Background
The payments job came first. My work there was transaction monitoring and source-of-funds review, and gambling merchants were a large part of the book. I learned two things that shaped everything since: that the checks which slow payments down are usually real and legally required, and that the timing of when a business chooses to apply them tells you almost everything about how it treats customers.
I moved into journalism in 2013, initially covering payments and then the gambling market as the two subjects kept colliding. Since then I have written about the 2019 verification rules, the credit card ban, the affordability debate and the long argument about advertising — and, more usefully, I have opened a lot of accounts and timed a lot of withdrawals.
How I work
Every site I write about, I use. Real name, real address, my own money, no press account and no arrangement with the operator. I deposit, I play, I request a withdrawal, and I write down the times. When something goes wrong I say so; when I cannot establish whether a problem was policy or a one-off, I say that too rather than guessing. The full process is on how we test.
I do not write about operators I cannot test from Britain, and I do not write a recommendation I would not act on with my own money.
What I cover
- Gambling Commission licensing and the LCCP conditions that actually affect players
- Verification, source-of-funds checks and the money laundering rules behind them
- Withdrawal mechanics: approval queues, payment rails and where the delays really sit
- Bonus terms, wagering arithmetic and how offers are priced
- GAMSTOP, self-exclusion and the support services around them
- Complaints, ADR and what IBAS can and cannot do for you
Where I am not an expert
I am not a lawyer and nothing here is legal advice. I am not a clinician; the material on responsible gambling points to people who are. And I am not a slot mathematician — where I quote RTP and volatility figures they come from studio documentation and the games’ own information screens, not from my own modelling.
Contact
Corrections, disagreements and withdrawal experiences that contradict what I have published are all welcome, and the last of those is the most useful thing anyone sends me. The address is on the contact page.