How this site is paid

Placement on the guide pages of this site is paid, and this is the page where that money is itemised. It sets out what is sold, who composes what appears in the sold block, what the score against an entry does and does not mean, which of the commercial terms are disclosed here and which are not, and what the payment deliberately does not buy. A reader who finishes this page should know exactly what was bought and by whom, without having to infer it from the appearance of the pages themselves.

What is sold and where it appears

On the guide pages of this site there is a block of entries, presented in a sequence, each entry carrying a name, a short description and a score. That sequence is for sale. The positions in it are commercial placements, sold to operators who wish to appear in front of readers of the relevant guide, and the ordering you see reflects what was bought rather than what would emerge from an unsponsored ranking.

This is a permanent structural feature of the arrangement, not a comment on whatever happens to stand in the block today. The block is built to be sold. If a particular operator were to withdraw tomorrow and another were to take its place, the nature of the block would not change: it would still be a sequence of purchased positions. The point of this page is that the arrangement be understood as a standing fact of the site, so that a reader encountering the block on any guide knows before reading it what kind of thing it is.

Sponsorship of this kind is common in commercial publishing, and it is not in itself deceptive provided it is declared. The declaration is what this page provides. What we ask is that the paid block be read for what it is: a paid placement, plainly labelled as such, on a site whose unpaid editorial material sits alongside it and is separately identified. The paid block and the editorial comparison rows described further down are different things with different rules, and the whole purpose of this page is to keep them visibly different.

No tracking address, redirect link or coded destination is published on this page. Nothing here routes a reader anywhere on the basis of a payment. The page exists to describe the arrangement, not to participate in it.

Who writes the entries and their copy

The words inside each entry in the paid block were composed by whoever supplied the entry. We did not write them, and their presence on the site does not mean the site endorses or has independently verified any statement they contain. The copy is supplied as part of the placement and appears as supplied.

This has a practical consequence for a reader. Anything asserted inside an entry about an operator's games, its banking, its support, its bonuses or its terms is the supplier's assertion presented in the supplier's words. It is not a finding of this site. The supplier remains responsible for what it says about itself, and the reader should treat the entry copy as promotional material attributable to the operator, not as editorial description attributable to us.

The site itself is not altered by what an entry says. A claim made inside the paid block does not change any figure, statement or assessment elsewhere on the site, and it does not reach into the editorial material. If an entry says something that conflicts with the editorial pages, the entry does not override them; the editorial pages stand as they were written, and the two should not be read as a single reconciled account.

What the score against an entry means

Each entry in the block carries a score. That score is editorial in the sense that it is a supplied editorial figure rather than an advertisement's own claim, but it is not a measurement this site performed. It has not been computed here from testing, sampling, play, reader reports or any instrument of our own. It is supplied along with the entry. We are telling you this plainly because a number presented next to a name looks, at a glance, like the output of an assessment, and it is not one on this site.

No figure in the paid entries is checked against any source cited anywhere on this site. If an editorial page cites a statute, a regulator or a published term, that citation does not carry across into the paid block, and nothing in the block has been reconciled against it. The presence of a citation elsewhere on the site is not a verification of anything in the sold sequence.

The practical advice that follows is simple: treat the score as part of the supplied entry, carrying the same weight as the supplied copy beside it, and no more. Where this site has made its own editorial assessment, that assessment lives in the editorial comparison rows described below, under rules that are different, not in the paid sequence.

The money: what is disclosed here

Two broad shapes of payment are possible in a placement arrangement of this kind, and it is worth being precise about which is which, because they differ in what they reward.

The first is a flat placement fee: a fixed sum paid for a position in the sequence, regardless of what any reader subsequently does. Under that shape, the payment buys exposure, the appearance of the entry before readers of the guide, and nothing further. The second is a commission or a revenue share: a payment calculated by reference to a reader's activity after the reader acts on the entry, so that the site receives a proportion of what the reader generates. Under that shape, the payment is tied not merely to exposure but to outcomes among readers who respond to the entry. Where the arrangement in force is of the second kind, we say so here plainly, because it changes what the placement is: not just a paid display but an interest in what the reader does next.

The exact commercial terms are not published on this page, and we are not going to invent a figure to satisfy the expectation that a disclosure page should contain one. What is disclosed is the structure: that the block is sold, that positions in it are bought, and that where the rate takes the form of a commission or revenue share on a reader's activity, the site has an interest in that activity. What is not disclosed on this page is the precise rate, the precise sum or the precise proportion attached to any particular position. Any figure you see quoted elsewhere, from this site or from a third party, that purports to give the exact money changing hands here should be treated with caution, because no such figure is published on this page.

Where an amount is ever quoted on this site, it is quoted in Australian dollars, and we say so once: all monetary figures on this site are in AUD unless stated otherwise. This page quotes none.

What the money does not buy

It is as important to state the limits of the payment as to state its existence. The following are things the money does not buy:

It does not buy verification. No figure in the paid entries is checked against any source cited on the site. A paid position is not a checked position, and a figure carried in a paid entry has not been tested against a statute, a regulator's publication or any other source the site elsewhere cites.

It does not affect any statutory provision. Placement changes nothing in law. Whatever a statute says about a product, a service or a provider, it says irrespective of who has paid for a position on a page. A paid placement cannot make a product lawful or otherwise; it can only put a name in front of a reader.

It does not touch the editorial comparison rows. On the guide pages there are editorial comparison rows which are separate from the paid block, and those rows are not for sale. They are produced under editorial rules and are not bought, sold or ordered by payment. The paid block and the editorial rows stand apart, are labelled apart, and must be read apart. What is bought affects only the block that is sold.

The paid block, in short, buys exposure within its own labelled sequence. It buys no finding of ours, no verification, no legal effect and no position in the editorial rows. A reader who leaves this page knowing that much knows exactly what was bought.

Why the product sits outside the licensed system

This site writes about online casino product: online pokies, slots, roulette, blackjack and live dealer tables. It is worth setting down, structurally, why that product has no Australian licence as a category, so that no reader mistakes a paid placement for a claim of Australian licensing. This is not a comparison of one kind of licence against another; there is no licensed Australian online casino against which an offshore provider could be measured. The product itself sits outside the licensed Australian system, and the reason is in the statute's own definitions.

Under section 4, paragraph (e) of the Interactive Gambling Act, a "gambling service" includes a service for the conduct of a game played for money or value, of chance or mixed chance and skill, where a customer gives or agrees to give consideration. Online pokies, slots, roulette, blackjack and live dealer tables sit inside that definition. Under section 5(1), a prohibited interactive gambling service is a gambling service provided in the course of carrying on a business and provided to customers using, among other things, an internet carriage service. A product of the kind this site writes about answers both descriptions.

Section 5(3) then sets out a closed list of exclusions: telephone betting, excluded wagering under section 8A, excluded gaming under section 8B, place-based betting under section 8BA, a designated broadcasting or datacasting link under section 8C, an excluded lottery under section 8D, financial products under the Corporations Act 2001, wholesale gambling, trade promotion gambling under section 8BB, and an exempt service under section 10. The list is closed. Online casino product of the kind described does not fall within any of those exclusions, so it does not escape the prohibition by way of them. That is the structural reason the product has no Australian licence as a category, and it holds whatever a paid placement might say.

No paid placement can alter that position. An operator appearing in the paid block is not thereby licensed in Australia, and nothing on this site says or implies that one is. The product sits outside the licensed Australian system by force of the definitions and the closed list, not by any judgement of ours about any particular provider.

Is the ranking block on the guide pages paid for?
Yes. The sequence is sold, and positions in it are bought. That is a standing feature of the arrangement, not a passing state of the block today.
Who writes the copy inside each paid entry?
Whoever supplied the entry. The site did not compose that copy and does not treat its presence as an endorsement or a verification of anything it says.
Did the site calculate the score shown against an entry?
No. The score is editorial and supplied, but it is not a measurement computed here. Treat it as part of the supplied entry.
What kind of payment is it: a flat fee or a commission?
Where the rate is a commission or revenue share on a reader's activity, we say so, and the site then has an interest in that activity. Where it is a flat placement fee, we say so. The exact rate and sum are not published on this page rather than invented.
Does payment affect the editorial comparison rows?
No. The editorial comparison rows on the guide pages are separate from the paid block and are not for sale.
Does a paid placement mean the operator is licensed in Australia?
No. Online casino product has no Australian licence as a category, under the definitions and the closed list of exclusions in the Interactive Gambling Act. Placement cannot change that.

Licensing note

This page is a disclosure of a commercial arrangement, not legal advice and not a statement about any operator's regulatory status. Online casino product, including online pokies, slots, roulette, blackjack and live dealer tables, sits outside the licensed Australian system as a category, because it answers the section 4 definition of a gambling service and the section 5(1) description of a prohibited interactive gambling service, and because it falls within none of the closed list of exclusions in section 5(3). Nothing on this page states that any operator is licensed or unlicensed in Australia. Any question about the law as it applies to you should go to a qualified adviser.

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