Data Sources & Methodology
Data collection & sources
Saferwager collects data from authoritative public sources. Our regulatory and corporate data comes exclusively from official registers — the Gambling Commission, Companies House, and public technical records. Our offer data is collected directly from operators’ own websites and verified against published terms and conditions. We do not use user-generated content, scraped reviews, or unverifiable third-party information.
Our process is straightforward: we pull records from multiple public registers, match them to the same real-world entities, and present the combined data on a single page. This cross-referencing is the core of what Saferwager does. It is the step that no individual government register performs, and it is the reason the same basic questions about UK gambling operators have historically been so difficult to answer.
UK Gambling Commission (UKGC)
The Gambling Commission maintains the official register of all entities licensed to provide gambling services in Great Britain. We collect licence records including the operator's legal name, licence number, licence type, current status, effective dates, and any conditions attached to the licence.
We also collect the Commission's published enforcement actions: regulatory settlements, financial penalties, licence reviews, suspensions, and revocations. Each action is linked to the operator it concerns.
Companies House
Companies House is the UK's registrar of companies. For every operator in our database, we retrieve the associated company record including incorporation details, registered address, company status, SIC codes, and filing history. We also collect director and officer appointments, resignation dates, and nationality data.
Where an operator is part of a larger corporate group, we follow the chain of ownership through subsidiary and parent company filings to map the broader structure.
Domain and technical records
For operators that hold remote (online) licences, we collect publicly available technical data about their primary domains. This includes WHOIS registration details where available, SSL certificate information, and basic hosting data. These records help verify that an operator's online presence matches their regulatory filings.
Persons with Significant Control (PSC) register
UK companies are required by law to declare individuals or entities that hold significant control. We collect PSC data from Companies House filings and use it to supplement our corporate ownership mapping, particularly for identifying ultimate beneficial owners behind multi-layered group structures.
Update frequency
Our core data sources are checked daily. When the Gambling Commission updates a licence record or publishes a new enforcement action, we aim to reflect that change within 24 hours. Companies House filings are typically reflected within the same timeframe. Domain and technical records are checked on a weekly cycle, as these change less frequently.
Every page on Saferwager displays the date it was last updated. If you notice a record that appears out of date, please let us know.
How we match records
The central challenge in building this database is that government registers do not share a common identifier. The Gambling Commission identifies operators by licence number. Companies House identifies companies by registration number. Neither system references the other.
We match records by combining the operator's legal name, registered company details, and other identifying information published across both registers. Where an automatic match is ambiguous, we review it manually before publishing. We would rather leave a connection unmade than publish an incorrect one.
In some cases, the legal entity holding a gambling licence is not the same company that trades under a familiar brand name. Where we can establish a clear link between a licence holder, its trading brands, and its parent company, we publish that relationship. Where we cannot, we state what we know and leave it at that.
Trust Score methodology
The Trust Score displayed on operator pages is a composite assessment calculated from publicly verifiable data. It is not a recommendation or endorsement. It is a summary of how an operator's regulatory and corporate record compares to others in the UKGC-licensed market.
What the Trust Score measures
The score is built from five categories of factual data:
- Licensing — Active licence status, breadth of licence types held, history of any suspended or revoked licences
- Enforcement record — Number and severity of UKGC enforcement actions, including financial penalties, with more weight given to recent actions
- Corporate transparency — Whether the operator is linked to a verifiable UK company record, active company status, disclosed directors and officers
- Technical infrastructure — SSL certificate grade, domain age from WHOIS records
- Operating history — How long the operator has continuously held a UKGC licence
Operators with clean enforcement records, long licensing history, transparent corporate structures, and strong technical infrastructure score higher. Operators with recent enforcement actions, revoked or suspended licences, or dissolved companies score lower.
What the Trust Score does not include
The score does not assess customer experience, withdrawal speeds, bonus terms, odds, game selection, or any aspect of the gambling product itself. It does not incorporate user reviews, social media sentiment, or any information submitted by operators. It is calculated entirely from official regulatory and corporate records.
Grade thresholds
Scores are converted to letter grades for readability:
- A+ (90–100) — Exceptional regulatory and corporate record
- A (80–89) — Excellent standing across all factors
- B (65–79) — Good standing with minor concerns
- C (50–64) — Fair standing with notable concerns
- D (35–49) — Poor standing with significant concerns
- F (0–34) — Serious regulatory or corporate issues
The exact weighting and formulas used to calculate the Trust Score are proprietary. We disclose the categories of data used (above) and commit to calculating scores consistently across all operators. The methodology may be refined over time as we add data sources or improve our cross-referencing, but any material changes will be noted on this page.
Offer scoring methodology
Most gambling comparison sites present bonus offers at face value: “£100 bonus” or “200 free spins.” These headline figures are marketing. They tell you nothing about what you can actually expect to walk away with after meeting the terms. Saferwager scores every offer we catalogue to answer the question operators would rather you didn’t ask: what is this bonus actually worth?
Est. Value Why a £100 bonus is rarely worth £100
Almost every gambling bonus comes with a wagering requirement — the number of times you must bet the bonus amount before you can withdraw any winnings. A “35x wagering” requirement on a £100 bonus means you need to place £3,500 in total bets before your winnings become real cash.
Here is the problem: every time you place a bet, the house edge takes a cut. UK online slots return an average of about 96% of money wagered (the “return to player” or RTP). That missing 4% is the operator’s margin, and it compounds with every cycle of wagering. The more times you have to play through a bonus, the less of it survives.
| Headline offer | Wagering | What survives |
|---|---|---|
| £100 bonus | No wagering | Most of it — you can withdraw |
| £100 bonus | 10x wagering | Substantially less — house edge applied 10 times |
| £100 bonus | 35x wagering | A fraction — most lost during play-through |
| £100 bonus | 65x wagering | Close to nothing — almost entirely eroded |
The “Est. value” figure shown on every offer card is Saferwager’s estimate of the real cashable value after wagering, calculated using a mathematical model based on average UK slot RTPs and the specific wagering multiplier. The model also accounts for offer type: free spins are valued per spin, free bets discount the non-returned stake, and cashback with no wagering retains full face value.
This is a statistical estimate based on average outcomes, not a prediction for any individual player. Someone might beat the odds; someone else might lose faster. But across thousands of players, these estimates reflect the economic reality of what operators are actually giving away.
0–100 Value Score
The Value Score wraps multiple factors into a single number that answers: how good is this offer overall? It considers three things:
- Effective value — The estimated real cashable value after wagering (described above). This is the single most important factor. A £10 no-wagering bonus can outscore a £500 bonus with 50x wagering.
- Wagering friendliness — Lower wagering requirements score higher. An offer with no play-through is the gold standard. An offer requiring 50x wagering scores poorly regardless of its headline amount, because the mathematical reality is that most of the bonus will not survive.
- Accessibility — Does the offer require a deposit? How much time do you get to meet the wagering? Are you restricted to £2 maximum bets while wagering (making it nearly impossible to finish in time)? More accessible offers score higher.
A high Value Score doesn’t mean “take this offer.” It means the terms are more favourable relative to other offers in the market. A low score means the terms are heavily stacked toward the operator.
0–100 Transparency Score
The Transparency Score measures something different: not whether an offer is good, but whether the operator is honest about what it is. This matters because the UK Gambling Commission’s licence condition 7.1.1.2 requires that bonus terms must be presented “in a clear and accessible way.” Many operators do not meet this standard in practice.
We assess:
- T&C completeness — Are full terms and conditions actually published? Some operators link to a generic T&C page that doesn’t mention the specific offer at all.
- Key terms disclosure — Are the wagering requirement, time limit, maximum bet during wagering, and game restrictions stated up front, before the player opts in? Or are they buried in paragraph 14 of a document most people will never read?
- Claim mechanic clarity — Is it clear how to actually get the bonus? Some offers require obscure opt-in steps, bonus codes, or specific bet sequences that are not obvious from the promotion page.
- Full T&C text — Is the complete legal text of the terms accessible? Operators who publish comprehensive, readable terms score higher than those who provide vague summaries or hide behind “full terms available upon request.”
An offer can score well on Value but poorly on Transparency (decent terms, badly disclosed) or the reverse (poor terms, but at least they told you). Both scores matter.
Consumer Protection Risk Level
Each offer is classified into one of four risk levels. This is a consumer protection assessment based on patterns that academic research and regulatory enforcement actions have consistently associated with player harm.
The classification considers:
- Wagering requirements above 35x — At this level, the effective value of most bonuses drops below 25% of the headline amount. The UKGC has raised concerns about high wagering as a barrier to fair treatment of customers.
- Short time limits — A 7-day window to complete 35x wagering on a £100 bonus means placing over £500 per day. This creates pressure to gamble more intensely than intended, a recognised risk factor for problem gambling.
- Restrictive maximum bets during wagering — A £2 max bet combined with high wagering requirements can make it mathematically very difficult to clear the bonus in the time allowed, which may lead to forfeiture of winnings.
- Missing or incomplete terms — If the operator does not clearly state the conditions, the player cannot make an informed decision. This is a regulatory red flag.
We would not call any offer a “scam” — these are licensed, regulated offers — but the terms may not be in the player’s interest.
A+ to F Incentive Grade
The Incentive Grade appears on site profile pages and answers: across all of this brand’s offers, how do they treat their customers? It is a single letter grade aggregated from every offer a brand has in our database.
The grade weighs several factors:
- Overall offer quality — The average Value Score across all offers, plus extra credit for brands that have at least one genuinely good offer
- Transparency track record — Brands that consistently disclose terms clearly score higher than those with a pattern of poor disclosure
- Offer variety — A brand offering deposit matches, free spins, cashback, and loyalty rewards gives players more choice than one with a single offer type
- Risk profile — What proportion of the brand’s offers are classified as low risk? A brand where most offers are low risk scores higher than one where half the offers carry high-risk terms
Grades use the same scale as Trust Scores: A+ (90–100), A (80–89), B (65–79), C (50–64), D (35–49), F (0–34).
The Incentive Grade is completely independent of the Trust Score. A brand can earn an A for generous, well-disclosed offers while simultaneously holding an F Trust Score because of enforcement actions. Or vice versa. The two scores measure different things and should be read together.
Limitations & corrections
Saferwager does not verify the day-to-day operations of any gambling site. We can confirm whether an operator holds a valid licence and whether they have been subject to regulatory action, but we cannot verify that a particular website is currently operating in full compliance with its licence conditions. Only the Gambling Commission has that authority.
We do not assess the quality of any operator’s product, customer service, odds, or user experience. We do not evaluate whether any gambling site is “good” or “bad.” We present regulatory and corporate data, and we leave the judgements to the people reading it.
Corrections and disputes
If any information published on Saferwager is inaccurate, we want to hear about it. We take corrections seriously and will update or remove data that we cannot verify. Operators, directors, and other parties who believe their data is incorrect or incomplete can contact us at data@saferwager.co.uk. We review all correction requests and respond within five working days.
We will always prioritise accuracy over speed. If a data point is disputed and we cannot independently verify it, we will remove it until the matter is resolved.
This page was last updated on 21 February 2026.