How we score casinos
Every casino we cover gets a score from 0 to 100, with a letter grade, so you can compare operators at a glance. This page is the whole method, including what the score cannot tell you.
The five pillars
Each score is built from five pillars. For offshore operators the weights are:
| Pillar | Weight | What it measures |
|---|---|---|
| Payout reliability | 30 | Moderated reports from players who actually withdrew. |
| Reputation and complaints | 20 | Volume and recency of complaints, and any regulator action. |
| Domain intelligence | 20 | Domain age, hosting and site health. |
| Sanctions and jurisdiction | 15 | Screening against sanctions lists and the jurisdiction it operates from. |
| License and transparency | 15 | Whether a license number is published and checks out against the registry. |
| Total | 100 | Summed, then graded A to F. |
Where the data comes from
Payout reliability comes from moderated reports submitted by real players, not from claims made by the operator.
License claims are checked against the published registry of the authority named, rather than taken from the operator's footer.
Scores are recalculated on a schedule, and every page shows the date it was last checked.
Who does the scoring
An algorithm does, not a person. Each pillar is computed from recorded data by the same code for every operator, and the pillar scores are summed into the total.
What a human decides is the method: which signals count and how much each is worth. The method was designed by Otto Bergström, who has spent 18 years auditing iGaming operators. It is set in advance, applied identically to every operator, and published on this page.
No operator sees a score before it is published, none can request a change, and nobody can move one operator above another by hand.
How Niekie makes money, and why it cannot reach the score
Some operator links on this site are affiliate links, and Niekie may earn a commission if you sign up through one. Every link like that is labelled as paid where it appears, not only here.
The separation is structural rather than a promise. The scoring code reads five things: payout reports, complaints and enforcement records, domain intelligence, sanctions screening, and license verification. It has no access to the field that holds an affiliate link, so a commission cannot raise a score, lower a rival, or change a ranking position. Twenty-one of the twenty-nine operators we currently rate have such a link; they are scored by the same code as the other eight, and fifteen of the twenty-one that pay us rank below an operator we earn nothing from.
Nothing about placement is for sale. No operator can buy a position, a grade, a removed complaint, or an earlier review.
Where we check availability
We record which US states an operator accepts or blocks, and which countries it is offered in, so a ranking can be filtered to where you actually are.
Where we have not established availability for an operator we leave it in the ranking rather than guessing, so a blank record never reads as a rejection. Check the operator's own terms before you deposit.
How we make money
A casino cannot pay to raise its grade. The score is computed from recorded data by the algorithm below, and no commercial arrangement appears anywhere in it.
Questions
Are Niekie's rankings objective?
The order of a ranking is not chosen by hand. It is the score, sorted. The score is produced by a fixed formula from recorded data, so the same inputs always produce the same score, and any two operators with the same record rank the same way. The judgement in the system is the weighting of the five pillars, which is set in advance, applied identically to every operator, and published on this page. No operator is moved up or down outside that formula.
Can a casino pay to rank higher on Niekie?
No. A commercial relationship is not an input to the formula, and the formula is published, so this is checkable rather than merely stated. An operator cannot buy a position, buy a better grade, or pay to have a complaint or a regulator action removed. Operators with no commercial relationship to Niekie are scored and ranked on the same basis as those with one.
Does Niekie earn money from the casinos it rates?
Some operator links are affiliate links and Niekie may earn a commission on a signup. Each one is labelled as paid where it appears. The scoring code has no access to the affiliate field at all, so a commission cannot move a score or a ranking position. Twenty-one of the twenty-nine operators currently rated carry such a link. Fifteen of those twenty-one rank below an operator Niekie earns nothing from.
How is the Niekie safety score calculated?
Every operator gets a score from 0 to 100 built from five pillars: payout reliability at 30 points, reputation and complaints at 20, domain intelligence at 20, sanctions and jurisdiction at 15, and license and transparency at 15. Each pillar is computed from recorded data rather than from anything the operator tells us, and the pillar scores are summed into the total.
Who scores the casinos?
Nobody scores a casino by hand. The score is computed by an algorithm that reads recorded data: license registry checks, sanctions screening, domain records, complaint and enforcement history, and player payout reports. The same inputs always produce the same score. The method the algorithm follows was designed by Otto Bergström, who has spent 18 years auditing iGaming operators, and it is published in full on this page. No operator sees a score before it is published, none can request a change, and there is no step in the process where a person can move one operator above another.
How often are scores updated?
The checks run on a daily schedule and scores are recalculated from the latest data. Every page shows the date it was last checked, so you can see how current the figure is rather than having to trust that it is recent.
What does the score not tell me?
It is a measure of whether an operator pays out and behaves, not of whether you will win. It does not predict your results, and it is not a recommendation to gamble. It also does not cover game fairness testing, which is the job of the testing houses an operator contracts.
Why is a casino missing from my country's ranking?
We record which countries and US states an operator is offered in, and filter the ranking to where you are. If we have not established availability for an operator we leave it in the ranking rather than guessing, so a missing record never reads as a rejection. Always check the operator's own terms before you deposit.