Online gambling is so popular because it is entertaining, affordable (mostly), available to almost everybody, and allows you to win real money! However, online gambling is also risky, and not only because it involves actual financial risks, but also because it involves some unfair or scammy gambling sites.
This is why online casino reviews are in such a demand, and many players go check the casino site out on the reviewing platforms. Every gambler can take advantage of the reviews and recommended lists of quality casinos here or similar platforms. However, for a quick educational tutorial, this post discusses what online casinos can try to conceal, and how to tell a good casino from a bad one, in order to opt for the most reliable platforms.
Not All Online Casinos Are Created Equal
The reason why it is so hard sometimes to find a reliable, convenient, and safe casino site for real money betting is because the offers are abundant, and new sites appear every month, but among all those offers, not all parlours are fair. Some are outright scammy and suspicious, some are of poor quality and leave much to be desired, while other sites still may just be inconvenient for the players from a certain location, or have disadvantageous gambling rules.
It is important to tell a good site from a bad site, but it is also important to understand whether the casino is safe and just inconvenient, or it is scammy and unfair. Inconvenient but safe casinos show all their rules and never try to conceal any uncomfortable condition. Suspicious or low quality parlours, on the other hand, prefer to try and conceal things, thus luring the customers to play under conditions the customers are not fully aware of.
What Online Casinos Conceal
Scammy casinos’ motivation is obvious – they want to lure the customers into real money depositing and gambling, most probably without the intention of paying the winnings out eventually. These sites mostly conceal lack of license and certifications, because no sane authority licenses such platforms nowadays.
However, the motivation of more recent, less fair, or more low quality parlours may be different; its management may be aware that some gambling conditions offered are not very beneficial, and experienced players are more likely to avoid those platforms, looking for more beneficial conditions and rules. So, they try to mask those less beneficial rules or put them somewhere far away in the long Terms and Conditions document in fine print.
The task of the potential customer here is to take their time, explore the whole site, and read all the text pages, including the “long and boring” T&C page and the payments page, to find out what the casino is really about.
The most concealed rules are usually about payments and about bonuses.
Payment Rules
Payment rules are often not explained fully. Most websites prefer to provide full payment options and rules to each player in their account, if they allow players from different jurisdictions because placing all the info for all the countries in the open T&C document will make the page endless.
However, this is true only for bigger casino sites. Other casino platforms, however, use this trend to their advantage and hide the full payment rules, too, even if they have three payment options and one currency accepted. If this is the case with the casino you like, don’t be shy to contact Customer Support and ask to provide the full info, even before you register.
Payment rules such as deposit and withdrawal minimum and maximum limits are crucial for the evaluation of the payment opportunities and convenience. Moreover, some payment processing companies take fees even for attempted or failed transactions, so the less the player knows about the limits, the higher chances are they can lose money trying.
Another important rule which is often kinda not obvious is the default currency rule. This rule means that the parlour may allow deposits and withdrawals in one of the several currencies, but all the internal calculations – including bets and bonuses – are calculated in the default currency. This is usually an international currency like USD or EUR. Because of the default currency rule, the players can lose money twice on currency exchange.
Bonuses
Bonuses are something most players like, and this is also something with tricky rules and conditions. Lured by a big juicy bonus, the new customer pulls their credit card more readily to deposit, but they often fail to read the rules in full. By concealing the Bonus Terms, many websites hope that the players will fail to follow all the requirements, and therefore will lose the bonus and the winnings and the deposited money, too. Bottom line – always find out everything about the bonus, and if it looks weird, better proceed without it.
Bonus wagering requirements should be paid special attention to because they are the fastest indication to how realistic the bonus winnings are. The higher the wagering requirements, the lower the chances for the player to win enough money from the bonus to cash it out eventually.
How To Find a Reliable One
To avoid all the unpleasant surprises that online gambling sites may try to hide from their potential customers, it makes sense to opt for the most reliable and high-quality casino platforms. Beginner gamblers may find themselves in a complicated situation when it comes to choosing a site since a lot of aspects must be double-checked, including, but not limited to the following list.
The best way to opt for a quality casino is to check its:
- licenses, certifications, and legitimacy
- payment options and rules, currencies, limits
- software providers and games
- bonuses and bonus terms
- customer support and user experience
Luckily, there are plenty of online casino reviews provided by reliable reviewing platforms. All gamblers can check out different reviews, read about the different rules and playing conditions offered by various websites, and make informed decisions about the best gambling options for themselves.
Taking some time to read about gambling sites, educate oneself, assess the offers, and compare them objectively may seem boring, but it is easier and definitely cheaper than finding oneself in the middle of real money gambling on an unsafe or scammy platform that hides its rules from customers. This is why it is so important to know what information can be concealed by sites, what information to look for, and what a high-quality casino site offers.
