Why this exists
Almost every crypto casino review site is pay-to-play. Brands buy rankings, "top 10" lists are ads with extra steps, and the player ends up trusting a leaderboard that nobody can defend. I wanted to see if I could build the opposite.
BitcoinPlay generates rankings from aggregated public data across fourteen weighted categories. The methodology is published. The weights are fixed. No brand can buy a higher position because there is no human in the loop deciding who deserves one.
The scoring system
Every casino is scored across fourteen categories. Each category has a fixed weight that determines its impact on the final score. Licensing and reputation matter more than the size of the welcome bonus, and the math reflects that.
| Category | Weight |
|---|---|
| Licensing | 12% |
| Reputation | 11% |
| Withdrawal speed | 10% |
| Provably fair | 9% |
| Security | 8% |
| Games | 7% |
| Bonus | 7% |
| Complaints | 7% |
| Payment reliability | 6% |
| History | 6% |
| Mobile | 5% |
| Support | 5% |
| BTC features | 4% |
| Responsible gambling | 3% |
Architecture
Each vertical lives on its own subdomain. Clean separation, focused SEO, and the freedom to ship one section at a time without disturbing the others.
| Subdomain | Purpose |
|---|---|
| bitcoinplay.gg | Homepage and Bitcoin gambling resource hub |
| casino.bitcoinplay.gg | Bitcoin casino rankings and reviews |
| dice.bitcoinplay.gg | Bitcoin dice sites |
| poker.bitcoinplay.gg | Bitcoin poker rooms |
| betting.bitcoinplay.gg | Bitcoin sportsbooks |
| blog.bitcoinplay.gg | Blog archive and longer-form articles |
What makes it different
Three things separate BitcoinPlay from the dozens of other crypto gambling lists.
- Transparent weighted scoring. Every score is reproducible from the published methodology. If you disagree with a ranking, you can argue with the inputs, not the vibes.
- AI-driven research, human-edited. Reviews are generated and verified through an AI pipeline working off real aggregated data, not outsourced to generic content writers paid by the word.
- Provably fair as a first-class category. Cryptographic verification gets its own weighted slot. If a casino can't prove fairness, that shows up in the score.
How it's built
Server-rendered HTML on Bun and Hono, hosted on a Hetzner VPS, fronted by a BunnyCDN wildcard pullzone, with Caddy handling wildcard SSL. No build step, no framework drama. JSON-LD schema (FAQPage, ItemList, Review, Article) wired through every template so the structured data matches what's actually on the page.
The content pipeline is the interesting part: a system that pulls aggregated public data per casino, runs it through the scoring model, and produces both the numerical ranking and the narrative review in one pass. Update the inputs, the rankings update themselves.
Where it stands
The full site is built and deployed. Casino, dice, poker, and betting subdomains are live. The fourteen-category scoring system is implemented end-to-end, with score modals on every brand. BunnyCDN wildcard is configured. Twenty-plus brand reviews are published.
What's next is the slow work — building the SEO baseline, expanding content depth, and rolling out multi-language versions (German, Indonesian, Spanish) where Bitcoin gambling demand is highest.