Stone Review
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Method ยท Published in full

Six checks, one score, nothing hidden.

Every brand on this website is scored the same way. The weighting is published below so you can disagree with it, recalculate it, or ignore it entirely and read the notes instead.

Weighting 25%

Licensing transparency

Is the licensee named on the brand's own pages, not just on a regulator's website? Is the licence number printed? Does support name the licensee when asked directly? A brand that hides who holds its licence loses more points here than anywhere else in the method.

Weighting 25%

Withdrawal experience

We deposit, verify, wager normally and then request a payout on a fully verified account, timing it to the hour. We record the pending window, the method used, and anything that delayed release. Headline claims are ignored; only measured outcomes are scored.

Weighting 15%

Bonus small print

Are wagering requirements visible next to the offer or buried elsewhere? Are contribution rates by category disclosed? Is there a maximum stake while a bonus is active, and is it stated before you opt in rather than after you breach it?

Weighting 15%

Customer support

We contact support at least three times, at different hours including one late weekend attempt, and time every response. We ask one licensing question, one payment question and one limits question, and we score accuracy as well as speed.

Weighting 15%

Safer gambling tooling

How many taps from the lobby to a deposit limit? Are loss, session and reality-check controls present? Is a time-out available without contacting support? Is GAMSTOP participation stated plainly? Depth matters, but so does distance from the front door.

Weighting 5%

One category measure

A single brand-specific criterion — mobile behaviour on a mid-range handset, or live-dealer range and stream stability — chosen for what the brand is actually built around, and named on the review so you know which one was applied.

What happens, in order

  1. Register lookup. We search the Gambling Commission public register for the exact domain. We record the licensee, the account number, the operating licence number, the listed activities and their status. If the domain is not there, the brand is not covered. No exceptions.
  2. Cold read. Before opening an account we read the terms, the bonus rules, the withdrawal policy and the safer-gambling pages as an ordinary visitor would, and note anything that is hard to find.
  3. Account and verification. We register an ordinary account with our own details, upload identification, and time how long verification takes to clear.
  4. Deposit and normal use. A modest deposit, used normally over several sessions. We do not accept special treatment and we do not tell the operator who we are.
  5. Withdrawal. A payout request on a verified account, timed to the hour from request to arrival in the receiving account.
  6. Support probes. Three contacts at different times, with the three standard questions.
  7. Write and score. Notes become a review. Scores are set from the notes, before any commercial arrangement is discussed, and no operator sees the copy before publication.
  8. Re-check. Licence details are re-verified against the register at least quarterly, and immediately whenever we are told of a change.

What we deliberately do not score

We do not score the size of a welcome offer. A large bonus with heavy wagering attached is not a benefit, and treating it as one is how most rankings in this market end up upside down. We report the terms and let you judge.

We do not score the number of titles in a lobby. Past a few hundred it stops being a meaningful difference and starts being a marketing number.

We do not score visual design beyond whether it gets in your way. A handsome interface that hides the cashier is worse than a plain one that does not.

Where our figures can go stale

Payout timings are a snapshot. Support response times vary by hour and by season. Promotional terms are rewritten frequently. Licence status can change at any time. This is why every review prints the date it was last checked and links the register entry — so that when our figure and the record disagree, you know which one to believe. It is the register, always.

Disagree with the weighting?

Good. Every criterion is published with its own score out of ten on each review, so you can apply your own weighting. If payout speed is all you care about, read that one line and ignore the rest of the number — the review is built to let you.