How the 100 brands in our Top 100 were selected
The Top 100 is a fixed list of widely used casino brands, chosen and ordered once from public market-presence data and frozen on 16 October 2026. The rank says how widely a brand is used – it is not a quality or safety rating. Quality is measured separately by the evidence-based Smarter Score, which never changes the order.
What the selection does – and what it does not
The selection answers one question: which casino brands are present enough in the market that players are likely to meet them? We used five public indicators, measured the same way for every brand, to pick and order 100 brands; the order was then frozen and is not recalculated. Popularity and traffic never earn Smarter Score points. Affiliate or commercial relationships were not an input.
Selection criteria and formulas
| Criterion | Points | Indicator | Formula |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brand recognition | 30 | Wikipedia page views of the brand’s article, summed over all language editions, last 12 complete months (Wikimedia Pageviews API, human traffic only) | log scale: 100 views → 0, 1,000,000 → full. An article about the operator group instead of the brand counts half. |
| Website traffic rank | 25 | Best rank of any brand domain in the Tranco top-1M list (a research ranking that combines Chrome UX Report, Cloudflare Radar, Cisco Umbrella, Majestic and Farsight over 30 days) | log scale: rank ≤ 1,000 → full, rank 1,000,000 → 0; not listed → 0 |
| International market presence | 25 | Number of markets in which a brand domain appears in the Tranco list: each national domain (e.g. .it, .co.uk, .bet.br) is a market, .com/.net/.org together count once as “global”; mirror and vanity domains (.io, .bet, .online …) do not count | ln(1 + n) / ln(13): 1 market ≈ 27 %, 3 ≈ 54 %, 12 or more → full |
| Game offering | 10 | Number of games the casino states on its own site (from our research records) | log scale: 100 → 0, 10,000 or more → full; not recorded → 0 |
| Domain history | 10 | Registration date of the official domain (registry RDAP) | linear: 15 years or more → full |
| Search demand | 0 | Not measured yet | Kept in the data model; weight 0 until a legitimate source is connected (see below) |
The total is rounded to a whole number. Ties are broken by traffic points, then recognition points, then name. Every brand gets a data-confidence label: High when at least four of the five indicators could be measured, Medium for three, Low for fewer.
Why the weights differ from the first draft
The starting model gave search demand 20 points. Google Trends only offers relative interest (not search volume), blocks automated requests from our infrastructure and has no public API; absolute search volumes require an advertising account. Rather than invent numbers, we kept the criterion at 0 points and moved its weight to the indicators we can measure for every brand: recognition +5, traffic +10, market presence +5. Website traffic is a rank, not visits: we do not publish visitor numbers, active players or registered accounts because no reliable public source exists for most brands. Wikipedia page views measure public attention, not search volume.
Attention trend
The trend column compares Wikipedia page views of the last three complete months with the three months before (shown only above 300 views in the earlier window): ▲ rising at +15 % or more, ▼ falling at −15 % or less, otherwise stable. It is attention on Wikipedia – not Google search interest.
Known limitations
- Domain matching: national sites are matched by the brand’s domain label (e.g. bet365.it, bet365.es). Brands with generic names (Guts, Duel, Thrill, BC.Game …) are matched on their official domains only. Unrelated sites can share a label; we exclude known cases (e.g. sweepstakes sites under the same name).
- Premium domains bought later look older than the brand. Domain history is therefore weighted lightly.
- Brands without an English Wikipedia article earn no recognition points even if they are well known in their home market (we start from English Wikipedia and add the language editions linked from it) – this favours internationally documented brands by design.
- Game counts exist only where we recorded the casino’s statement; other brands earn no points there.
Screening: who is not ranked
We do not rank brands that our own evidence review blocks: publication holds (unresolved identity, licence or critical-terms findings), casinos rated “not recommended”, and brands kept private by owner decision. Sweepstakes sites, state lotteries and B2B suppliers are outside the scope. Excluded from this edition:
On hold in our evidence review (open identity, licence or terms finding)
21BetsCasino · Admiral · Cashy · Casino Portugal · Casino Solverde · Casumo · CHEXX · Cybet · Golden Panda · Instant Casino · King Billy · King Casino · Lucky Block · Mega Dice · MetaWin · PASINO.ch · Royal Panda · Shabiki · Solcasino.io · StarGames · Thrill · Vulkan Vegas
Rated “not recommended” in our evidence review
bet-at-home · BetFury · Bets.io · Casino Days · Duel · Zodiac Casino
Out of scope (no longer an operator)
Casino.com
1 further brand is not shown by owner decision.
History
From 15 to 16 October 2026 this page described a separate “Global Relevance” ranking. On 16 October 2026 the list and its order were frozen: the 100 brands keep their original positions, nothing is removed or replaced, and the Smarter Score is shown next to each reviewed brand without reordering the list. The selection data (relevance-1.0, collected 15 Oct 2026) is kept here for transparency.
Ranking: SmarterCasinos Top 100 (Smarter Score 4.1).