We often receive comments on our site about an inherent issue with online casinos, namely payouts and whether online casinos are scams. The questions we often hear are the following:
Is the online casino a scam?
Can an online casino tamper with the games?
What are the current strategies of online casinos to refuse to pay winners?
What should I do if an online casino refuses to pay me?
Is there any legal recourse for non-payment?
How can I make sure I get paid before I even start playing?
How do I choose an online casino that pays players?
We will try to answer all of these questions in this file by sharing our team's experience with you. You can then put all the chances on your side to ensure you get paid.
Is the online casino a scam?
Strictly speaking, no, an online casino is not a scam. An online casino offers so-called "digital" gambling. In the early 2000s an online casino offered software to be installed on a computer and you could play all the existing casino games, and for several years now almost all online casinos have offered to play directly online (without installing any software).
This activity is regulated and a casino operator must, like any land-based casino, have a casino licence. However, we are talking about an online casino, and online means that these companies can tap into different countries around the world to find flexible gaming licences.
If for a long time the principle of scamming has been associated with online casinos, it is because the first online casinos exploited this loophole of exploiting "exotic" countries to offer online games, not paying players and having no possible legal fallout in case of a complaint (international short circuit).
Over time, things improved greatly. Scams have gradually decreased and nowadays it is very rare to find an online casino that systematically does not pay its players. It is becoming too complex to set up a company, a company bank account, and take on many player complaints while maintaining business. The banks are the first to shun these set-ups and also demand very strict proof of an activity set up in compliance with the law and the criteria for a casino licence.
And above all, at the time there was little casino software. Some online casinos had managed to find unscrupulous software to modify the random draw of players in real time, and thus be able to cheat in all transparency.
To conclude this first chapter, at present, no, online casinos are not/no longer a scam. Casino software is all audited. They have become fully independent companies offering their games to companies that want to open online casinos. Gaming licenses have become much stricter and we have seen for several years that many countries prefer to create a national gaming regulatory authority to offer gaming licenses to local operators. If you read our news frequently, you can see that countries like Switzerland, Sweden, Holland, Belgium, etc. have all implemented (or are in the process of implementing) an online casino licensing system for local operators. In France, the current competent authority is the ARJEL, but it does not (yet) authorise the distribution of online casino licences.
All operators in the world that use such a national licence are highly supervised companies, with complex systems to prevent money laundering and audits on all games provided. This makes it almost impossible for online casinos to set up a scam system for the end user.
However, for countries that do not have a national licensing system, residents have no choice but to turn to online casinos that operate a gaming license in a country that distributes an international license. Currently the most widely used license in this case is the Curaçao license. It is slightly less strict than a national license but still imposes audits on the operators. There are no scams with the Curaçao licences either and they remain perfectly valid.
Please note that if you want to play at an online casino that does not clearly show its gaming license, then run away! It could be possible to come across a set-up to create a scam.
