Business Description
Hawkplay Online Casino in the PhilippinesOur HawkPlay casino reviews are a bit different than the majority of reviews available on the internet. We don't focus on website usability, game selection and other subjective factors in the overall reputation rating. Instead, our ratings are based on what we consider to be the most important – the casino's reputation. That's why our global casino rating is called 'reputation rating'.
Our reputation rating basically describes how casinos treat their players, and how likely players are to be able to withdraw their winnings without running into issues, which are quite common at dishonest casinos (applying unfair rules, making up reasons for not paying out players, etc.). Casinos with an honest approach to gambling generally have a high reputation rating from our review team, while those with bad intentions are rated badly.
Note: Apart from the reputation rating, another very important sign of a casino's quality is the order in which casinos appear in our list of best online casinos. It is based on the reputation rating, but also considers local factors like the support of local payment methods, language support, and other features important for players from each specific country. Casinos that we consider to be the best fit for players from a specific country then appear at the top of the list for visitors from that country.
Although some players might not be aware of it, there are actually many, many casinos which don't see fairness as one of their priorities. We witness it first-hand every day when dealing with player complaints. That's why we focus on these factors in our reviews and also why we've created our fair gambling codex. We want players to be able to gamble safely, and helping them choose an honest casino is crucial for that.
Factors considered in our reviews
Our casino review process takes into account a huge amount of information about each casino, which is collected by members of our review team. This information can be grouped into five main categories:
Size of the casino
Player complaints
Deductions for restrictive or unfair practices
Points added for positive qualities
Related casinos
Size of the casino is important for safe play, because small casinos may run into issues if one of their players manages to hit a really big win. Because small casinos don't have large revenues, a substantial win can be an existential threat to them. If a player wins more than the casino can realistically afford to pay out, it's likely that the casino will go bankrupt unless they find a way to NOT pay out the winner. And that's a problem.
On the other hand, a big casino with thousands of players can rely on their statistical advantage and will be able to pay out big wins thanks to the losses of other players. That's why the size of each casino is one of the two main factors influencing the reputation rating.
Note: Additionally, smaller casinos are often quite new, so they haven't had enough time to prove their qualities. And because it is better to be safe than sorry in this regard, we opt for giving them a lower reputation rating until they grow, and/or their qualities become clear.
The other foundation of our reputation rating are player complaints. These tell us how each casino treats its players. If there are many justified complaints about a casino, it's a clear indication that there are some issues which cause players to be dissatisfied.
Note: The mere presence of complaints doesn't mean the casino is bad. Sometimes, player complaints are not justified, meaning that the casino actually hasn't done anything unfair towards the player. That's why we consider each complaint we find on the internet or get through our complaint resolution center separately and decide how much it influences (or doesn't influence) our rating based on our best judgement of the case.
Based on the HawkPlay casino's size and its player complaints (their number, disputed amounts and justification), we get the base of our reputation rating. These factors are considered relatively to one another, because it's expected that big casinos will have more complaints than smaller ones because of their larger player base. This means that a large casino can (but doesn't have to) have a better rating than a smaller one, even if players complain about it more.
Then, we take the base of the reputation rating and start deducting or adding points for various factors. Most of them are negative and result in a lower reputation rating (low withdrawal or win limits, blacklists, unfair rules, etc.), but there are also some positive factors which can increase the rating.
Lastly, if a casino is a part of a group of related casino sites, other members of that group influence its ratings as well. We'll explain why and how we do this later on in this article.
Our independent casino review team
All information about online casinos is collected and entered into our system by members of our independent review team, which currently has 15 members and will grow even further in the near future.
Note: You can find all members of the review team on our 'About us' page.
The members of the casino review team used to focus solely on collecting information about online casinos, but many of them now also help players resolve their complaints directly in our complaint resolution center.
Before we opened the complaint resolution center, they were already very familiar with player complaints, as they have already worked with them in the casino review process, in which complaints are one of the most important factors. They already became experts in evaluating player complaints and determining which side is in the right, as well as with casinos' T&Cs and how they are often being used against players. That's why they are the ones who are helping players resolve conflicts with casinos on our website.
But apart from reviewing online casinos and helping players with their complaints, the members of this team don't do anything else, which enables them to stay focused and independent. Their goal is to find and collect accurate information about online casinos (which is then displayed in the reviews and used to calculate the ratings), and to help players and casinos resolve their conflicts, without having to consider other aspects of running the Casino Guru website.
One of the main factors influencing our Reputation rating of each casino is its size, which we judge by its revenues. The idea behind this factor is that big casinos are generally safer for players, because their high revenues allow them to pay out even very big wins without any issues.
On the other hand, there are many small online casinos on the market, which might not be the best choice for everyone, especially players wagering higher amounts of money. Although small casinos (i.e. casinos with small revenues) may have good intentions, their cashflow might not be able to cover big wins by the profit generated by other players, because it's not as high as that of big gambling sites. To put it simply, small casinos sometimes may not be able to pay out big wins, which is why they generally get a lower Reputation rating from us.
Now, let's talk about how we get the data about casinos' revenues. For some of them, it's easy, as they make their financial information public. However, for most casinos, this information is just not available. For these, we use our fine-tuned internal formula to estimate the revenues using the number of visitors (estimated using multiple methods) and the locations from which these visitors come (as players from different countries have different spending and wagering habits). This allows us to get an estimate of each casino's revenues, which is not exact, but should be good enough to make a pretty good picture about the casino's financial situation.
For each casino, we calculate the estimated revenues for the last four years, which advantages established brands that have been around for a while over new casinos. We designed it in this way, because we think that established casinos are generally safer for players than new ones, and we want our rating to take that into account. New casinos also get a 'Fresh' rating from us, as it's just too early to tell how they'll treat their players.
Website: https://hawkplay-casino.com/
