Where the money comes from
Most of the outbound casino links on CasinoClaude are affiliate links, meaning they carry a small tracking tag that tells the operator your visit started here. If you follow one of those links and later open an account or make a deposit, the casino may pay us a commission for the referral. That payment comes entirely out of the operator's marketing budget: you are never charged more, given a smaller bonus or treated differently because you arrived through our link. Those commissions are the only reason we can keep funding real deposits, real play sessions and timed withdrawals in eight countries without putting a paywall in front of any of it.
The three ways operators pay affiliates
Affiliate deals in this industry generally follow one of three structures, and it is worth understanding all of them, because each creates a slightly different temptation for a less honest publisher. The table below sets out how each model works and what it means for you as a reader.
| Model | How the operator pays | What it means for readers |
|---|---|---|
| CPA (cost per acquisition) | A one-off fixed fee for each referred player who signs up and deposits. | Creates pressure to push sign-ups anywhere. We refuse it as a reason to list a casino that failed our tests. |
| RevShare (revenue share) | An ongoing percentage of the revenue a referred player generates over time. | Rewards sites that send players to casinos they stay at. It never affects a score, and we still delist operators that deteriorate. |
| Hybrid | A smaller upfront fee combined with a reduced ongoing revenue share. | The most common deal we sign. Whatever the mix, the commission type is never visible to the reviewer scoring the casino. |
Why no ranking is ever for sale
Plenty of operators would happily pay for the top spot on our lists, and none of them can have it. Positions on every CasinoClaude ranking are decided by test results alone, and the size of a commission has no seat at that table. Casinos offering the richest affiliate terms have been left off our pages entirely when the testing did not support a listing, and operators already featured are removed the moment withdrawals slow down, terms turn hostile or support stops answering properly. We also do not accept payment for positive coverage, sponsored review scores or the quiet removal of criticism. If a commercial relationship ever ended because we refused to move a casino up a list, we consider that the system working as intended.
How the six-check method stays independent
Every casino on this site is scored against the same six checks: licence verification against the regulator's own register, a real deposit from a reviewer's own funds, extended time on the game library, a line-by-line reading of the bonus terms, a withdrawal timed from request to cleared money, and a genuine stress test of the support desk. The people running those checks work from the player's side of the screen and are not told what any operator pays us, so a casino with a generous affiliate deal gets no gentler treatment than one with no deal at all. Scores are revisited whenever fresh test data or credible reader reports come in, which means a commission cannot even buy an operator a quiet decline: the moment the numbers slip, the ranking follows.
Your side of the deal as a reader
Transparency runs both ways, so here is what we ask of you. Everything on CasinoClaude is written for adults aged 18 and over, or older where local law sets a higher minimum, and nothing here is financial advice or a promise of winnings. Online gambling law differs sharply between countries, and it is your responsibility to confirm that playing at any site we cover is legal where you live before you deposit a single unit of currency. Treat gambling as entertainment with a price tag, use the limit tools described on our Responsible Gambling page, and if our links help fund the next round of testing along the way, that is the whole arrangement working exactly as described. Questions about anything on this page can go to the Contact team at any time.
18+ and local law first
Never gamble underage and never gamble where it is illegal to do so. If play stops feeling like entertainment, our Responsible Gambling page lists free, confidential help for every market we cover.