A parent's checklist for choosing a safe game site

Choosing a safe game site starts with questions you can answer before your child plays. Who can contact them? What can they buy? What information leaves the browser? An attractive puzzle or an age label does not answer all those questions.

Use the checklist below while opening the site together. It focuses on the site's features and settings. For a separate conversation about when games fit into family life, read our screen-time checklist.

Check the site before the first game

These questions draw on the ICO's Children's Code, eSafety's parent guide, ESRB's ratings guide and AAP advertising guidance. They are prompts for your decision. They are not a certification system.

Check	Question to answer before play
Ads	Are there commercial messages inside rounds or rewards for watching ads?
Chat	Can an unknown player send text, voice messages or connection requests?
Spending	Are purchases offered, including currency or items with random contents?
Data	What is collected, who receives it, and how can collection be stopped?
Sign-up	Is an account necessary, and which details are required?
Age suitability	What does the rating cover, and are online features described separately?
Parental controls	Can you change contact and spending settings, and explain them to your child?

Write down anything you cannot answer. A reasonable next step is to pause and look for the relevant policy or help page. You do not need to decide from the homepage alone.

Look at ads and spending separately

The AAP's 2020 guidance describes children's vulnerability to digital advertising. It also discusses commercial messages presented as part of play, such as game characters encouraging purchases. Ask your child which elements belong to the game and which are selling something. Look at what appears between rounds as well as during them.

For spending, check the ESRB's interactive notices where a rated game has them. Its purchase notice can distinguish offers involving random items. These notices describe features separately from the age rating. Ask what can be bought and whether a payment needs your permission.

Try making your own short record: purchase available, payment method saved, permission needed. If any answer is unclear, investigate before adding payment details. You do not need to buy anything to examine a game's rules.

Understand contact and controls

eSafety advises that children know how to mute, block, report and turn off chat before they play online. Work through the controls together. Ask whether contact settings cover voice as well as text. Include any separate service your child plans to use while gaming.

Then agree how your child will ask for help. eSafety advises staying calm, thanking your child for telling you and reassuring them that they are not in trouble. A practical question is who they would tell if another player made them uncomfortable.

Under the ICO's code, a service that offers parental controls should give the child age-appropriate information about them. You can do the same at home. Explain your family's settings plainly, because a control panel does not replace understanding what your child can actually do.

Read privacy beyond the sign-up form

The ICO's code is UK regulator guidance for online services. It calls for high privacy defaults, minimal data collection and clear explanations. Use those principles when reading a policy: what information is needed for play, what is optional, and what is shared?

The FTC's COPPA guidance explains that certain persistent identifiers can be personal information. A site can therefore raise privacy questions without asking for a child's real name. COPPA concerns covered US services collecting information from children under 13. It is not an international safety rating. This checklist is practical guidance, not a legal assessment of any site.

For example, imagine a puzzle site that requires no account but sends usage events to an analytics provider. Ask whether collection starts automatically, which events are sent, and where to turn it off. That is an illustrative policy-reading exercise. It helps separate the account question from the data question.

How freegama answers the checklist

Our For parents page and Privacy page describe the current website. There are no ads, player chats, messages or purchases inside games. You can play without signing up or supplying a payment card. The Daily 4 ends after four games, and further practice is optional.

Profiles, full saved results, streaks and settings stay in this browser. Kids profiles do not ask for an email address or phone number. The age or band is self-declared, which is not age verification. These profiles also do not automatically sync across browsers or devices.

We use Google Firebase Analytics, enabled unless you turn it off. It measures page and game use, including age band, levels, scores, accuracy and duration. It also records article reading, scroll depth, return intervals, error names and outbound-link domains. Advertising features are off. Google processes this data, and our host may separately process technical request information.

The Privacy page has an opt-out control. Use it in each browser where your child plays. Turning it off stops future collection there, and it does not delete information already received by Google. Clearing site data also clears the saved choice.

Keep the limits in view

freegama has streaks and a countdown to the next daily set. It has no parent dashboard and does not verify ages. Because the games have no chat or purchases, there are no contact or spending settings to adjust. Some games are visual and lack screen-reader play. Game scores describe play here. They do not diagnose a child or promise higher IQ or grades.

No checklist can guarantee safety or cover every child's needs. Revisit your answers when features or policies change. Start with For parents, and use the Privacy control before play if you want analytics off.