The 777.com Charter for the Rating of Online Casinos

Overview

There are countless locations around the internet and beyond which provide what are considered to be very thorough and colorful reviews. Be it of online poker, casino gambling, or even sports betting, these catalogs are undoubtedly a good resource for some preliminary research of the user's subject of interest. We stress, however, that these reviews serve only the groundwork for a serious assessment of an online casino site and that to get the full picture one must go beyond the superficial and dig deeper.

We at 777.com openly make known that we also use these sources for our own research on gaming-related places either around the world or on the web. Other sites' comments, so long as they are objective, serve as a good tool to understand the impression made by a hotel or a website on its visitors and critics. We take these with a grain of salt, though, and work with the greatest effort to filter out what we suspect to be material which is not entirely objective.

What we are presently striving to do at 777.com's review section is to perform something that to the best of our knowledge has yet to be done in the gaming world. We would like to first introduce a public list of standards and guidelines that will dictate how to rate online casino sites. These will in fact be principles and values that will serve as the spirit of the list and will rely partly on user feedback and suggestion; a constitution if you will. While having our native methods of evaluating the different services before us, we wholly believe that a more well-formed position could only be established through the inspiration and experience of our members and guests.

We encourage you all to take a few moments and read through the rules and guidelines we are about to share with you. This is what we feel is the best approach to grade online casinos and by that, best serve our members. Enjoy your reading; we look forward to hearing from you.

Site's Software

User friendliness is a hot topic these days for any online service. Businesses that once required their users to go through a set-up process of downloading a particular program before previewing material are now faced with a more technologically-savvy market which has set higher standards.

Any online casino site which considers itself a serious competitor in the business has taken care to seek the support of a leading software provider to create and upkeep the site's layout. Observing all these preliminary efforts is a good start for evaluating the gaming site.

Reliability of the site's features is an excellent measuring tool. Certain sites may have put up seemingly advanced functions but which often crash or experience some sort of system failure. The long-term consistency of a site's features is what ultimately sets it apart from the pact and defines it as a properly functioning casino gambling site.

Customer Support

One cannot stress enough the dominating importance of customer support when assessing the quality of an online gambling site. When it comes to the public's pocket money and online deposits, it is important to see whether there is a human voice on the other line available to fix any crisis that may arise at any point in time. Advertising a 24-hour call center is not the whole story; a site must be tested on whether it follows through with this promise. Deceiving automated messages stating that there are "no available representatives" at the time of a call can be a most frustrating experience for a user who is apprehensive about the handling of his money.

Fax, phone, and e-mail must all be truthful destinations. The use of robots or other computer devices in responding to customer queries only takes away from the personal touch provided by a human voice on the other side of the line.

Some online casinos have installed a live chat support division to their customer support network. This method has proven to be both cost-efficient for the company and very useful for the user. It often bypasses the waiting period of phone calls and e-mails and provides immediate contact with the casino's help center.

Authorization/ Certification

Gambling regulation has been a powerful force in the recent online gambling boom. Companies have come and gone almost overnight due to unethical, illegal, or unlicensed management which were discovered either by government overseers or other authorities.

The greatest fear of the player is to be had. Handling users' money and holding legitimate betting tables that aren't rigged is a very serious responsibility and online casino sites will be held up to the highest standards if they wish to be accredited by the greater online casino community.

Offshore licensing has driven many companies to declare their assets in countries like Costa Rica, Antigua, and Gibraltar. This should not be frowned upon as it has become a logistic standard in the industry. Due to unstable local governance, casino sites which are based in Eastern European countries should be watched with greater scrutiny, but by no means instantly written off.

Upholding honesty and safety in online gambling is eCogra, an independent organization which defines itself as the "standards authority of the online gaming industry". E-Cogra has progressively become a standard staple in online gambling and is a casino watchdog that can be relied on.

An even more notable set of eyes is those of the Interactive Gaming Council. This organization upholds strict guidelines for fair practice and monitors gambling sites in every aspect of their dealings with the public. If an online casino has the go-ahead of the IGC, it has unquestionably passed through a thorough screening and can be taken for a legitimate online gambling site.

The Stock Market

What association is there between the stock market and online gambling? Though Wall Street and other like national trade centers have never declared themselves a sure bet for anyone entering their own form of casino game parlor, rest-assured they have done their research on each and every company that wishes to be publicly traded on their floor. Several online casino companies have very recently made IPO's in the stock market due to a recent adjustment of regulations and become fully recognized companies in the ultimate way that one can be.

When doing your background check on a particular online casino site, check to see if the mother company has its shares traded in a major stock exchange. If the company is declared public and sells its shares to the public, accreditation and official approval is pretty much guaranteed as far as you should be concerned.

Bonuses and Payouts

Online casinos are aware that they're competing for the user's first deposit with countless other online gambling sites. Once a user makes his first deposit in a gambling site and is generally pleased with the site, he becomes a long time customer. This is why that first time deposit is so significant. Online casinos make great efforts to tempt the first time user by offering to match the user's deposit by a certain percentage and up to a set dollar amount. These figures vary in the marketing aggressiveness of the site as well as its financial ability.

The loud bonus offers can often obscure the much more important factor of a site's financial dealings with the public, and that is the casino's payout percentages. Once a player has made his deposit-bonus or no bonus, the odds of his winning lie in the hands of the casino. This is when the site's payout percentage becomes greatly important. The payout percentage is the percentage of winnings to wagered amounts. Players want to play where the odds of winning are the greatest and most sites publicize the payout percentages for the different casino games it offers.

Perks and Benefits

Bring a friend programs, vacation prizes, cash raffles, happy hours, etc. All these and more are offered by many online casino sites to draw and retain their clients. Be it through a players' club or VIP club, a desirable casino site is one which persistently rewards its users for their business by offerings of appreciation in the form of either cash or prizes. The bring a friend bonuses offered by certain sites reward existing members for referring other people to the site and awards them varying sums of money, usually in the form of credit in the casino. All these methods add a more personal touch between the gamblers and the online casino in an industry which often seems cold and impersonal.

At the End, the Decision is All Yours

We here at 777.com have dedicated ourselves to abide by the constituting guidelines set forth above. We believe that the decision of where to manage your gambling money is a very delicate and serious one and should be weighed carefully. We encourage you to use our online casino directory as a central tool for your searches. It is of great importance that eventually you are content with your decision and are comfortable with the online casino site you've eventually chosen.