How we test and rate new casinos
A new-casino review is worth reading only if it would still be true after the bonus has been clawed back. This page documents the testing sequence, the rating weights, and the pre-publication review we run on every ranking.
The five-step verification we run on every new casino
Before a casino earns a place on the homepage, it has to pass a fixed sequence of checks. The order matters: we test the licence first because a broken licence voids every other result.
Step 1 — Licence verification
We look up the licence number on the issuing regulator’s register. Malta Gaming Authority, UK Gambling Commission, Curaçao Gaming Control Board and Kahnawake Gaming Commission all publish searchable lists. A licence that is pending, suspended, or issued to a different trading name is an automatic fail, regardless of the bonus offer.
Step 2 — Deposit with real NZD
We deposit between NZ$1 and NZ$10 (depending on the minimum) from a monitored ANZ test account using whichever rail the casino primarily advertises. We note the processor name on the bank statement — some operators route deposits through unfamiliar merchant IDs which banks sometimes block on first use. If POLi is offered we try it too, separately.
Step 3 — Play the welcome bonus, or decline it
We either clear the welcome offer (using the published wagering terms as a stopwatch) or decline it and play un-bonused to check balance behaviour. Forty to eighty spins on a known high-RTP pokie gives us enough data to see whether the reported RTP is being hit and whether auto-play behaves predictably.
Step 4 — Time the withdrawal
We request the smallest allowed withdrawal at the published minimum threshold. The stopwatch starts when the withdrawal button is clicked and stops when the funds appear in the destination wallet or bank account. We record four numbers: click-to-confirmation, confirmation-to-processing, processing-to-sent, sent-to-received. The sum is the number we publish.
Step 5 — Cross-check bonus terms
We compare the bonus T&C page against what the sign-up funnel advertises. Any disagreement — different wagering, different max bet, different cashout cap — is a flag that gets written into the review. A casino that shows NZ$5,000 on the landing page and NZ$1,500 in the T&Cs does not earn a top-three rank, even if the rest of the testing is clean.
How we rate each casino
The overall rating is a weighted combination of seven sub-scores:
- Licensing & safety (25%) — regulator tier, audit history, fund segregation
- Bonus value (20%) — wagering, caps, game contribution, bet limits
- Payout speed (15%) — actual measured time from click to funds received
- Payment methods (10%) — POLi support, NZD handling, card acceptance, crypto
- Game library quality (10%) — provider breadth, RTP transparency, lobby usability
- Responsible gambling tools (15%) — deposit limits, loss limits, self-exclusion, reality checks
- Customer support (5%) — response time, accuracy, escalation path
The weights are set and reviewed quarterly. Responsible gambling tooling is weighted higher than payout speed because a fast payout at a casino that makes self-exclusion hard to find is not a reader we are comfortable sending.
What we do between reviews
A review is not a one-shot exercise. Every casino on the homepage is re-tested at least once a quarter, and bonus terms are checked on the first business day of every month. If a casino changes its wagering from 45x to 60x overnight, we update the page the same day.
Reader payout-time reports feed into the quarterly re-ranking alongside our own stopwatch data. Three or more reports of a withdrawal taking more than triple our measured time will trigger a re-test.
Responsible-gambling review
Every draft review is read by Salote Aiono before publication. She checks for framing that trivialises risk, language that implies gambling is an income strategy, and missing or buried references to self-exclusion and helpline resources. Drafts that fail the responsible-gambling review are rewritten, not published.
This step is non-negotiable — it is why our page loads slower than a hype-site on Monday mornings. We are comfortable with the trade-off.
What we do not do
- We do not outsource testing to third-party affiliate networks
- We do not accept revisions from affiliate managers after publication
- We do not rank casinos we have not deposited at
- We do not write positive reviews in exchange for higher commission rates
- We do not publish anything Teuila has not read
If you would like to verify any of the above — bank statements, payout screenshots, commission-rate correspondence — email us and we will share the relevant evidence.