·📅 29 Oct 2026
Over the past few months, Crypto Lists has fundamentally rebuilt how we review and rate the two core areas of our site: crypto casinos and casino games. In this article, we focus on the changes to our casino ratings.
For years, like many casino review sites, we spent too much time focusing on marketing, covering new brands, finding different ways to promote them and describing promotions in interesting ways while expanding our database. While we conducted casino tests, our approach was not always structured, detailed, transparent or easy to follow as it should have been.
This has changed considerably throughout 2026. Pushing new reviews is no longer a priority in itself. Neither is promoting every new crypto casino entering the market. Everything we do is now based on extensive testing and documentation, with several screenshots and blockchain data to confirm that our findings are correct.
We try to ask ourselves what matters most to players. Is the casino trustworthy? How quickly can you deposit and withdraw? Will they ask for verification anytime soon? Are the bonus terms reasonable? What happens when or if something goes wrong? It’s also crucial to remember that a successful withdrawal doesn’t guarantee that every part of the casino will work smoothly, just as losing money on a slot doesn’t mean that the stated RTP is incorrect.
In this editorial update, we’ll explain how casino and game testing has become an essential part of out work and the experience of regular casino players. Now we spend much more of our time depositing, documenting and playing and have stopped writing marketing slogans and rhymes. See the new methodology in this image.
Human Testing in the AI Era?
Artificial intelligence has transformed how content is researched, structured, handled, promoted and written. In the AI Era, where many casino reviewers use either ChatGPT, Grok or Claude, Gemini for research and inspiration, many also write full articles or even entire websites where AI handles almost everything. We don’t work that way.
While those tools can explain features, compare game providers, read through the terms and conditions and create detailed articles in seconds or minutes, we believe humans are needed to do the testing. There is an important distinction between describing a crypto casino and actually testing one with real funds, such as BTC, SOL, XRP, ETH or a stablecoin. You can draw totally different conclusions by testing with real money, and will immediately be exposed to factors such as verification requirements and how casinos handle that. A friend of mine in the same industry says that AI agents (bots) can play on casinos and do all the testing. When I asked him if an AI agent that’s only a few days old is allowed to play, despite minimum age requirements of 18 years, he said that the agent’s age is based on the owner and they have to send in ID to confirm everything. That might be true, but we still prefer to do all the testing manually, without AI agents. That way, we can draw our own conclusions about what matters for players and we prefer it that way.
AI can summarise a casino’s stated withdrawal policy according to the terms and conditions, but it cannot establish whether a withdrawal will arrive in the expected timeframe, or even faster, or not arrive at all due to some policies or excuses so the casino doesn’t have to pay out the winnings.
It can describe a game’s obvious and less obvious features, but that doesn’t mean those features have been personally tested, which features that can be seen as most exciting or addictive or that the published default RTP matches the version offered by a particular casino.
That’s why we believe experienced human reviewers remain essential. At CryptoLists, we use AI tools for research assistance, brainstorming, comparisons and sometimes for editorial improvements such as correcting grammatical errors. However, our deposit and withdrawal tests with crypto, gameplay observations, verification of important findings and final rating decisions remain the responsibility of our editorial team.
We want our reviews to explain what actually happened, our biggest frustrations when testing, what we appreciate the most and the main surprises. You can see all the latest real money tests here.
How We Changed Our Casino Ratings
CryptoLists casino evaluations now follow a more structured six-step testing process, taking into account the main challenges and what really matters for players. Whenever we conduct a full real-money review, we examine the registration process, deposits, gameplay, withdrawals, identity verification and the overall player experience.
To make it even more aligned with what players and sites around the web are saying and since we believe that no single review website, including CryptoLists, should have a monopoly on determining whether a casino is good or bad, our rating system is now more dynamic and comprehensive. After including player reviews on CryptoLists, we now have two main rating scores: Those with player ratings and those without.
if players have shared their opinions on CryptoLists, then 15% of the total overall rating score will come from independent player options. 25% will come from competitors since there might be preferences or overlooked problems in our reviews, and some of the competitors may have discovered problems that we didn’t. The remaining 60% of the weight will come from CryptoLists’ casino review. It’s probably easier to understand from an image, so here it comes:
For casino reviews where no players made any comments on CryptoLists (hint hint, feel free to make one), the review itself will have a 75% weight of the total score. The remaining weight depends on how many other reviews and different sources we can find out there. If it’s only one competitor included, they get 25% weight. 
If there are two competitors with reasonable reviews, the most trusted one gets 17% and the second most trusted one gets 8%. In cases where many different types of sites making trustworthy reviews, such as sportsbook reviews, bonus focused casino reviews or community focused ones, then four different sources can be used and the weight for each of them goes down compared to if there would be fewer.
For example, you can see that CryptoLists gave Cryptorino a rating of 7.1/10 in our independent review tested with crypto. The weighted score from our own review is 60% in this case. Two player reviews with quite different scores gave Cryptorino an average player rating of 6.5/10, that contributes 15% to the total score. According to five different review sites, the score varied from 1.3/10 up to 9.4/10. The overall rating after considering all those different scores is 7.6/10. You can see a full explanation of how we review casinos here.
What Our Real Casino Tests Shows
Our public transaction archive currently contains 103 documented deposits and withdrawal tests across 46 casinos, including more than a handful of casinos that have subsequently closed. Yes, it’s clear that many new crypto casinos underestimate the costs to run the first year, despite low licensing fees if they go for Anjouan. Many simply shut down in less than a year.
The results from our tests vary considerably. At Gambulls Casino for example, the first deposit took 22 seconds with XRP, while the second deposit took 12 seconds with Solana. The XRP withdrawal was completed in 48 seconds from making an withdrawal request until it arrived in our Exodus wallet, while the Solana withdrawal was completed one second quicker.
At Smash Casino, the experience was almost the opposite. Out Litecoin withdrawal took more than 10 days and 19 hours to complete, despite having identity approved ten days before the withdrawal arrived. I’m actually surprised that Smash Casino is still around.
Both tests are documented in our casino reviews, including blockchain transaction details and several screenshots showing all the details. Those examples illustrate why we don’t want to rely primary on what’s written in terms and conditions or payment page about transfer times. Smash Casino for instance, said by email that it usually takes 24 hours for withdrawals, but it took over 10 days and 19 hours. That’s quite som difference.
A casino claiming to offer fast or even instant withdrawals is one thing, but seeing how it actually handles withdrawals is another. Of course, each test represent a particular transaction under specific conditions. Results can change depending on the amount, blockchain, KYC requirements and casino procedures.
What This Means for CryptoLists Readers
The most visible difference is that we’re trying to publish fewer reviews supported by more meaningful evidence, based on real money testing. We want readers to understand both the advantages and disadvantages of a casino, including the problems that might otherwise only become apparent after a deposit or withdrawal test.
Our methodology will continue to envolve as we discover weakness, receive feedback and conduct additional tests. We till operate an affiliate supported website, but commercial relationships must not determine our editorial conclusions or ratings.
Our goal is straightforward: To make CryptoLists a more useful place for people researching crypto casinos.
