Online fraudsters have, over the years, had a lot of luck with scam casino sites. If you’re thinking of getting into the online betting world, then it can be daunting for a lot of reasons—not least the constant worry that you’re looking at a scam casino and not a legitimate one. Today, we’re going to look at some of our best tips for spotting a scam casino site, and telling the good from the bad. There are more than a few basic things to look out for, so let’s get started.
1. Licensing
First and foremost, you need to check that the casino site is officially licensed by the relevant commission. The site itself should list its certification, and just to be sure you can also find a directory of every site licensed by the Commission on their website.
If you cannot find the relevant licensing for the online casino, then it is not operating legally at best, and at worst is probably an outright scam. The Commission will be responsible for all aspects of industry regulation, so if they are not enforcing these rules on a site because it is not registered with them, there are any number of ways the site might scam you.
Even if it is not an outright scam casino, any unlicensed casino will most likely be completely skewed against you, giving you little chance of winning. Any winnings you do make could take ages to be released to you.
Avoid unlicensed casinos at all costs.
2. Lack of registration requirements
Another thing you can look at is the extent of registration requirements. Most online casinos will require rather a lot of information to sign up, and usually in more than one stage. In the first stage, the site will request details like your full name, address, email address, and a phone number—all of which will have to be verified via texts and emails.
In the next phase, you will usually be required to deposit funds before you can finalize your account. All of this helps the casino to verify that you are a legitimate bettor looking to use the platform as intended.
Scam casino sites will usually speed you through the registration process, requiring little information and verifying almost nothing of what they do require. If you are going through the registration process and notice this, steer clear—it’s almost certainly not legitimate.
3. Lack of customer support
People who run scam casinos generally don’t have the time or inclination to offer fake customer services for their casino. So, looking to the quality of the customer service is another good way of telling whether a site is legitimate or not.
For the biggest casinos, they will universally offer live support, typically 24/7. Whether that’s just a chat service or a phone line you can call, there should always be someone you can speak to for help when something goes wrong.
Scam casinos will offer no such service, so look out for this on the site before you sign up or deposit any money. You can also look to user reviews to determine the quality of the customer service, as this often comes up in reviews—more on that shortly.
4. Poor security features
Security is one of the biggest driving forces of online casinos today. With data breaches more common than ever, and there are as many as 4,500 successful cyber-attacks on UK businesses every single day.
Make sure the casino has its own, robust firewall, and that it makes use of features such as 2FA as bet365 does, to keep your account safe.
If the casino you are looking at has none of these features, then it is highly likely to be a scam.
5. Reviews
Finally, as I mentioned earlier, one of the best ways to be sure a site is legitimate is to look at independent, third-party reviews. There are many online directories of such reviews, and the biggest online casinos will have literally thousands of reviews.
If the casino you’re looking at has virtually no reviews, or a small amount all negative, then you should steer clear. They are probably a scam site.
Peer-reviewing is the best way the community helps one another to stay away from scam casinos, so always look at the reviews for any casino.
As long as you are diligent in checking what we have outlined above, then the risk that you will run into a scam casino site is virtually zero. At the most basic level, if it is licensed by the official Gambling Commission, and seems to have some reputation in the community, then the likelihood that it is a scam site is very low. Follow the advice we have laid out here, and you’ll have no problems.