Independence
Rankings are not for sale, and no operator sees a review before it is published. Commercial staff do not set scores. The mechanism that makes this checkable rather than merely promised is described on the affiliate disclosure page.
How a score is produced
Every operator is scored on the same six weighted criteria, listed with their exact weights on the methodology page. The component scores are derived by a fixed formula from data we can verify: the licence string checked against the regulator's public register, the operator's published withdrawal timings, the bonus terms, the named provider count.
The same formula runs on every operator. Two casinos with the same licence tier and the same payout speed get the same licence and payout components. This is deliberate, and it is the main defence against a reviewer's mood, or a commercial relationship, leaking into a number.
Where a field is genuinely unknown, we use a stated neutral default rather than inventing a value, and the review says so.
Licence verification
An operator does not get published until its licence number appears in the regulator's public register, the status is active, the holder matches the trading entity, and the licence class covers the product offered. Operators whose only claim is a Costa Rican registration are rejected, because Costa Rica does not license online gambling. The full procedure is written up in how we verify a casino licence.
Corrections
We would rather be corrected than be wrong quietly.
Write to corrections@chatcasinoai.com with the page, the claim and a source. Factual errors about licences, payouts or bonus terms are fixed as a priority. When a correction changes the substance of a page, we note it on the page and update the modified date. We do not silently rewrite history.
Review cycle
Operator data is re-verified on a rolling 90-day cycle. Licence status is checked sooner when a regulator publishes an enforcement action affecting an operator we list. The scoring model itself is recalibrated quarterly, and every change is logged publicly on the blog.
Responsible gambling comes before conversion
We do not describe gambling as a way to make money, do not present losses as near wins, and do not use urgency or scarcity language to push a signup. Every ranked page carries the local helpline and the national self-exclusion scheme, and those links are never affiliate links.
If a bonus has terms we consider unfair, we say so next to the bonus, even when we earn commission from that operator.