Casino fans can easily find excellent resources online to help them find the best online casinos. If you’re looking to carefully pick your next gaming site, you can find excellent online review sites that are willing to give you a recommendation. For example, check out this list of rated casino reviews over on Casinos Online for some handy tips on finding top casinos.
However, savvy players should also consider the other side of the coin. If there are certain casinos that can be praised, are there any that should be avoided at all costs?
Recognising bad, shady, or untrustworthy casinos is not always easy. After all, the whole idea is to make the site seem legit. However, there are still some telltale signs that can show you that a gambling site is not as good as it seems to be.
Let’s discuss some of those casino red flags and explain why avoiding such sites is probably for the best.
The Dangers of Rogue Casinos
Broadly speaking, online gambling is a highly regulated business. In fact, some believe that it is overregulated in certain places, hampering market growth. However, laws and regulations can’t always protect you when it comes to online scams.
Unfortunately, gambling has always attracted shady actors due to its very nature. Most people don’t really understand the math behind gambling, leaving them open to all sorts of fraud. Moreover, the proliferation of internet casinos, cryptocurrencies, and other technologies allowed unsavoury sites to trick and scam unsuspecting gamblers in new and inventive ways.
So what do these rogue casinos do, exactly? Here are some potential dangers of unverified gambling sites:
· Predatory bonuses and terms that leave your money “trapped” in a casino account
· Untested games that are hard or impossible to win
· Unclear conditions that prevent you from withdrawing your money
· Having your personal information, including payment data, stolen or leaked
· Direct scams that simply take your deposits and disappear
As you can see, there can be serious consequences for not being careful when picking a casino.
Thankfully, legit casinos can be easily distinguished from scams – you just have to know what to look for.
Rogue Casino Red Flags
Without further ado, let’s get into the main red flags that tell you which casinos to avoid.
1. No Licenses
Legal gambling sites operate under remote gambling licenses, which are typically issued by government authorities.
Any country with a regulated online gambling market also has a regulatory body. These organizations are responsible for issuing licenses, regulating their behavior, and holding gambling companies accountable for their actions and policies.
These licenses ensure that companies meet certain standards and requirements. These include fairness checks, KYC policies, privacy protection guidelines, and anti-money laundering measures, among others. More importantly, the license ensures that the casino has certain legal obligations towards you as a player.
Some of the more prominent online casino licenses include:
· The United Kingdom Gambling Commission
· The Curaçao Gaming Control Board
Ideally, you should only register in casinos that are licensed in your country or state. Even if your country doesn’t regulate its online market and doesn’t issue licenses, you can still consider these permits strong indicators of legitimate, safe casinos.
2. Uclear or Predatory Terms and Conditions
The terms and conditions of a casino are the bedrock of the relationship between a casino and its players. They define the site’s obligations and responsibilities. They also tell you what a casino can get away with from a legal perspective.
As such, it’s crucially important to pay attention to the terms agreement.
Now, we know what you’re thinking – no one ever reads the terms and conditions. It’s almost a joke at this point.
Thankfully, you never really have to read the full thing. You just have to pay attention to certain areas of the agreement:
· Note any country restrictions, exclusion clauses, or other reasons the casino may be able to deny you service down the line.
· Keep an eye on clauses that restrict how and when you can withdraw money, such as wagering requirements.
· Pay special attention to the bonus terms because predatory bonus deals are a common scamming method.
· Check the site’s fairness policies and when and how they’re able to void bets or winnings.
· Read the “fine print”: exceptions, special cases, and hidden clauses that can change the casino’s responsibilities depending on outside factors.
Be especially careful about ambiguous clauses. Scammy casinos sometimes purposely obscure their actions through vague sentences, opaque responsibilities, and unclear wording.
3. Hidden Fees on Withdrawals
Another way in which unscrupulous sites skim their players is through unreasonable, hidden fees on withdrawals.
For example, a site may offer a lot of deposit options but only a handful of withdrawal methods. Then, they saddle these withdrawals with unreasonably large and pointless fees. Even if everything else about the casino is legit, this presents an unnecessary drain on your bankroll that you wouldn’t get with a better casino.
Worse yet, many sites are very upfront about this, listing these fees and charges as part of the user agreement. This allows them to easily point at these terms and say that you’ve been informed beforehand, legally saddling you with extra costs.
That’s why payment options are one of the most important factors to consider when picking a new casino. Make sure you understand the available methods and currencies, and always check details such as limits, processing times, and fees. This can save you a lot of headaches down the line while also protecting your hard-earned money.
4. Unfair Wagering Requirements
Wagering requirements ensure that money at a casino has to be wagered several times over before it can be withdrawn as winnings. These requirements are typically associated with casino bonus offers to prevent abuse.
To be clear, not all wagering requirements are unfair. Pretty much every gambling bonus out there has them. After all, casinos are not in the business of handing out free cash, so they have to be careful with giving out bonuses.
The issue arises when these requirements are too strict or intentionally attempt to restrict a player’s access to their money.
For example, some sites impose requirements on both the bonus funds and the initial deposit. Worse still, these requirements can sometimes be massive, asking you to play through the whole amount 50 times or more.
The goal of these predatory terms is to make it impossible for players to actually win anything. They want to force you to keep betting the money until there’s nothing left.
Some sites even impose withdrawal requirements on all deposits, even if no bonus is involved. This is another dead giveaway that a casino is up to no good.
In short, carefully read through all bonus terms before accepting any promotions if you want to avoid running into these issues.
5. No Responsible Gambling Tools
Legal online casinos implement responsible gambling tools to help protect their customers from problem gambling. These tools include deposit limits, loss limits, reality checks, self-exclusion options, and access to resources for help with gambling addiction.
In fact, many licenses state that operators are required to provide these tools. If they don’t, it’s a sure sign that something is off.
For starters, all punters should always keep the dangers of gambling in mind. Addiction is no joke, and gambling responsibly should be a priority for anyone who enjoys the hobby. As such, access to these features should be important for you regardless of other factors that define a casino.
Casinos that don’t provide the proper tools to ensure responsible gambling probably don’t have the players’ best interests at heart. The absence of such tools tells you that the operator has no real concern for you as a customer. Moreover, it also probably means that the casino is not legal or properly licensed, which is a major issue we’ve already covered.
Conclusion – How to Avoid Shady Gambling Sites
Unfortunately, the online gambling business has proven to be attractive for quite a lot of shady sites and operators. According to some reports, fraud in the online gaming sector has increased by more than 64% between 2022 and 2024. With that in mind, anyone looking to play casino games online should be careful when picking a site to do so.
Take care to ensure that a casino is licensed, legal, and operates under international standards. Be vigilant for predatory offers and business practices with unintended consequences. Know what to look for in user agreements, and carefully read the “fine print” before signing up for a casino.
Keep an eye out for these easily spotted red flags, and online gambling can be a perfectly safe hobby.
