How to Identify a Rogue South African Online Casino
South African online casino players should learn the art of identifying crooked online casinos, also known as rogue casinos or bad casinos, even before they start wagering real money online. The crooked operators of rogue casinos can disguise their products to look just like licensed, reputed, and well-regulated online casinos. But they cannot fool experienced online casino players for long. FhatsCasino is a review site that only recommends good online casinos for South Africans.
Rogue casinos have the habit of vanishing from the scene with their customers’ hard earned money. Some of them stick for a longer time, fleecing customers’ Rands and refusing to pay out winnings. Many of them thrive on stolen software and pirated games.
Defining a Rogue Casino
One can define a rogue casino as an online casino that is unfair in its dealings with customers. They don’t care for gambling ethics such as transparency, fair gaming, and honesty. They are least bothered about customer welfare and are interested only in making a quick buck out of unsuspecting customers who register new accounts on their website.
Why do rogue casinos exist? The answer to this question is simple. They are created by greedy operators who want to make some quick money. The very nature of the Internet allows these unscrupulous operators to stay anonymous, undetected, and unpunished. Law enforcement agencies find it very difficult to crack down upon them.
Features of a Rogue Casino
To learn how to identify a rogue casino, one must first understand their key features. At the same time, one must also understand those rogue casinos are very good at disguising themselves as licensed and reputed online casinos. But the simple truth is that they are neither licensed nor reputed, and they cannot fool an expert reviewer or seasoned player for long.
Here are a few features of crooked South African online casinos:
Security is Low: Rogue casinos are not secure because they do not want to invest money in security measures. This means that they can sell your private information to scam companies at any time. Since they do not implement any security or anti-fraud measures, any identity thief or hacker can get hold of your information and use it as they wish.
They Don’t Pay Winnings: They make you wait endlessly for your winnings, killing all the joy and excitement you experienced when you won the jackpot. They take their own sweet time in processing payout requests and never credit your winnings to your account. When you try to contact their customer support, they will either give a lame excuse or refuse to respond.
False Advertisements: They make false claims while they advertise their products.
Rigged Games: The gaming software is either pirated or stolen. This means that the house advantage is higher and you will keep betting on the games without winning anything.
They Steal Your Cash: Rogue casinos have the habit of stating without warning that your winnings have been declared null and void, but they don't give proper reasons for saying so. Their bonus offers have impossible wagering requirements, and they keep helping themselves to your deposits every now and then, leaving you frustrated and furious.
They Disappear without Warning: When players start complaining about them on online gambling forums and they stop getting new players, rogue casinos just disappear without a warning. They don't bother about refunding player deposits.
If you make the mistake of signing up at a rogue casino, you will lose not only your money, but also your enthusiasm for playing online. For this reason, you should never sign up at an online casino without first researching it thoroughly.
Here are some tips that will help you identify a crooked South African online casino:
The Name of the Online Casino: Just typing the name of the online casino into the Google search bar and hitting enter will not give you the correct information about the online casino. This is because there are as many rogue affiliate sites and review sites that won’t mind giving a flattering review of rogue online casinos. Only a handful of reviewers actually give an honest, unbiased opinion of an online casino.
A better option would be to read reviews of the online casino at reputed affiliate sites or review sites. You will also get a better opinion if you sign up at online gambling forums and simply ask other players about the online casino. If it is a rogue casino, someone will warn you about it.
The Online Casino Website: A rogue casino may spend hours designing its website to look just like a licensed and reputed online casino. Still, experienced players can easily detect a crooked casino.
Here are a few things to look out for:
Casino Name: Honest operators give their products a meaningful name. Crooked operators are least bothered about how they name their products.
Licensing Information: The logo of the licensing authority should have a hyperlink that takes players to the official website of the licensing authority. Beware of online casinos that provide a logo without a hyperlink.
Too Many Awards: Crooked casinos are in the habit of mentioning a number of awards at the bottom of their homepage. If none of them is hyperlinked, you don’t have to take them seriously.
Parent Company: Crooked casinos like to stay anonymous. They never provide proper information about their parent company on their websites. This helps them to disappear without a trace and avoid facing consequences after they have cheated a number of players. If an online casino is unwilling to talk about its parent company, you don’t have to trust it.
Software Providers: Honest operators don’t hesitate to mention the names of their software providers because they partner with the best of them. If the online casino doesn’t clearly mention the software provider’s name, they may be using pirated software.
Plagiarized Website Content: Usually, the website content has too much fluff or is copied from some other website that no longer exists.
Vague Terms and Conditions: Crooked online casinos are not bothered about setting their terms and conditions clearly. If the terms and conditions appear vague, if the bonus offers seem too good to be true, you should always stay alert. Contact their customer support and clarify all their terms and conditions, especially their payout policies, before signing up. If the customer support agents appear vague about any term, avoid the online casino like the plague.
Poor Customer Service: You can always contact their customer care to check for promptness. If they have a live chat option, spend a few minutes chatting with a customer care representative to find out if they can provide answers to basic questions regarding parent company, licensing authority, software provider, and software auditor. If the customer care representative doesn’t know anything about the online casino he/she is working for, you can rest assured that there is something fishy about the casino.
As soon as you come across an online casino, first check it for licensing information. The best South African online casinos are licensed in UK, Malta, Gibraltar, and Isle of Man. Online casinos licensed in Costa Rica and Curacao are not considered reputed enough.
Second, make sure that it hasn’t stolen any games from any software provider in the past. Many crooked casinos do this to maximize their profits. The best South African online casinos are those that have partnered with providers such as Microgaming, Playtech, BetSoft, Net Entertainment, and PlayNGo, among others.
Finally, test the customer service because the only way to learn about the authenticity of an online casino is to actually get in touch with whoever is operating it.
