How To Avoid Online Casino Scams

The Most Common Types of Casino Scams

The most common types of online casino scams are the following:

• Phishing Scams: These scams use emails, social media or texts to promote offers that sound great but don’t really exist. They can even impersonate a member of a casino’s customer service team. Scammers will then try and trick you into giving over your payment information or account details, usually promoting a sense of urgency.  

• Fake Casinos: These are when a casino is created as a front, to either have rigged games, crazy no deposit bonuses or asks for unusual payments. These fake casinos may even look like the real-deal, it’s just about knowing where to look to reveal the man behind the mask.   

Casino Licences

The best way to know if a casino is legit or not, is to find out if it has a valid casino licence. This should be listed in a casino’s terms and conditions or even in their site’s footer. All trustworthy casinos will clearly display the type of licence they have and the licence number. This allows you to cross-reference this number against their licence provider’s licence register. If they are on the register, the site is completely licensed and if they’re not then avoid that casino like the plague. There’s been a recent instance of a casino claiming they had a Curaçao licence, when they didn’t. It’s always best to check on the regulatory bodies licence register before giving a site any of your personal information.   

KYC Checks

When trying to avoid casino scams, it’s important to see what their KYC checks are like. A reputable casino will always employ KYC verification to double check your identity and to make sure your withdrawals end up in the correct account. You can always check the ‘Terms and Conditions’ page at any online casino to see exactly how and why a casino employs KYC checks. It is also important to make sure the casino doesn’t offer any fee to complete a KYC check. Recently, one online casino attempted to charge players €120 to verify their identity, which is entirely a scam and you should stay well away from any casinos that ask this of you. KYC verification will always be free of charge.

Rigged Games

One thing to keep an eye out for is rigged casino games. You should only play at sites that either have a RNG to support their games, or have Provably Fair games, which are games that use an algorithm to prove that their games aren’t rigged. These will both be mentioned in the ‘Terms and Conditions’ page. Rigged games aren’t just games that stop you from ever winning. In recent cases some scam casino sites have started rigging games to award players huge wins, and catching players out with large withdrawal fees. This leads to players paying huge amounts of money in these fees in the hopes of receiving a life-altering amount of money, which they are never able to claim. 

Dubious Bonuses

Similarly to the rigged games scam, another way that scammers have been tricking bettors is by offering no deposit bonuses that sound way too good to be true. If they sound too good, they most definitely are, as no online casino will award you with free money without a way of protecting themselves. This is why online casinos employ wagering requirements and ask for deposits to activate bonuses. 

See What Others are Saying

You aren’t the only casino player out there, and this can be so helpful when avoiding scams. There are so many casino review sites and public forums, where players just like you and I have weighed in on how our experience with an online casino has gone. If you have doubts about whether a casino is trying to scam you, whack the name into google and see what comes up. The chances are that you aren’t the first person to play at that casino, and someone will have put the information out there so you can protect your personal information.