Familiarize yourself with the house rules of your chosen venue. It is of the utmost importance that you carefully examine terms and conditions, no matter how complicated they might seem, as this is where the outcome of your experience rests.
When registering a gaming account, you are automatically agreeing to the company's terms, meaning you are legally obliged to respect the contractual agreement made with them.
Corrupted gaming sites use ambiguous, obscure or predatory terms to confuse customers. These clauses are cunningly assembled, in a way that can be interpreted differently, depending on who is reading. In case you find yourself disadvantaged and file a complaint, the brand will use such terms to counter your claims.
Unreasonable or too frequent player verification procedures
Demanding ID documents upon most or all withdrawal requests, is a standard tactic most rogue websites use to avoid due payments. Identity verification procedures are tedious for players, take time to do properly, and often must be repeated due to missing documentation.
We have seen some truly outrageous demands pertaining to these procedures, such as asking players to take a photo standing next to a road sign, or some other landmark in their home country or city.
Long Payment Processing Times
There is no good reason to process transactions longer than 5 working days. This is an agreeable limit most gamblers will find bearable, but anything longer than that is an exercise in patience that no person should be subjected to.
Delayed payments are the first, and often the only, strategy rogue sites use to withhold earnings. What they are trying to accomplish, is make players give up on their winnings after eventually losing all hope. You would be surprised how many gamblers would rather let go of their rightfully earned money, than deal with months-long frustrations, evasive answers provided by customer support, or no answers given at all.
Abuse of Promotions and Bonuses
Bonuses are ideal traps to lure in bonus hunters, or inexperienced players. As a promotional offer devised and determined by the operator itself, any bonus can be assembled with a sole intent to never let a player actually win any money. This is all too easy to accomplish using a few predatory terms.
Be especially wary of too-good-to-be-true promotional incentives, that coincidentally fail to include a precise and clear list of rules players need to oblige. The terms must be included in the bonus box itself, or at the very least, there must be a working link leading to related rules in the general T&C tab on the website.
If none of these are provided, your final resort is the customer support - contact them via available means, and ask them to provide detailed information about their promotions. If they refuse to do so, or give incomplete and confusing answers, you will then have a very good reason to steer clear of the said site.
Here is a list of predatory bonus terms most often used by rogue sites, that should give you an accurate idea of what to avoid in the future:
- - limiting the amount you can stake in a maximum single bet, while a bonus is active
- - limiting winnings from free, deposit-based or all bonuses, regardless of the amount deposited or credited bonus funds
- - imposing high withdrawal limits, in order to prevent cashing out of smaller quantities, and consequently forcing players to stake earnings in an attempt to win a sum significant enough to withdraw
- - country-specific restrictions: imposing significantly higher wagering requirements for certain countries only, preventing certain countries from claiming all or some promotional offers, or completing rollover on games that are otherwise allowed
- - imposing varying fees for withdrawals via some, or all accepted banking methods
- - failing to specify what precisely constitutes prohibited bonus abuse, or determining bonus abuse at the casino's sole discretion, often after a player has already won using bonus funds
- - altering existing terms, removing or adding new ones retroactively, after a player has already won using a bonus, in order to override their right to cash-out
- - confiscating entire balances and/or terminating accounts due to suspected bonus abuse at the absolute discretion of the company
- - confiscating a percentage of winnings, in the amount that exceeds the corresponding total stake, or the amount deposited
- - failing to disclose a list of games allowed for bonus play and/or wagering
- - building a balance, changing bet sizes, bet structures or game types is deemed ''irregular play'' and will incur confiscation of funds, or voiding of winnings
- - allowing funds to be withdrawn only via methods already used to deposit, even though their banking methods might not provide such an option
- - dividing payouts over €/£/$ 300 into monthly increments
- - discreetly or openly urging players to pay unspecified taxes on earnings to the casino itself