Best online casinos: what the word can carry

The measure that is not available

In most consumer comparisons the first filter is regulatory: is the provider licensed where I live, and does the regulator take complaints. For online casinos in Australia that filter returns nothing, because no online casino holds an Australian licence. The Interactive Gambling Act 2001 prohibits offering those games to people in Australia, which is the reason, and playing them is not itself an offence, which is the reason the lists exist anyway. From Western Australia the gap is doubled: the Gaming and Wagering Commission of Western Australia regulates gambling in this state, including the rule that keeps gaming machines at Crown Perth, and it has no role in an offshore website.

What a ranking usually measures instead

With the regulatory filter gone, a list has to be built on something, and what remains is mostly commercial. Bonus size is easy to put in a table and tells you almost nothing without the wagering requirement beside it. Game count is a supplier list rather than a quality measure. Payment methods describe convenience. Support hours describe availability, not outcome. None of these are worthless, but all of them are things the site itself publishes about itself, which means a ranking assembled from them is a ranking of marketing material. Reading one is reasonable as long as you know that is what you are reading.

• A bonus figure without its wagering requirement and time limit is not a comparable number.
• A game count is a list of suppliers, not evidence about how any single game behaves.
• Published support hours say when somebody answers, not what the answer is worth.
• A list of deposit methods tells you nothing about the withdrawal process.
• Any claim about speed or fairness that the site made about itself is a claim, not a finding.

The parts that can actually be read

There is a smaller set of things a reader can check directly, and it is worth more than the table. The withdrawal section of the terms is the most informative page on any casino site, because it is where the conditions attached to money leaving are written: the wagering multiple, the window it has to be completed in, the maximum that can be withdrawn from bonus funds, and the documents required before a payment is made. Reading that section before depositing takes a few minutes and answers most of the questions a ranking pretends to answer. The company name and the jurisdiction given in the terms are also worth recording.

1. Open the terms and find the withdrawal section before anything else.
2. Write down the wagering multiple, the time limit and any cap on withdrawals from bonus funds.
3. Note which identity documents are required and at what point they are demanded.
4. Record the company name and the jurisdiction named in the terms.
5. Decide whether those conditions are acceptable, then and only then consider depositing.

Where the money in a ranking comes from

Almost every list of this kind is paid for by the operators on it, including the links on this site. That is not a scandal and it does not make the information false, but it is a fact that changes how a reader should weight an ordering. A position in a table can reflect a commercial arrangement as easily as a judgement, and the two are rarely distinguished on the page. The reasonable response is not cynicism but a change of use: read the list to discover which operators exist and what they claim, then verify the claims that matter in the operator's own terms rather than in the summary.

A Western Australian footnote worth keeping

There is one local detail that changes the stakes here. In other states a reader comparing online casinos has a licensed alternative within walking distance, and the comparison is between a website and a venue. In Western Australia there is no venue except Crown Perth, so for most of the state the comparison is between a website and nothing at all. That makes the terms of the website the only terms in play, and it removes the quiet discipline that a trip to a venue imposes. If you are going to read a ranking from here, read the conditions behind it with that in mind.

• Remember that outside Crown Perth this state has no gaming machines to compare against.
• Expect no Australian regulator to be available if a dispute arises with an offshore site.
• Set a deposit figure before reading any list, so the reading does not set it for you.
• Use the responsible-gambling tools the site itself provides, since no national register covers it.
• Gambling Help WA and Gambling Help Online on 1800 858 858 are both free and confidential.