A star rating or numeric score means little without a visible method behind it. This page sets out exactly how Aurora Gaming arrives at the scores and pros-and-cons summaries published across our sportsbook guides, so readers can judge for themselves whether a given rating reflects something measurable rather than a marketing impression.

Every platform covered on livelinebetting.com is scored against the same five criteria, weighted consistently across reviews. We do not adjust the weighting to flatter a specific operator, and a platform that scores poorly on one criterion cannot buy back points through a stronger showing elsewhere. The sections below walk through each criterion, what we actually test, and how a raw finding turns into a published score.

Licensing is checked first because every other criterion is meaningless if a platform is not accountable to a real regulator. We confirm active registration directly against the issuing authority's own public registry rather than trusting a footer logo, checking bodies such as the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO), Malta Gaming Authority (MGA), and the Kahnawake Gaming Commission. A license number that does not resolve on the regulator's own registry, or that lists a different operating entity than the one shown on the site, is treated as a failed check regardless of how the operator's own compliance page describes it.

Security review covers TLS certificate validity, whether two-factor authentication is offered on login, and whether independent testing agencies such as eCOGRA or Gaming Laboratories International (GLI) have certified the platform's random number generation and settlement engines. Platforms lacking verifiable third-party security or fairness certification are scored down even if their licensing checks pass, since licensing and technical security are evaluated as separate, non-substitutable factors.

Margin auditing is quantitative rather than impressionistic. Our team samples pricing across a defined set of fixtures per sport, typically pulling moneyline, spread, and total prices on the same games from multiple operators on the same night, then converts posted odds into implied probability to calculate the operator's theoretical hold on each market. Standard two-way markets on major North American leagues carrying a hold materially above the 4.5% to 5.5% range common across competitive Canadian sportsbooks are flagged as uncompetitive, while operators consistently pricing below that range score in the top tier for this criterion.

We track margins separately for pre-match and in-play markets, since in-play pricing legitimately carries a wider hold to compensate for feed latency and faster liability shifts. A platform is only penalized when its margin sits outside the range typical for its own market type, not when a live market is simply wider than a pre-match one.

This criterion is tested with real money rather than desk research. Analysts fund a live account, place tracked in-play wagers during active matches, and record bet acceptance delay, the frequency of market suspensions during ordinary play, and whether cash-out valuations update promptly as a match develops. A platform whose bet slip freezes or repeatedly rejects tickets during normal in-play conditions scores poorly here regardless of how deep its market list looks on paper.

Payout speed is measured the same way: a real withdrawal request is submitted, and the clock runs from that request to funds landing in a Canadian bank account, wallet, or crypto address, not from the moment the operator's own dashboard marks the transaction as approved. Advertised timelines that do not match the measured result are called out explicitly in the relevant review, and repeated discrepancies push a platform into a lower payout-speed tier on future audits.

Mobile testing runs on both iOS and Android hardware rather than a single platform. We measure cold-start load time, whether biometric login enrolls and authenticates without repeated failures, and how the client behaves when a connection drops mid-session and later reconnects. A dedicated app is compared directly against the same operator's mobile browser experience, since some platforms invest heavily in one and neglect the other.

Desktop software receives the same scrutiny for latency during live odds refreshes and for whether the bet slip correctly holds a selection through a price change rather than silently altering the stake or odds without a clear confirmation step.

Bonus terms are read in full, not summarized from a promotional banner. For every welcome offer, reload, or odds boost referenced in our guides, we record the exact rollover multiplier, whether it applies to the bonus alone or to the combined deposit-plus-bonus total, the minimum qualifying odds threshold, and the expiry window from activation to forfeiture. These figures are then used to calculate the real wagering volume a bettor must clear before a bonus becomes withdrawable cash, which is the number that actually determines whether a promotion is worth claiming.

Operators whose promotional terms are difficult to locate, inconsistently worded between the cashier and the terms page, or that exclude common bet types from turnover contribution without clear disclosure score lower on this criterion, independent of how large the headline match percentage appears.

Each of the five criteria above is scored independently on the same scale, then combined into the overall rating shown at the top of a platform review. Licensing and security function as a gate rather than a simple weighted input: a platform that fails the licensing check is not eligible for a passing overall score no matter how well it performs elsewhere, since an unlicensed or unverifiable operator carries a category of risk the other four criteria cannot offset.

Provided licensing clears, the remaining four criteria are weighted according to their practical impact on a bettor's outcome, with pricing margins and payout speed carrying somewhat more weight than mobile polish, since margin and payout speed compound directly into a bettor's long-term results while a slower app interface is an inconvenience rather than a financial cost. Scores are revisited whenever a platform materially changes its terms, its licensing status, or its measured payout behaviour, rather than being fixed permanently at the time of first publication.