CSDB · CS2 Gambling
How We Verify Operators
This page exists so you can judge how much weight to give anything else in this section. It covers where the facts come from, what we get paid for, what we have not checked, and how to tell us we are wrong.
How an operator enters the database
We add operators that people are actually searching for, whether or not we have a commercial relationship with them. The database currently holds 33 live operators and 13 closed ones. Sites we earn nothing from are included, and sites we do earn from are not given a page they have not earned by existing in the market.
Closed operators keep their pages permanently. A site shutting down is one of the most useful things we can tell you about it, and deleting the record would leave the question “what happened to X” answered only by people running recovery scams.
Where the facts come from
Every published fact is read from a primary source that someone opened: the operator's own terms, footer, help centre, cashier or responsible-gambling pages; a regulator's register; Trustpilot; or DNS and WHOIS records. Each fact is stored with the date it was read, and the sources behind it where those were recorded — you can see both in the Sources & verificationsection on any operator's review.
- Licences. We distinguish three states, and they are not interchangeable. Confirmed on the registermeans we checked the regulator's own records. Stated by the operator means we read a claim in its footer or terms and have not yet confirmed it. None statedmeans we read the legal pages and the operator claims no licence at all — which is common here, and is a fact rather than an accusation. Everything else is “not checked”.
- Withdrawals.Read from the operator's own cashier, help centre and terms. We record the routes value can actually leave by, and just as importantly where there is no cash-out at all — several operators in this database let you deposit money and never take money out, only items.
- Trustpilot. Recorded as a score, a review count and the date we read it, and treated as one external reputation signal rather than a verdict. We record sample size alongside it, because a 4.7 from 22 reviews and a 4.7 from 22,000 are the same number and completely different evidence, and we note where Trustpilot itself has flagged a profile.
- Fairness.Assessed on whether the operator documents its scheme in enough detail for a result to be recomputed independently — not on whether it uses the words “provably fair”. Our verifier is independent of every operator and runs in your browser.
- Flags. Sourced negative findings, each traceable to something we read. They are published for commercial partners exactly as they are for everyone else. A page that lists only positives is an advert.
We do not reverse-engineer numbers an operator has not published, and we do not repeat figures from aggregator sites — they are frequently wrong, and a wrong number that flatters an operator is the most damaging kind.
How the money works
CSDB earns affiliate commission from some of the operators listed here. Three commitments follow from that, and they are enforced in the code rather than left to good intentions:
- Disclosure on every page that carries a paid link, stating both the commission and that the ordering is commercial.
- Placement never touches the facts. Commercial position is a separate field from everything editorial. No score, badge, flag or sentence on this site is derived from whether an operator pays us, and the Transparency Score below cannot read that information at all.
- Negative findings are published regardless of relationship.If a partner's terms contradict themselves or its licence claim does not survive checking, that goes on its page.
Responsible-gambling links, help-line numbers and source citations are never monetised. Our taking a break page carries no commercial content at all.
The CSDB Transparency Score
A single number for how much can be established about this operator. It is not a safety rating and it does not predict whether you will be paid. It is scored across 9 dimensions, each out of 10:
| Dimension | What it asks |
|---|---|
| Operator identity | Does the site name the company that runs it, with a registration number? |
| Licence position | Is a licence claimed, and have we confirmed it against the regulator’s own register? |
| Withdrawal clarity | Does the operator publish how value actually leaves the site? |
| KYC clarity | Does it state when identity verification is required? |
| Restriction clarity | Does it publish which countries its terms exclude? |
| Fairness documentation | Does it document a provably-fair scheme in enough detail to reproduce a result? |
| Responsible-gambling controls | Does it offer deposit limits, time-outs or self-exclusion, and point players to independent help? |
| Terms transparency | Are the terms reachable, self-consistent and readable? |
| Verification freshness | How recently did CSDB last check this operator’s facts? |
Three rules make the number honest rather than decorative:
- Our research gaps never count against the operator. A dimension we have not checked is excluded from the calculation entirely, and the score is always published with how many dimensions it was assessed on. Below 5 assessed dimensions we show the breakdown and no headline number, because a figure from two dimensions would imply a completeness we do not have.
- Honest absence beats an unverifiable claim. An operator that plainly states it holds no licence scores higher than one that implies a licence while naming no issuer, number or jurisdiction. The first is a fact you can act on; the second is a claim that failed on contact with its own footer.
- Commercial status is not an input. Affiliate relationship, referral code and table position are invisible to the calculation.
How often records are re-checked
Different facts go stale at different speeds, so each is re-checked on its own schedule rather than everything being nominally “updated” on one date. Operators are queued by how overdue a fact is, weighted by how many people are actually reading that page.
| Fact | Re-checked after |
|---|---|
| promo | 21 days |
| trustpilot | 45 days |
| funding | 90 days |
| KYC | 90 days |
| geo | 120 days |
| licence | 120 days |
| identity | 180 days |
| fairness | 180 days |
Separately, an automated monitor checks whether each operator's domain still responds. It never concludes that a site has closed on its own: server-side checks get geo-blocked and bot-blocked routinely, and one audit of ours produced five false negatives including one of the largest operators in the market. A closure is only recorded after a human confirms it against DNS, WHOIS or the operator's own notice, and the evidence is published on the page. The corpus was last reviewed end to end on 31 July 2026.
Corrections
If something here is wrong, we want to fix it, and that includes operators who think we have described them unfairly. Email corrections@csdb.gg with the page, the specific claim, and where the correct information can be read on your own site.
What happens next: we re-read the primary source ourselves, correct the record and update its verification date if the correction stands, and note material changes in the operator change feed. We do not remove a sourced negative finding because an operator would prefer it gone — but if the underlying fact has changed, the finding changes with it and the history records both.
Reports from users are treated as allegations, not facts. They are useful for telling us where to look, and they do not appear as published findings unless we can verify them against a primary source ourselves.
Frequently asked
Does CSDB earn money from these gambling sites?
Yes, from some of them. Where we hold an affiliate relationship, links go through /go/ and we earn a commission if you sign up. That relationship is disclosed on every page carrying such a link. It does not buy a better write-up: partners carry the same sourced negative findings as everyone else, and several of the harshest findings in the database are about operators who pay us.
Is the order of the sites a ranking?
No. The order of the table is a commercial slot and we say so wherever it appears. It is not a quality ranking, not an editorial recommendation, and nothing derived from position feeds any score, badge or statement anywhere on the site.
Why are so many cells blank?
Because nobody has verified that fact yet, and a blank is the honest way to say so. We do not fill gaps with plausible numbers. Where we have actively checked and found that an operator states nothing — no licence, no company name — we record that as a finding in its own right, which is different from a blank and is labelled differently.
Does a high Transparency Score mean a site is safe?
No, and it is named the way it is to avoid implying that. The score measures how much about an operator can be established and how much the operator itself discloses. A site can be entirely transparent about terms that are bad for you, and no score on this site predicts whether you will be paid, whether you will win, or whether using the site is lawful where you live.