Editorial Process

1. Our editorial mission

To be the most useful, honest, locally-grounded online casino information source for adult Australian players.

Three words to break out:

• Useful — a player should leave a page on this Site with the information they need to make a decision, not with the sense that they've just been marketed at.
• Honest — every claim should be verifiable. We err on the side of saying less rather than overstating.
• Locally-grounded — written for Australians, by Australians, with Australian regulation, currency, payment methods, sport, language, and culture taken seriously.

2. The 12-point editorial scorecard

Every casino we rank passes through the same 12-point scorecard. Each criterion is scored 1–10. Each criterion is weighted. The weighted scores are aggregated into an overall ⭐ rating. An operator must score 8.0/10 overall to appear on our top-10 rankings.

Weighting rationale (high level): Licensing, bonus fairness, and payout speed dominate the weights because in the words of one of our editors: "Pick the wrong casino and the games don't matter — your winnings won't come out." Game library matters but is rarely the differentiator on the AU offshore market; almost every recommended operator carries Pragmatic Play, NetEnt, Play'n GO, and Evolution.

3. The real-money testing process

We don't accept demo accounts or free play credit from operators. Every operator we recommend has been tested as a paying customer.

Step-by-step

1. Account creation — registration form, email verification, login flow. We note any unusual data demands (e.g. ID requested at registration before any deposit), any forced-marketing opt-ins (we test that opt-outs work), and any failed-registration-attempt support flow.

2. Initial deposit — typically AU$200, by PayID or crypto depending on which the operator markets as primary. We test the deposit speed (instant for PayID, on-chain confirmation time for crypto), any deposit fees, and any unexpected restrictions on AU residents.

3. Bonus claim (if applicable) — we read the full T&Cs first. We document the wagering multiplier and what it applies to. We make the deposit eligible for the welcome bonus. We screenshot the bonus credit.

4. Real-money play — we play the bonus through. We rotate across pokies, blackjack, roulette, and live dealer to stress-test the game-weighting tables.

5. Customer support contact — we open at least two live-chat tickets during testing, one during AU business hours and one outside, on questions a typical new player might ask ("how do I claim the reload bonus?", "what's the maximum withdrawal in 24 hours?"). We score response time and quality.

6. KYC submission — we submit ID and proof-of-address documents. We score the time-to-verification.

7. Withdrawal request — once any bonus is cleared or forfeited, we request a withdrawal of at least AU$300 via PayID and a separate AU$300 via crypto. We record the exact time the request was made, the time funds left the operator's processing, and the time funds arrived in our account.

8. Re-deposit and re-withdraw — for operators we are leaning toward ranking, we run a second round 3 weeks later to test for consistency.

9. Sister-brand check — we verify the operator's group ownership and check the AskGamblers / Casino Guru complaint records for all sister brands under the same group, not only the brand we tested.

The full testing log per operator is internal but is referenced in our reviews where data points materially affect the score.

4. Fact-check workflow

Every page that touches law, tax, regulation, licensing, or payment-method specifics is fact-checked by our Compliance Reviewer before publication.

The fact-check covers:

• Legal claims — verified against the current text of the Interactive Gambling Act 2001 and its amendments, ACMA's public guidance, the Privacy Act 1988, and the Australian Consumer Law.
• Tax claims — verified against current ATO public rulings, public binding rulings, and reported case law.
• Regulator claims — verified against the current public register of the relevant licensing regulator (Curaçao GCB, MGA, Kahnawake, etc.).
• Operator claims — verified against the operator's published T&Cs at the time of review.
• Statistics — verified against the original source. We do not republish statistics from secondary aggregators without going back to the primary source.

Where a claim cannot be verified to the Compliance Reviewer's satisfaction, the claim is removed or rewritten before publication.

5. Update cadence

The "Last updated" stamp on every page reflects the most recent editorial review, not just minor formatting tweaks. If we touch a page only for typo or template reasons, the editorial date does not advance.

6. Corrections policy

We get things wrong. When we do, we fix the page, log the correction, and (for material errors) note the correction on the page itself.

What counts as a material correction

• Any factual error of law or tax
• Any incorrect bonus term, wagering multiplier, or operator-specific claim
• Any incorrect licensing or ownership claim
• Any incorrect statistic
• Any author byline error

Correction process

1. The error is identified (by us, by a reader email, by an operator, or by an external reviewer).
2. We fix the page within 2 business days.
3. We add a Correction: [date] line at the bottom of the page describing what changed.
4. For corrections affecting an operator's ranking, we update the ranking and the change is noted in our monthly editorial review log.

Correction archive

A summary of substantive corrections published on this Site is available in the Editorial Review Log (linked from the bottom of this page when the first material correction is logged).

7. Editorial independence from commercial

We described this in our Affiliate Disclosure; the short version is:

• Editorial sets the rankings; commercial negotiates the contracts after.
• An operator scoring below 8.0/10 on our scorecard is not listed regardless of CPA offered.
• We have removed paying partners when their scores dropped. This has happened multiple times since this Site launched.

If our editorial position on an operator changes mid-contract, the editorial change is made and the commercial team adjusts the contract — not the other way around.

8. Conflict-of-interest policy

Every author and reviewer on the Site signs a declaration covering:

• Past or current employment with any operator we rank
• Past or current advisory or board roles with any operator we rank
• Shareholdings in any listed parent of an operator we rank
• Family relationships with senior staff at any operator we rank
• Any other financial or material relationship that could reasonably influence judgement

Declared conflicts result in recusal from coverage of the relevant operator. The declarations are reviewed annually.

9. Sources and citation standards

For factual claims, we link to the primary source where possible:

• Australian law — direct links to legislation.gov.au and the published Act.
• ATO guidance — direct links to ato.gov.au and the relevant public ruling.
• ACMA actions — direct links to acma.gov.au enforcement registers.
• Licensing regulators — direct links to the regulator's public register.
• Statistics — direct links to the publishing body (ABS, AGRC, ProductivityCommission, ResponsibleGambling.org.au).
• Operator T&Cs — referenced by URL at time of review; we do not provide live deep-links to bonus T&Cs because operators frequently change URLs.

Secondary citations are used only where the primary source is paywalled or otherwise inaccessible, and only with a clear note that the secondary source is being used.

10. AI policy

We do not publish AI-generated content under named bylines. Where we use AI tools to assist (research search, summarisation, draft-checking, code generation for the Site itself), the published output is human-edited, fact-checked, and bylined by a human author who takes responsibility for it.

We block AI-training crawlers at the robots.txt level. Our content may not be used to train large-language-model systems without our prior written permission.

11. Reader feedback into editorial decisions

Reader-submitted complaints, corrections, and questions feed into our monthly editorial review:

• If three or more independent readers submit similar complaints about the same operator within a month, the operator's complaint-history score is automatically re-reviewed.
• If a reader correction is upheld, the page is updated and the reader receives (if they consented) a credit in the corrections log.
• We do not pay for reader feedback. We do appreciate it.

Send anything to [email protected] or [email protected].

12. Where we go from here

This page will be updated when our process changes. Material methodology changes (a new criterion added to the scorecard, a change in weighting, a change in update cadence) will be noted in the corrections log and surfaced via banner.

Last updated: [DD Month YYYY] 18+ only · Gamble responsibly · BetStop.gov.au · Gambler's Help 1800 858 858