Printed 2026 · figures read October 2026
How we score an offer, from the headline down to the penny
What a pound of bonus is expected to be worth once ten times wagering has been played through a game returning 96 pence of the pound. Ten is the British ceiling, so sixty pence is the best this arithmetic produces.
01
The slots in the ranking are sold, the scoring is not
Every link printed in the ranking is advertising that has been bought, and an account registered behind one of them pays this publication a fee. That has to be said before anything else on a page about method, because a method stated after a disclosure is worth less than a method stated beside one. What follows is the arithmetic, and the arithmetic takes no instruction from the advertising.
Nothing here is a verdict and nothing here is a star rating. An offer is priced, not praised. The output is a figure in pounds and pence: what a reader hands over, what the operator credits, what the terms demand in turnover, and what survives that turnover on average.
02
Three inputs, and one subtraction
A wagering requirement obliges a customer to place bets adding up to a stated total before any of the money can be taken out. That definition does the work. It converts a headline into a quantity of staking, and staking has a price.
So the scoring needs three numbers and nothing more. The credit, meaning the bonus the operator hands over, with a reader’s own deposit kept out of it. The multiple, meaning how many times that credit has to be staked. The payback of the game the staking happens on, which fixes what each pound of turnover costs. Multiply the credit by the multiple to get the turnover. Multiply the turnover by the portion of each stake the game retains to get the cost. Take the cost off the credit.
The Commission’s own illustration of the quantity involved is a bonus of £10 carrying fifty times wagering, which asks for £500 of play before any winnings can be withdrawn. That example was published as an argument for capping the multiple, and the cap followed.
03
Twenty-five times is the line where a bonus is worth nothing
Four pence in every pound goes to the house where a game gives 96 pence back. Twenty-five times the credit therefore costs exactly the credit, and everything beyond that point is a bill rather than a gift. The table runs one pound of bonus through six multiples so the shape can be read down a column.
| Multiple | Turnover asked | Cost of that turnover | Expected to survive |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 time | £1.00 | £0.04 | £0.96 |
| 5 times | £5.00 | £0.20 | £0.80 |
| 10 times, the British ceiling | £10.00 | £0.40 | £0.60 |
| 25 times | £25.00 | £1.00 | £0.00 |
| 40 times | £40.00 | £1.60 | −£0.60 |
| 60 times | £60.00 | £2.40 | −£1.40 |
Ten times the bonus has been the maximum a British licensee may demand since 19 January 2026. The Commission picked ten in order to strip out extreme levels, noting that some licensees were then applying as much as sixty times. Three quarters of one operator’s own offers were already pitched at a multiple no higher than ten, on a breakdown the same response quoted.
04
Spins are converted to money before they are scored
A spin count is not a sum of money, so it is turned into one before it enters the arithmetic. Spins multiplied by the value of a spin multiplied by the payback gives the average winnings, and those winnings are then treated as the credit. Fifty spins at ten pence average out at £4.80 where the payback is 96 per cent, and £4.80 is the figure the wagering then attaches to.
Fifty ten-penny spins, carried through the ceiling
- Spins at their face value 50 × £0.10 = £5.00
- Average winnings where 96 pence comes back £5.00 × 0.96 = £4.80
- Turnover demanded at the ten-times ceiling £4.80 × 10 = £48.00
- Four pence taken from each pound of that turnover £48.00 × 0.04 = £1.92
- Expected to survive £4.80 − £1.92 = £2.88
An average across many attempts, not a forecast of one evening. A ceiling on the win would pull the answer down and could never lift it, and a game weighted below its face value raises the real turnover without changing the printed multiple.
05
Ninety-six pence stands in until a named game replaces it
96 per cent is the payback assumed wherever no particular game is under discussion. Where a page is about one title, the publisher’s own published figure for that title is used instead, with the version named, because the same game is often supplied in several versions at different paybacks and the one running in a given casino has to be read off the game itself. The technical standards oblige an operator to make the payback percentage easily available before a customer commits to gamble, or else the probability of the winning events occurring, together with an account of how the game works and how a prize is decided.
Bingo is the exception that gets no figure at all. A bingo room is under no duty to publish a return at all, since the same standards accept a description of prize allocation in place of a percentage. No bingo return to player is printed on any page here, and any that appeared would have been invented.
06
The cap governs the multiple and leaves three things standing
Game weighting came through the 2026 reforms untouched. The Commission recorded the point that a bonus can carry ten times wagering on all slots while counting blackjack at 50 per cent and roulette at 30 per cent, and decided not to act on it. A game counting at half its face value asks two pounds of staking for one pound of progress, so the effective turnover climbs above ten even inside the cap.
A percentage match is the second survivor. The cap sits on the multiple, not on the percentage, so a larger headline does not cost more per pound of bonus. It buys more bonus, and therefore more turnover. On a £10 deposit, a 100 per cent match produces £10 of credit and at most £100 of play-through, 200 per cent produces £20 and £200, 300 per cent produces £30 and £300, and 400 per cent produces £40 and £400. Ten to one in each case, and four times the obligation at the top of that list.
The third is a ceiling on the win itself. A licensee may not cap what a customer takes out of their own deposit balance, and that rule is settled. A maximum-win term attached to the bonus is a different thing and is not prohibited by it. Where a page meets one, the figure is shown as a ceiling on the answer rather than folded into the average.
07
Figures this site refuses to print
A refusal list is part of a method. Six entries stand on it.
- A payout speed for a named operator. Speed belongs to the payment rail, so it is attributed there and nowhere else.
- A current game contribution percentage. Weighting tables move without notice and none is published in a form worth quoting.
- A standard cap on bonus winnings. No such standard exists, so no number can stand for one.
- A bonus code presented as live. Codes expire, and many are aimed at one reader rather than at everyone.
- A count of a group’s live brands beyond what the public register showed on the day it was read, with that date attached.
- Any figure attached to a brand’s current promotion. Brands appear on these pages for their corporate facts, never for this week’s headline.
Where an operator has not published a term the scoring needs, the item reads as not published and the sum says what that means, which is that the cost cannot be established in advance. An unknown is printed as an unknown. It is not estimated, and it is not quietly rounded into the operator’s favour.
Two pages carry the rest of the apparatus. How we are paid sets out the commercial side in full. Who prints this names the sources a claim has to come from before it is allowed onto a page.