Methodology
One grid, published in full. Five criteria, each scored in points out of its weight, summed to a total out of 100, then reduced by any cap that applies. No curve, no editorial adjustment, no second pass.
Grid version: 1.0.0 · Updated: 2026-09-14
The five criteria
Every sub-score is points out of its weight, so the total is a sum you can recheck by hand.
| Criterion | Weight | What it measures |
|---|---|---|
| Payout proof | 25 | Does money come back out, and can anyone outside the operator show that it did? We look for payout transaction hashes we can open on a block explorer, for withdrawal behaviour we or others have observed, and for the pattern of unresolved complaints. An operator that pays quickly but leaves no public trace scores mid-range here: we are scoring evidence, not reputation. |
| Transparency | 25 | How much of the operation can a stranger check without asking permission? On-chain game logic and randomness, a treasury or bankroll address anyone can read, published provably-fair records, a named corporate entity, a real audit. A custodial house that publishes seed pairs from its own database is publishing its own records, which is worth something but not much. |
| Survival | 20 | How long has it run, through what, and what happens to player balances if it stops? Years of continuous operation through a bear market is evidence. Volume and marketing spend are not. A young operator scores low here even when everything else about it looks good, because there is nothing yet to score. |
| Freedom | 15 | What does using it cost a player in control? Custody of funds, whether an account is required at all, KYC thresholds and when they trigger, withdrawal limits, geographic gates. Non-custodial wallet play with no account scores at the top of this criterion. |
| Value | 15 | Catalogue depth, and whether the economics are stated in figures rather than adjectives. Published house edge, stated fees, rakeback and rewards with numbers attached. Bonus marketing with no figures behind it scores nothing. |
| Total | 100 | — |
Caps
Caps are applied after the five sub-scores are summed, in a fixed order. They only ever reduce a score.
| Caps | Total | What it measures |
|---|---|---|
| Not deposit-tested | total ≤ 85 | We have not put money in, taken it out and reconciled it. Until we have, the top of the scale is not available. Every operator in the index is in this state today, which is why no total reaches 86. |
| Custodial with no on-chain game logic | transparency ≤ 12 of 25 | A custodial operator at tier T2 or below holds the funds and runs the games on private servers. Whatever it publishes about fairness, an outsider cannot verify a single bet from chain data, so transparency cannot pass half marks. |
| Dark | survival = 0, removed from the live ranking | An operator that has closed or stopped responding has failed the only survival test that matters. It keeps its other sub-scores as a record and moves to the graveyard. |
The on-chain tier ladder
The tier is a description of the stack, not a grade. It does not feed the total directly; it constrains what transparency can be. A "?" after a tier means the operator claims it and we have not confirmed it — we record the claim and mark it as a claim.
| Tier | On-chain tier | Description |
|---|---|---|
| T0 | Unmeasured | Not yet placed on the ladder. We have no reading of how much of the stack, if any, touches a public chain. |
| T1 | Fiat-first | Crypto is a payment method only. The operator is a conventional fiat house that happens to accept coins at the cashier. |
| T2 | Crypto casino | Deposits and withdrawals happen on-chain, but the games are a black box. Provably-fair seed pairs may be published, but they are the operator's own records: accounts, game logic and the bankroll live on private servers, and no bet is verifiable from chain data. |
| T3 | Hybrid | Crypto rails plus a genuine on-chain artefact — a public treasury or bankroll contract, or provably-fair originals anchored on-chain — while the games themselves still run mostly off-chain. |
| T4 | Fully on-chain | Game logic, randomness (on-chain RNG or a VRF) and payout all execute in contracts on a public chain, played from a self-custodied wallet. Anyone can replay the outcome from chain data. |
Statuses
| Status | Description |
|---|---|
| Listed | In the public index with a seed score. Not deposit-tested by us. |
| Watchlist | Listed, but young, thin on public information, or changing fast. Treat the seed score as weaker than usual. |
| Tested | We have completed a deposit, a withdrawal and a reconciliation. No operator holds this status yet. |
| Docs only | Scored from public documentation alone because the product was not reachable from our vantage point. |
| Dark | Closed, unreachable or no longer paying. Removed from the live ranking and kept in the graveyard. |
How we verify
- Deposit test: we fund an account or a wallet from our own funds, at our own cost, and record what happened.
- Withdrawal observation: we request a withdrawal and record the transaction hash, the chain and the date. We publish the hash, not a duration we cannot evidence.
- Treasury reading: where an operator names a bankroll or treasury address, we read it on a public chain and record the block or transaction we read it at, plus the date. A reserve with no reading attached stays "unverified" — we never print a figure we have not taken ourselves.
- Dated claims: everything an operator says about itself is recorded as a claim, with the date we read it, and kept separate from anything we checked.
What we do not do
- We do not sell placements, rankings or score adjustments. Scores are never for sale.
- We do not publish transaction hashes, reserve amounts, withdrawal times, audit links, licence numbers or RTP figures that we have not verified ourselves. Unknown stays unknown.
- We do not let a commercial relationship touch the grid. Some outbound links are affiliate or sponsored links, and every one of them is labelled "Sponsored link" on its face and carries rel="sponsored nofollow"; a plain link to the operator's own homepage stays on the review page beside it. Placement never affects a score, a rank, a badge or a cap, and nothing about it is an input to the arithmetic — the registry is published so you can check that yourself.
- We do not write per-operator marketing copy, and we do not accept copy written by an operator.
- We do not give financial or gambling advice, and we do not tell anyone to play.
Changelog
- v1 — 2026-09-14
- Seed grid published: 20 live operators, 1 in the graveyard, five criteria, three caps, five on-chain tiers. No operator deposit-tested, so every total is capped at 85 and every row carries a SEED badge.
Corrections
If a number here is wrong, recompute it from the published registry and tell us what you got. We will correct the row and say what changed.