How We Check Bonus Terms, and What Checking Them Found

Where our bonus terms figures come from

Most comparison sites describe their method in the abstract. Here is ours as a count, taken from the database that generates every table on this site. What the site is and who publishes it is set out separately on our about page.

We have read fifteen of the 88 rows from the operator's own published pages, clause by clause, and each of those has a review on this site carrying the date it was read. The other 73 have not been read, and they are marked in our data rather than presented as though they had.

We publish that because the alternative is worse. Every money page on this site carries a line saying its figures come from operators' own pages, and for those 73 rows that is a statement of intent rather than a fact. Saying so is awkward, and it is the only honest version.

The four documents we read to check bonus terms

A welcome offer is described across four separate documents, and the promotion is the least useful of them. Every review here reads all four.

Each guide on this site is one of those fields taken across every casino we have read: the wagering requirement, the contribution table, the win cap, the withdrawal ceilings. They exist because the figures were collected one document at a time, and leaving them buried in fifteen separate reviews seemed a waste.

There are two capture rules that apply throughout. Terms are read as the page renders rather than from the markup, because a clause the browser never draws is not a disclosure. And every review states the country the pages were read from, because operators serve different documents to different locales, and a figure without a location is a figure without a meaning.

What reading the bonus terms actually found

Fourteen out of the fifteen reviews changed at least one field in our own data. The pattern in those corrections is the part worth publishing.

A sample from the corrections log kept alongside the database. Every correction on this site is recorded with what it was, what it is, and the clause it came from.

Three findings come out of the whole set of them.

• Every error flattered the casino. A cheaper wagering figure, a licence that was not there, a spin count that undersold an offer. Errors that ran the other way did not appear, which is what you would expect from data that starts life in marketing.
• The licence field is now the risky one. Five of the fifteen had a licence recorded that the operator's own pages contradicted, in both directions. Our licence checking guide is the method that came out of that.
• The wagering field has stopped being the problem. The last three reviews all confirmed a third-party wagering figure exactly. That is useful to know, and it is exactly why the licence sweep is now the priority rather than the wagering one.

The rules each mistake produced

A correction is not meaningful unless it produces a rule. These are the ones now applied to every review.

1. A licence is "not disclosed" only after the general terms have been read end to end. A bonus page carrying no licence proves nothing.
2. A wagering figure is recorded only from the document governing the welcome offer. Operators run cheap side promotions beside expensive welcome packs, and the cheap number is the one that ends up quoted everywhere.
3. A licence counts only if it renders. Markup does not count. Hidden blocks do not count. Seal software that fails to draw a seal does not count.
4. An absent source label is not a verified figure. Thirty rows sat in that state before we noticed, and they are counted as unverified now.
5. Re-derive every dependent figure after any change. A single corrected row moves medians, counts and rankings on pages that never mention that casino.
6. Record the country the pages were read from. The same operator serves different terms to different locales, and a figure without a location cannot be checked.

How the ranked lists use the bonus terms

Every ranked page here states its rule at the top and then follows it. The order is a function of the data rather than something chosen, which is the only way the rule means anything.

One consequence is worth mentioning because it has already happened. When a correction makes a casino more expensive, it drops or leaves the page: a corrected wagering figure moved one operator's turnover from 1,000 to 4,000, and it no longer qualified for the low wagering page at all. The rule decided that, rather than a person.

Sister brands are also monitored. Several operators here run more than one casino under one company, and presenting two brands from the same company as independent picks would be misleading even where both would earn their place. Where we know of a shared operator, the reviews say so.

What this site never claims

A method page is as much about what is left out. Four claims are common in this industry and none of them appears anywhere here.

• That anyone here played with real money. No page on this site says an account was funded, staked or cashed out by us. Everything here is read from published documents and cited to them.
• Unprovable process stamps. No "verified by our team", no "read while logged in on 13 August". Anybody can type those and no reader can check them, so they add nothing.
• Invented experience. No years in the industry, no number of players helped, no review counts that do not exist.
• Ratings that move with commercial terms. The ranking rules above produce the order. There is no commercial override, and if there were, publishing the rules would be pointless.

Where a page does make a first-hand claim, the proof sits beside it: the clause number, the document, the published figure. One review credits a casino for publishing its licence as a PDF that anyone can view, and that is the standard we hold ourselves to as well.

How a bonus terms correction gets handled

Figures change constantly, and a comparison site is only as good as what it does when one of its own numbers turns out to be wrong.

1. Correct the database first, so every table generated from it is right at once.
2. Re-derive the dependent figures. Medians, counts, rankings, and the charts that are generated from the data rather than drawn by hand.
3. Hand-fix the prose. Sentences elsewhere on the site that quoted the old number, which a rebuild does not touch.
4. Record it in the log with what it was, what it is, and where the truth was found.
5. Do all of it in the same session. A half-applied correction is worse than the original error, because the site then contradicts itself.

Writing the guides on this site unveiled several stale figures of exactly that kind, and each was corrected across every page carrying it before the guide went up. That is the process working rather than an exception to it.

The gap we have not closed

Seventy-three rows have not been read from the operator. That is the honest state this site is in, and it will stay published until it is no longer true.

What we can say about those rows is limited and specific. Their bonus figures came from third-party listings, and the first twelve casinos we checked properly all contained an error of that kind. The last three did not, on the wagering field, which suggests third-party wagering data is better than it looked and third-party licence data is worse.

The order of work follows from this. The licence field is being swept first, because it has the highest error rate and the cheapest check. Following that are the rows with no source label, then the rest. Every casino that gets read properly gets a review, and the count in the chart above moves by one.

If you want the fifteen that are completed, they are the fifteen with a review: every figure on those pages was read from the operator's own documents on a stated date, with the clause named. The guides index is those fifteen documents sorted by clause instead of by casino.

Bonus terms method questions

Where does CasinoFinderHub get its bonus data? How do you check a casino bonus? What did reading the terms actually change? Do affiliate links change your ratings? Do you test casinos with real money? How often is the data updated? Why does a licence get recorded as not disclosed? What happens when you find a mistake?

About the author

Ana Petrescu

Bonus terms editor, CasinoFinderHub - Bucharest

I keep the database and write the reviews, which means I am also the person who finds our own mistakes. The count on this page is the one I would least like to publish and the one that says most about whether anything else here can be trusted. My author page lists the rules I work to and what I will not write.

The habit that changed my work is small: read the page as a visitor sees it. It sounds obvious until you find a licence claim inside a block styled so no browser ever draws it, and realise how easily a machine reading the source would have recorded that as a disclosure.

Play safely

Nothing on this site is an encouragement to gamble. The most useful thing a comparison page can do is show what an offer costs before you accept it, and fairly often the answer is that it costs more than it is worth.

Set a deposit limit before you play, and consider any bonus an optional extra. Free, confidential help is available from BeGambleAware, Gambling Therapy and Gamblers Anonymous.