Fortunately for online casino players, there are very few rogue casinos (aka scam casinos or fake casinos) online today. However, they do exist; therefore, you should be careful before signing up to an online casino and conduct your own research/due diligence.
Here are several useful tips and strategies for identifying rogue online casinos and avoiding their scams.
How to identify a rogue casino
Rogue casinos are the worst kind of online casinos and must be avoided at all costs. Many clear signs can tell you if you have found a rogue casino.
A rogue casino will be unlicensed, or it will have obtained a license from an untrustworthy licensing authority. For example, some rogue casinos that have managed to obtain licenses tend to be licensed by what are commonly referred to as “rubber stamp” licensing authorities.
They are often based in Panama, Costa Rica, Anjouan/Comoros, and Belize. These bottom-tier licensing authorities have been known to issue licenses to anyone with enough money to buy one and will carry out little or no background security checks on their licensees.
We’re not saying that all online casinos licensed in these jurisdictions can’t be trusted, but perhaps steer clear of these sites or proceed with extreme caution.
Where are the best online casinos licensed?
The best online casinos tend to be licensed by mid to top-tier licensing authorities in the following jurisdictions:
- United Kingdom – the UK Gambling Commission
- Gibraltar – the Gibraltar Regulatory Authority
- Canadian Mohawk Territory, Quebec, Canada – the Kahnawake Gaming Commission
- Malta – the Malta Gaming Authority
- Alderney – the Alderney Gambling Control Commission
- Isle of Man – The Isle of Man Gambling Supervision Commission
- New Jersey – the NJDGE (New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement)
- Michigan – the MCGB (Michigan Gaming Control Board)
Today’s best online casinos in UK towns and cities are all licensed fully by the UK Gambling Commission – the commission is one of the world’s most trusted online gambling licensing authorities.
If you’re still not sure about a casino or where it’s licensed, go to the official licensing authority’s website to view a complete list of their licensees (online casinos they have issued licenses to).
For example, some rogue casinos have been known to stick the logo of a licensing authority on their website when, in fact, they are not licensed there.
This is why you should always try to carry out your own research before signing up to any old casino site you may have randomly stumbled across.
You can also trust online casinos that have obtained licenses from the PGCB (Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board) and several other mid to top-tier licensing authorities. Rogue online casinos will never obtain licenses from these trusted authorities.
In other words, whenever you see an online casino that’s licensed by one of these renowned authorities, you can pretty much guarantee that you are looking at a superb online casino.
Should anything bad happen at one of these sites you have signed up to, such as not receiving your winnings or the casino not coming good on the bonus it initially offered you, you, as a player, will have the necessary legal backing you are entitled to.
In other words, the licensing authority that issued the casino operator with a gambling license will have your back. The same cannot be said of unlicensed online casinos or ones that are licensed by ‘rubber stamp’ authorities.
How can I learn more about today’s best online casinos that aren’t ‘rogue’ in any way?
One of the most reputable online casino information portals that has carefully scoured the internet to find the best online casinos is the AskGamblers.com website.
The dedicated team of expert researchers have found the world’s best online casinos, and the good news is that they have over 1,700 trustworthy sites to choose from.
All of the casinos featured on Ask Gamblers are licensed by mid/top-tier licensing authorities.
They are owned by renowned companies with great backgrounds and solid reputations, and they use only licensed software by industry-award-winning providers, such as Blueprint Gaming, Evolution Gaming, Playtech, Games Global (a company that recently acquired Microgaming), Play’n GO, and Red Tiger Gaming.
You will also find that many of today’s best online casinos that have been reviewed for you at Ask Gamblers have games from ELK Studios, NetEnt, Pragmatic Play, Push Gaming, Relax Gaming, iSoftBet, Yggdrasil Gaming, Push Gaming, Playson, IGT, and Tunderkick, to name a few top providers.
Final note
If you think there’s something not quite right about the casino, or, for example, the bonus sounds too good to be true; the chances are that you could be right.
This is why we would only ever recommend playing at any of the 1,700+ fully licensed, highly recommended online casinos that have been carefully selected and reviewed for you on the official Ask Gamblers website.