How We Rate: The highlighted.gg Fairness Score
Every review on highlighted.gg carries one overall rating built from four sub-ratings, and this page is the published rubric behind them. The short version: we score what we can test or verify, we hedge what we can't, and no commercial relationship moves a score. If a review and this page ever disagree, this page wins and the review gets corrected.
The four axes we score
Each site is scored 1.0–5.0 in half-point steps on four axes; the overall rating is their average, rounded to the nearest half point. These are the same four labels you see on every review card:
- Games and Design — the actual product: range and originality of game modes, whether games work reliably, and whether the presentation is honest (no fake win-feeds or misleading odds displays).
- Bonuses & Provably Fair — the trust axis, and the one we weight hardest in our verdict text. Fairness: is there a pre-committed server-seed hash, can you set your own client seed, is there a visible nonce, can you rotate and reveal the seed, is the formula documented well enough to verify independently, and are case odds published? Bonuses: are advertised offers real, and are the terms (wagering, caps, expiry) stated where you can read them before claiming?
- Deposits & Withdrawls — can money get in and, far more importantly, back out. Supported methods, minimums, fees, KYC friction, and the site's withdrawal track record — both our own test withdrawals and the pattern in independent user reviews.
- Usability — support quality and reachability, site performance, mobile experience, language and currency support, and how easy it is to find the fairness and terms pages at all.
What we test first-hand
Where a site is operational and accepts us as customers, a review is preceded by hands-on testing:
- Real deposits — we deposit with the methods the site advertises and note anything that differs from the marketing (hidden fees, conversion spreads, minimums).
- Real withdrawals — we withdraw and record how long it took and what friction appeared (KYC demands, inventory availability, processing states).
- Seed verification — we play the site's original games, record the pre-bet server-seed hash, set our own client seed, rotate the seed, and recompute outcomes independently. A "provably fair" badge that fails this walkthrough is treated as decoration, per our red-flags checklist.
- Support probes — we contact support with ordinary player questions and time the responses.
Where first-hand testing is impossible — a site that is non-operational, region-blocks us, or is too thinly documented to trust with a deposit — the review says so explicitly and is written in hedged language, with claims attributed to the third-party sources we could check. Our RustMoment review is the template: written as a do-not-deposit warning, not padded to look like a normal review.
What the scores mean
| Band | What it takes |
|---|---|
| 5.0 | Exceptional on this axis with first-hand proof — e.g. fully verifiable fairness with documented formulas and published odds, or withdrawals that arrived fast repeatedly. |
| 4.0–4.5 | Strong with minor gaps we can name (an undocumented edge case, occasional friction). |
| 3.0–3.5 | Functional but with real caveats — unverifiable claims, mixed user record, or terms that need reading twice. |
| 2.5 and below | A warning. Something on this axis failed our checks outright: fairness we couldn't verify, withdrawal complaints that match a pattern, or information a site should publish and doesn't. |
Some findings cap a score no matter what else is true: a site with no pre-committed fairness scheme cannot score above the middle band on Bonuses & Provably Fair, and a site that is non-operational or freezing withdrawals is capped on Deposits & Withdrawls and flagged in the verdict.
How often do we re-review?
Every review shows the date it was last verified. We aim to re-check sites on a rolling basis, and we re-review immediately when something material happens: a change of ownership, a licensing change (see the Curaçao reform), a fairness incident, or a cluster of new withdrawal complaints. Sites that die move to the graveyard index and their reviews are rewritten as warnings rather than deleted — the record is the point.
Independence and how we make money
highlighted.gg earns affiliate commissions when readers sign up through our links or promo codes. That funds the testing budget; it does not buy scores. Ratings are set before any commercial conversation, negative reviews stay published, and no operator sees a review before you do. The full policy, including our responsible-gambling stance, is in our editorial policy and affiliate disclosure.
Corrections
When we get something wrong, we fix the text, note the correction, and update the review's verified date. If you spot an error — or a site behaving differently from how we scored it — contact us through the channels in the site footer. Reader reports have changed scores before and will again; that is the system working.