A "cookie" (a small text file that a site leaves in the browser, to recognise the same browser on the next page) is the ordinary tool of the web, and Rand Casinos uses as few of them as, in our view, its needs allow. The first need is to remember the reader's answer to the banner. The second, which exists only if that answer is "Accept", is to measure the pages read and the links followed, and a third, for a few readers only, is to remember a regional redirect.
Rand Casinos sets no advertising cookies. The table below is the complete list of what the site can set, and none of its first three lines exists before the reader answers the banner. The fourth concerns only a reader whom the regional service has taken to a page written for Ontario, Alberta, Québec or one of fourteen American states, so that anyone else who goes through ten pages without answering the banner leaves with no cookie from the site at all.
The cookies this site can set
| Name | Set by | Purpose | Duration | Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| rc_consent | rand-casinos.com (first party) | stores the reader's choice about measurement | 182 days | technical, set whenever the reader chooses, whatever the choice |
| _ga | Google Analytics 4, through the GTM-TFD39HN container of Google Tag Manager | distinguishes visitors | 2 years | measurement, only after "Accept" |
| _ga_<container-id> | Google Analytics 4, through the GTM-TFD39HN container of Google Tag Manager | keeps the session state | 2 years | measurement, only after "Accept" |
| gt… or geotargetly… | Geo Targetly, through its script on the pages with operators | may record that the regional redirect has already happened | hours, as set in the service | technical, independent of the banner |
The first line is the one cookie common to every reader who answers the banner, in either direction, and it holds that answer and nothing else, neither the pages read nor the time spent on them. The next two belong to Google Analytics 4 ("GA4"), which Google Tag Manager brings in after the reader has clicked "Accept" and never before, and they serve to tell one visitor from another and to keep the "session" (the visit in progress) together; a reader who refuses carries away not one cookie from Google!
The two years of the Google cookies are Google's own setting, while the 182 days of "rc_consent" are ours. A reader who answers the banner on 1 March keeps the answer until 30 August (182 days later), and from that date the banner returns on the next visit (sooner, if the browser has been cleared in the meantime). Both durations are maximum lives rather than promises, since clearing the browser ends all of them at once and withdrawing consent ends the two of Google.
The regional redirect
The fourth line belongs to Geo Targetly, the service that takes readers in those places to the page written for them (the privacy policy describes what it receives).
The company says that its cookies have names beginning with "gt" or "geotargetly", that they serve to tell whether a visitor has already been shown the page, and that its script reads them in the browser without sending them to its servers. Their life is a number of hours fixed in the settings of the service, and for the robots of the search engines, which our settings let through, the service writes one expiring the moment it is written.
After a click on an operator link
A click on a link to an operator takes the reader to the operator's site, with its own cookies and its own policy, applied from the first page opened there. It is there, on the operator's side, that the referral from Rand Casinos is recorded (the "affiliate tracking", by which an operator credits the site that sent it a new customer), and in our view it is worth reading the operator's cookie policy before depositing, not afterwards.
If the reader has accepted measurement, the site also records the click as an "affiliate_click" event in GA4, with the operator's short name and the address of the link, as the privacy policy explains; if the reader has refused, no such event exists.
Changing the choice, and deleting cookies
The choice remains open: the "Cookie settings" button in the footer (the strip at the bottom of every page) lets the reader change it at any moment. If you had accepted, the button reopens the banner, and choosing "Reject" there withdraws consent and deletes the "_ga" cookies in the same moment. From that moment nothing more is measured, on any page of the site, until consent is given again.
Every browser also lets you delete cookies directly (all of them, or only those of one site) from its privacy or site data settings, and we would advise doing it on a shared computer above all. On Rand Casinos the only consequence is a banner that asks its question again, because "rc_consent" has gone with the rest.
Questions about these cookies (or about anything the table leaves unanswered) can be sent through the contact page, and our answer will use the same plain terms as this page, with the name of each cookie and the reason it exists.
Questions
Does the site work if you refuse cookies?
Yes. Refusing loads nothing from Google, and the pages, tables and links are the same; the refusal sets only rc_consent, to remember the answer.
What is the rc_consent cookie?
A first-party technical cookie set by rand-casinos.com that stores the reader's choice about measurement for 182 days.
Where is the affiliate tracking done?
On the operator's side: after a click on an operator link, the operator's site records the referral with its own cookies, under its own policy.