An online casino is a type of online gambling site that interfaces with an online payment system, such as a credit card or online bill pay service to facilitate the transfer of money to and from players who are using real currency.
Online casinos have been popular for quite some time now – after all, people love gambling! These sites generally offer a wide variety of casino games including slots, poker, roulette and more.
However, it’s important to be aware that there are those online casinos out there that may scam you out of your hard-earned cash – either by withholding winnings if they don’t like their odds on an individual bet or long term ‘unlucky’ streaks. In this article we’re going to discuss some ways that online casinos can try to scam their online customers – and what you might be able to do about it.
Is online gambling legal?
While online gambling has been deemed illegal in many countries, including in certain parts of the United States, there’s absolutely nothing stopping online players from opening up accounts at online casinos and wagering real money on games of chance.
You’ll need to check with local laws or even online resources (such as Wikipedia) if you’re not sure what the regulations are where you live. Most online casinos make users sign a disclaimer stating that they won’t hold the casino responsible should anything go wrong – such as payouts being withheld for no reason or winnings not showing up after a withdrawal; however this doesn’t preclude them from withholding funds.
How can online casinos withhold winnings?
In some cases, online casinos have been known to ‘steal’ from online players. A few ways that online casinos might try to do this include:
- Withholding a player’s winnings after a big online casino jackpot.
- Closing an online player account and refusing to pay out any winnings after a certain threshold is reached, such as a million dollars or more in winnings.
- Keeping funds in play for far too long, allowing for large amounts of money to be lost on individual bets before the customer calls it quits. For example, online roulette can allow players to wager hundreds or even thousands of dollars per bet – if the ball lands on zero several times in a rowthe online casino may allow the online player to lose over a million dollars or more before they halt play.
- Manipulating games of chance, such as by ‘rigging’ online slot machines so that they are sure to pay out less often than normal – essentially stealing from online players with every spin of the reels.
- Closing an online account and withholding funds. This is easily done on sites that support one deposit bonuses – the online casino will simply keep any remaining balance after a big win until it’s time to cash out. If you’re playing online with bonus money this could mean losing your entire bankroll if you hit a lucky streak!
What can online customers do?
Unfortunately, there isn’t much that an online gambler can do to fight back if their online casino of choice starts stealing from them. The best thing to do is make sure you play at reputable online casinos with solid track records – sites that are well known for paying out winnings quickly and without hassle will be much less likely to try to scam online players!
Most online casinos only need a few complaints about withheld funds before they’re forced to pay up, so it’s important that online poker room reviews aren’t the only resource that online gamblers use if they want to find out which online casinos are safe.
You should also check online forums or social networking groups for feedback about specific online gambling sites before depositing any hard-earned cash! Don’t just trust one online casino site for online casino reviews, online poker room reviews and online gambling forums when you’re looking for online casinos that don’t scam their online customers!
As with any online business complaints about withheld funds will eventually bring the attention of local law enforcement or regulatory boards to an online casino – which is how many online players have been able to get winnings from scams sites back.
In fact, there are a number of cases where online players have been able to recover lost funds from online casinos by filing complaints with the FBI or even the police! In most of these cases the customer had not signed up with a no-download version of their preferred online casino – instead, they used a flash application on their computer. This means that the games were stored online on the online casino’s servers; therefore, when players had their accounts closed they were able to get back their online money by accessing online records.
Why do online casinos steal funds
There are a number of reasons why online casinos might try to withhold customer online winnings, including:
– The online casino is simply trying to cheat online gamblers out of their cash. Whether this is intentional or not, it is still stealing! Because most online casinos operate outside of US law (or any law for that matter) they can often do as they please without consequences. This has led to some unscrupulous gaming sites refusing to payout large sums of money after winning huge jackpots, closing player accounts and even manipulating games in order to keep players online money.
– Many online casinos do a significant online business with online gamblers from countries with no real online gambling laws – many of these sites will have terms and conditions that restrict payouts to players from specific online gambling jurisdictions. Because online casinos don’t offer games to online gamblers in such jurisdictions (i.e., US states where online gambling is illegal) they simply refuse to pay out winnings, rather than ask for IDs or verify player funds by processing credit card transactions. This would likely be considered fraud if done offline – but because online casinos can operate outside of any jurisdiction it’s nearly impossible to hold unethical gaming sites accountable even when they blatantly steal from their customers!
– Incompetent, poorly managed casinos may claim that an account was hacked or otherwise tampered with in order to withhold funds from a player. This is often the case when players have been winning at high rates for a sustained period of time – these winners are singled out because they’re suspicious, even though most online gambling sites lose money overall!
– Online casinos that haven’t updated their software in recent years might just not be able to pay out winnings! Old school Microgaming and Playtech applications simply aren’t capable of processing large wins (i.e., millions of dollars like we see in some huge jackpots) without crashing or producing errors. To combat online players constantly winning online, some online casinos will simply refuse to payout online winnings or shut down accounts after a big online poker score – but this is extremely rare as it would leave the online casino unable to pay out any online player at all!
Tips on how to if an online casino refuses to payout
Remember, no matter what the reasons are for an online casino refusing to pay out: if they’re withholding funds from you then you’ve won money and they owe you that hard-earned cash!
If your favourite online gambling site has gone offline then contact authorities in both your country of residence and where the online casino was registered to help get back what’s legitimately yours. Most jurisdictions have consumer protection agencies that can help resolve disputes with online games sites and online casinos.
Get in touch with your credit card company and dispute the charges. If you paid for online gambling services using a credit card then it’s possible that there was a problem with the transaction or that you were charged multiple times by mistake (this is fairly common when dealing with foreign currency transactions).
Credit card companies often have policies in place where they’ll refund customers who’ve been overcharged by mistake or if an online games site refuses to pay out their winnings! Of course, expect the process of getting your money back through your credit card company to be extremely time consuming and frustrating, as most forms of consumer protection don’t apply when you’re disputing a charge made ona credit card online.
Finally
If you’ve won a large sum of money that an online gambling site refuses to pay out then it’s important not to let them get away with stealing your cash! There are many ways you can push for the return of your funds, but no solution is guaranteed – watch out for any clauses or fine print in their terms and conditions which would prohibit players from recovering funds after they’ve already won.
While this guide focuses specifically on online gamblers who have winnings being withheld by online casinos, there are also dedicated companies that help individuals with disputes over overpayments made offline. Such cases are often resolved far more quickly as jurisdiction doesn’t come into play; unfortunately, online gambling disputes online are far more complex.
If you’re struggling to recover funds from an online gambling site, make sure to take plenty of screenshots, keep all documentation related to your account or transactions with the site, and stay up to date on any news regarding the business in question!
