Our 25 Step Methdology of Reviewing Process

Online casinos for Canada must have relevant licenses and display them openly. For Ontario and Quebec provinces, the corresponding licenses must be present. However, for other provinces, iGaming licenses by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission or the Malta Gaming Authority are legit enough.

Reputation is hard to assess but if the casino site has been around for 10-20 years and still has many customers, its positive reputation in the industry is obvious. We also check what companies the casino partners with in terms of gaming software and payments. Another criterion is any awards or nominations in the industry; some casino sites get awards literally every year or two.

To play at an online casino for real money every player has to share personal information with the casino. However, you want to be sure that the casino site is trustworthy enough and protects your personal data well. So we only recommend casinos if we are confident that they do not share their users’ personal data with third parties for profit. We always check the casino’s privacy policy and Know Your Customer policy.

Valis SSL certificate enabled for the site is an unobvious but important aspect of data protection that we at CasinosHunter always check. Data encryption ensures that third-party breaches are prevented and data cannot be stolen. Also, we always encourage you to use casino sites with 2-factor authentication to make sure no one else gets access to the user’s account and funds.

This is quite obvious for many but on the other hand, this still has to be checked. This is especially important if the casino site operates in many jurisdictions and supports many languages. We usually check if the support is actually supportive and whether there is a real person or a chatbot.

Canadian website version and customer support are particularly crucial for Canada because, in some provinces, the French-speaking population exceeds the English-speaking one. Therefore, it is only logical for the casino to offer decent customer support if they target those provinces.

The best online casinos usually have 24/7 customer support via several different channels. This makes complete sense because online casinos operate 24 hours seven days a week 365 days a year and users often play at night. So, support has to be available anytime since technical problems with software, payments, or simply confusion when registering an online casino account for the first time can appear at any moment. We encourage players to contact customer support even before they register their account, to see how responsive the team is.

Email is something all casinos have and we recommend using it when your request is not very urgent. Also, some casinos have a message form that sends your messages to your email. However, the most convenient way of contacting customer support is 24/7 live chat. The best casinos make their live chats available even for unregistered visitors because potential users may have questions before they even sign up.

If you have a phone number to reach online casino’s customer support quickly, this is the best option for urgent situations when your game is frozen or you have issues with login. Online casinos that provide phone numbers to their customers are usually ready to handle all issues in a really user-oriented manner and they earn very high ratings not only from CasinosHunter but from any other reviewing platform.

Many casino sites operate in Canada and target Canadian players and yet they still have Euro as their default internal currency. This is often the case if initially, the casino operator is located in Europe. What it means is that even though the player’s preferred currency is CAD and they deposit in CAD, the casino leaves the right to later send the player’s winnings in EUR. As a result, the player may face extra expenses due to currency exchange rates. We always read the “Terms and Conditions'' document fully to check if this rule is in place, and if it is, we always warn our readers.

Testing the depositing process is part of our review. We check how easy it is to sign up, fill in the account information fully, connect preferred payment methods, and deposit for the first time. We look through the list of available payment methods, what currencies are accepted, and what limits the casino puts on deposits. We make sure the deposits are instant and the transactions do not take an eternity.

The general rule of thumb is that the casino takes no fees for transactions. Players are only expected to pay fees to their online payment processing operators. However, there are some cases when casino sites can apply fees to transactions or to keep the funds on the casino balance. This can happen when the player violates the rules, makes frequent withdrawal requests, or withdraws the minimum amounts often, or when the player is inactive for a certain period of time. We check the conditions stated by the casino and make sure all fees are transparent and reasonable.

Withdrawal waiting time is probably one of the most important features. Unfortunately, same-day withdrawals or withdrawals within 24 hours are still rare. If the casino has this option, you will always see us highlighting this in the review. However, even if the 24-hour withdrawal is unavailable, we at CasinosHunter check the total withdrawal waiting time. This includes the time that the casino team takes to check the withdrawal request, plus the time needed for the online payment processing operator to manage the transaction.

When it comes to games, the key is to have a nice collection of titles with different themes, features, and tech specs. We always give preference to casino sites that care to add games with different mechanics and also offer a convenient filter for the player to sort these games easily. Game sections like slots, table games, live games, and so on, are also appreciated. We also check games for free and then for real money to see whether they function properly.

Unless the casino is specifically powered by one specific studio (like Microgaming casinos), the more software providers are represented, the better. This gives a really nice choice and a healthy variety of games. In Canada, the most popular providers are Microgaming, Pragmatic Play, and Playn’ GO, so we always check whether the lobby has games by these studios.

Checking this aspect takes a little bit more time but at CasinosHunter, we like to find out whether the games are potentially high-paying. For this, we look at the games’ RTP rates, volatility levels, and in-game features. For example, it makes sense to rate the casino site higher if there is a jackpot section and especially if there are progressive jackpots.

Live dealer games have been a thing for quite a while now and even if players are not particularly into them, having no live games in the lobby is seen as a drawback today. So we give higher rates to online casinos with a live dealer section because they cater to more players’ needs and expectations. Also, adding live games to the lobby is not easy because live dealer providers are picky about the sites they work with. Therefore, the presence of live games is another proof of reliability and trustworthiness.

Not all players want to download another mobile app on their device, and not all casino sites have their official apps available. So we test the quality of the platform by opening it on different devices with different systems and browsers. We check whether the platform gives smooth operation and everything available on a laptop is also similarly available on mobile.

In the majority of cases, downloading a mobile app is reasonable for the best mobile experience. We check whether there are official apps and for how many systems. We appreciate when mobile applications have extra features, such as lite mode, night mode, left-hand mode, or one-hand mode. We also try to find out whether the casino has exclusive mobile bonuses or loyalty programs.

Wagering requirements are a bit tricky to understand for the newbie players and we have a full guide on how bonuses and wagering requirements work. However, to cut a long story short, we check what the wagering requirements are for bonuses, whether they include both deposit and bonus (not good), whether they are higher or lower than the average across the niche, and so on. The best offers are usually wagerless and you can find such platforms on our recommended lists.

“Bonus terms” is a document that normally states all the rules that the casino applies to its bonuses and promotional offers. Bonus terms are not usually described fully on the promotion landing page and this is why we specifically read those carefully to find out the real conditions under which the bonus is provided. This way, in our reviews, we provide a full report of all the rules, conditions, and limitations we found, to give players a bigger picture of what they are getting themselves into. Online casinos with adequate, fair, and transparent bonus terms earn higher rates at CasinosHunter.

It is important that all players at the casino, both new and already established ones, could enjoy some bonuses. Many casinos, especially smaller ones, tend to only offer welcome bonuses to their newly registered users and have nothing for users who have already been playing on the platform for some time. At CasinosHunter, online casinos that have a variety of bonuses - welcome, free spins, reload, loyalty, and so on - have higher rates.

Online casinos with poor interface and navigation are handly competitive because players prefer to avoid them. However, beginner-level players may still wonder whether the bad experience they get is normal. This is why we report our impressions in reviews.

Deposit, wager, session, and time limits, as well as self-exclusion option, are something every casino site must have to provide a safe and enjoyable experience to its customers. Most licensing bodies actually demand that casino sites have these tools. We at CasinosHunter recommend only casinos with responsible gambling mechanisms at hand, and also we advise all players to activate the necessary limits in their accounts to avoid excessive gambling.