How we rate operators

Grand Bonuses covers players in countries that do not each have their own national comparison site, so the rating on an operator page has to travel: the same brand may be fully regulated in one country on this site and simply unreachable in the next. The rating therefore rates a single thing, the welcome bonus as the operator publishes it, and the casino, sports and poker tables are sorted by it, highest first. A separate five-factor scorecard on the operator page describes the operator itself. Below is how each number is set, what neither can tell you about your own country, and why commission has no effect on where an operator sits.

The rating: one offer against the rest of its table

Within each table the strongest welcome bonus is rated 5.0 and the others fall between 5.0 and 4.0, to one decimal place. What separates them is how much of the offer a player can walk away with:

Wager-free first. An offer with no playthrough outranks any offer that carries one, however large the second headline.
Amount, at equal terms. Same conditions, larger offer, higher rating.
Wagering. Lower effective wagering; a multiple that applies to the bonus only rather than to bonus plus deposit; free spins whose winnings are paid without wagering.
Match and cap. The match percentage and its ceiling come last.

A brand with no welcome offer gets no rating rather than a low one. No stars appear, and it sits below every brand that has an offer.

The scorecard: five factors, equally weighted

The scorecard on an operator page is a second figure, shown there only; it does not reorder any table. No factor is weighted above another. A weighting would be a private judgement dressed as arithmetic; an unweighted mean of five named factors needs no hidden assumption. Each factor runs 0 to 5.

Licensing. Which authority issued the licence, whether the licence number resolves in that authority's own register, and whether the brand's domain is covered by it. This is where the international picture is honest rather than flattering: a Malta Gaming Authority licence carries a published register and a complaints route, while several Caribbean licences carry neither in any comparable form. Both appear on this site; they do not score alike.
Bonus value. What the offer is worth after the wagering requirement, not what the banner says. Bonus amount, wagering multiple, what the multiple applies to, the maximum stake allowed while wagering, and the expiry. A cross-border extra: whether the offer is available in the reader's currency without a conversion that quietly erodes it.
User experience. Game and market breadth, whether the terms are legible in a language the reader can be expected to read, and whether limits and rules can be found without an account.
Payments. The deposit and withdrawal rails the operator itself publishes, weighted towards those that actually work across borders — cards, e-wallets, bank transfer, and in some markets local instant transfer — plus stated withdrawal conditions and minimums.
Customer support. Channels, hours and languages, per the operator's own published information. In a multi-country audience the language list matters more than it does on a single-market site.

What the scorecard bands mean

The composite is the mean of the five factors, to one decimal place.

4.5–5.0: a licence that verifies in a public register, terms that survive being read closely, and payment rails that clear across borders.
4.0–4.4: strong, with one clear weakness — commonly the wagering multiple or a payout minimum that is high for smaller stakes.
3.0–3.9: workable, with two or more soft areas. Read the terms twice, and check the withdrawal section before the bonus section.
Below 3.0: listed for completeness, not recommended.

On 15 of the 124 listed brands the five factors cannot all be scored, so those operator pages carry no scorecard rather than a partial one.

Why a good rating is not a promise for your country

A rating describes an offer, not your access to it. A country page lists the brands that accept players from that country — Ireland is one — so it shows a shorter list than the main tables. Local law is the reader's to check; several countries in our audience permit only nationally licensed operators, and nothing on this site overrides that.

The bonus arithmetic, and the cross-border part of it

Effective wagering rests on one sum. A €150 bonus at 45x on the bonus requires €6,750 of wagering before a withdrawal is possible. A €30 bonus at 20x on bonus plus deposit — 20 × €60 — requires €1,200. Price the turnover at a 4% house edge on fully-contributing games and the first costs about €270 on average, the second about €48. The larger headline is the more expensive offer.

Two things specific to a cross-border audience matter on top of that sum. First, currency: an offer denominated in euros, played from a country with another currency, loses a slice at deposit and another at withdrawal, and a bonus sized in a currency the player does not hold is worth less than the number printed on it. Second, the withdrawal minimum — a €50 minimum payout on a €30 bonus means the bonus cannot be cashed out on its own terms at all. The wagering calculator runs the headline sum for any offer.

What commission does not change

The site is funded by affiliate commission, described in full on how we make money. It does not move a rating or a scorecard factor, reorder a list, or decide whether a brand is covered. A rating changes when the offers in its table change; a scorecard factor changes with its subject — new terms, a new payment rail, a licence that has lapsed or moved authority — and licence changes are logged on new licences. If a figure is wrong, write to [email protected] or use the contact page; who writes this is on about us.

Neither number tells you how a payout or a dispute will go. A cashier's stated payout time is the operator's claim; RTP is a theoretical figure over millions of rounds, silent about any real session; and on an offshore licence, conduct in a dispute is the weakest point of the whole model, which no comparison table can fix. Check whether the licensing authority publishes a complaints route before you deposit.

A high rating means the bonus is a strong one for what it is. It does not mean the game is worth playing: the house edge is unchanged by any bonus, and over time the money moves to the operator. Read responsible gambling, use the operator's own deposit limits, and stop when it is no longer on your terms. 18+.

To see the ratings applied across the whole roster, use the comparison.