About Rihards
I am Rihards Ozols and I test online casinos for SpinAudit. My side of things is the money side: Deposits going in, bonuses landing or not landing, wagering rules reducing the balance, documents the casino requests, and the withdrawal coming back out. I time each of those steps, because that is usually the part a casino does not advertise.
I've worked on both sides of the desk. Before working at SpinAudit I worked in payment operations and in customer support. Over the years I got to know the kind of queue a casino’s finance team looks at really well. Flagged accounts, missing IDs, and payouts that are pending or have not gone out. That's why my reviews cover the withdrawal process in detail.
The pages on my site are tests and in order for a test to be valid it must use my money. I treat each account just like any other. I deposit my own cash just like a normal player would. I don't inform the casino that I'm doing a review to protect the integrity of the process. The numbers in the tables are actual numbers. For more details you can check out my casino review process page.
How I Test a Casino
Each review will take the same path, so the same terms can be used when comparing casinos to one another:
- Open a normal player account and time how long the form takes.
- Make your first deposit, using the payment method the majority of players would use, while the welcome bonus is active, and time how long the credit takes.
- Play the wagering requirement on the slots that the casino lobby promotes first, in the way described in the terms, and log each session.
- Make a second deposit, this time without a bonus, so that there is a clean cash balance to withdraw.
- Request a withdrawal, and time each step until the funds are in your account/wallet. Send any documents that are required.
- Contact support and have them answer two questions a player would ask, time how long it takes for them to answer.
The reviews describe how long it takes to complete each step. If a withdrawal takes 6 days to be processed, that is how long it is reported to take.
Why Payments Come First
Most reviews about casinos cover games and then banking, but I will cover banking and then games. I think how easily a casino releases your funds is more important than the quantity of games they have.
Every review on my pages has the same payment facts in the same place. These include the time of deposit and withdrawal, what documents, if any, were requested and when, what the minimum and maximum withdrawal amounts are, what the rules are that are easy to miss, same-route payouts, processing gaps on weekends, and general casino finance team behaviors. Crypto payouts get their own timings as they offer a window into how a casino’s finance team behaves.
Keeping Reviews Up to Date
Terms and conditions at casinos are changed frequently and without notice. Minimum withdrawals move, bonus multipliers change, and payment methods that were available one month may not be available the next. When casino terms change, the figures on my page that no longer reflect the terms are updated to reflect the change and the change is dated on the page.
The actual test result withdrawals are not changed. For example, if it took 21 hours to receive funds in October, that will be reflected in the October test. If the same casino is tested again, the new test results will be dated and noted.
Background
I have worked in payment operations and customer support, and my experience dealing with the banking side of business gave me an understanding of how delays are generally due to process rather than a decision concerning the customer.
It taught me to keep a log. Every test I run has a timestamped record of each deposit, each session, each support chat, and each withdrawal. The tables in my reviews are built from that log, which is why they may include odd figures, like a 1-minute 52-second deposit, or a withdrawal approved at 11:23. Round numbers are usually a sign that nothing has been measured.
What I Write About
My reviews include information a player can’t know by not funding an account:
- How quickly a deposit is credited and whether a bonus is awarded at the same time
- What the wagering requirement looks like in euros
- Which documents a casino requests prior to its first payout, and how long it takes to verify them
- How long it takes for a withdrawal request to be processed and money cleared to player
- Whether live chat knows the bonus rules it is being asked about
Casino Reviews I Have Completed
- i24slots Casino Welcome Bonus Review - €150 in two Visa deposits, 2,312 spins across 7 slots, 50x wagering on the bonus, bank wire withdrawal approved in 1 day 19 hours after three documents
- Kyngs Casino Welcome Bonus Review - 0.00052 BTC and €50 USDT deposited, 2,648 spins across 7 slots, 35x wagering on deposit plus bonus, USDT withdrawal in the wallet after 21 hours 36 minutes with no KYC
Testing Method and Resources
- How to Test Welcome Bonuses - the testing method every review follows
- Best Casino Welcome Bonuses - the welcome bonuses from every casino tested on this site, with their bonus scores
- Crypto Casino Welcome Bonuses - deposit and withdrawal timings from real crypto tests
- Our Casino Review Process - how the tests are run and scored
Learn more about responsible gambling practices and player protection resources.
Final Thoughts
A casino can put anything it wants on its promotions page. The only way to find out what it does with your money is to send some and ask for it back. That’s the entirety of my method. If a review on my pages states that a casino paid out within a day, it did so within that time frame. If it states three documents were required, then that was the case.
None of the reviews I post make gambling safe. The games are structured to keep more than it pays out in the long run, and a bonus does not change that. What a review states can give insight on what kind of casino it is before you potentially lose money finding out for yourself.
- Rihards Ozols
Payments and Welcome Bonus Tester, SpinAudit