How We Review

What we do, and what we don't

• We do read every listed bookmaker's own promotion pages automatically, record each offer's significant terms, and show when each offer was last checked.
• We do measure prices: we record bookmakers' full-time result (1X2) odds on football matches in 19 leagues, hourly in the 48 hours before kick-off.
• We don't currently run test accounts with every bookmaker. A review only describes first-hand use when it carries a MaxFreeBets Tested record, with the tester's name, dates and evidence. Every other review says, on the review itself, that it is based on published terms and our measurements.

Licensing

We only list operators that serve UK customers under a UK Gambling Commission licence. Each review links the operator's licence number to its entry on the Commission's public register, so you can check it yourself. Where we haven't yet confirmed a licence number, the review says so instead of showing one.

How offers are checked

Our crawler re-reads each bookmaker's promotions pages on a rolling schedule. An offer's “last checked” date moves only on evidence:

• the offer's own wording was read on the bookmaker's page; or
• the exact page it was last read on was fetched again and is unchanged; or
• an editor checked it on the bookmaker's site and recorded the check.

A page that doesn't look UK-facing confirms nothing. Each offer records which of these produced its date and which page was read.

What comes off the site: offers the bookmaker has withdrawn, offers past their stated expiry, and offers without real significant terms, including any carrying placeholder wording. What stays, and says so: an offer we haven't been able to re-check for more than 30 days stays visible with a clear “not re-checked since” notice, because a crawl failing on our side doesn't mean the promotion ended. Pages with several offers show the range of check dates, oldest first, not just the newest. Some bookmakers' pages can't be read automatically; their offers are checked by hand, less often, and their dates show it.

When a bookmaker changes an offer's wording, the change is logged publicly on offer changes.

Star ratings

A star rating is our editor's overall judgement of an operator, informed by the measured evidence described below. It is not the output of a formula. Where we haven't formed a view on an operator, no rating is shown at all: we'd rather show nothing than invent a number. Commission is never an input to a rating.

MaxFreeBets Tested

A review carries the MaxFreeBets Tested label only when a named member of the team has used the bookmaker with a real account and recorded what happened. A test records, where they apply: when the account was opened; a real deposit and when it was credited; a real withdrawal and when the money arrived; which ID checks were asked for and how long they took; an odds sample with its margin; whether bet builder and cash out were available; a support contact and how long a reply took; any account restrictions; and dated screenshots.

The label needs, at minimum, the tester's name, the completion date and at least one real deposit or withdrawal. Nothing in a test is estimated: a withdrawal still pending is shown as pending, and anything not measured is left out rather than filled in.

Corrections

If you spot an offer that's wrong, a term that's changed, or any factual error, email info@maxfreebets.co.uk. We correct verified errors once an editor has confirmed them against the operator's own site, and record that check against the offer.

How the MFB Offer Score is calculated

Every offer score on this site is computed from the operator's own structured terms. None of them is typed in by a person, and no bookmaker can influence one. Where an operator's terms don't state enough to compute a score honestly, we publish no score at all rather than a number we couldn't defend — you'll see the offer with its terms and an explanation of what's missing.

The weighting, in full:

• •Value — 35%: what the reward is worth against what you must stake
• •Ease — 20%: minimum odds, wagering, excluded payment methods
• •Restrictions — 20%: what's attached to the money once you have it
• •Complexity — 15%: how many separate steps stand between you and the reward
• •Speed — 10%: how quickly it's done with

Why we show what an offer is “really worth”

A £30 free bet is not £30. The stake stays with the bookmaker, so you keep the winnings only — which is why we show a realistic range of 70–80% of the headline figure alongside the headline itself, and reduce it further where a wagering requirement applies. It is an estimate and we label it as one. Where the terms don't say whether the stake returns, we assume it doesn't, because a free bet that returns its stake is vanishingly rare — and we say on the page that the assumption is ours rather than the operator's.

How the MFB Bookmaker Score is calculated

Where our reviewers have rated a bookmaker, that rating sets the score and the measured evidence below moves it by up to 8 points either way. We do it that way round because a star rating and a score sitting on the same page ought to agree, and the editor's rating is the broader judgement of the two. Measure well against the components below and a bookmaker gains; measure badly and it loses. Where no rating has been assigned, the score is the measurement alone.

The measured side combines odds competitiveness (30%), the scores of their live promotions (25%), their feature range (25%), payments (10%) and safer-gambling tools (10%). A component we haven't measured is left out and the rest re-weighted — never filled in with a middling default — and each bookmaker page states which components are missing. Below three measured components we publish no score.

The odds component is our own measurement, not a claim: we record full-time result (1X2) prices for football matches hourly in the 48 hours before kick-off and count how often each bookmaker holds the best price when it is actually in the comparison — a share of all best prices would simply reward bookmakers who price everything. A bookmaker needs at least 200 readings before we'll publish a figure for them, and every figure states the period it actually covers. Hourly readings of the same match are not independent, so we also say how many matches sit behind a figure.

Where each fact came from

Bookmaker details carry their source. A fact read on the operator's own site, or taken from the operator's own affiliate or media materials, or entered by an editor, is marked as first-party and can count toward a score. One reported by other betting sites is shown differently, only kept when at least two independent sites agree, and never counts toward a score — a figure from somebody else's review can't support a claim that we checked the operator's own terms, however plausible it looks.

Named editors

Reviews and guides name the editor responsible for them. A review shows the date it was last reviewed only when the editor recorded one. You can see who is responsible for what on our authors page.

How we make money

We may earn a commission from the bookmakers we feature when you sign up through our links. Commission rates are never an input to our star ratings, scores or offer checks. Our editors do choose which operators appear in curated tables and in what order; the rating and score on each card let you compare them yourself. See our advertising disclosure.

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