Blacklisted Casinos and Casino Scams to Avoid

What Is a Blacklisted Casino?

A blacklisted online casino is an operator that has been identified for its unethical practices and deliberate failure to protect its customers. These casinos often engage in fraudulent activities, such as withholding winnings, using unfair game mechanics, or providing inadequate security for personal information.

By not adhering to industry standards and regulations, these casinos put players at risk, compromising their trust and safety.

What Are the Risks of Online Casino Scams?

Unreliable and rogue online casinos present numerous risks, resulting in highly unpleasant gaming experiences. Ultimately, it comes down to these two factors:

Your Money Is Not Safe

The biggest risk of registering with rogue casinos is the safety of your money, including winnings and your bankroll. These unscrupulous sites often disregard your funds, aiming to make quick profits by any means.

Your Privacy Isn’t Protected

An often-overlooked risk of gambling with rogue casinos is compromised privacy. You provide personal details like your name, date of birth, address, and email, assuming they are secure.

While reputable casinos protect this data, suspicious ones may sell it to third-party marketers, leading to unsolicited emails and offers.

Why Do Casinos Get Blacklisted?

Casinos get blacklisted due to various reasons. These can be failures in a single area or providing an overall poor gaming experience.

Our list is based on our own thorough research and user experiences. Below are the common traits of a rogue operator to look out for.

Rigged Games

When playing casino games, you expect fair and random outcomes, with the RTP as advertised. Unfortunately, some scam casinos alter games to gain a greater advantage than the house edge already in place, causing players to lose more frequently.

Additionally, blacklisted operators may tweak demo or free-play games to produce more favourable outcomes, misleading players into believing real money games will be equally advantageous. This deception is a key reason such casinos are blacklisted.

Slow Payouts

Rogue casinos often avoid cashing out winnings by implementing extremely slow payment procedures, which can delay payouts for weeks, months, or even years.

This tactic may be due to the operator’s lack of funds or a strategy to encourage players to keep playing or choose bonuses instead of cashing out.

No Payouts

While reliable online casinos may withhold payouts for legitimate reasons such as bonus abuse, cheating, or not meeting wagering requirements, rogue casinos often refuse to pay players without cause or proof.

Online casino scams can also involve the confiscation of player funds for dubious or no reasons at all.

Unrealistic and Dishonest Terms

When an online casino offers a welcome bonus, the terms should be reasonable and achievable. A 75x or 100x wagering requirement is nearly impossible to meet and may indicate a rogue casino.

We also examine the cap on winnings and game contributions, noting any factors that make claiming a bonus excessively difficult.

Additionally, frequent or abrupt changes to terms without notice are red flags, as rogue casinos use these tactics to manipulate disputes in their favour.

Fake Licencing

Rogue casinos often falsely claim to hold a valid license from a trusted authority, but upon verification, their license proves to be illegitimate, and they are not registered in the licensing authority’s database.

Alternatively, some rogue casinos may hold a license from jurisdictions known for their lenient regulations, which allows them to engage in unfair gaming practices without facing significant repercussions.

Poor Customer Service

A telltale sign of an operator that doesn’t care about its players is poor customer service. This includes excessive wait times, lack of problem resolution, unresponsiveness, or rude and even abusive support staff.

If we encounter such issues during our casino reviews or hear similar complaints from players, it is a strong indicator of an online casino scam, often leading to their inclusion on our blacklist.

How Do We Identify Rogue Casinos?

Our team at PlayCasinos is trained to identify blacklisted casinos, utilizing comprehensive rating guidelines to ensure we only feature safe and reliable casinos on our site.

We conduct thorough research, sign up and play at casinos to test their products firsthand, and directly communicate with players to learn from their experiences. Here’s our approach:

• Regulatory Status Check: We ensure that any casino we list holds a valid license. Casinos with no license or questionable licenses are blacklisted.
• Trusted Information Sources: We rely on industry experts, watchdog organizations, and established review sites to gather accurate information.
• Payment Process Verification: We investigate if the casino has a history of not paying out winnings, which is a significant red flag.
• Customer Care Evaluation: Poor customer service or the absence of a support system leads to immediate blacklisting.
• Misconduct Monitoring: We look for patterns in players’ complaints, such as unresolved issues and recurring problems.
• Industry Watchdog Reports: Our team reviews these reports weekly and updates our lists accordingly.

Blacklisted Casinos for Canadian Players 2024

Here, we provide various lists of blacklisted casinos, grouped by operator, and explain the reasons for their inclusion on our blacklists.

Ace Revenue Casino/Virtual Casino Group/CoolCat-Casino.com Group

This group has a consistent history of not paying currency conversion winnings. It is known for the deliberately slow processing of withdrawals as well as repeatedly requesting proof of identification documents to stall payments. Virtual Casino Group changed its name to CoolCat-Casino.com Group after serious allegations against its fairness and legitimacy but they continue even now. The owner was jailed for mail fraud and conspiracy in 1997 after engaging in defrauding property sellers out of their homes. Here’s a list of casino’s to avoid:

1. Club Player Casino
2. Captain Jack Casino
3. Cirrus Casino
4. Party City
5. The Virtual Casino
6. 123 Slots Online
7. Wild Vegas Casino
8. Vip Lounge Casino
9. Vegas Strip Casino
10. Slots of Vegas Casino
11. Slots Garden Casino
12. Slot Madness
13. Silver Oak Casino
14. Ruby Slots
15. Royal Ace Casino
16. Ring Master Casino
17. Prism Casino
18. Planet 7 Oz
19. Planet 7 Casino
20. Palace of Chance
21. Le Bon Casino
22. Grand Fortune Casino
23. Dreams Casino
24. Cool Cat Casino

Casinos which are part of Ace Revenue/Virtual Group/CoolCat-Casino.com Group are unregulated, which means players have no recourse or protection when it comes to problems. Several companies have been known to associate with this group. These include Grafix Softech, Ace Revenue Affiliates, and Audeo N.V.

Ace Revenue Casino/Virtual Casino Group/CoolCat-Casino.com Group Bingo sites

• Melina Bingo
• Break The Bank Bingo
• BingoFlash
• Bingo Knights
• Bingo Avatar
• 123 Bingo

Curgam Group Casinos

• SlotsInferno
• Slot Nuts
• SlotLuv
• Real Vegas Online
• Plenty Jackpots
• Mighty Slots
• 99 Slot Machines.

In 2008, upon launching the Mighty Slots, this group pitilessly reamed online players’ inboxes with a frequent spam campaign. The obtainment of email addresses was never confirmed, and their lack of business ethics continued into casino operations. Valid withdrawal requests were ignored, and players were outright refused their winnings.

Elite Fortune Limited/Elitegames Casinos

• ggslot.com
• elitegames.org
• casino10.net
• 777Vegas.net
• 24techpro.com
• 18008080.com

This casino platform supplier provides its players with pirated games that run on tampered random number generators that are untested and unaudited, hosted on servers under the control of pirates. Apart from the obvious criminality of pirating casino games from respected software suppliers such as Playtech, Aristocrat, NetEnt and Novomatic, slots rigged against rewarding winnings are also cheating players.

Shady casinos associated with Elite Fortune

This group is notorious for voiding winnings due to minor T&C breaches. They earn their place on the blacklisted sites due to their appearance on a blog site that has been illegally hacked to advertise casino services while the owners of these sites were unaware. The AffPower program for affiliates continues to ignore complaints and is still advertising on hacked sites today.

1. Triomphe Casino
2. Slots500 Casino
3. Ramses Gold Casino
4. Magik Slots
5. Madame Chance
6. Casino 1
7. Casino Bordeaux
8. Blu Casino
9. Atlantic Casino

Game Tech Group N.V. Blacklisted Casinos

• Deuce Club
• Cosmik
• Park Lane
• Osiris
• Euro Moon
• Atlantic Club

After further investigation following numerous complaints, it was also confirmed that Game Tech Group N.V. Casinos/Conan Gaming/AffPower were running pirated games from NetEnt and Novamatic. This proves the lack of ethics as well as the group’s willingness to engage in unethical practices since pirated games do not offer fair play regulated by the authentic random number generated systems and games do not share the same progressive jackpot pools. The Curacao Gaming Authority has since removed these games.

Jackpot Factory Casinos

• Wild Jack Casino
• All Slots Casino
• All Jackpots Casino

The Jackpot Factory Group was once a respected group part of the Microgaming casinos group, but in the past few years, it’s been on a downward spin. The three sites part of this group are blacklisted include Wild Jack Casino, All Slots Casino, and All Jackpots Casino. The aforementioned casinos have introduced 48-hour withdrawal reversal periods, and no withdrawals can be made over weekends.

Over the past couple of years, complaints from online players are on the increase on affiliate message boards regarding unethical conduct. Accusations include theft from affiliates as well as reduced commissions. In short, these rogue casinos offer online players less than they deserve when it comes to fair treatment.

Rand Logic Gaming Casinos

• Indio Casino
• Grand Reef Casino
• African Palace Casino

Rand Logic Gaming’s African Palace Casino published a huge progressive jackpot win on Playtech‘s Beach Life video slot, although, in reality, the winner’s payments were stopped. Ignoring the player’s inquiries, this casino eventually told the winner that no further payments would be made. Carte Blanche, a televised investigation forum, took up the case. However, the investigation was unsuccessful after all three casinos that formed part of the Rand Logic Casino group were allegedly sold.

Onnea Trading Limited Casinos

Onnea Trading Limited’s Casino Affiliate Share, Royal Sands Casino, as well as Cleopatra’s Palace Casino, have a reputation for emailing bonus offers that are later not honored and refusing payment of winnings. They are also known for their ridiculous T&Cs – for example, any player that accepts a bonus will be limited to a withdrawal of $5,000 maximum, all blackjack games have a maximum single withdrawal value of $2,500 and winnings generated on games that were funded from a tournament win is restricted to a maximum $1,000 withdrawal.

CyberRock Entertainment N.V. Casinos

CyberRock Entertainment N.V. Casinos were blacklisted for non-payment and delayed payments deemed excessive after several complaints led to an investigation. At the same time, a close inspection of the group’s terms and conditions indicated why players should avoid casinos part of CyberRock Entertainment: If players deposit less than $250 according to the T&C, they were entitled to a maximum withdrawal of 10 times the deposit. It further states that withdrawal authorization periods are between 15 to 18 days.

Casinos that are part of CyberRock Entertainment include:

• Sahara Sands
• Rocketbet
• Casino Fiz
• Bet Cave Casino
• Vegas Amped Casino
• Tropica Casino
• Slot Powers Casino
• Crazy Winners Casino.

If you come across any of these rogue casinos, we advise you to exit immediately and go play your money somewhere safer and more respectable.

Cantor Gaming

Sportsbook operator Cantor Gaming was caught in a vast illegal gambling and money laundering scandal between 2009 and 2013 when it was revealed that the company’s former director of risk management Michael Colbert and his employees took and processed large illegal deposits from out of state. while allowing illegal bookmakers to launder money through the company. After the scandal emerged, more than 25 arrests were made, including Mr. Colbert. Cantor Gaming, now CG Technology, agreed to pay $22.5 million to resolve the issues. Mr. Colbert’s charges were dropped with the settlement.

Winpalace Group

The owners of the Winpalace Group have a particularly devious method for dealing with clients who won. They would stall players for up to 90 days, asking for ‘verifications’, then tell the players who patiently waited out the 90 days that their payout was denied because they had not played at the casino recently. The owners were arrested for fraud/hacking in July 2015.

Black Diamond Casino

Black Diamond Casino has been accused of operating without a license, this means that players who end up on the site have zero protection.

Kings Chance Casino

When an online casino site is vague about which license they hold, and any other important company info it raises a red flag. Players at Kings Chance Casino are also subject to some really unfair terms and conditions including a $100 minimum withdrawal.

Most Common Casino Scams

The most popular casino scams that players fall victim to include:

• Offering members bad software instead of regulated software
• Not solving customer issues
• Refusing to pay out winnings
• Rigging online casino games
• Payments fraud
• Operating in markets where casino gaming is banned
• Not holding a license

Tips for Identifying an Online Casino Scam

Rogue online casinos can be very good at disguising themselves as a reputable online casino. However, there are some warning signs that indicate that it’s probably best to stay away from an operator.

Dubious Licensing Status

First, check their licensing status by looking for details about the operator’s license registration or the licensing authority’s logo in the site’s footer. If this information is unavailable, it’s a major red flag and a strong indication to stay away from that operator.

Absence of Third-party Software Auditors

Additionally, check the footer for accreditation (usually in the form of a logo) from third-party auditors like eCOGRA, which reputable operators proudly display. The absence of such accreditation can be another red flag.

No Responsible Gambling Measures

Every reputable online casino with a valid gambling license is required to provide adequate responsible gambling tools and information to protect players against problem gambling.

If these resources are missing, it indicates that the operator is not only breaching the code of good conduct but also likely operating without proper regulation.

Spam Marketing

Safe and regulated online casinos will not resort to aggressive spam marketing tactics to attract players to their platforms. Spam emails, unsolicited phone calls, and misleading ads promising guaranteed wins are serious warning signs to watch out for.

No Privacy or Data Protection Policy

An operator that takes the safety and privacy of its customer seriously, will have a data or privacy policy in place, which will be clearly stated and can usually be found in the footer.

No Ownership or Contact Information

If the operator’s ownership cannot be verified or if it is not transparent about its contact details, it is best to stay away from it. Transparency and accountability are among the key pillars of all regulatory standards, ensuring player safety and trustworthiness.

Negative Customer Reviews

Reading customer reviews on player-focused forums can help assess an online casino’s trustworthiness. Pay particular attention to responses from casino representatives to players’ complaints. If there are no responses, this may indicate a suspicious website.

Poor Customer Service

The availability and quality of customer service are strong indicators of an online casino’s transparency and dedication to player satisfaction. Before signing up, test their support by asking a question via live chat or email. If the response is unhelpful, unfriendly, or unresponsive, it may be a red flag.

Alternatives to Blacklisted Casinos

Fortunately, many reputable operators offer a user-friendly, safe, and honest gaming experience. Here are our top 10 most trusted online casino sites.