Editorial principles & standards.

Our mission

CasinoIndexCA exists to help Canadian players make safer, better-informed choices about online casinos. We do that by testing operators ourselves, scoring them against a fixed and published Safety Index, and explaining the reasoning in plain language. Our loyalty is to the reader, not the operator — and everything below is designed to keep it that way.

Independence

We are editorially independent from every casino we cover. No operator has any influence over its score, its placement, or the wording of its review. We earn affiliate commissions from some of the operators we list — that revenue keeps the site free — but those commercial relationships are logged separately and carry zero weight in the Safety Index. A casino we are paid by that fails an audit is flagged, not promoted. We will decline or drop any commercial arrangement that would compromise our ability to report honestly.

Evidence over marketing

Our ratings are built from primary testing wherever possible, not operator press releases. We deposit our own money, request and time real withdrawals, and read bonus and account terms line by line. When we say a casino pays in under an hour, it is because we watched the clock. Where we rely on third-party data, we weigh it against what we can verify ourselves and never treat a single unverified source as decisive. The full process is documented in our methodology.

Expertise & authorship

Reviews and guides are written by named members of our editorial team, each with relevant experience in iGaming, payments, compliance or responsible gambling, and every review carries an author byline. You can meet the team and read their areas of expertise on our about page. We write for a Canadian audience and reflect Canadian realities — Interac banking, provincial regulation, and the Ontario regulated market.

Accuracy & fact-checking

Every audit is checked by a second editor before publication. Facts that can change — licence status, payout times, bonus terms, withdrawal limits — are dated and re-verified on a rolling basis. Because these details drift, a material change can move a score or trigger a flag at any time. We aim to be precise about what we know, clear about what we don't, and quick to update when reality changes.

Use of AI and tools

We may use software tools to help organise data, monitor changes and draft supporting material, but judgment, testing and final review are human. Ratings are never generated automatically from marketing inputs, and a person is accountable for every published score and recommendation.

How we're funded

The site is free to use and supported by affiliate commissions: if you click through to an operator and sign up, we may receive a referral fee. This never changes the price, bonus or terms you receive — you get exactly the same offer whether you come through us or go direct. It also never buys a better score. We disclose this on every page, and we explain the firewall between commercial and editorial work in our methodology.

Advertising standards & Ontario

We follow responsible-advertising practices and, for Ontario visitors, apply AGCO standards: bonus figures, free-spin credits and dollar inducements are not shown, and licensing, registration and verified payout data are shown instead. Use the region switch in the header to move between Ontario and the rest of Canada. We do not target promotional content at anyone below the legal gambling age.

Responsible gambling commitment

Player wellbeing comes before commercial interest. We reward operators that make responsible-gambling tools easy to find and use, we never encourage chasing losses or treating gambling as income, and we surface support resources throughout the site. Our full guidance lives on our responsible gambling page.

Corrections & right of reply

We correct mistakes openly and promptly. If you believe something we've published is inaccurate or out of date — whether you are a player or an operator — tell us and we will re-check against source and fix it where warranted. Operators have a right of reply on factual matters. You can reach us through our contact page.

Privacy

We collect as little personal data as possible and never sell it. How we handle the limited information we do collect is set out in our privacy policy.