While several components help online casinos stand out compared to other areas of the entertainment industry, many unfair practices apply to both online casinos and the broader digital business world.
Of course, there are iGaming-specific examples that we will gravitate towards. But if you want to identify and avoid a shady business, trusting your gut and measuring it against the variables we will explore today will stand you in good stead.
Shady operators on the casino floor
Online casinos must be on guard on several fronts. They must battle card counters in blackjack, angle shooters in poker and those who might hang around a slot machine, waiting for it to pay out.
Our last example isn’t entirely true – there’s no evidence to suggest that digital slot machines are more likely to play if someone has played on it heavily and not received a payout. Still, you can get lurkers in land-based casinos who think the machine will pay out after a specific number of spins. This is commonly known as the gambler’s fallacy.
Unfair poker practices
Slot gaming aside, there are dark arts and shady practices that players will use to try and gain the upper hand. If we’re talking about angle shooters in poker, you may hear them referred to as poker cheats, but there’s nothing in the rules to stop some aspects of fake bluffing or misleading comments about the quality of a hand; CasinoMeister has provided more context regarding poker cheats and how they bend the rules in their favour.
Ultimately, if you want to identify them in any casino game, it’s probably best to do so in poker, as this is where the dark arts are most commonly implemented. Many poker players see this as part of the game, and some even have it as the basis of their strategy. Phil Hellmuth, who by all accounts, is a bona fide legend of the game, is not shy of an angle shoot or two – a ploy that been well documented over the years. It is a game of psyching out and psychological edge, after all.
However, some casinos will kick you out or ban you from the online poker room if you constantly mislead players about your hand. If you’re fake bluffing or using dodgy moves to try and gain the upper hand, which is against the spirit of the game, this will draw negative attention to you and make you easy to identify as a player to keep an eye on – and not in a good way.
How to identify fair casinos
If we consider online casinos as a collective entity and functioning transnational businesses, they keep their platforms safe by implementing several methods. Here are some of the most common to look out for:
Regulation and licensing
Luckily for UK gamblers, the country has one of the most robust and lucid gambling legislations in the world. To advertise to UK customers, any casino must register with the UK Gambling Commission and have a valid license to operate online. Many casinos will have their HQ in gambling-friendly locations, such as Malta, Gibraltar or Curaçao.
As long as they have their GCB certification displayed on the footer of their site and their licensing number checks out as active and valid with the UK Gambling Commission, they are ticking all the regulatory boxes. If you have any issues with them, you can take this information and lodge a formal complaint directly with the commission.
Site security
Firewalls and encryption are vital in any online business. As AI transforms our world, from innovative cancer treatments to driverless cars, online casinos must ensure they stay ahead of the tech curve and secure their sites. Casinos should be using 128-bit or 256-bit SSL encryption as the bare minimum market standard.
Reviews, social media comments and news headlines
Social media can be a minefield of nonsense, but that’s not to say that there isn’t a collective on there that could point a finger at online casinos not operating according to good practice. The power of social media can cause significant harm to a business – or take it to the next level of success.
However, if a casino is operating outside the regulatory framework and employing unfair practices, this will be clearly evident from reviews, social media comments and news stories about the brand.
Third-party audits and RNG implementation
The use of random number generator (RNG) technology is the gold standard in online casino gaming; it’s a provably fair way to show that all games deliver a fair, entirely random outcome.
It acts as the backbone for the industry’s legitimacy. If doubts creep into a gamer’s mind about a website or game not being fair, this could ultimately spell disaster for that company. Third-party audits from independent bodies such as eCOGRA ensure that online casinos remain fair and secure.
If a platform doesn’t display details of third-party auditors they work with, or showcase their RNG certification and implementation, this can be a red flag alerting you to potential shady practices.
Final say
While this isn’t an exhaustive list of things you must tick off, this should give you a good idea of the sort of elements that can point in the direction of a casino that is not doing everything by the book.
If an online casino handles your passport, driving license, identifiable information and payment details, then fair practice and running everything above board should be the very least you expect from them.
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