People often make one mistake. They get suspicious if they see a gambling site with few customers. All casinos with a large number of active customers are also not a factor you should follow.
First of all, you need to study the history of the venue. Regardless, it would help if you tried to find a transparent casino. For example, you should be able to learn more about the owners. Many scammers hide behind the name of the gambling site they operate or pretend they do. Knowing this, you can also find out if the hosts are honest people without skeletons in their wardrobes. Also, you should be careful with promotions. Unlike Las Atlantis casino bonus codes, not all of them are real and harmless.
Another thing that everyone needs to do is read reviews provided by gambling experts. The people who write reviews study every detail of the gambling site they recommend. Getting reliable information is the key. Play only at online casinos that have a good reputation.
As you understand, choosing the best online casino is a must-do thing. Also, you need to find those casinos that will meet all your requirements and expectations.
This means you need to find a gambling site that offers attractive bonuses and promotions to make your gambling journey easier. In addition, you also need to check the reputation of the chosen venue. This is the topic we would like to discuss in this article. Because some online casinos have been involved in various scandals and controversies that have completely ruined their reputation and can ruin your life too. You should not feel sorry for these gambling operators because they all wanted to deceive their customers.
But players need to consider other things as well. It’s good if the site, in addition to honesty, can offer convenient navigation with full-fledged gaming functionality and a large assortment of games. Fast cash transactions and prompt technical support are also appreciated.
Before registering on the site, you must study the bonuses, loyalty program, and user agreement. This information is public. If any proposals seem unprofitable, other options may need to be considered.
After a short briefing on online gambling, time to move on to scandals. You are greatly mistaken if you think all online casino games and slots are the same. Each online game developer creates algorithms and uses its own pseudo-random number generator. There are even cases where game creators, intentionally or by mistake, release a dishonest game.
One advice that every professional player will give you is to choose the right game. The game that gives you the best chance of winning, or at least the one that suits you the best. For example, focus on the theoretical return to the player on slots, on the rules of blackjack and roulette.
In the early 2000s, online gambling experienced explosive growth, and it seemed that every week new sites appeared, offering new opportunities to interested players. Some of these online casinos were great and have survived to this day, while others have closed or been destroyed due to scandals.
Let’s finally take a look at scandals in the world of online gambling. Try to find out what came of it and how you can avoid collateral damage in similar incidents in the future.
Absolute Poker Peeked at Players’ Cards
Surprisingly, the UIGEA (Unlawful Online Gambling Enforcement Act) issue isn’t the only time Absolute Poker has made the news. Firstly, Absolute Poker was already in a precarious situation due to their license status, namely the fact that they did not have an official license like reputable online casinos. The company was based in Costa Rica, where it could operate without an official gambling license, and no regulatory body oversees online casino operators. However, gambling sites in the country can apply for a Kahnawake Gambling Commission license from the Mohawk tribe in Quebec.
In 2007, four years before the UIGEA indictments, players started coming to online forums and accusing the company of fraud. They stated that some suspicious results from a particular account led them to believe that that account could see other players’ hole cards. Оne player won the $1,000 weekly tournament by folding at just the right time as if he could see everyone else’s cards.
KGC investigated, and Absolute Poker released tournament history, including each player’s hole cards and the IP addresses of everyone who played. It turns out that there were several “superuser” accounts for this scam, and they were all linked to Scott Tom, one of the company’s founders.
After some initial denials of any such master accounts, the company finally admitted that the scam had occurred. However, they said this only happened for a short period, despite evidence that the fraud has been occurring on the site since it launched in 2003. Absolute Poker only refunded a few players, totaling around $5 million.
Ultimate Bet’s First Spokesman Cheated
Even before Black Friday and the merger with Absolute Poker, Ultimate Bet was also involved in a significant fraud scandal involving a superuser. Whoever controlled the score could see the hole cards of any other player at the table.
Russ Hamilton and some of his friends had an incredibly high win rate, and other players began to suspect cheating. Huge money transfers took place between Hamilton and his friends over several years, making it pretty obvious. The whole thing is especially damning because Hamilton was instrumental in getting the Ultimate Bet software used primarily for online gambling and spreading the word to the professional poker community even before the website was launched. Of course, players have long suspected that this has been happening for some time.
Ultimate Bet acknowledges that the scam took place between 2005 and 2007, but bettors also suspect it started as early as 2003. The company tried to pay $5 million, but the backlash was brutal. They eventually paid out $20 million, but the funds came from players’ deposits, not from Hamilton or other scams.
Black Friday Scandal
This scandal happened 10 years ago. As you know, a special day for all Americans is Black Friday. People all over the world started celebrating the same day. That is why many stores offer decent discounts on this day. The situation does not change when we talk about online casinos’ promotions.
On April 11, 2011, something extraordinary happened. The main characters were three gambling sites: Full Tilt Poker, Poker Stars and Absolute Poker. However, they were not the only ones, as 10 or 11 other defendants intervened in the case, but their names were not as popular in the mainstream media.
Anyway, their dishonest work has harmed a large number of American citizens. Because of this, the Department of Justice declared all these online casinos guilty. They had to return all the money their customers deposited on their site.
What do you think happened next? Well, the only casino that has succeeded is Poker Stars. More than 730 million dollars were given to solve this problem. Believe it or not, Poker Stars has even agreed to refund money to some Full Tilt Poker customers.
Unfortunately, the whole procedure was not so simple. Americans had to wait months and even years until they received their money. There were thousands of requests, and it took the Justice Department a long time to process them.
Let’s say a few more words about Full Tilt Poker, too, as their history is very turbulent. The casino started operations in 2004 and was created by five extremely professional poker players. People could enjoy a wide range of poker varieties. The idea of the creators was to make it accessible to everyone.
Unfortunately, they stopped working in 2011 due to a scandal. However, this was not the first mistake they made. Just 5 years before, one of their main supporters had sued them. The reason why he did this is quite simple to understand – he did not get his part of the property rights.
Many modern gambling experts say this was the first sign that Full Tilt would not work for too long. After the Black Friday scandal, all supporters left them, including the most loyal ones. Full Tilt Poker stopped its existence.
How to Protect Yourself from Online Gambling Scandals
Nobody wants to get caught up in scandals, watch someone cheat and get away with it, or even be accused of cheating. The best way to protect yourself is through diligence and education.
You should read the reviews of all online casinos you plan to join, but you must also look at where they got their gaming licenses from. Some online casinos have received licenses from other countries, which is not always bad. But you should be aware that some jurisdictions have stricter rules and player protection standards. These include Antigua and Barbuda, Belgium, Denmark, Gibraltar, Great Britain, and others.
Don’t let scandals scare you away from online gambling. Just remember the laws of your state or country, and make sure you choose a well-regulated online casino.
We must also understand that scandals and unpleasant situations can arise both from the online platform itself and the players. As described above in this article, some unscrupulous online casinos simply cash in on gamers and thereby make themselves famous with the opposite effect. But there is another fact about the players themselves. Sometimes they try to fool the system and make money on it.
It’s hard to cheat online. It is much easier to cheat in real casinos, in fact. Online scams require more technical skills, are easier to track down, and are harder to escape than offline scams. In the real world, fraud can take many forms. For example, players can use marked cards, tamper with slot machines, pay off dealers, move bets to “pay off” in certain table games, stack a game with accomplices, and use other methods to increase the odds in their favor. Most of these tactics are literally impossible to implement in the virtual world.
In online gambling, the player almost always needs to manipulate the game’s software. This is precisely what happened during the Absolutepoker.com scandal. Despite such inner workings, many avenues for cheating are closed to online players. It is easier to track them online. If a casino operator suspects that a player is cheating, they limit the amount of evidence they can collect using only surveillance of the dealer and video cameras. The camera is only effective when watching players who are already suspected of cheating. Even then, it is challenging to use video to prove that a player is cheating.
In comparison, it is much easier to detect, trace and confirm online casino fraud by tracking a user’s hands tied to a particular IP address. In addition, online casino operators can write computer software to sound an alarm if the game appears suspicious, even if no other player has noticed. And, unlike real casino operators, who can only monitor player activity in their own casino; online casinos can coordinate and track the user’s IP address to check their activities on multiple online gaming platforms.
So the online gambling industry is also full of criminals that many people have tried to make a lot of money from by cheating the world. Undoubtedly, they were all brilliant minds in business, as mentioned earlier. But nevertheless, the casino operators and the authorities managed to find these scandals and put these people in jail. These people have shaken up the entire online gambling industry, making the rest of the participants more careful about their activities.
