Who we are and why we exist
Overlog is an independent casino review desk covering nine markets: the United Kingdom, Ireland, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, France, Portugal, Australia and Thailand. We do one thing in-house and we do it end to end. We register accounts under our own names, deposit real cash from our own wallets, play the games at real stakes, and time every withdrawal on a stopwatch. Nothing else earns an operator a place on our lists.
The desk exists because most casino "reviews" you find online are ranked by commission, not by cashier speed. We flip that model. Positions are decided by test data written down as it happens, not by rate cards agreed behind closed doors. When an operator drags its feet on payouts, hides an ugly bonus clause or freezes a verified account, that shows up on the page the same week we see it. Readers get the file the desk actually keeps.
No paid placements. Ever.
No operator can buy a spot, a star, a mention or a softened line on Overlog. The commercial rate we hold with a brand is the same whether they sit at position one, at position ten, or nowhere on our lists at all. Plenty of casinos we recommend pay us nothing. The full mechanics are on our affiliate disclosure page.
How we test a casino
Every casino faces the same run of checks in the same order. The framework does not change from market to market; only the regulator, the payment rails and the language do. A four-star operator in the UK has cleared exactly the same tests as a four-star operator in Sweden or Portugal, and the tests are re-run on a weekly cycle so the score you see is the score the desk stands behind this week, not last quarter.
| Step | What happens | How long |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Licence pull | We look the operator up on the regulator's live public register (UKGC, MGA, Spelinspektionen, KSA, Spillemyndigheden, ANJ, SRIJ, ACMA), never on a footer badge. | ~10 minutes |
| 2. Real cash deposit | A reviewer signs up under their own name and funds the account from their own wallet, using a payment method a first-timer in that market would actually pick. | ~15 minutes |
| 3. Play session | Five hours minimum across three slot volatility tiers, at least one live-dealer round and one RNG table game. We rate depth, studio spread and how the session actually feels. | 5+ hours |
| 4. Bonus audit | Wagering multiplier, max bet, game weighting, win caps and expiry windows read line by line before any offer is claimed. | ~30 minutes |
| 5. Support probe | Live chat and email each field a basic sign-up question, a fiddly bonus query and a deliberately awkward dispute scenario. | ~1 hour |
| 6. Stopwatch withdrawal | We file a real withdrawal and time it from click to cleared funds in the receiving account. Every result feeds the live Payout Log. | Minutes to days |
Each step is logged as a pass, a partial or a fail. Partials drag the final score down and get called out inside the review. A hard fail on the licence pull or the stopwatch withdrawal removes the operator from the list, no matter how well it performed on the other five steps.
Weekly re-scoring
A score is a snapshot, not a monument. Bonus terms get rewritten, cashier rails come and go, KYC gets tighter, brands change owners, support teams turn over. We re-score every listed operator on a weekly cycle and re-time the payout the moment our monitoring flags a change. A four-star casino can drop to three, or leave the list entirely, inside a single week. Every page carries the date of the last retest so readers know exactly how fresh the verdict is.
Complaints we escalate on your behalf
When a reader writes in with a stuck payout, a bonus locked without explanation or an account frozen mid-verification, we take it up directly with the operator through our compliance contacts. There is no fee, and you do not need to have registered through one of our links. Send the details to the contact desk and we will chase. Where the operator refuses to move, the outcome feeds straight into the next weekly re-score.
The Payout Log
The Payout Log is the receipt for everything above. Every timed withdrawal a reviewer files is written into it: operator, method, amount, and the exact hours and minutes it took to arrive. Nothing is averaged, nothing is smoothed, nothing is quietly deleted when it looks bad. If a casino paid slowly last Tuesday, the log shows it paid slowly last Tuesday. Anyone comparing cashier speed across brands should start there before touching a ranked list.
How the site is funded
Affiliate commissions pay the bills. When a reader signs up with a casino through one of our outbound links, the operator may pay us a referral fee at no extra cost to the reader. That revenue keeps Overlog free to read: no paywall, no email gate, no premium tier. It also funds the deposits the desk risks on your behalf every week.
What money cannot buy is placement, scoring, or a friendlier tone. The commercial rate is agreed once and never shifts with where a brand ranks. Full mechanics live on our affiliate disclosure page. If gambling is stopping being fun for you or for someone close to you, our responsible gambling page lists national helplines and self-exclusion tools for every market we cover.
The people behind the reviews
Amelia Foster
Leon Fischer
Luca Moretti
Every review on Overlog carries a byline. We do not publish anonymously, we do not accept sponsored posts, and we do not let AI draft our verdicts. If a page carries a name, a person on the desk funded the deposit, ran the play, timed the cashout and stands behind the score. Reviewers rotate across markets so no single writer becomes captured by any single operator relationship.
For hands-on strategy pieces, bonus explainers and market-specific how-tos, see our guides library. It is written by the same desk, held to the same evidence bar and refreshed on the same weekly cycle as the review pages.
Get in touch with the desk
Spotted a bonus figure that no longer matches what the operator advertises, or want to challenge a score? Write to hello@overlog.gg or use the contact page. Every message is read by a real person and we aim to reply within two working days. Complaint escalations are prioritised.