One of the best things about gambling online is all the choices we have. There are hundreds and hundreds of online casinos that are just waiting for us to pick them. And the best part is, joining them takes only a couple of minutes, so, if we ever change our mind, we can join a different one just as fast.
But, even though this is mostly an advantage for all gambling enthusiasts, there is also a little problem. Not every single casino out there is legit and trustworthy, some of them are only trying to con you and take all your money away. Now, finding out what casino is bad for you is kind of tricky, because they cover their shady activities up so well, but, if you stick around and read this text thoroughly, you will hopefully learn something valuable that you’ll be able to use later on.
Legitimate online casino reviews only promote licensed and regulated casinos. For example, in certain regions, such as Europe, Asia, and the UK, meeting these two conditions is everything the casino needs in order to work properly. So, if you find yourself gambling in one of these, you can rest assured knowing you probably won’t lose all your money.
The reason for that is the fact that these casinos have commissions that oversee their every action and make sure that they follow every rule and guideline in order to treat every single of their customers fairly. Every casino that decides to ignore these rules is sanctioned immediately and punished accordingly.
But sadly, this isn’t the case for every online casino in the world. Especially the offshore ones that appear in the USA often. They use various domain names and get their licenses from fake gambling commissions. This is why you should stay away from them if you manage to recognize them in time. If you miss these clues and find yourself playing in one of these, you don’t have to panic immediately, because even though they’re breaking American law, they don’t always do shady stuff, so, you might even get lucky, who knows.
Now that you know that not every casino is safe and that there are some scary consequences in case you visit one on the other side of the law, we should start with some useful pieces of advice on how to spot the bad ones and stay as far from them as possible.
The first thing that you should know about shady online casinos is that they haven’t become successful overnight. I know that this sounds a bit contradictory, but when you think about it, it does make sense. If they gave their best to trick you and “rob” you from the very beginning, they wouldn’t really have that many customers at all. They plan it all ahead, they take their time, and that’s why it’s so hard to notice it.
For some casinos, being a villain wasn’t the main plan. It was a cocktail of bad decisions, greed, and poor business, but hey, that doesn’t happen overnight either, right?
One of the biggest clues that a casino is shady is slow pays. It is especially suspicious when the casino used to pay everything on time, but now suddenly, it takes two or three times longer for money to get to the customers. If it’s the first or second time that your payout is late, try to ignore it because mistakes happen to everyone. But, if that starts to happen regularly, then you should consider changing your casino.
The second suspicious method that rogue casinos use is the change of terms. For example, if you’re starting to play nicely, you’re getting pretty serious bonuses, and in the end, the casino won’t give you your money because of the new, never before heard term, you should pack your stuff and leave.
Some of the other big clues that a casino is “fishy” are big (too good to be true) offers, unwanted bonuses, aggressive marketing, etc.
But, you’re probably wondering what are you supposed to do if you aren’t really good with picking up on these clues, and you aren’t sure you’re able to judge on your own if an online casino is bad for you. We have a couple of suggestions for that too. First and foremost, you should read the review online before you step into any casino for the first time. It is crucial for you to know what you are getting into in order to minimize the possible damage. You need to be careful though because some reviewers tend to be unbiased. But, if the job is done objectively, you should be able to trust these reviews.
The second place that you should visit is online casino forums. Usually, this is where a lot of the passionate gamblers spend their spare time when they’re not playing, so, you should think about asking them for advice or recommendation. And last but certainly not least, we have Google. Just a quick search can help you save a lot of time and money by finding out which casinos have a bad reputation, so you can avoid them in a wide circle in the future. You should keep in mind that articles on google can also be revenge posts by an angry ex-customer who lost everything fair and square, by his own fault, so be careful.
To sum everything up, when it comes to online casinos, you can never be too sure. It’s just like life, there are some bad things and some good things, but in most cases, you don’t realize which is which until you experience it by yourself. We gave you some useful information on what casinos are capable of and now it’s your job to go out there and explore by yourself. But, if the worst happens, you should now be able to control the damage at least a little bit and use that knowledge in the future in order to identify a shady online casino and prevent any similar attempts that could happen.