Best Casino Sites In The UK

Compare casino sites and see which are the best for UK players? We list the best online casino sites that have a UK licence.

Choosing The Best Casino Site For You

If you’re a slots and casino games player, the news just keeps getting better and better! With new casinos piling in hoping to get a slice of your playing time, sign-on deposits have never been higher, and casino sites are pulling out all the stops to keep you on their site once you’ve signed up.

Furthermore, the choice is dazzling - so much so, that it’s difficult to know where to start. But, our best casino sites guide will help you figure out which casinos have the right offer for you.

Let’s start with those Welcome offers. Is it just a matter of the biggest headline amount? Does a no deposit bonus really mean what it says? And how can you tell whether one free spins offer is better than another?

Welcome Bonuses - Look beyond the headlines

Welcome bonuses come in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes a high amount in the headline - like £300 - turns out to have some strings attached, and nearly all bonuses have terms and conditions. But, the trick is to be aware of which of these conditions is a dealbreaker for you, and which doesn’t matter all that much.

Most bonuses are matched bonuses where you put in say, £100 and the online casino site matches that with a £100 bonus. However, bear in mind that the offer may not be available all in one go. For example, you may need to make three deposits on three consecutive days to get to the full matched total.

What’s more, when you start playing you’re considered to be playing with the bonus funds and you can’t withdraw any winnings until you’ve played through the wagering requirement - more about that later.

Additionally, if the offer has free spins, the game choices available to use them can be restricted. Having said that, some casinos are really quite generous with their free spin wagers, allowing you 25p per spin, whereas others it’s more like 10p.

Casinos are pretty open about the Terms and Conditions (T&Cs) on any offer. If you look at the Welcome advert, you’ll always see a link to the T&Cs. So, before you commit yourself, it’s a good idea to check that you’re happy with the offer. And remember, many casinos allow you to decline the welcome bonus if accepting it means that you can’t use a regular promo offered by the site, that you’d prefer.

Lastly, those no deposit bonuses - are they for real. Well yes, they are, but because of the wagering requirement, you’re going to have to deposit money and play with it before you can withdraw any winnings. So, free money - kind of.

Wagering Requirements

Wagering requirements are pretty much universal across online casinos, but there are a few inside tips you should know to get yourself a good deal. For instance, 30 to 35 times is the average wagering requirement you have to wager before you can draw your winnings, whereas 40, 45 or 50 is high, and Below 30 is pretty rare. But what gets multiplied by what?

Canny players know that some casinos levy the wagering requirement on both the deposit and the matching bonus, while others only apply it to the bonus. So when you’re looking at wagering requirements, take into account both the wagering requirement level and whether it applies to both bonus and deposit, or just the bonus.

Other Promotions

Many players who are using the same site every day like to see frequent promos, to keep a sense of variety. Some sites are great for this where they have promotions running on certain days of the week, or tied into holidays such as Halloween. Other bonuses can include free spins or cash refunds. For example, if the first roulette spin of the day is a loser.

VIP Status

VIP players are much sought after by online casinos, who usually go to some lengths to keep them happy. There may be a VIP scheme that offers progression through various levels, with rewards such as bonuses, cashbacks and free spins. The top echelon of players can expect to have a personal manager and to receive individually customised offers, not available to most players.

Choice of games

Smaller casino sites may have a more restricted games selection but they’re often quirkier, with unusual and different slots. The biggest online casinos will have up to 1,000 games, including vintage three reelers, high tech video games, immersive roulette and poker, as well as real dealer games delivered by online streaming services such as NetEnt.

You may want a site that has plenty of TV and film tie-in titles, or one that has the Mega Moolah style progressive jackpots. There again, if you’re a fan of games like Sic Bo, Keno, Craps or some of the more unusual poker variants, which are harder to find, you’ll sign up with an online casino site simply because it offers these. The number of casino table games can vary hugely.

Some of the best slots sites concentrate on slots with only have a small selection of say, roulette, baccarat and poker. Whereas, others have a full slate of table games, including European and American roulette and lots of different versions of the top games, including blackjack and pontoon.

Look out for new games that combine the traditional slot element with a “game within a game”, featuring a quest, or puzzle that needs to be solved and yields bonus wins. These are beginning to appear and add a whole extra level of enjoyment to playing.

Platform and software

Many platforms are provided by industry leaders such as Playtech and MicroGaming, although very large casino sites will have their own platform. The bigger the site, the more facilities it needs for helping you find the games you want to play. In fact, some of the best sites allow you to search for games not only by name, but also by game maker, theme, jackpot type, recently added, and so on.

Not only will the top UK slots sites list slots that are “Hot”, which means they’re paying out, but also others that are “Cold”, which means possibly due for a run of payouts. What is even better is those sites usually allow you to run a Favourites list or view your playing history.

It should be noted that if you play a lot of sites, you may find that some of them start to have a “samey” feel after a while and this may be that they’re all using the same platform and have only made limited customisations.

Having said that, casino sites are well ahead of the game when it comes to mobile play and they have to be, because that is now how vast numbers of customers play. Previously, mobile casino offerings involved apps and had rather more limited selections of games. However, straight browser play on a mobile with games optimised for mobile touchscreens is now becoming the norm.

Safety and security

Always look for the Gambling Commission logo or a link at the bottom of the home page. If it’s not there, be warned! If you click on the logo, you’ll be taken to the Gambling Commision website and can look up the online casino site to see if it is authorised.

Some sites transfer your data to servers outside the EU; some don’t. If this matters to you, you can usually look it up in the privacy policy. However, always look for "https//" and the padlock symbol before the site’s URL. That tells you that they are using a security layer that protects your data as it moves between your device and the casino’s servers.

Fairness

Most casinos are signed up to one or more of the dispute arbitration services, such as the Independent Betting Adjudication Service (IBAS). We advise that you try and resolve the problem yourself first, but if you can’t, it’s good to know that you can take it to mediation.

To demonstrate that the games are fair, that the random numbers really are random, and that the percentage payouts are in line with those stated, sites should show the logo of an organisation such as eCOGRA. This is a trust organisation which reviews the fairness of all games offered by an operator who is signed up with them.

Customer Support

An online casino's customer support can vary markedly from one site to another. For instance, some run 24/7 support with online chat, email and phone support, whereas some just quote a fax number and an email address.

Some casino sites even limit the times support is available. For example, it may be unavailable from midnight to 8am.

It’s the same with the Help sections on the sites. Some are great, easy to use and packed with all the information you could need and others are harder to navigate. In fact, Some sites offer tutorials in various aspects of gaming, as well as blogs, news features and even some social interaction.

Problem Gambling

There are many have prompts you can set, to tell you how long you’ve playing or limits you can set on your deposits per day, week or month. Also, you can use self-exclusion can be for a limited time, or in serious cases, indefinitely.

Any site authorised by the UK Gambling Commission should be signed up to one of the organisations that can help problem gamblers. In fact, a new GamStop scheme is soon going to be operating nationally in the UK. It will mean that if you self-exclude from one site, you’ll be self-excluded from all. This should help people who find that their gaming is getting out of control.

If you feel that your gaming is becoming too frequent, or that you are spending too much. Please seek help at https://www.begambleaware.org/ who are the national gambling helpine.

Deposit methods and withdrawal times

Delayed withdrawal times probably cause more disputes than any other area in online gaming and it is frustrating to have a payout delayed. Although, to be fair to online casinos, this can be caused by something outside of their control. For example, an anomaly in the identification documentation or a glitch at one of the banks sending and receiving the payment.

All casinos have a processing period before they send the payment out, which is to allow them to check that you are who you say you are and that the payout is valid. This is usually a day but can be two days and then you have to allow 3-5 days for the payment to reach a bank or debit card account. PayPal Casinos, as well as Neteller Casinos are quicker with payments usually completed within a day.

It’s surprising there are not more casino sites that allow deposits via mobile payment methods, given that they know how many of their customers are playing on mobiles.

If you want to pay like this, you’ll need to look for a boku casino, or a similar system, that allows even those who don’t have a bank account to deposit funds. But check that you can withdraw onto Boku if you need to, because this facility may not be available.

Overall, when it comes to deposits, online casinos want to make it as easy as possible for you to spend money with them, so generally they have a wide range of ways to fund your account.

Casino sites are great fun to explore - use our site, with its impartial and detailed reviews and our selection tools, to decide which ones to sign up to, ensuring that you get the best, most profitable and most enjoyable gaming experience you can.