How to Avoid the Most Common Online Casino Scams

Every industry has hustlers, so why should the iGaming sector be any different? We can help you learn more about online casino scams and how to avoid them by keeping an eye out for a few obvious signs. After reading today's post, perhaps you won't ever make the common novice blunders and fall for con artists.

So let's define online casino frauds and then start with some gaming jargon.

What Are Scams in Online Casinos?

Scams involving online casinos are meticulously planned and carried out operations intended to defraud one of the parties of their money. The phrase "one of the parties" was used because there are two possible interpretations of gaming scams:

• Untrustworthy casinos steal from its patrons or

• Casinos are stolen from by fraudsters.

Both topics are covered in today's blog post: in the first section, we'll discuss warning indications of dishonest casinos, and in the second, we'll walk you through a list of casino online scams, or several methods that online casinos might defraud you of your money. Finally, we will reveal some of the most shocking gambling scam tales we have come across.

Are you prepared to explore the shady world of fraudulent online casinos?

Indications of an Untrustworthy Casino

Let us first point out some warning signals that the casino might be dishonest and operating a scam before we walk you through a list of online casino frauds.

Some of these are just warning signs, and they don't always mean that a casino is trying to scam people (though not having a license is a dead giveaway!). Pay close attention to these warning signals to stay clear of online casino scams and spare yourself the hassle of having your money lost or, worse, stolen.

Slow Payment

Casino frauds come in different kinds and sizes, with late or delayed payment being one of the most widely used online casino scams. Even when it has violated its own Terms and Conditions, a dishonest casino may take weeks or even months to refund its players. A casino may sometimes delay payments because it doesn't have enough money, or it may try to get players to accept more bonuses and play more by not letting them cash out. Both of these incidents are regarded as rogue behaviors and must not be ignored.

Regular Terms and Conditions Changes

The Terms and Conditions govern everything you do in an online casino, and you have the right to know right away if even the smallest change is made to these legal agreements. But occasionally, or when circumstances demand it, dishonest casinos may alter their rules. Even if a casino is in the middle of a lawsuit, it can still change its rules to back up its claims.

Casino is Unlicensed

A license issued by an appropriate gaming authority is required for a casino to operate within the bounds of the law and ensure players that they are wagering on a secure platform. You should avoid the aforementioned casino until a legitimate license from a gaming regulatory authority is made evident on the website, as this could be the start of a series of online casino scams. You can also bet that an illegal casino has more tricks up its sleeve to trick players.

Deceptive Advertising

The next scam using an online casino involves deceptive advertising techniques. False advertising encompasses a wide range of frauds, but they are all based on disregarding the Terms and Conditions. Scams involving online casino bonuses are the most common type of misleading advertising. For example, the wagering requirements might change at the last minute or the maximum cashout amount might go down after you've played through your bonus.

Spam

We're all in the marketing industry, that much is obvious. However, it is not regarded as a decent marketing strategy and could be viewed as one of the online casino system frauds to bombard players, websites, or forums with a lot of advertisements. If a casino's website constantly shows you dozens of ads or pop-up messages, you might want to try a different one.

Most Popular Online Casino Frauds

Now that we've shown you the most typical warning signals of a shady casino, allow us to walk you through a helpful list of the most prevalent online casino frauds.

If a casino takes a long time to send you your money, it could be because they don't have enough cash on hand. This does not necessarily mean that the casino is not honest. Make no mistake, though—if you observe any of the following behaviors, you run the risk of being taken advantage of by a casino that operates illegally.

Casino fraud might take the form of a small-scale website scam or a large-scale online casino franchise fraud, but in any case, you should stay away from it.

Deposit Fraud

The act of making it difficult for you to withdraw your money after the casino has encouraged you to make a deposit is known as "deposit theft." Most shady casinos get most of their money from deposit theft, so they will use questionable methods to steal your money. The top scam involving online casinos is undoubtedly deposit theft.

Such a casino may suspend or deactivate your account after you join, forcing you to clear hurdle after hurdle before you can revive it. When you ask for assistance, some casinos force customer service representatives to play dumb or take you for a ride.

These casinos believe that the majority of players will move through their $20 deposits and continue. However, when larger amounts are at stake, most gamblers feel obligated to take action against a casino, which almost always results in the latter's closure.

Identity Theft

Identity theft has become a major problem around the world. It affects many industries, including iGaming, and costs billions of dollars every year. In this business, shady casinos may be used by fraudsters themselves or as a way to collect and sell personal information.

To steal your identity, online casinos freeze your account until you show proof of who you are or where you live. They also directly steal your credit card information to make copies of your credit card(s) and steal your money.

Online casinos with a good reputation have to follow KYC protocols and laws against money laundering, and they have to ask you to upload identification. But it is perfectly legal to threaten to freeze your account if you don't show proof of who you are. Make sure you only play at reputable casinos that, if possible, are based in countries with strict rules against misusing personal information.

Unfair Games

This is one of the most prevalent online casino scams, and it's really straightforward: online casinos will rig the games and give you a taste of the winning before taking all of your money. These scams are quite simple to execute in the era of iGaming because all a casino needs to do to liven things up is a little manipulation of software.

The two easiest ways for internet casinos to operate the "rigged games" scam are as follows:

• playing games hosted by shady casino software providers

Experienced gamblers know the names of the operators who work with software companies to run their games. However, new players don't know these names, which makes them easy targets. As a general rule, it can be reassuring to see well-known companies listed as providers because reputable suppliers don't do business with dishonest people.

• playing pirated game versions

This is another illustration from the playbook of rigged games; some operators would do anything to get players' money, including using pirated versions of casino games. Again, inexperienced players will find it more difficult to distinguish between the legitimate version of the game and its pirated counterpart, and they run the risk of spending a lot of money on a game that has been programmed to favor the casino.

Always seek out the casino's RTP and confirm that it has a valid license to be on the safe side (Return-to-Player). So that you can play with confidence, licensed casinos often have third-party organizations check their RTPs.

Malware

There are casino frauds that go beyond deposit theft and are much more complicated and deadly than tricking you out of a few dozen dollars. We're referring to "malware," a category of computer program that can irreparably damage your device.

Malware can be a small annoyance, like when it slows down your device, or a big worry, like when it can corrupt all of your data. Once you've downloaded malware-infected software, it's usually too late to change your mind. Most online casinos will just block your device and demand payment, usually in the form of untraceable cryptocurrency, to let you keep your files private.

The simplest strategy to prevent malware-based online casino frauds is to avoid downloading any software that you aren't absolutely certain is secure.

Largest Casino Swindlers

Some of the con artists we discovered were the absolute best in the field of casino scams! These brilliant individuals stole hundreds of millions of dollars from casinos using clever technology, and some even got away with it!

Without further ado, let's look at three of the biggest casino floor con jobs ever pulled off!

The Infamous Rosselli Brothers

We start the list off with the Rosselli Brothers, who over the course of five years stole close to $40 million from casinos all around the US.

The Rosselli Brothers were a group of con artists who became extremely wealthy by using people's false identities to create credit lines at casinos. Their scheme was widely regarded as one of the most sophisticated gambling scams.

All that was needed was to hire a tech-savvy person who could break into a national credit database and do a lot of planning. In order to avoid being discovered, they opened credit accounts at casinos using other people's identities, put $50,000 into each, and pretended to be frequent high rollers. (For more information if you're not familiar with the phrase "casino marker," see our dictionary of gaming jargon.)

By the year 2000, their credit lines had increased to almost $1 million, enabling them to rob the casinos of an equal amount. The Rosselli Brothers left the casino fraud industry the same year with millions in their pockets.

It's also important to note that the Rosselli Brothers' identities were never made public and that they entered the annals of internet gaming in perfect anonymity.

Cannes Contact Lenses

Our ranking of the most infamous gambling frauds is traveling to Europe. In 2011, four people worked together to pull off a high-tech casino scam that hurt a number of casinos in Cannes. The group of three Frenchmen and an Italian made off with more than $80,000 thanks to creative technological use and teamwork.

While playing stud poker, they would carefully mark the cards with symbols that could only be seen with special contact lenses.

On their first expedition, they didn't cause any suspicion and made off with tens of thousands of dollars in a single night. But when they came back a second time, they won a lot of games that shouldn't have been theirs. This made the casino's management take a closer look at the whole thing.

The crew was apprehended shortly after that, although first they made it difficult for the authorities to understand the scam's overall strategy.

Radio Roulette Ball

The radio roulette ball is a casino hoax from the 1970s that is still one of the most impressive gambling scams ever pulled off, despite the name suggesting a radio show for matchmaking.

The tale goes as follows: A crooked roulette dealer in a French casino discovered amateur radio and wanted to use it to extort money from the establishment he worked at. Together with his brother and sister-in-law, our main character used a small radio receiver and a simple radio transmitter to control where the roulette ball would land.

While his sister-in-law controlled the transmitter from a table nearby, the croupier would move the ball with the receiver attached while the receiver was still in the air. Together, the dealer's brother and the bettors managed to get the ball to land mysteriously and precisely on one of the six available numbers.

The group was so prosperous that they were able to leave with over $1 million in just one week! But as chance would have it, the casino owner's attention was drawn to the sister-in-law. She didn't seem interested in him, but this was enough to get the management's attention. They said that the woman's increasing losses at roulette and her visits to the casino might not be just a coincidence.

Even after putting two and two together, the casino management had trouble figuring out the swindle. Finally, they gave the order to search the casino floor for radio equipment and worked with law enforcement to apprehend the fraudsters.

How Can I Prevent Being Scammed?

As you can see, shady online casinos can pull off a wide range of scams, from identity theft and deposit fraud to putting malware on the site or rigging games. Make sure to look for warning signs of a dishonest casino before signing up with a gaming website. A real-money online casino fraud can be identified by a number of warning indications, including deceptive advertising and frequent T&C revisions.

Here is a helpful checklist that you should follow before opening an account at a casino in order to avoid online casino scams:

• Licenses - Before you ever enter an online casino's website, be sure it has a legal license by checking for it. If not, locate another that follows the rules other than its own and move on.

• Don't download suspicious software - Casino apps might be created by a rogue casino or contain malware, so avoid downloading them unless you are absolutely convinced that they are safe.

• Research - It's crucial to do your study and research casinos. Consider sticking with casinos that have reviews on relevant websites and researching what other players have to say about them.

We sincerely hope that we were able to provide some clarity on casino fraud! Be cautious and make sure you always play appropriately.