How We Rate AstroPay Casinos

A ranking is only worth something if you can see how it was built. This page walks through what happens between a casino landing on our shortlist and a score appearing next to its name, in the order it actually happens. Samuel Hartley, who writes the reviews on this site, runs the process.

Step 1: The Shortlist

A casino gets looked at for one reason: AstroPay has to be in its cashier. We don't start from a list of famous brands and check whether they happen to take AstroPay. We start from the payment method and work outwards, because that's the question a reader arrives with.

Before any scoring, a casino has to clear three hurdles. It needs a named operating company and a gambling licence we can look up. It has to accept players from the country edition it's being reviewed for. And its bonus terms need to be published in full, not summarised on a landing page. Miss any one of those and the review stops there.

Step 2: Account and Cashier Checks

Next comes the part most reviews skip: the cashier itself. We look at which AstroPay products it takes (wallet, virtual card or voucher), whether AstroPay appears as a withdrawal option or only as a deposit, what the minimum and maximum amounts are, and which currency the account runs in. For UK readers that last point matters more than it sounds. Most offshore casinos hold balances in euros, so a pound-funded AstroPay wallet pays a conversion on the way in.

We also read the payment and verification terms. When does the casino ask for ID? Does the name on the AstroPay account have to match the casino account exactly? Are withdrawals returned to the deposit method? Those rules decide whether a payout goes smoothly, and they're usually buried a long way below the welcome banner.

Step 3: Bonus Terms, Games and the Operator

The welcome offer gets taken apart line by line: wagering multiple, maximum bet while the bonus is active, how long you have to finish, and whether e-wallet deposits are excluded. A large headline bonus with 40x wagering and a seven-day clock can score below a modest one with room to breathe.

Then the game library (size, studios, live tables) and the operator's background: who owns the brand, which body licenses it, and how long it has been running under that name.

Step 4: The Score

Everything above feeds five criteria. The weights are flat on purpose: payments lead, because this is a site about one payment method, but no single area can carry a weak casino to the top of a list.

Each criterion is marked out of 10 and multiplied by its weight. That's why a casino with a big bonus and a deep lobby can sit above one that pays back to AstroPay faster: the payment edge is real, but it's 22% of the result, not all of it.

Checks for UK Players

None of the casinos we list hold a UK Gambling Commission licence, and we never suggest otherwise. They're licensed offshore, in places such as Curaçao or Kahnawake, which is also why GamStop doesn't cover them. So for the UK edition we state the actual licence on every review, note when a cashier runs in euros rather than pounds, and check what the casino offers for limits and self-exclusion, since the national scheme won't apply. Our country editions run the same process against their own market: the local regulator's position, the local currency and the local help lines.

What a Score Can't Tell You

A score is a snapshot of what we verified in the latest review cycle. Casinos change bonus terms, drop payment methods and adjust limits without telling anyone, and we revisit scores when we spot a change. Payout times also depend on your own account: an unverified profile or a name mismatch can slow things down at any casino on the list.

One more thing you should know. This site earns a commission when some readers sign up through our links. That arrangement never buys a place on a list or a higher score; every casino goes through the same steps above.