Scammers are found nearly everywhere. However, when it happens online, it becomes harder to determine if you are the target of a scam and who is behind the fraudulent activity. The online casino space has often been accused of being filled to the brim with scammers, and that accusation is not entirely fair. No industry is without its scandals; on the other hand, there are thousands of safe casinos to choose from. What is important here is that players must gain enough insight to quickly spot these moles in the iGaming space and avoid them like the plague.
What is a Blacklisted Casino?
A “blacklist” is a list of individuals or things that have been proven untrustworthy and unacceptable and should therefore be avoided or excluded altogether. In the iGaming industry, such a term is linked to online casinos that either fail to or deliberately avoid doing their part to protect customers. Blacklisted casinos pose a danger to those registering and playing with them. No official blacklisting authority gives such casinos this label; therefore, it is up to players to find trustworthy resources to stay informed of these suspicious websites.
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As stated, the most crucial takeaway is that as soon as you come across a blacklisted casino, you must avoid it at all costs. These platforms are dangerous and pose a significant risk to your safety, money, and private information. Also, scammers are not licensed (properly, at least) and do not adhere to regulations. Moreover, too many high-quality, reputable options exist for you to waste your time and energy with rogue casinos
The Risks of Blacklisted Casinos
To drive home the importance of avoiding rogue casinos, below are some risks to be wary of looking for a casino site to register with:
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You May Lose Money
The most significant risk to you as a player when registering with rogue casinos is that your money is unsafe. That includes the money you have won and the money in your bankroll. As we have mentioned, most of these suspicious sites do not respect your hard-earned money and are in the throes of making a quick buck by any means necessary.After all, gambling already has enough risk and excitement involved. There should be no reason to add the needless risk of waking up one day to find all your cash gone or to go on waking up and never seeing your requested payout.
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Your Privacy, Compromised
An often-ignored risk of gambling with rogue casinos is that your privacy will be compromised. When you sign up with an online casino, you usually submit your full name, date of birth, address, email, and other relevant information. When you give up this information to the online casino, you may be doing so under the false sense of security that your information will be kept safe.
Of course, it is safe with reputable casinos, but your data is rarely safe when you offer this information to a suspicious casino. You obviously would not want to throw caution to the wind, so keep these rogue websites where they truly belong: away from you and your money.
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Rogue Casinos are Tricky to Spot
Rogue casinos are often good at disguising themselves as reputable ones. After all, when was the last time you spotted a website or business openly revealing its plans to exploit unsuspecting people with predatory business practices?In the same way, rogue online casinos never advertise that they are terrible at what they do.
They do the exact opposite instead via false advertisements. They try to look trustworthy with crisp animations, aesthetically appealing images, positive language, and seemingly lucrative bonus promotions. Simply put, rogue casinos are difficult to spot, making them much more harmful. Therefore, it is crucial to take your time and find them, recognise them, spread awareness among your peers, and ultimately avoid them.
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A Discouraging Online Gambling Experience
Online gambling is meant to be enjoyable. For many, it is a source of relaxation and an escape from everyday routine. That said, what level of peace will we get if we are constantly worried about being scammed?
As a player looking to enjoy yourself, you must be able to focus on the games you are playing and get the most enjoyment out of your time playing. Therefore, we recommend saving yourself the headache of wasting entertainment money and avoiding these rogue sites as soon as you can identify their intentions.
The Risks of Blacklisted Casinos
To drive home the importance of avoiding rogue casinos, below are some risks to be wary of looking for a casino site to register with:
You May Lose Money
The most significant risk to you as a player when registering with rogue casinos is that your money is unsafe. That includes the money you have won and the money in your bankroll. As we have mentioned, most of these suspicious sites do not respect your hard-earned money and are in the throes of making a quick buck by any means necessary.
After all, gambling already has enough risk and excitement involved. There should be no reason to add the needless risk of waking up one day to find all your cash gone or to go on waking up and never seeing your requested payout.
Your Privacy, Compromised
An often-ignored risk of gambling with rogue casinos is that your privacy will be compromised. When you sign up with an online casino, you usually submit your full name, date of birth, address, email, and other relevant information.
When you give up this information to the online casino, you may be doing so under the false sense of security that your information will be kept safe. Of course, it is safe with reputable casinos, but your data is rarely safe when you offer this information to a suspicious casino.
You obviously would not want to throw caution to the wind, so keep these rogue websites where they truly belong: away from you and your money.
Rogue Casinos Are Tricky to Spot
Rogue casinos are often good at disguising themselves as reputable ones. After all, when was the last time you spotted a website or business openly revealing its plans to exploit unsuspecting people with predatory business practices?
In the same way, rogue online casinos never advertise that they are terrible at what they do. They do the exact opposite instead via false advertisements. They try to look trustworthy with crisp animations, aesthetically appealing images, positive language, and seemingly lucrative bonus promotions.
Simply put, rogue casinos are difficult to spot, making them much more harmful. Therefore, it is crucial to take your time and find them, recognise them, spread awareness among your peers, and ultimately avoid them.
A Discouraging Online Gambling Experience
Online gambling is meant to be enjoyable. For many, it is a source of relaxation and an escape from everyday routine. That said, what level of peace will we get if we are constantly worried about being scammed?
As a player looking to enjoy yourself, you must be able to focus on the games you are playing and get the most enjoyment out of your time playing. Therefore, we recommend saving yourself the headache of wasting entertainment money and avoiding these rogue sites as soon as you can identify their intentions.
Why Online Casinos Are Blacklisted
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Firstly, it is crucial to note that there is no all-encompassing list of rogue casinos. When online, you will not find the same rogue casino on every blacklist you see.
Every cautionary webpage you come across will feature its list based on past experiences from players and their research. Therefore, you must know the telltale signs of a rogue casino for your safety. Below are some of the commonly found traits of rogue casinos that you must be wary of:
Unfair Games
All online casino games should be fair and random to offer the best gameplay experience. Unfortunately, some scam casinos alter their games to get the advantage (aside from the edge these games already give casinos), causing players to lose more often. A rogue casino may also tweak its demo or free practice games to favour the players, encouraging them to play the rigged versions of those games for money.
Slow Pays
Similar to another scam method involving non-payment, a rogue site may resort to slow payment procedures. Such casinos may take weeks, months, or even years to pay players back. They either do not have the cash flow or want to urge the player to keep playing. They might also expect the player to choose a bonus to avoid cashing out altogether. All these behaviours are problematic. Meanwhile, after several weeks of waiting, the players are forced to deal with partial payments and bouncing checks.
Non-Payments
Rogue casinos do not pay players their winnings for (obviously) unstated reasons. There are, of course, legit reasons for not paying a player, such as because they resorted to cheating, abused bonuses, or did not complete the terms of an offer. However, note that rogue casinos can use these same reasons as excuses not to pay out players, despite no proof that the player has done anything wrong.
Instead, they accuse the player of cheating to stall and, other times, bore them into taking another bonus so they cannot cash out. Non-payment also applies to affiliates. Consider this–if the casino refuses to pay affiliates, how long will they continue to pay players?
Dishonest Terms and Conditions
Rogue casinos often have outrageous terms, such as:
- 75x or even up to 100x rollover requirements for bonuses,
- a limit on the money players can win with their bonus (the maximum value of x times the first deposit amount),
- a cap on how much they can bet each round,
- or barring games such as progressive jackpots during the bonus use.
They may also resort to tactics such as getting a player signed up for a promotion or bonus while trying to “resolve” a conflict involving said player wishing to cash out. What is ironic here is that they are offering bonuses despite calling the player suspicious. Their reason for this is to trap the player into an offer forcing them to play (and lose) more instead of withdrawing.
Changing Terms
Among the most deceitful things rogue casinos do is abruptly change their terms and conditions without notice. They do this when disputing with a player over something they state the player has done wrong (even though they have not). They will deliberately alter the terms and conditions in favour of their argument. Meanwhile, when you go through their archives, you will see that the terms were changed from favouring the player to siding with the rogue casino.
Regulation and Licensing
A rogue casino may claim to have a license. They may also be located in an area liberal about regulation, allowing them to go scot-free with their dishonesty.
This is a horrible experience for players since they do not get customer support during non-payment or issues playing particular games. Even if you can contact such casinos’ customer care representatives, they are incredibly impolite and may threaten you verbally.
Fund Removal
Some rogue sites state in their Terms and Conditions that they have the right to remove funds from a player's account if they suspect the player has broken any rules. This is another way scam casinos can conceal the fact that they are exploiting players. There have been many instances of player players logging in and finding their funds gone due to some technical issue.
Selling User Information
Some rogue casinos take users’ data and emails and sell them to third-party marketing companies online. A telltale of this is that your inbox starts getting emails and offers you have never subscribed to.
Although this does not affect your money or gambling experience, it is highly unprofessional and shows that the casino does not care about its clients. This also begs the question: If these casinos are this ready to give away or sell your personal information, what else would they be capable of doing for a quick buck?
Lack of Information
If you do not find much information on the online casino’s landing page or if something seems off, try investigating the casino yourself. If it is a blacklisted casino, chances are you are not the first user they are attempting to scam.
This will automatically lead to some traces. A quick google search will show you if the casino had any conflict in the past or is already blacklisted on an affiliate website.
What to Do if You are Currently Signed up with a Blacklisted Casino?
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Just learned that the casino you have been playing at has been blacklisted the whole time? At this point, panicking would not help. Instead, take a few moments and consider the practical steps laid out below:
Do Not Panic
As mentioned, panicking could only lead you to make rash decisions based on emotion. After all, just because a website has been blacklisted does not mean all its customers are in danger. Moreover, some rogue casinos are on the list for what they do with users’ personal information or things they have done with specific bonus programs.
Your funds may not be at risk. Even if that is the case, you must still get as far away from the casino as possible because that toxicity can overlap with other areas of their business.
Lastly, please do not feel embarrassed about being exploited by a casino since it happens to many. Try to approach the situation coolly, keeping in mind the following steps.
Start Withdrawing Your Funds
The most crucial thing you may have at risk besides your deposited funds. Of course, your private data is also crucial, but it is probably too late if the casino has gained access to it. Removing your cash from the casino website is the most critical matter to focus on here.
Look for the fastest possible method to remove your money from the casino. Normally, the faster withdrawal methods are costlier with higher fees. However, that should be the last of your worries. If it costs you some extra bucks to guarantee the safety of your money via withdrawal from these casinos, then that should be worth the trouble.
If the casino is closing down (without informing anyone beforehand, obviously), not everyone will get their money back. Therefore, the faster you start withdrawing, the better your chances of getting your funds back.
Cut Off Contact With the Casino
After withdrawing your money and closing your account, the next step is closing contact with the site. That means blocking it on email or text messages to avoid any further distress. Take all the steps required to terminate your relationship with the rogue casino.
Select a Reputable Casino as a Replacement
Once your money is safe and the rogue casino is out of sight, consider looking for a replacement. Just because you had an unpleasant experience with a casino does not mean you should limit yourself from future enjoyment, especially if you are a fan of online gambling.
Moving forward, an important step you must take is to find out that the replacement is trustworthy, reputable, and not blacklisted. You can do that by searching up the casino in question on google, going through reviews, and checking the casino’s licensing, among other things.
Protecting Yourself From Rogue Casinos
As mentioned, every industry has a dark side, and rogue casinos are not going anywhere soon. Therefore, gamblers must be wary of getting scammed when making deposits online. Below are some factors to consider when determining the legitimacy and trustworthiness of a website and what you can do to avoid rogue casinos.
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Third-Party Software Audits
Some online casino platforms have gaming licenses based on where they are attempting to attract customers. For instance, the UK and Malta do not issue licenses to casinos aiming to accept bets from US-based users.
In such a case, the next thing to watch out for is a software developer that regularly has its games audited by a third-party company. This is something software developers like to display proudly. Therefore, if you cannot find a logo from a third-party auditing company, consider that a red flag.
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Licensing
The most common way to determine that you are signed up with a reputable casino is to check if they hold a gaming license. Many jurisdictions offer casino licenses, each offering a varying level of user protection. Usually, websites with licenses from Malta or the UK are recommended. That is because they require all user funds to be stored in a separate bank account that is regularly audited.
Other jurisdictions like Kahnawake and Curacao exist but are less stringent than the European regulators. That said, an online casino with one of these licenses has at least had to undergo some vetting process.
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Online Casino Forums
Many player-focused websites exist, giving a voice to users who believe an online casino has exploited them. Note that some of the posts on forums are players complaining that they lost their funds playing games. Therefore, when going through a forum post about a casino site, consider looking for responses from casino representatives.
Forums are helpful because they allow casino websites to perform customer service publicly. So, if you do not see a response from the online casino, you should consider the platform suspicious.
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Smaller Deposits
Even after hours of research, consider yourself vulnerable to your chosen casino after depositing your money. It is always recommended to keep your budget in mind while playing. However, if you are new to and concerned about a site's trustworthiness, try testing it with a small deposit, preferably closer to the minimum deposit requirement.
After that, focus on managing your balance wisely, i.e., withdraw whenever possible and leave behind a minimum amount in your account balance. No doubt, this may cost you more in transaction charges, but it is still better than witnessing your overall balance emptied by a rogue casino.
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Friendly Advice
If you know or are acquainted with someone who has tried their luck with casino sites, ask for their advice. They may be able to offer their pointers on weeding out rogue casinos or share their experience that could help enhance your casino vetting skills. Seeking advice may also help you with your final decision.
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Reviews
Like how forums work, reviewing a casino’s reviews also helps because they can give you a comprehensive rundown of its services. Review sites also include blacklists of online casinos they do not recommend to users.
Our Verdict on Blacklisted Casinos
Blacklisted casinos are a cautionary reminder to carry out due diligence when gambling online, as there are potential consequences and risks when choosing the wrong casino.
FAQs
Do rogue casinos ever make it out of blacklists?
Yes, all platforms can work on their reputation and practices, improving their chances of making it out of blacklists. It is also worth mentioning that this rarely happens since rogue casinos stay rogue until their business goes bust.
What are bonus frauds?
A rogue casino may offer a bonus only to cancel it as soon as a player has registered and made an initial deposit. Casinos also change the bonus terms and conditions to avoid paying the bonus and its potential winnings.
Do rogue casinos lie about the RTP of their games?
Yes. Many rogue casinos advertise a certain percentage when in reality, the real return is noticeably lower.
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Cameron Murphy
Online Casinos- Gambling Regulations
- Casino Reviews
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