When you start your online gambling journey, one of the essential things you should consider immediately is where to set up your virtual gambling den or, in other words, your main betting site. This is important since you don’t want to get scammed out of your first payout, right? This will ruin your experience and even scare you off online casinos forever.
Fortunately, most of the online casinos you see nowadays are legit and reputable. However, if you’re meticulous, that’s not nearly enough comfort. It’s your money, after all, so you want to know if an online casino is legit every time you go to a new one. Luckily for you, it’s quite easy to spot a fake online casino. There are telltale signs you can see the moment you lay eyes on their site or even just do a little digging. Here are some of them.
Lack of Good Reviews
Most of the time, one of the most efficient ways to check whether an online casino or dedicated online games like roulette online is legit is to read its reviews. These reviews leave a lot of information about the online casino regarding how it treats its players and its overall reputation. Usually, a good online casino has thousands of good reviews from reputable feedback sites like AskGamblers and Casinomeister.
However, if you see that your online casino is not listed on any of the reputable feedback sites that you go to, it might be a red flag for you. A fake online casino doesn’t have a lot of positive reviews about its site, and most often, it, instead, has hundreds of bad reviews and people telling you to stay away from that site. Bettors are sensitive to fraud and online thievery so that you can trust the reviews most of the time.
Missing Casino Licenses
Before an online casino can operate, it must have the proper licensing and certification to conduct its business. Most countries have standards for licensing online casinos, so you might want to research yours.
Some governments require online casinos to get their licenses from national regulators, sometimes done via a third party. However, regardless of how your country or state does the licensing, your online casino should have a license to operate one way or another because not having one is a huge red flag.
A legitimate online casino will quickly advertise its license, either having it pasted on its front page or having a dedicated page to let the players view them. It’s like a badge of honor, so something might be off if your online casino doesn’t have it. You can even go ahead and ask your regulatory commission about the online casino and ask them if it’s listed on their site. If it’s not, then all the more reason to be suspicious.
Suspicious Payment Methods
Most online casinos nowadays have the most common payment methods like PayPal, Visa, Mastercard, Amazon Pay, etc. If an online casino has these methods, it means that they have a good standing with these companies, and having a good standing with payment companies signifies that its reputation is good enough.
They’re not involved in any scams. However, if an online casino is a scam, these payment companies would distance themselves from the bad reputation that the online casino has. So if your online casino doesn’t have any of these payment methods or is using a method you never heard of before, then there’s a good chance they’re running something fishy.
No Reliable Customer Support
Good customer support can make a huge difference for people who are new to the site. With good customer support, a newbie will learn the ropes in a short amount of time. Some customer support will even teach you how a game is played.
Most importantly, if you have any problems or concerns with the site, then customer support will always be there to help you. That said, whenever you run into a problem, you should be able to get help promptly by contacting the customer support line.
On the other hand, most fake online casinos don’t have customer service since their only purpose is to cheat money out of your hands. It’s quite rare for a fake online casino to have customer support because it’s one way for a person to know about their schemes.
That said, if your online casino takes too much time to get a hold of a customer service representative or if they don’t have any way to contact them at all, there’s a huge chance that something is off about the site.
Final Words
While most online casinos nowadays are legit and the fake ones are the minority, it doesn’t mean that you should be complacent when checking your online casino. Losing a bet is one thing, but getting cheated out of your payout is another. You’re entitled to your winnings and deposit, so it’s always right to check your online casino.
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