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There are many outstanding online casinos available to choose from today. The budding casino player is spoilt for choice nowadays; so much so that they can have a tough time sorting through the myriad of outstanding introductory offers available in order to get them to play. While this is great for players seeking a way to spend some free time online, there is still a danger to those players who are unwary and that threat comes from rogue casinos.
The facts about rogue casinos
When the first online casinos began to spring up, Internet legislation was in its infancy and so it was relatively easy for unscrupulous online fraudsters to publish their own ‘casino’. The truth was this casino was nothing of the sort – it was simply a front that fraudsters used to get unwary players to submit their personal details and credit card or bank account information to them.
Once they had received this information and before they could be detected, fraudsters would then routinely empty accounts of their cash and then close the website, opening up another new fraud website elsewhere. Leaving the poor customer to contact their bank or credit card’s fraud department to make a claim and get a refund, while they investigated the fraud.
Fortunately, Internet security and rules and regulations are now so stringent that it is very, very difficult for a fraudster to get away with operating a rogue casino and while the chances of finding one are very small, there is still a threat that you may inadvertently stumble across one while searching for a casino to play with.
Luckily for the novice gambler, there are several ways in which you can protect yourself from joining a rogue casino and there are some giveaway signs that the casino you may have stumbled across is not legitimate. We’ll examine these in more detail below.
Six simple ways to detect if your casino is legit or not
Finding out if your casino is operating legally and fairly, or if it is merely a front for fraudsters to obtain money from unsuspecting customers does require a little time and research spent on the Internet. However, if you are prepared to undertake this research and find out the answers to the six questions below, you will radically reduce the chances of ever being conned by a fraud online casino ever again.
To find out if your casino is a fraud or not, just ask yourself the following six questions and search the website and the Internet for your answers.
1. How long has your casino been in operation?
Obviously, the longer a casino has been established and operating, then the more likely it is to be a legitimate operation. Be wary of casinos that spring into existence very quickly and offer seemingly ‘too good to be true” offers. Usually, these offers are indeed too good to be true. Read the about us section about your casino to see when it was developed and if your website doesn’t have this information readily available, ask yourself why this could be, especially if it is seemingly a brand new casino.
2. Where is your online casino licensed?
Every legitimate online casino in operation on the Internet needs to be licensed in order to legally operate. One of the most popular places for online casinos to obtain these licenses is in the Caribbean Islands such as the Bahamas, Antigua and Dominica as well as countries such as Costa Rica. If you cannot identify where your casino has been licensed, or it does not clearly state any information pertaining to its licence, once again you need to consider why this could be.
3. Which developer has the casino used for its web and gaming software?
Although there are a large number of reputable online casinos available on the Internet, there are far fewer teams that are developing the software that runs the games on these sites as well as powering the front end of the website too. Most reputable websites will have clearly displayed which software development team they have employed to produce their site and some will even have links to their home page. Again, if your chosen casino chooses not to display this information, this may be because they are using fraudulent software to rip off unaware users.
4. Does your site have a completely free of charge gaming area?
Trustworthy casinos want to attract users in and in order to do this, many of them will offer any user the chance to play any of their games completely free of charge. If your casino doesn’t offer this then this should set alarm bells ringing in your head. It is also important to be wary that even if your site does offer a ‘free’ section, fraudsters may skew the games so it seems as if you will win frequently. Then when you play for money after you have registered, you will never win.
5. Does your casino detail the payout percentages for all of its games?
Online casinos are well aware that all the games are slightly skewed in their favour. It is, after all, how they make their money and are able to continue offering games to customers. What they will do to inform new users of the site is to produce a table of payout percentages, which will detail all of the different types of games the casino offers and what the chances are of a player winning on any given hand. Again, if your casino does not provide this, or the odds seem well in your favour, this can be a sign of a less than honest operator.
6. What do reviewers and other players say about this casino on the net?
A quick search of the Internet will reveal what other players and users have experienced with your site. Of course, not everyone will be happy all of the time, but if the vast majority of reviews are favourable and go back many years, this is a good sign the site is legitimate. A site with few reviews, or with several reviews written in a very short space of time, or with many comments critical of the service is a site to avoid.
By asking yourself these six simple questions and understanding what the answers tell you about the company you have chosen, you can radically reduce your chances of ever being fooled by a rogue casino operator.
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