.

Kinghills' terms tell an excluded player not to open new accounts across its network. Several other casinos covered here state no scope for self-exclusion at all, and where that applies the post says so.

One account per person is the usual rule. Jackpotjoy allows a member a single account, MyStake one account per person, household or IP address, and Gala Bingo one account per brand.

A sister site is never a way around a self-exclusion. Anyone who has excluded, or is thinking about it, can find the help services listed under Gambling help for UK players, later on this page.

Two kinds of wagering hide behind the same words. Wagering on winnings applies to what free spins win, and wagering on the bonus applies to bonus money, sometimes with the deposit added. A figure of 30x on deposit plus bonus asks far more of a player than no requirement on spin winnings.

Jackpotjoy, Virgin Games and MONOPOLY Casino state no wagering on free spin winnings, and so does Mr Q, which has no sister sites. Double Bubble Bingo and Bally Bet state none on spin winnings but add 1x on the bonus. Gala Bingo states none on its spin winnings, and Foxy Bingo's stated wagering sits on its bingo bonus.

The other casinos state larger figures where they state any. MyStake, DonBet and Velobet each state 30x, Rolletto states 40x on the first deposit, and Kinghills, Memo Casino and XtraSpin state 40x on the bonus. Goldenbet, Cosmobet, Cocoa Casino and True Fortune have no wagering figure for the welcome offer on the pages read.

The first deposit asked for also differs: £10 at the Gamesys casinos, Gala Bingo, Foxy Bingo and Mr Q, 10€/$ at Velobet, 15 EUR at the three IntellogixSoft casinos, 20€ at MyStake and 50 €/$ at DonBet.

None of these figures replaces the casino's own terms, which govern the offer.

Mr Q is one company with one brand. Tek Fox Ltd, which runs it, is named as the operator of Mr Q only, its licence is listed as active on the Gambling Commission public register, and its post covers sites like Mr Q in place of a sister list.

Casinos that name no operator are a different case. Cocoa Casino and True Fortune print no company behind them, so there is no operator line to compare and their sisters cannot be checked. Cocoa Casino's terms refer to an affiliated sister casino under the same management, and True Fortune mentions a sister casino, yet neither names one.

Both posts report that a licence checker returned INVALID for the licence each one shows, and Puntide publishes them as warning posts for that reason.

A missing owner is not proof that two casinos are unrelated. It means the question cannot be answered from the public sources read, and the pages say that instead of guessing.

Each casino is rated out of 5 on up to six criteria: bonuses, games, account and safety, VIP and loyalty, support and mobile. Each criterion carries a weight, and the weights are not equal: bonuses and games count most, and mobile counts least. Payments and speed is shown in the posts but is not scored.

The ratings on this page run from 1.9 for Rolletto to 4.4 for Jackpotjoy, Double Bubble Bingo and Virgin Games. When a casino's pages leave a criterion without support, that criterion is left out and the post names it. MyStake, for example, states no game count and no mobile site or store app was found, so it is rated on four of six criteria, and it is not directly comparable with a casino rated on all six.

The ratings start from what each casino's own pages state for UK players. Our team tests these casinos and checks every fact before a page is published. A rating is a summary, not a verdict on whether to play at a casino. A casino can score well on bonuses and poorly on account and safety, and each post shows the score for every criterion so the two can be read apart. The method page, How we find casino sister sites for UK players, sets out the rubric and the sources in full.

The market's route starts with the casino: a complaint goes to the gambling business first and follows its complaints process. If the answer does not settle it, after 8 weeks the complaint can go to an Alternative Dispute Resolution provider, a free, independent service that the business names. The Gambling Commission does not resolve or make decisions on complaints about gambling transactions.

eCOGRA is named by Jackpotjoy, Double Bubble Bingo, Virgin Games, MONOPOLY Casino and Bally Bet, and IBAS by Mr Q, Gala Bingo and Foxy Bingo. Each of those eight starts with the casino's own complaints process: a written complaint at Mr Q, a three-stage procedure at Gala Bingo and Foxy Bingo, and a complaints policy at Virgin Games.

MyStake, DonBet, Velobet, Goldenbet, Rolletto, Cosmobet, Kinghills, Memo Casino, XtraSpin, Cocoa Casino and True Fortune name no outside complaints service in the terms read, so only the casino's own support or complaints team is a known first step. True Fortune's terms require a complaint in writing within 5 days of the event.

Gambling is for adults only: in most cases the minimum legal age for it in Great Britain is 18. Anyone worried about their gambling, or a person close to them, can contact one of the services below.

The National Gambling Helpline serves England and Scotland on 0808 8020 133, and the NHS Wales Helpline serves Wales on 0808 2819 265. GambleAware lists support, and its services are available only to Great Britain residents. No Northern Ireland help line is held, so none is stated here.

Gamstop is the place to start for blocking online gambling sites licensed in Great Britain. A sister site is never a way around a self-exclusion.

The tools each casino states, deposit limits, time-outs and self-exclusion among them, are set out in the posts and on Responsible gambling for UK players.