Bit of a rant, but I swear half the casino write-ups floating around are absolute fluff. Every site is somehow "top rated", every bonus is "amazing", every payout is "fast"... then you sign up and it's the same old story with weird rollover stuff, slow KYC, or support that goes missing the second you need anything.
I reckon the useless part is they all rate the flashy stuff and barely say anything about what actually matters once you've deposited. Like tell me if withdrawals get dragged out for 3 days, tell me if they knock back simple documents, tell me if the game selection is just the same tired lobby copied from everywhere else. That's the stuff I wanna know before chucking money in.
For me, player comments in forums are still way more handy than those polished review pages. Not perfect either, obviously, because some people only post when they're filthy after a loss, but at least it sounds real. You can usually tell pretty quick who's had a proper go and who's just pumping a brand.
Curious what you lot use now when you're checking out a new place. Do you trust any review sites at all, or just go by forum posts, Trustpilot, mates, a quick test deposit, whatever? Keen to hear which sources have actually steered you right and which ones were complete rubbish.