About Oliver Smith

Last updated: 26 April 2026

Who I am

I'm Oliver Smith — Senior iGaming Editor at Fortunica Casino UK. I have spent the better part of my working life inside the British online-casino industry, first on the operator side and now writing about it from the publisher side. The arithmetic on my bio is straightforward: I started in iGaming in late 2014, I have been reviewing casinos as my primary job since 2018, and I have personally tested over 300 platforms across UK, Maltese, Curaçao and Gibraltar licences. The stack of test deposits I've made over those years sits somewhere around the £25,000 mark — paid back to a degree by occasional decent runs at Pragmatic and Hacksaw, lost more often than not.

I read English Literature at the University of Manchester before falling sideways into the gambling industry through customer support in early 2014. The journalism instinct was already there; the iGaming domain knowledge accumulated on the job — KYC procedures, AML rules, how PSPs interact with Visa scheme rules, why certain bonus structures look generous and run hostile.

How I got here

The first proper iGaming role was at a Gibraltar-licensed operator's support desk. Two years answering complaints about delayed withdrawals, locked accounts, and "why won't my bonus clear" teaches you more about casino mechanics than any qualification. From there I moved to a complaints-resolution role, working alongside the Gibraltar Gambling Commissioner's office on player disputes. That gave me a working knowledge of how a regulator actually intervenes — how slowly, in some cases, but also how decisively when the evidence is there.

I switched to the publisher side in 2018, writing freelance reviews for several mid-market UK comparison sites. None of them were doing the work I wanted to do — most rated casinos on bonus size with no testing, and the ones that did test seemed to test by reading other people's reviews. I started writing in a different way: book-keeping every minute of every test, photographing every withdrawal confirmation, refusing to publish until at least one bonus had been wagered through and one withdrawal had cleared. The byline grew from there.

Fortunica Casino UK launched in early 2024 with the brief to do that work properly under one masthead. Two years on, that is still the brief.

What I know well

The depth of expertise sits in five areas.

Bonus structures. Five hundred-plus welcome packages picked apart over the years. I can usually spot the trap clauses in a Bonus T&C without reading them — max-bet caps below £5, weighting that excludes everything except slots, exit-clause language that lets the casino confiscate winnings if you "abuse" the bonus (definition undefined). When I write a review, the bonus section reflects what you actually get, not the headline number on the homepage.

Licensing. The UK Gambling Commission, the Malta Gaming Authority, Curaçao's GCB (now operating through the new Licence Office structure post-2024 reform), Gibraltar, the Isle of Man, Kahnawake. Each licence implies a different level of player protection, a different complaints process, a different speed of regulator response. For UK-facing operators I cross-check every claimed licence against the regulator's public register before the review goes live. The regulator URL goes straight in the review for transparency: gamblingcommission.gov.uk for UKGC checks.

Payments. I've withdrawn through Visa Fast Funds, Mastercard Send, Skrill, Neteller, MuchBetter, MiFinity, Trustly Pay N Play, bank transfer (UK Faster Payments and SWIFT), Bitcoin, Ethereum and USDT. The fastest withdrawal I've ever recorded was 18 minutes via Skrill at a Maltese operator. The slowest was eleven working days via international bank transfer at a Curaçao casino I would not recommend to anyone. Withdrawal speed is one of the few honest signals of how a casino is run.

Game catalogues. I work across roughly 80 providers' libraries — the obvious mainstream names (NetEnt, Microgaming, Pragmatic Play, Play'n GO, Yggdrasil) plus the high-volatility studios that British players have warmed to over the past few years (Nolimit City, Hacksaw Gaming, Push Gaming, ELK Studios, Print Studios). I have opinions about which providers' RTP claims are credible and which are theatre. I share them in reviews when relevant.

Mobile and live. Every casino I review is tested on iOS and Android — usually a 2024 iPhone SE for the small-screen test and a Pixel 7 for Android. Live dealer studios get a separate session: stream quality, dealer professionalism, table availability at peak hours, mobile usability of the live UI.

How I test

I test on real money, on a fresh account, every time. The 20-point checklist is on the How We Test page in detail. The short version is: a deposit between £20 and £50 of my own money, real KYC documents, real bonus activation, real wagering, real withdrawal request, real questions to live chat. A test takes anywhere between three and ten working days depending on how the operator handles verification and payouts.

I keep notes throughout — timestamps, screenshots, support transcripts, balance changes. The notes feed both the review and the rating spreadsheet that backs the How We Rate system. I do not write a review from memory three days after the test ends; the notes do most of the writing.

What I won't do

I won't write a review I haven't tested. I won't accept money or perks from an operator in exchange for a higher rating — the offer comes about three times a year on average, mostly from new affiliates who don't know the house rules, and the answer is always the same. I won't promote unlicensed casinos to British players. I won't soften a negative review because the operator has been polite about it.

What I will do is correct mistakes when readers spot them. If you find an error in something I've published — a wagering number that's wrong, a payment method that has been removed, a licence that has changed — please write to [email protected] with the URL and the issue. I read those messages personally and the corrections process is on the Editorial Policy page.

Reach me

Editorial enquiries, corrections, casinos to test, comments on a specific review:
[email protected]

The general contact channel is /contact-us. Anything that should not be in the inbox of an editor — privacy, partnerships, GDPR rights — has its own address listed there.