How We Review a Casino Bonus
Most bonus pages you will find for Ireland quote a headline figure copied from an operator's global homepage — the one nobody in Ireland is actually shown. Everything on this site is read off the Irish-facing version of each site instead. This page sets out what we check, what we deliberately leave blank, and what takes a casino off the list no matter what it pays us.
The principle
A bonus is only worth reading about if the number in front of you is the number you will be offered. Frequently it is not. The welcome package quoted on an affiliate site is usually lifted from whichever version of the operator's homepage the writer happened to load, and the version served to an Irish visitor is often a different offer — or, in more than one case on our list, an offer that only appears once you open the bonus selector or begin the registration form.
So the rule we work to is narrow, and we think more useful than a broad one we could not keep: we publish what the screen showed us, and nothing else. Where the screen showed nothing, the gap stays on the page.
The four steps, every casino, in the same order
1 · Open the site from Ireland
Not a VPN-flattened global version — the pages an Irish visitor is actually served, with the country and currency the site selects for them.
2 · Capture the offer as presented
We screenshot the welcome exactly where it appears, whether that is the homepage, the registration form or a bonus selector, and publish that figure rather than a tidier one. When an offer is split across several deposits, we say so instead of quoting only the total.
3 · Price the terms attached to it
A headline figure means very little on its own. We record the wagering multiple and whether it applies to the bonus alone or to deposit plus bonus, any maximum-win or maximum-cashout cap, the game weighting, the expiry window and the maximum stake permitted while wagering. These are the numbers that decide what an offer is really worth.
4 · Mark what is missing
Terms not published before sign-up, operator not named, licence not found, site unreachable from Ireland — each is stated plainly on that casino's entry rather than quietly filled in.
How the running order is decided
There is no score on this site, so the order is editorial judgement rather than arithmetic — and we would rather say that than dress a preference up as a formula. What goes into it: how substantial the offer actually shown to Irish players is once the terms are priced, how demanding the wagering is relative to the rest of the list, whether any cap makes the headline figure unreachable in practice, and how much of the terms a casino is willing to show before you hand over an email address.
What does not go into it is what any operator pays us. Where two casinos on the list show Irish players the same package, we say so on both entries rather than letting them occupy two separate slots as though they were independent choices.
Worth knowing: a larger headline with heavier wagering is routinely worth less than a smaller one with light terms. Every figure on this site is published alongside the terms precisely so you can make that comparison yourself rather than take our order on trust.
What disqualifies a casino outright
Some findings are not a scoring deduction. They remove a casino from the site regardless of its other qualities or its commercial terms:
1 · A withheld payout
If a legitimate withdrawal is refused or indefinitely stalled without a defensible reason, nothing else about the offer matters.
2 · No verifiable licence
We need to be able to check that the licence exists and is current. An unverifiable claim is treated as no licence.
3 · Terms that make winning impossible
Maximum-win or cashout caps set so low that the advertised bonus cannot pay out meaningfully, whatever the headline says.
4 · Retroactive term changes
Altering the conditions of a bonus after a player has already accepted it.
5 · Obstructive verification
Verification demands that escalate specifically when a withdrawal is requested, rather than being handled at account level.
How money changes hands, and what it does not change
We earn affiliate commission when a reader opens an account through our links, at no cost to the reader. That is how the research is funded, and it is disclosed in the footer of every page on this site.
What that funding does not do is set the order or the wording. Commission rates differ between operators, and if we ranked on them this list would look different. The specific commitments we hold ourselves to:
- Commercial terms are never an input to a ranking position.
- A casino that fails a disqualifying check is removed regardless of what it pays.
- We do not accept payment for a specific position or for favourable wording.
- Every page carrying affiliate links says so, in the footer, on every page.
- Where we have not checked something, we say we have not checked it rather than repeat the operator's claim.
That last point is the one we would ask you to hold us to. Every figure here can be traced back to a screen we captured; where something is unverified it is marked as such rather than filled in with a plausible number.
When we check again
A welcome offer is not a fixed property of a casino. Operators rotate packages, change the figure by market and occasionally drop an offer entirely — which is why a bonus quoted six months ago is close to worthless, and most of what is wrong with the pages this one competes against.
So we re-check periodically, and out of cycle when something prompts it: a change in the terms, a change of ownership or licensing, a pattern of reader reports, or a casino that starts or stops serving Ireland.
Reader reports
What we can see from the outside has a hard limit: an offer screen tells you what is promised, not what happens after you deposit and try to withdraw. Your own experience is the part we cannot capture, and where the two disagree we want to know — a consistent pattern of reader reports is one of the triggers that sends us back to a casino. If your experience does not match what we have published, write to [email protected].
We do not publish user ratings, and that is deliberate. Unverified rating widgets on affiliate sites are trivially gameable and tend to say more about who had an incentive to fill them in than about the casino.
Related
- Welcome bonuses — what a first-deposit offer is really worth once the terms are priced.
- Wagering explained — the single number that decides most of an offer's value.
- About CloverBonus — who writes this site and how it is funded.
- Responsible gambling — support and limits, including the Gambling Care Ireland helpline.
Play it safe. Bonuses are a discount on entertainment, never an income. Set a budget before you claim anything, and if gambling has stopped being fun, free and confidential support is available from the Gambling Care Ireland helpline on 1800 936 725 (freephone). More on our responsible gambling page. 18+ only.
CloverBonus is an independent guide and may earn a commission when readers open accounts through links on this site, at no cost to you. Bonus terms change frequently — always confirm the current terms on the casino’s own site before claiming.