Editorial Policy
This page sets out the editorial standards PlayOJO applies to its reviews, guides and comparison pages. It exists so readers can hold us to a written rule rather than to whatever feels reasonable in the moment. Broader context on who runs the site is on the About page, with the flagship operator review sitting on the PlayOJO Casino homepage. Where this page describes a procedure — review production, fact-checking, corrections, freshness — that procedure applies to every piece of content published on the site.
1. Editorial independence
Revenue for PlayOJO comes from affiliate commissions paid out when a reader follows one of our links to an operator and registers an account. The mechanics in full sit on the Affiliate Disclosure page. The editorial rule is short and absolute: being a partner does not earn a higher rating, and the absence of a partnership does not pull a score down. One consistent rating framework is applied uniformly to every operator that gets a full PlayOJO review. Scored outcomes include partner brands rated at six and below, and non-partner operators rated at eight and above. Sales, marketing and editorial run on separate workflows; the editorial team has the final word on every published score.
2. Sources we trust
PlayOJO content is built on four categories of source, ranked here by weight.
- Hands-on testing. Each review is built from genuine accounts opened on operator platforms, with real deposits made and real withdrawal requests filed. This is the primary source covering everything in a review apart from third-party facts that can be independently verified.
- Regulator and government records. Licence status checks, ownership filings, entries on the UKGC register, GAMSTOP records and citations of the Gambling Act 2005. Any legal claim that appears on PlayOJO traces back to one of these authoritative sources.
- Independent player-community evidence. Sustained reputation signals across AskGamblers, Casino Guru and Trustpilot, complemented by Reddit threads and dedicated player forums. Treated as a sanity check on testing outcomes rather than a standalone primary source.
- Operator-supplied content. Press releases, marketing pages and partnership briefings. We read these for context but never present them as if independently corroborated. Whenever a figure originates with the operator itself, the review states that explicitly.
3. Fact-checking
A four-step fact-check runs on every operator review before it goes live. Step one: the licensing claim is validated against the regulator's public register. Step two: the bonus arithmetic is rebuilt from scratch using the operator's published T&Cs and matched to the headline figure on the marketing page — any gap is flagged in the review. Step three: the listed payment methods, withdrawal speeds and minimum deposits are checked against the live cashier rather than the FAQ, since those two often disagree. Step four: claims about the game catalogue are spot-tested against named studios and named titles, confirming that marketing language tracks what the lobby actually offers.
Numerical claims that shift frequently — bonus terms, withdrawal limits, minimum deposits — are tagged in our internal tracking and re-verified on the schedule below. If a re-check shows the number has moved, the review is updated, the date at the top of the page is bumped, and a brief dated note is appended at the foot of the review describing exactly what changed.
4. Quotation, paraphrase and attribution
Direct quotation is reserved for cases where exact wording carries weight: regulatory notices, official terms and conditions, court documents. Paraphrase is the default elsewhere, with the original source identified inline. Operator marketing language is recast in our own voice; we do not republish operator press releases as PlayOJO content. Where any third-party figure shows up — be it a Trustpilot rating or an AskGamblers complaint count — the originating source is named and a working link is provided.
Statistical claims about gambling harm, regulatory enforcement, or the size of the British online casino market are taken from government, academic or peer-reviewed publications. Industry-association numbers are used only where independent corroboration is also available.
5. Authorship and AI assistance
Every PlayOJO article is authored by a named human writer or editorial-team member. AI tools are permitted, but only inside narrow boundaries: sketching outlines, summarising lengthy source material, checking grammar, generating alternative headline options. AI tools are not used for the analytical substance of a review — the score, the strengths-and-weaknesses summary, the comparative judgement — and they're not used to invent quotes or fabricate testing outcomes. Any factual claim that originated inside an AI tool is verified against an independent source before publication, and that independent source is what gets cited.
6. Corrections and updates
Corrections are handled in three tiers, scaled to the seriousness of the error.
- Minor corrections (typos, broken links, formatting glitches) are corrected silently inside one business day.
- Substantive corrections cover any fact, figure or claim that materially shapes a reader's decision. These are corrected within five business days, with a dated footer note added to the page describing what changed and the reason behind it. The original wording is retained in our internal version history but is not put back on the live page.
- Material corrections cover errors serious enough to flip the overall verdict, or regulatory developments touching multiple operators. These are corrected within two business days, accompanied by a prominent banner across the top of the page for at least 30 days, and a notice posted to a dedicated corrections log linked from this page.
Where a reader believes a PlayOJO page carries an error, the route to flag it is through the Contact page. Substantive complaints are recorded against the relevant review regardless of whether the correction itself is implemented.
7. Freshness
A full review revisit happens on every operator page at least once every 12 months, with key data points — bonus terms, withdrawal speeds, payment-method line-up — re-verified on a quarterly cycle. Topic guides and methodology pages get an annual review. The "Last updated" stamp at the top of every page corresponds to the most recent factual review pass, not simply the last typo-level edit.
8. Conflict of interest
Members of the PlayOJO editorial team do not hold equity in, accept consulting fees from, or maintain paid affiliate relationships with the operators they personally review. Should any possible conflict come to light, the writer in question is rotated to a different operator and the rotation is logged in our internal tracking. The site-level partnerships shown on the Affiliate Disclosure page are operational rather than personal in nature, and they run inside their own workflow separate from editorial.
9. Reader safety
The products PlayOJO reviews are adult products. Three editorial commitments follow from that fact. To start with, no PlayOJO page positions gambling as a path to income; the consistent framing throughout the site is "paid entertainment with downside risk". Next, every operator review and every comparative page links visibly — as body content rather than a buried footnote — to Responsible Gambling tools and the appropriate UK helplines. Finally, no PlayOJO page directs language, imagery or examples at minors, problem gamblers, or self-excluded players. Where any operator's marketing strays across those lines, the review states this plainly and the score reflects it.
10. Complaints, escalation and right of reply
Operators wanting to challenge a PlayOJO rating may submit a specific factual claim along with supporting evidence through the editorial channel. Three outcomes can follow: where the claim is correct, the review is updated and a correction note is added; where the claim is partially correct, the verified portion is corrected while the remainder stays as published with reasoning logged internally; where the claim is incorrect, the review is left unchanged and the operator is informed of that decision in writing. Pre-publication negotiation over scores is not something we engage in.
Concerns about PlayOJO editorial conduct are escalated through the Contact page, with complaints about specific reviews answered inside five business days. Privacy queries about the data we hold sit under the Privacy Policy page, with the matching technical companion on the Cookie Policy page.