Last Updated on: 26/10/2023
Verified by Lee James Gwilliam
On this page our experts recommend casino sites for various categories, and help you find the best online casino for your tastes.
But first, here's our list of the very best online casinos in the UK right now.
Casino.com site uses tracking links that help us determine and recommend the most popular and in-demand casinos and collect the number of users who sign up, deposit, and get a welcome bonus.
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After signing up to hundreds of online casinos over the years, our experts know a thing or seven about what you should look out for.
Use these pearls of wisdom to maximise your chances of playing at the perfect UK casino online:
All casinos in the UK must have a licence from the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC). The licence number must be visible on their website, so it's worth finding it and sticking it in the UKGC’s searchable public register to confirm that it’s legit. And while you’re there, you’ll also be able to find out if it had any penalties given to it by the UKGC in the past.
Another tip for checking that a casino is the real deal is confirming that it's a member of GAMSTOP. This is a tool that allows you to easily self-exclude from all UK licensed online casinos if you feel you need a break from playing. If a casino isn't signed up to GAMSTOP, then it's likely to be an offshore operation that may not have the same protections in place as a fully regulated operator.
Look for a site that pushes the boat out for your favourite games. We’re talking about lots of variety when it comes to rules, gameplay, and bet sizes, to name a few. Do they have the best online slots for real money? Do they have live casino versions? Do they work properly on mobiles and tablets?
It’s also worth finding a site with a good mix of software providers, from mega suppliers such as NetEnt (the creators of many of the most popular online slots in history, like Starburst), Evolution Gaming (the world leader in live dealer games), and Playtech (the world’s largest supplier of online gaming and sports betting software), to smaller companies like Novomatic, Play'n GO, and Yggdrasil.
Online casino sites offer all sorts of casino payment methods, and each one comes with its own advantages and disadvantages. For example, debit cards are simple and safe, so you might want to consider playing at Maestro casinos. If you’re after convenient, fast transactions, then pay-by-phone casinos might be for you. Cryptocurrencies are less commonly offered, and come with restrictions. And there are many more.
Another question to ask is: Can you redeem a bonus using your method of choice? You should be aware that e-wallets are often excluded from bonuses as players can use them to sign up for multiple bonuses, so you may want to check this if you’re thinking about Skrill casinos, for example.
You should also be aware that credit cards are banned from being used at online casinos, while Visa Electron is on borrowed time – as of 13 April 2024, Visa Electron casinos won't offer this payment option anymore.
There's nothing more frustrating than having to wait ages to withdraw your money after winning at a top casino online. That's why it's essential to choose an operator and payment method that processes withdrawals quickly and for free.
Your payment method is a big factor here: Apple Pay casinos and e-wallets will be fast – sometimes the money is credited within minutes. At the other end of the spectrum are bank transfers and cheques, which can take days or even weeks to show up in your account.
The next factor is the casino’s own internal processes. Some take hours to process requests, while others will take days. Similarly, some online casinos can charge a withdrawal processing fee. In all cases, the operator must make this obvious to players before they make a deposit, so don’t ignore this.
We’ve said it before, and we make no apologies for saying it again – read the small print of any online casino bonus you’re thinking about getting. If there’s no such thing as a free lunch, there’s definitely no such thing as a no-strings-attached bonus.
Probably the most important things to check are the wagering requirements, which games are eligible, and which banking methods are allowed (or not) for withdrawing winnings, but there may be other conditions too so keep your eyes peeled.
To protect UK players, all licensed online casinos must have responsible gambling safeguards in place. These usually include features that set limits on the amount of time and money that players can spend on the site. These limits can range from 24 hours to permanent self-exclusion. To learn more about how to gamble responsibly, visit BeGambleAware.
Of course, there’s no reason to stop at one casino. As the next section shows, different operators specialise in different areas, such as the types of games they provide, their payout speeds, and which software providers they work with, among many others. So it’s OK to sign up to multiple casinos if that suits you – and you may qualify for a generous welcome bonus each time…
Finally, if you're finding it hard to choose between two or three casino sites, or you want a quick glance at any operators key specs and stats, then let our Casino Comparison tool do the heavy lifting. You can use it to instantly compare offers, game libraries, and much more.
To access the tool, just click the button below (opens in a pop-up).
If you’re a slots fan, you truly are spoilt for choice when it comes to finding decent UK slot sites. Most online casinos are well stocked with slot titles of all shapes and sizes, including new titles, classics, jackpots, and themed slots.
So what separates a top casino online for slots from something that’s pretty meh? Well, one factor is the sheer number of games: some sites have a couple of hundred slots, while others will have several thousand to pick from. Another is how many slot creators they feature: as a rule of thumb, the bigger and more diverse list, the better. Yet another factor is how attractive the slot bonuses are: do they really give you more opportunity to play and win on your favourite games, or are the T&Cs too restrictive?
Pros: More than 5,000 slot games to try from most of the top slot creators.
Cons: Lacks some of the big-name slot games.
In our view: Party Casino is a super place to play slots due to its diverse range of games. It's also incredibly easy to navigate, with slots organised by provider, New Slots Games, and Exclusive Slots, plus there's a search tool that lets you look for anything on the site.
A lot of good online blackjack sites will feature a similar range of glamorous, high-definition virtual and live blackjack games from the leading software providers. The main differences among these games are the rules, the RTP (return to player) percentages, and minimum and maximum bet limits – some games have a maximum bet of £100 while others go up to £100,000, for instance.
Pros: Videoslots has over 200 blackjack games and nearly 200 live dealer blackjack games.
Cons: Blackjack counts only 10% to wagering requirements in their welcome offer.
In our view: don't let the name fool you into thinking this casino only delivers when it comes to slots and nothing else. Indeed, it’s hard to beat the sheer number of blackjack options at the site, especially for live blackjack.
Online roulette sites and games have evolved significantly in recent years. Now, as well as the modernisation of traditional live roulette games, roulette titles have become more eye-catching, featuring new bonuses and entertaining variants.
Pros: Tons of virtual and live dealer roulette games, a beautiful site design, and a welcome bonus with no wagering requirements.
Cons: The free spins on the bonus are for the Book of Dead slot, not roulette.
In our view: PlayOJO has a generous selection of virtual and live dealer roulette games presented on a slick and easy-to-use platform.
If you love the convenience of an online casino but miss the authenticity of real table games, then live casinos might be up your street. Real croupiers run casino games which are filmed and streamed straight to your device.
Some of the factors that characterise an amazing live casino online are high-quality streaming, a healthy variety of games, and friendly dealers that you can interact with. Some of the most popular live casino games include Live Blackjack, Live Roulette, Live Baccarat, and of course Live Poker.
Pros: More than 100 live casino games, from six different providers, plus several rare bonuses just for the live casino.
Cons: The minimum deposit amount for live casino bonuses can be quite high.
In our view: LeoVegas has a live casino that’s superior to most with its generous range of games, including live blackjack, roulette, baccarat, game show games, poker, VIP games, and LeoVegas exclusive titles.
One of the benefits of new online casinos is they can start with a clean slate, they smoothly comply with any new gambling regulations, and they know what players expect from a modern online casino. There’s little excuse for a lack of innovation in their features, games, and bonus offering.
Pros: For a new casino, Rainbow Riches doesn’t leave out any major game types, with live casino games, slots, online casino poker, game shows, and bingo all available to play. You can play poker tournaments too and there’s a welcome bonus when you deposit £10.
Cons: It’s not always easy to find the page you want.
In our view: compared to other big-hitters, Rainbow Riches entered the scene quite recently and already boasts excellent live casino games, top online slots like Rainbow Riches of course, plus progressive jackpots like Mega Moolah: Absolootly Mad.
The top online casinos in the UK offer bonuses for all kinds of players – those who play slots, live casino lovers, fans of table games, game show nuts, high rollers, and players on a budget.
But it’s not all rosy. Most casinos won’t have offers for all game types, with live casino games often left out. And even when there is plenty of choice, most bonuses come with T&Cs attached that you need to dig into. There are always hundreds of bonuses for slot fans each day, for example, but you’ll have to work hard to find the best slots bonus in the UK.
Pros: There’s a high limit on its welcome bonus of £1,000 plus extra spins on a popular slot game. Plus, the Promotions page is full of choices like Cashback Weekends and Midweek Cashback.
Cons: The site design is a little blocky.
In our view: SpinzWin seems to have as many intriguing casino bonuses as any other casino site online, such as bonuses and slot competitions on specific days of the week, plus we like the look of the welcome bonus. There's also a decent game selection to bet on.
If you’re looking for the biggest payouts, it’s worth checking a casino’s bonus offers and their T&Cs, and seeing how many progressive jackpot slots and live casino games it has.
A casino online with generous promotions and reasonable T&Cs for new and existing players is probably going to be a fun place to play at. In terms of individual casino games, progressive jackpot slots can boast prizes of more than £15m.
Pros: Some of its jackpot games like The Finer Reels of Life: Wowpot have jackpots approaching £30m.
Cons: It can be difficult to sort through the almost 6,000 casino games on offer.
In our view: Mr Vegas is proud of its jackpot games for good reason – it has some of the best ever progressive jackpots like Mega Moolah. You can see a list of current jackpots in size order on the left of the homepage.
The best UK online casinos work perfectly on all mobile devices. These days, you can log onto any mobile casino using your normal browser, but some UK casinos have dedicated casino apps that can be downloaded for iOS and Android devices.
Pros: Offers mobile play on most devices and has an excellent set of diverse games.
Cons: Limited range of payment methods.
In our view: Slot Boss is a modern casino site that has a great mobile app available on both iOS and Android devices. It also has all the games that most casino players want.
Every year you can read about online casinos winning awards for excellence. Some of the reasons these casinos earn recognition are super customer service, innovation, vision, originality, community work, their live casino, potential shown, and safe gambling initiatives.
Pros: Has shown outstanding customer service in recent times.
Cons: A limited range of payment methods.
In our view: Casumo has been recognised for being the best casino in the UK for customer service, which can be an underrated aspect of a great online casino. It recently won Customer Service Company of the Year at the International Gaming Awards (IGA). It is also a great baccarat online casino, if that’s your thing.
You may be wondering how we pick out the top UK casinos from the hundreds out there. And it’s a fair question.
After all, the last thing you want to do is sign up to a rogue casino just because some dodgy site tells you to, only to find that it doesn't give you the bonus you were expecting or takes ages to actually pay out your winnings.
So here we pull back the curtain to show you the process our team of experts follows. They have decades of experience playing UK casino sites between them, and they go through six steps to make sure they only recommend the best casino sites in the UK.
Before we review an online casino, we first make sure that it has the right systems in place to protect you – meaning your data and your money. One way is to check that they hold a licence from the UK Gambling Commission, as this forces them to have tough security systems and be audited regularly.
We also look at their Know Your Customer (KYC) procedures – we know that this can sometimes be frustrating when you want to sign up and start playing at casinos online, but it’s a sign that the casino takes these issues seriously.
All casinos offer bonuses that seem really attractive at first glance. But not all bonuses pass muster when you look at the small print – even the best casino in the UK will have all manner of restrictions and obligations attached.
So whether it's free spins, a deposit match bonus, or even a no deposit bonus, we read the T&Cs and then claim it as a customer to check that it works as well as it should. And it’s not just promotions for new players that interest us – we also analyse loyalty rewards and cashback deals for existing customers too.
It’s a hard life, but someone has to test the casino’s game collection, right? To do that, we play on desktop, phones, and tablets, including on Windows, iOS, and Android, to make sure they work as they should. We also want to see a genuinely impressive game library, and NOT a flashy but ultimately shallow collection of titles.
Simply put, a modern casino should offer a range of payment options for depositing and withdrawing money. This means new solutions like e-wallets, traditional methods like debit cards and bank transfers, and everything in between. Just as important is how long the casino site takes to pay out winnings. As far as we’re concerned there’s no excuse for taking days to process a request, so if a casino takes ages then it doesn’t make our list.
The next step is to see how the online casino matches up to its competitors. After all, it might be a pretty good casino overall, but on this page we’re only interested in the best of UK casino sites. After playing on so many, our experts know a thing or two about how they compare, but we also use data. Luckily, Casinos.com is the only site out there to collect so many data points on casinos, so when we say something is the best, we really mean it.
The final step is to see how the online casino really treats its customers. We want our readers to enjoy their time at the casinos we recommend, so we expect the site to push out the boat to make them happy. Not only do we anonymously test out the customer service channels to see how quickly and efficiently they deal with questions and complaints, we also find out what real punters have to say on online forums and social media. If an online casino gets a reputation for treating its customers badly, then it has no business being on Casinos.com.
Incidentally, if you feel you've been treated unfairly by a UK online casino and can't fix the problem by talking to the casino itself, you can always approach the Independent Betting Adjudication Service (IBAS), and ask them to adjudicate in your dispute.
Whenever you come across an online casino, one of the first things you'll be presented with will be a bonus trying to tempt you to sign up. They can come in many shapes and sizes, and the best ones give players a boost to their bankroll or the chance to try out new games for free.
In this section we'll look at the most common types of bonuses in more detail, then discuss the terms and conditions you should be aware of.
One of the most common types of bonuses offered by top UK casinos like Casiplay is the welcome offer. As the name suggests, this is presented to new players in a bid to get them to sign up at the casino.
Welcome offers can come in different forms such as match bonuses, free spins, cashback, and more. But while they can boost your bankroll and give you more chances to win, they are limited to new players only and come with wagering requirements.
In our view, the following casinos have the best welcome offers right now:
A rare treat if you can find one, a no deposit bonus is usually given to players without requiring them to make a deposit, and can include free cash, free spins, and free play. Sounds too good to be true? You're right to be a bit sceptical. No deposit bonuses can be a great way to play for free, but they often come with extremely high wagering requirements and usually have a low value.
Deposit bonuses are given to players when they deposit cash at the online casino. These include match bonuses, percentage bonuses, and fixed bonuses, and the idea is to increase your bankroll and give you more chances to win. The downside is they often have minimum deposit requirements and expiry dates.
Free spins give you a chance to spin the reels of an online slot game for free. This popular slots bonus can come in different forms such as no deposit free spins, deposit free spins, and wager-free spins. The benefits of free spins are obvious – you get to play slots for free and potentially win real money. However, they often come with game restrictions and win limits.
The following free spins offers are some of the best around right now:
Reload bonuses reward regular players and give them more chances to win, by adding more cash to your bankroll. They may be given out weekly or monthly, or as a reward for continuous loyalty. They often have a lower value than welcome offers and come with frequency limits.
There are also other common types of casino bonuses such as cashback bonuses, referral bonuses, VIP bonuses, and tournament prizes. These can offer benefits such as recovering losses, inviting friends, getting exclusive perks, and competing with other players.
One thing you need to be aware of when it comes to bonuses and promotions are wagering requirements. These are the amount of money that you must wager overall before you can withdraw any winnings from your bonus.
For example, let's say you're offered a 100% deposit match bonus worth up to £400, and it comes with a 35x wagering requirement. This means you would have to play that bonus credit through 35 times before you can claim any winnings – that means you have to place £14,000 in wagers to qualify for winnings.
It might help to think of the wagering requirement as a recipe you're following. To enjoy the final dish (your winnings), you need to gather and use a number of ingredients (place bets). Each ingredient added (bet placed) brings you closer to completing the recipe, and once you've added all the necessary ingredients, you can enjoy the final result.
Of course, the total wager would only come from recycling any winnings from the original bonus – you wouldn't need to deposit any more money. But it shows how tough it can be to actually win using a casino bonus.
Unsure of how much you'll have to wager according to the T&Cs of a deal? Stick the numbers into our Wagering Calculator to see what you're signing up to (opens in a pop-up):
Wagering requirements aren’t the only conditions to take into account. The other major factors to look out for are:
As you can see, it's essential that you dig beyond the flashy headline figures before signing up for a bonus, otherwise you could be in for an unpleasant surprise later down the line.
So, you think you may have found the best casino in the UK? Great, now it's time to sign up for an account. Most registration processes, e.g. like the one at All British Casino, include asking players to provide personal details like your email address and postcode, and to choose a username.
The sign-up process should go something like this:
Casino sites have a few advantages over their land-based cousins, but there are also some areas where traditional casinos have the upper hand. The following table compares the two:
Online Casinos | Land Based Casinos |
---|---|
● Bigger selection of games and different variants | ● Enjoy a more immersive experience and better atmosphere |
● Quicker pace of play | ● May have to wait for tables |
● Greater range of betting limits | ● Access VIP game tables |
● Free games available in a demo mode | ● Can play with friends |
● More accessible and no travel required | ● Can enjoy food and drinks |
So now you know everything there is to know about online casinos in the UK, why not head to the list of best casino sites at the top of this page and pick out an offer that's up your street?
James Briscoe Editor
James worked in non-league football as a press officer before copy-editing local and national newspapers from around Britain. He then stepped into the online casino world in Malta as a copywriter, and since then, he’s continued his iGaming journey as a freelance writer, and is delighted to be helping make Casinos.com content the best it can be.
There is no one answer on this. Some of the factors that can help determine the quality of an online casino are: licensing and regulation, game selection and variety, bonus offers and promotions, payment methods and security, customer support and user experience.
Yes, you can win real money with online casinos with a bit of luck. Online casinos use random number generators so the outcomes of games are fair and unpredictable. However, winning money with online casinos isn’t guaranteed and depends on various factors, such as: the house edge, the return to player ratio, the volatility, the game rules and strategy.
The speed of payouts at online casinos depends on several factors, such as: the payment method, the verification process, the withdrawal limits and the casino policy. Generally, e-wallets like PayPal, Skrill and Neteller are the fastest payment methods for withdrawals at online casinos, as they usually process transactions within 24 hours or less.
Casino sites in the UK are safe if they’re licensed and regulated by the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC). The UKGC oversees and regulates gambling in the UK and ensures that casino sites in the UK comply with its Licence Conditions and Codes of Practice (LCCP), which cover aspects of gambling operations such as security, fairness, responsible gambling and customer protection.
Yes, you can play casino games on your mobile in the UK if they are compatible with your device. Most casino sites in the UK are mobile-friendly and can be accessed via your web browser on your smartphone or tablet. Some casino sites in the UK also have dedicated mobile apps.
You can play a wide range of games at UK casino sites in the UK depending on your preference and skill level. Some of the most popular online UK casino games are slots, roulette, blackjack, baccarat, poker and craps. Some casinos also have bingo and a sportsbook.
Yes, UK casino sites are fair to play at. Most games are based on Random Number Generation (RNG) technology, which ensures game outcomes are entirely random. Both this mechanism and the return to player (RTP) percentages are regularly audited by independent auditors to make sure the casino acts fairly at all times.
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