Is it really hard to find the best online casinos in the United States? What does “best” even mean in this context? After all, you’re basically asking where the best place on the internet is to lose your money. (The house always has an edge, even at online casinos.)
You’ll find plenty of sites claiming they’ve tested hundreds or thousands of online casinos for various criteria. In reality, if the people working on those sites have “tested” even a dozen online casinos, I’d be surprised.
What kinds of criteria do these other sites claim to test for?
It’s usually stuff like this:
- Games available
- Payout speed
- Customer service
- Bonus and promotions
- Player safety.
Most of the sites who post about this sort of thin put their recommended casinos into a list with a title like “top 10 online casinos for US players” or “American player”. The modifiers change from pqge to page, too, so that they can capture more search engine traffic.
They’ll often use breathless adjectives to describe almost every aspect of the casino, like talking about the “enormous” bonuses available and your chances of having “huge” winnings. That part of their introduction often includes an exclamation point at the end.
These sites always claim to be written by teams of “unbiased experts” too. Most of the time, though, these pages are written by freelance writers, many of whom have no experience playing at online casinos and are just paraphrasing what they’re reading on other websites in the niche.
If you think there’s any kind of unbiased reporting happening on such a page, well, I guess you might as well blow your money at that site’s #1 choice.
Why Do Sites Publish Such Garbage?
If you have to ask why informational sites publish such garbage about online casinos, you’re more naive than I thought possible.
The answer is simple:
Every site you find ranking in Bing or Google for a phrase like “best online casinos for American players” is getting advertising money from the casinos in exchange for their recommendations. NO ONE is recommending online casinos without getting money in exchange for doing so.
How this money is paid is a matter of some interest.
Most of the time, the site owners are getting a percentage of the gamblers’ losses. In other words, if you deposit $1000 at a site’s recommended online casino, you’re coded to that site, and the site owner gets a percentage (maybe 20%, maybe more) of the amount you lose. If you lose the entire $10000,. the site owner gets at least $200 in commission.
Does that sound like a financial environment that’s going to result in unbiased, honest reviews and recommendations to you?
Yeah, me neither.
Another way that website owners make money is by getting a flat fee per depositing player that they refer. This is usually at least $100,. but a large website that refers a lot of players might get $500 (or more) per first time depositor.
The cleanest model, though, is the flat advertising model. This is where a casino pays a flat monthly fee to be featured on a website. This amount varies based on the amount of traffic the site gets.
Regardless of the business model, website owners don’t have much incentive to refer gamblers to US online casinos where they have a better than average chance of winning.
How Should You Choose an Online Casino
Try to find a website that’s run by an individual rather than one that’s run by some “team of experts.” Try to find one where the owner and author of the content seems to have a personality of some kind.. You want to find an about us page that looks like this, not a an about us page that looks like this. Can you see the difference?
One of the best pages about recommended online casinos is this one. The author makes it clear that he’s advertising the casino, NOT endorsing the casino. And he’s not shy about pointing out the problems with Bovada, the casino he’s recommending. He’s one of the only website owners who’s honest and transparent about his advertising.
He points out that Bovada isn’t licenses anywhere and doesn’t offer any kind of mediation in the event of a player dispute. He also points out the poor customer service he got there and the iffy (at best) results from one of his playing sessions at the casino.
We need more legitimate casino pages like that on the internet, but most people are so blinded by greed that they wouldn’t dream of publishing something like that because it might mean they’d see less profit.
If you find any criticism of a site on most of these casino portals, it’s usually over something minor, like not having a specific game or slot machine. There’s nothing substantive about such criticism at all.
Conclusion
I wouldn’t pay much attention to 99% of the pages on the internet and their claims about the “top 10 best online casinos for US players.” They’re mostly just trying to make money.
Also, since the house has a significant mathematical edge over the player, it’s almost irrelevant, anyway. You’re not really getting a fair game even when you’re getting a fair game.
