Editorial policy

What this document is for

Reader trust is the only thing that keeps this site alive. The rules page, strategy page, and operator reviews mean nothing if the reader doesn’t believe we are calling it straight. This document is the public scaffolding behind every published number on andarbahar.cc. If you ever wonder why one operator ranks above another or why we publish a withdrawal time of “23 minutes” rather than “instant”, the answer is on this page.

Who writes what

Three editors, all bylined on the pages they author.

• Aniket Rao, Editor-in-Chief (Mumbai). Writes the rules, strategy, math, and variant pages. Final approver on every operator review before publication. Six years writing about live casino games for Indian publications.
• Pooja Menon, Senior Reviews Editor (Bengaluru). Writes the operator review pages, runs the withdrawal-test methodology, manages the comparison tables on the where-to-play pages. Four years prior in fintech payments compliance.
• Karan Iyer, Hindi Desk Editor & Withdrawal Tester (Bengaluru). Authors the Hindi versions of pillar pages. Runs the small-stake withdrawal cycles on every reviewed operator. Moderates the tip line at tips@andarbahar.cc.

Every published page carries the author’s byline, the publication date, and the last reviewed date. If a page lists “Last reviewed 28 May 2026”, a member of the team has re-read it on or after that date and confirmed the facts are still accurate.

How we score operators

Every operator we review is scored out of 100 across six weighted dimensions. The weights reflect what we believe matters most to an Indian Andar Bahar player. We update the weights once a year if reader feedback or industry data suggests a shift is needed.

The quarterly withdrawal test

This is the most labour-intensive part of our work and it’s the part that distinguishes our reviews from re-published marketing copy. Every quarter, Pooja and Karan run a live withdrawal cycle at five stake tiers on every reviewed operator. The tiers are chosen to represent the realistic range of Indian Andar Bahar players.

For each cycle we record: time of withdrawal request (in IST), method used (UPI, IMPS, NEFT), any KYC document requested, any holds applied, the time the funds actually credit at our end, and the actual amount received (some operators apply silent fees). We publish the median time across our four operators side-by-side, and we publish the individual time per operator on each operator’s review page.

The accounts used for these tests are real accounts in the editorial team’s names. We do not use influencer accounts, “review accounts” that operators flag for priority handling, or any other shortcut. Operators do not know which accounts are ours; we believe they don’t because the timing variance between cycles makes it clear we’re not getting special treatment.

What else we test

• Table count and uptime. We log live table availability on Andar Bahar three times during the test quarter: a 6 PM Friday peak, a 2 PM Tuesday off-peak, and a 1 AM Sunday late-night slot. We count live tables, RNG tables, and Lightning/OTT/Speed variants separately.
• Dealer rotation and language coverage. Karan sits in on at least 20 minutes of live play per Andar Bahar table per operator and notes whether Hindi-dealer tables are running and how the dealer handles language switching mid-table.
• Support response time. We send three identical queries on WhatsApp, three on email, and three through the in-site live chat. The first message is a simple question, the second is mildly aggravating (“my withdrawal is stuck”), and the third is a deliberate edge case (a question about a side-bet payout that the operator’s published rules don’t cover clearly). We measure first-response time and resolution time.
• Bonus T&Cs. Pooja reads the welcome bonus and any reload bonus terms in full and checks: wagering multiplier, contribution rates by game, withdrawal eligibility, expiry timing, and country/state exclusions. Any term that we judge “deceptive” or “hidden in size 9 grey text below the fold” costs the operator material points.

Conflicts of interest, in full

Every commercial site has them; we want ours on the table.

1. Referral commissions. All four operators on our reviewed list — Funexchange, Playinexch, Mahadev Book, Reddyanna — pay us a referral commission when a reader signs up and deposits after clicking a link from this site. The commission is a small share of the operator’s gross gaming revenue from that player. The exact rate varies by operator and by player tier, but it is broadly comparable across the four. We make money when readers lose at these operators. We don’t make money when readers win. We don’t make money when readers don’t sign up.

2. No paid placement. We have never accepted, and will never accept, payment to rank an operator higher than our methodology produces, to add an operator to the where-to-play page outside the normal quarterly review cycle, or to publish a sponsored article. Operators occasionally ask. The answer is always no.

3. No editorial input from operators. Operators do not review our review pages before publication. They are not shown drafts. They cannot request edits. They can request factual corrections after publication, which we treat exactly the same as a reader correction request: we look at the evidence, and if we got something wrong we fix it and date-stamp the correction.

4. Free play credits. Operators occasionally offer us complimentary credits for testing purposes. We accept these only at the stake-tier level needed to run the withdrawal test (we need to win some money to withdraw it). We never accept “review bonuses” that materially exceed the test amount. Any free credits used are disclosed in the review’s methodology footnote.

5. Personal play. The editorial team plays Andar Bahar occasionally and uses the same accounts for personal play and for review work. We are transparent about this and treat it as part of the testing budget. We do not use insider knowledge from these accounts (special bonuses, dedicated host treatment) in published reviews because we believe a reader would not get the same treatment.

Correction policy

We make mistakes. The site has 60+ pages of math, payout numbers, table mechanics, and operator detail; some of it is wrong from time to time. Our commitment is the correction process, not perfection in the first draft.

• Spotting an error. Errors get spotted three ways: our own quarterly re-review of every page, reader emails to editor@andarbahar.cc, and operator factual-correction requests. We accept all three with equal weight.
• Verifying the correction. Pooja verifies the proposed correction against a second source (regulator data, operator’s current published terms, our own test results, or a respected industry source). We do not change a published number on one person’s say-so.
• Publishing the fix. Once verified, we update the page text, change the “Last reviewed” date in the header, and add a one-line correction note at the bottom of the page if the change is material. Trivial typo fixes are not flagged in the correction note.
• Severity threshold. Material corrections (wrong house edge, wrong payout, wrong operator policy) are also pushed as a brief note on our Telegram channel. Cosmetic fixes (typos, broken links) are not.

Last review date footers

Every page on andarbahar.cc carries a “Last reviewed” date in the page header. The rule: a page must be re-read in full by a member of the editorial team within the last 6 months for the date to remain current. If 6 months pass without a review, the page slides into a queue for re-checking. Pages that fall more than 12 months out of review are flagged in the site footer and on the homepage as “review pending” until they are refreshed.

Updating this policy

The criteria, weights, and methodology described on this page are reviewed annually. The next review is scheduled for November 2026. If we change the weights, we publish the old and new weights side-by-side and explain the change in a note at the bottom of this page.

Questions or challenges

If you think one of our scores is wrong, our methodology has a hole in it, or our conflict-of-interest disclosure is incomplete, please write to editor@andarbahar.cc. We genuinely want the challenge. We respond within 48 business hours.