Use Our 2019 Casino Blacklist to Protect Yourself from Gambling Scams Online

There are hundreds of casinos online. Many thousands. Each one eager to take your deposit.

But …not every casino’s as keen to give your money back.

Or, to follow their own terms and conditions.

Or, to offer fair games.

Or, to pay their affiliates.

These casinos – rogue or scam casinos – are exactly the types you want to avoid. Unfortunately, they run rampant online and make up the majority of choices you have.

So, the question then becomes, how do you separate the wheat from the chaff? The good guys from the bad guys?

How the heck do you know which casinos are safe to join …and, which ones you should avoid like the plague?

It’s not easy …or even foolproof …but one way to do it is to refer to a blacklist.

A blacklist is a list of rogue casinos. They’re added to these lists because customers complained about how they were being mistreated or stolen from – with proof.

So, we put the bad guys on a list for everyone to see …and to make sure no one ever joins one of these shady casinos in the future.

First, let me say that there’s no universal blacklist. You’re not going to find the same casinos on every blacklist you come across online.

There should be, though, since it’s hard to deny when a casino or business has screwed over their customers.

But there’s not. Each website compiles their own list using their own biases, experiences, research and resources.

However, while each list may be different, the reasons for adding a casino to the list are often the same. It’s because the casino pulled one of the following shenanigans.

In no particular order…

All games should be random for them to be fair. A scam casino will rip off their games and/or alter them in such a way that they’re given the advantage (on top of the advantage these games already give casinos).

A scam casino may also tweak their free practice games to favor players to encourage them to play the lesser “fair” paid games.

For whatever reason the casino won’t pay a player his or her winnings. Now, there are legitimate reasons for a player not being paid, such as because they cheated, abused offers or didn’t fulfill the terms of a bonus offer.

But a rogue casino will use these reasons as an excuse, even if there’s no proof the player’s in the wrong. Instead, they accuse the player in order to stall, and hopefully boring the player into playing or taking another bonus so that they won’t be able to cash out.

Non-payment also applies to marketing partners, like affiliates. Think about it – if the casino cannot or will not pay affiliates, how long do you think they’ll continue to pay their players?

Similar to non-payment. A shady casino will take weeks, months or even years to pay players back, either because they don’t have the cash flow -which is scary- or because they want to encourage the player to continue playing or to take a bonus so that they won’t cash out. Both are rogue behavior.

Meanwhile, players are getting the runaround, partial payments and/or bouncing checks.

These are casinos that have outrageous terms like 50x or 100x bonus rollover requirements, a cap on how much money you can win with your bonus (max value of x times the initial deposit amount), a limit on how much you can bet per round, or prohibiting games like progressive jackpots from being played while using the bonus.

This can also shady tactics like trying to get a player signed up for a bonus or promotion in the midst of trying to resolve a conflict related to the player wanting to cash out. They don’t think the player’s legit, yet they’re offering him bonuses. The reason is to lock the player into an offer which forces them to play (and lose) more instead of cashing out.

One of the sneakiest things rogue casinos do is change their terms on the fly, on an as-needed basis. They’ll do this when they’re in dispute with a player over something they say the player’s done wrong, but hasn’t really. They’ll change the terms to support their argument. Yet, when you look at the archives you can see the terms were recently changed from siding with the player …to siding with the casino.

Marketing is what we do (just look at this website). However, we don’t think it’s right to spam players, forums or websites, which is what many shady casinos do to get new customers.

When the casino says they have a license, but don’t. Or, when they’re located in an area that’s lax about regulation, which allows them to get away with shenanigans.

Bad to Players: They’re slow on support or non-existent. When they verbally threat players.

This is far from a complete list. You’ll see more examples of shady behavior in the following sections and in each reason for the casinos in our blacklist. But you’ll these are the most common problems, and there’s a lot of overlap, too.

One thing you’re sure to find out – and, hopefully, not the hard way – is that there are many casinos who deserve a spot on a blacklist, but aren’t there. Or, they’re up-and-comers.

This sucks because you can get burned bad if you don’t see them coming before it’s too late.

We can help you avoid that. The best way to do that is to look out for these signals. If you see them, either avoid the casino or abandon ship before they crash.

The difference here is that the casino may have had no previous problems paying their players. All players got their payments within a few days, or even a few weeks.

But then, slowly, payments started to take longer. Over the course of a few weeks or few months, there are more and more delays. The delays got longer. And the casino has nothing but excuses.

Note: Delayed payments doesn’t mean a casino is rogue. It happens to every casino at some point. It’s the frequency of delayed payments, and the combination of players getting the runaround, that usually signals that things are taking a turn for the worst.

Affiliates are 3rd parties that perform marketing tasks on behalf of the casino. This is done at their own expense in exchange for a commission.

Unfortunately, affiliates are the first ones to get stiffed by a scam casino when the casino runs into problems or decides to join the dark side.

Another way rogue casinos will screw over partners is by tweaking their terms and conditions so that affiliates won’t be paid for previous campaigns that were once on rev-share (when the affiliate receives an ongoing commission for a player they sent to the casino, for the life of the player).

An example of this is when Bwin Casino changed their terms and conditions. In doing so they retroactively cut commissions they originally agreed to pay to affiliates. They saved hundreds of thousands in ongoing commissions, but they lost the trust they had with their partners.

If the casino offers huge matches or huge bonuses (or both) that are just unheard of – we’re talking $5,000 here and $10,000 there – that’s a sign saying you should avoid them. Look at all the legit casinos and you’ll see that most offers are $500, $1000 or maybe $2000. There’s something fishy about a (new) casino that’s offering 5 or 10x that.

Note: If you look through the casinos on our blacklist, you’ll notice that that’s one of the things they have in common. Like Loco Panda with their 400%, $4,000 deposit bonus.

Another warning sign is if you hear about a casino not keeping player’s funds separate from their other funds. In other words, a casino shouldn’t be paying their bills – or even paying other players – with your money. That means they don’t have (good) cash flow — a huge warning sign that they’re unstable.

Another sign that things could go awry is where the casino is located – which determines who handles their licensing and regulation. Each location has their different rules, and some are more lax than others. A good example of a lax (aka don’t give a hoot at all) jurisdiction is Costa Rica.

From our jurisdiction page (https://crazemag.in/online-gambling-jurisdictions/costa-rica/):

Those are some of the key indicators that something may be wrong -or- may go wrong in the future. You can also do a bit of detective work to see if there’s anything you can uncover about a casino before you give them your credit card details.

For example:

• Search Google. Use phrases like “casino name scam” or “casino name complaints.” Read through the results. Does anything stick out? What do other players have to say about them?
• Search watchdog sites. Same idea applies. Read through their articles, posts and reviews. What are they saying about the casinos in your list?
• Check for a license. Does the casino have a license? Check the licensor’s website to make sure it’s legit.
• Check the auditing agency. Have the casino’s games been tested? Check the auditor’s website. Often times they post who they’ve audited, when they audited them, and the results.
• Check for predator terms. Read the casino’s terms and conditions. You can learn a lot by what you find. Are the bonus terms reasonable? Are their cash out rules okay? What about their game limits?
• Use forums. Forums are where you’ll find legit, firsthand knowledge about a casino or company. You’ll be the first to find out about delayed or no pays, unfair games, poor support and shoddy business practices.

The bottom line is you should actively search for reasons NOT to join a casino. Scrutinize every detail. That’s the only way to make an educated decision as to which casino to play at.

And if you don’t find anything?

Then use our blacklist as the last filter. If the casino passes your background check AND doesn’t own a coveted spot on our blacklist, then you just might have a winner on your hands.

Okay, now it’s time for the moment you’ve been waiting for – our blacklist of rogue casinos.

But before we get to that, I want to answer two common questions we get about casino blacklists.

It happens, sure. But getting off a blacklist is nothing like coming out of timeout. It takes more than just a week or two of good effort.

A previously blacklisted casino needs to show that, over an extended period of time, that they’ve changed their shady ways. They’re not stealing from players anymore. Their games are fair. They’re doing things by the book.

Many rogue casinos have stolen money. So, paying players back is also mandatory.

I don’t know of any casinos offhand that was once rogue that is now worth playing at, even after they got off the blacklist. But that also speaks volumes about the number of rogue casinos who have made it off the blacklist …not many at all.

No, it doesn’t – although that is the norm.

One example is some of the casinos run by Deckmedia (Box24 Casino, Black Diamond Casino and Spartan Slots).

From what I understand they’ve done a good job of running their casino responsibly for several years. They’re the only casinos using TopGame software legit review portals recommend.

Now with those questions answered, let’s get to our blacklist. We’ve listed the companies along with any casinos they’ve operated below. Be sure to bookmark this page as we’ll update it with new and/or removed casinos.

There’s been a rise in sketchy, unlicensed casinos that are running fake games pirated (read: stolen) from software companies like Net Entertainment, Playtech and Novomatic.

Many of these casinos accept bitcoin only and cater to Russian speaking markets.

You should avoid these casinos simply because they’re unethical – they steal from other companies. More than that, though, since their games are pirated and the random number generator is replaced on the backend, you’re being cheated when you play these games.

You’re better off finding a legit casino that offers these games.