How We Rate Casinos: The Cheetah Score

Every casino review on CheetahBonus carries a Cheetah Score from 1 to 5. It is not a gut feeling and it is not for sale. The score is calculated by a fixed formula from the data we keep on each casino: its licences, how it pays out, the terms of its active bonuses and its game library. This page shows that formula in full, so you can check any score you see on the site.

The four tracks

Each published casino is scored on four tracks. Every track gets a score from 1 to 5, and the Cheetah Score is their weighted average, rounded to one decimal.

Track	Weight	What it measures
Licence & safety	30%	Strength of the licence, extra licences, provably fair games, warnings and probation
Payouts	30%	Payout speed, cashout limits, minimum withdrawal and number of withdrawal methods
Bonus fairness	20%	The lowest wagering requirement among active bonuses and the minimum deposit
Games & support	20%	Game providers, live casino providers, game types and live chat support

Commercial terms with a casino are not an input to the formula. A casino cannot buy a higher score, and the same rules apply to every casino we publish.

Licence & safety (30%)

We start from the strongest licence a casino holds:

• 5.0 for regulators with real player protection and enforcement, such as the UK Gambling Commission, the Malta Gaming Authority, Sweden, Ontario, Gibraltar, the Isle of Man, Denmark, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, France, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
• 3.5 for established offshore licences with a working complaints process (Curaçao CGA, Kahnawake) and Mexico's national regime.
• 3.0 for any other licence.
• 1.5 when there is no licence on record.

A casino with more than one licence gets +0.5, and provably fair games add +0.25. An active player warning takes 1.5 points off, and probation takes off another 1.0.

Payouts (30%)

Getting paid is the part of a casino that matters most when you win, so payout speed carries half of this track:

• Payout speed (50%): instant payouts score 5, fast payouts 4, slow payouts 2. If the speed is not confirmed, the casino gets a neutral 2.5.
• Cashout limits (20%): no cashout limit scores 5; otherwise the score follows how generous the limit is.
• Minimum withdrawal (10%): the lower the minimum, the higher the score.
• Withdrawal methods (20%): 15 or more methods score 5, 10 or more score 4, 5 or more score 3, fewer score 2.

Bonus fairness (20%)

A big bonus is worth little if you cannot clear it. We look at the lowest wagering requirement among the casino's active bonuses (70% of this track):

Lowest wagering	Score
25x or less	5.0
up to 30x	4.5
up to 35x	4.0
up to 40x	3.5
up to 45x	3.0
up to 50x	2.5
up to 60x	2.0
above 60x	1.5

A casino with no active bonus of known wagering scores 2.0 here. The other 30% of the track rewards a low minimum deposit.

Games & support (20%)

• Game providers (45%): 80 or more score 5, 50 or more 4.5, 30 or more 4, 15 or more 3, 5 or more 2.
• Live casino providers (25%): 8 or more score 5, 4 or more 4, at least one 3.
• Game types (15%): 10 or more types score 5, 6 or more 4, 3 or more 3.
• Live chat (15%): available scores 5, not available 2.

When scores change

The score is recalculated whenever the casino data changes: a new licence, a new bonus, a change in payout speed or limits, a warning or a lifted probation. The date under each score shows when it was last clocked. Under every track on a review you can see the facts behind it, such as the licences on record, the lowest wagering and the number of withdrawal methods.

What the score is not

The Cheetah Score compares casinos on data. It does not tell you that a casino is legal where you live. Licensing is national, and in some countries online casino games are not licensed at all. Check your local rules first; our country pages explain them. Gamble only with money you can afford to lose, and use the deposit limits and self-exclusion tools your casino and your country offer.