Review & State Data Methodology

Short version: we rank opportunities by practical user value, not by who pays the highest commission. Affiliate relationships may support the site, but rankings should still reflect bonus value, reliability, redemption friction, risk, user experience, and community feedback.

What We Evaluate

For sweepstakes-style daily login sites and casinos, we look at the factors that affect a real user trying to build a repeatable routine:

• Daily bonus value and claim consistency.
• Welcome package quality and whether the value is realistic after playthrough.
• Minimum redemption amount and payout methods.
• Known state restrictions and eligibility limitations.
• KYC difficulty, support responsiveness, and redemption delay reports.
• Game selection, RTP options, mobile experience, and ease of daily use.
• Terms changes, promo bans, shutdown risk, and community-reported red flags.

How Rankings Work

Rankings are based on a mix of site data, hands-on review, public terms, user reports, and repeat-use practicality. A high daily bonus does not automatically make a site a top recommendation if redemption is difficult, terms are unclear, or user reports show recurring payout issues.

Affiliate Links

Some links are affiliate or referral links. That means Online Sidehustles may earn a commission if you sign up through them, at no extra cost to you. Affiliate availability is not supposed to override trust signals. We may include sites that do not pay us, and we may avoid or downgrade sites that pay well but create poor user outcomes.

Read the full affiliate disclosure for more detail.

Update Process

Offers, redemption rules, state access, and daily rewards can change quickly. We prioritize updates when a site changes its bonus, redemption minimum, KYC process, payout behavior, or terms. Pages may include "last updated" or "last verified" dates where available.

What We Do Not Promise

We do not guarantee earnings, redemptions, approval, availability, or future offer terms. Results vary by state, platform rules, user behavior, verification status, and changing site policies. Treat all earning estimates as educational ranges, not guaranteed income.

How To Report A Change

If you find a changed bonus, broken signup link, payout delay, state restriction, or inaccurate review note, send it through the contact page. Include the site name, date, screenshot if possible, and what changed.

How State Eligibility Data Is Built

Every casino card on this site can show a "Play in your state?" button. Here is exactly where that data comes from, in order of authority. Nothing on this page is legal advice. Operators change their terms without notice; always verify eligibility with the operator directly before signing up.

Source Hierarchy (most to least authoritative)

1. Tier 1 — Operator terms of service (T&C). The operator's own written restricted-state list is the source of truth. We fetch each operator's T&C page weekly and hash-compare the text; when the hash changes, the list is re-extracted and re-verified before anything updates on a card.
2. Tier 0 — State law floor. Independently of what any operator says, states that prohibit sweepstakes-style gaming by statute, constitution, or regulator enforcement are unioned onto every operator's list. An operator that "forgets" a restricting state in its T&C still shows that state as restricted here. The current floor is the 13 states in the table below (plus Oklahoma pending and Illinois under regulator cease-and-desist).
3. Tier 2 — Geo-probes. Automated checks of what a site serves from different locations. Used only to discover drift between what an operator claims and what it enforces; a probe alone never changes a card.
4. Aggregators and user reports. Treated as leads to investigate, never as evidence on their own.

Provenance And Confidence

Every restricted-state list carries three fields: where it came from (source), when it was verified (verified_date), and how much we trust it (confidence: high, medium, or low). Currently 134 casinos carry a list:

• tier1-tc (high confidence): directly verified against the operator's current T&C and protected by a review allow-list. Example: Crown Coins, Yay Casino.
• operator-tc (medium/high): extracted from the operator's published terms. 29 casinos.
• page-copy / ug-scrape (low): from on-site page copy or structured user-generated listings. Treated as provisional until the operator's T&C confirms it.

When two sources disagree, the more authoritative one wins, and the discrepancy is logged publicly for correction review.

State Law Baseline (Tier 0 Floor)

These states are marked restricted on every casino regardless of operator wording:

State	Status	Authority	Effective
CA	banned	AB 831	2026-01-01
CT	banned	SB 1235 (PA 25-112)	2025-10-01
ID	banned	Article III Section 20	in force
IN	banned	HB 1052	2026-07-01
LA	banned	HB 883 and HB 53	2026-08-01
ME	banned	LD 2007	2026-07-14
MI	banned	MGCB iGaming statute	2024-01-01
MT	banned	SB 555	2025-10-01
NV	banned	SB 256	2025-10-01
NJ	banned	A 5447	2025-08-15
NY	banned	S 5935A	2025-12-05
OK	banned-pending	SB 1589 (veto override 2026-05-14)	2026-11-01
TN	banned	SB 2136	2026-05-22
WA	banned	RCW 9.46.240	in force
IL	enforcement-cd	Illinois Gaming Board C&D letters (65 issued Feb 2026)	2026-02-01
MD	pending	HB 1226 / HB 295	in force
MN	pending	SF 4474	in force

What You See On A Card

Each review card's state button is generated from this pipeline. If a casino has no verified state data on file, the button is hidden entirely — we never show a guess. The button opens a modal that lists only states with a recorded basis, with the data source and verification date at the bottom. If no restrictions are on file, it says exactly that ("No restricted states on file") rather than claiming a site is "available in all 50 states."

Corrections

Data corrections and their resolutions are tracked in our public corrections log at /corrections. If you spot a restricted-state list that disagrees with an operator's current terms, report it through the contact page and it will be re-verified against the operator's T&C.

Not Legal Advice

State eligibility summaries are informational, compiled from public sources, and can lag behind operator or regulator changes. Eligibility is ultimately determined by each operator and applicable law in your state. Verify with the operator before playing, and consult official state resources where relevant.

Last updated: August 28, 2026