Playing at casinos on the internet, you may have wondered, Are online casinos rigged? It’s a legitimate question, although we will show you you have no reason to doubt their legitimacy.
Our quick analysis of the most important aspects of online gambling sites reveals that the belief online casinos are rigged falls under the domain of player misconceptions and that you have no reason to worry as long as you stick to licensed casinos.
Without further ado, let’s break another casino myth!
The Truth About Online Casino Legitimacy
Before jumping to conclusions and deciding that online casinos are rigged, hear us out. Brick-and-mortar and online casinos are businesses; naturally, when you run a business, your ultimate goal is to make a profit and casinos have an intricate and surefire way to achieve that.
Yep, you guessed it, it’s the house edge. House edge or advantage is carefully calculated to ensure the casino always wins, no matter how much money players win or lose. You cannot beat the casino in the long run, so don’t even try.
The fact that not all players can win playing casino games has spurred the belief that casino games are rigged. However, this is nothing but a misconception.
Read on as we take you through the steps needed to ensure a casino is legitimate and operates within the laws and regulations of a certain jurisdiction.
How to Find Casinos That Don’t Rig Their Games
Research, research, research! We cannot stress this enough, but before leaving your money at an online casino, it’s crucial to conduct proper research into a gambling site’s gaming licence, reputation, safety measures, software providers, etc.
One of the easiest ways to do so is to look up our directory of online casinos. Before listing it on AskGamblers, we subject each online casino site to a lengthy and thorough assessment process where we check its legitimacy by playing games in real mode.
Here’s an overview of what you should look for when picking a new casino:
Gaming Licences
We’ve said this a thousand times, but here goes: the first and usually the most important sign that an online casino is running a legitimate business is a gambling licence or another type of government-issued accreditation. Land-based casinos commonly display their licence(s) to be easily visible; online casinos display it on their homepage, usually in the website’s footer.
A gambling regulator’s logo or a licence no., it doesn’t matter: what’s important is that the casino lets you view a valid document on a regulator’s website. Once you are sure the site is licensed, you can proceed to register.
A gambling licence ensures that a casino plays by the rules on the one hand, while on the other, it gives you legal recourse in case anything goes wrong.
Casino Reputation
Any decent casino on the internet will tend to its image among players. Building up and maintaining a reputation is crucial in a market as competitive as iGaming. Casino reviews from third-party websites are, therefore, vital in bringing new players closer to the dealings of online casinos.
Apart from promoting online casinos, websites like AskGamblers help players discern legitimate casinos from those looking to defraud and take advantage of them. However, writing an expert review is one thing, but player opinions are a whole other.
Our casino reviews have a separate section dedicated to player reviews. Reading them gives you a fuller picture of what to expect from an online casino. (And believe us, it happened more than once that a negative review from a player had tarnished an outstanding reputation of a casino site).
Game Providers
Just as every online casino should carry a credible licence, software providers must apply for a licence to offer their games. Of course, provider licences differ from those held by casino operators, but they serve the same purpose: ensuring that a game is not rigged.
You may think dishonest software providers are less common than rigged online casinos, but you’d be wrong. There are plenty of them around the internet, but if you’re unsure if a gaming studio is reputable, you can double-check it in our reviews. If a name appears among the game providers in our reviews, you can rest assured that it’s legit.
Names like NetEnt, Pragmatic Play, Scientific Games, and BGaming are all legitimate and household names in iGaming; they wouldn’t risk their reputation by rigging their games.
Terms & Conditions
Another way to tell if an online casino is rigged is to check the good ol’ Terms & Conditions. We know: not many of you bother to read them, but you really should. Most times, you won’t even have to read the T&Cs through and through because fishy paragraphs tend to highlight themselves.
Some of the red flags you will commonly come across in T&Cs of shady casinos are charging you a fee for a dormancy period (aka paying for not playing), kicking you out for any reason they come up with, or simply changing the Terms and Conditions along the way without warning you about it.
Tip: If the casino’s T&Cs lack clauses about responsible gambling, you can close the window and move on to the next. Virtually every regulator requires licensees to offer responsible gambling tools or have measures to fight gambling addiction, so if there are none, you best believe that its operations are shady.
Ensuring Safety
This takes us back to licensing. Being able to place your trust in an online gambling site is vital; after all, you are putting your money in the casino’s cashier. Therefore, finding a casino with a good security track record is crucial. Reputable regulators such as the United Kingdom Gambling Commission or Malta Gaming Authority invest a great deal of effort to lay down strict fair play requirements and force operators to adhere to them.
For instance, casino operators and game providers are required to continuously filter games through Random Number Generators (RNGs), which are algorithms software providers and casinos use to ensure that the games’ outcomes are random and unbiased. Third-party certificates (e.g. e-Cogra) are always welcome, and casinos will gladly post them on their homepages.
The gambling site’s approach to online casino safety should be clearly contained in its safety policy, so it’s not a bad idea to pore over it before giving them your money.
Another way to check how a casino deals with security and potential breaches is to comb through AskGamblers casino complaints. A casino’s track record with AGCCS can offer a quick glimpse into a gambling venue’s approach to resolving these issues and has more than once put a casino out of our directory (see: Blacklisted casinos).
Why Casinos Don’t Have to Rig the Games
Let’s get one thing straight: casino games are not rigged in the sense they are designed to defraud players. This is because they are already designed to bring more money to the casino than players. This is no mystery, and no casino would deny it.
Each casino game is designed (coded or physically made) to give a mathematical advantage to the casino. You may know this mathematical formula under the name of house edge (essentially, the house edge is the RTP in reverse).
Let’s take blackjack as an example. Even if you apply the most surefire strategy and play all your cards perfectly, the house edge will still be 0.5%. This may seem like a small fraction, but the casino will rake in 0.5 cents for every $100 wagered. In the long run, that’s a lot!
The very concept of casinos removes any need for rigging the games: casinos are designed to profit off players, so taking illegitimate steps to increase the profits shouldn’t be their business model.
Are Online Casino Games Rigged?
If you play at a legitimate casino, no, casino games are not rigged. They don’t need to be rigged in the traditional sense of the word because they are already programmed to favour the casino. The house advantage is part and parcel of any casino game. Be it card games, dice games, or video poker, the house will always win.
For more information, take a look at our blog posts dedicated to specific casino games:
What Are the Signs of a Rigged Online Casino?
Gambling sites may resort to several tactics to cheat you and rig their games, but the most common way is to rig the games’ software, specifically two of the most important aspects of casino games: RTP (Return-to-Player) and RNG.
In theory, casino games are coded to produce results that cannot be predicted. However, illegitimate casinos will change how a game is coded to ensure you never get the desired result, purposefully stripping you of a realistic chance to win.
Let’s look at the two most common online casino scams: tampering with RTP and RNG.
As you know by now, RTP is a figure that shows how much money you can expect to earn from a game over a long period. For instance, if the game’s RTP is set at 96%, you can expect to win $96 for every $100 wagered.
This figure indicates an average value, and depending on players’ luck, not everyone will experience the same return, which is fine; after all, slots are games of chance, and what matters is that you are not swindled out of your money.
Rigged casinos may change the game’s RTP by lowering it, in turn lowering your chances of hitting a win.
Typically, rigged gambling sites will offer RTPs so low that winning becomes impossible.
Another casino scam involves tampering with RNGs. Random Number Generators are a mandatory component of every casino game, determining the results so that they cannot be predicted. However, rigged casinos may tamper with the game’s RNG, effectively removing the element of luck and any chance of winning.
Why Casinos Could Rig the Games (But Usually Don’t)
Even though a casino will always make a profit by running a legitimate business, thanks to the house edge, some casino operators are greedy and want to make a quicker buck, therefore, resorting to scams and game rigging.
Being aware of rigged casinos, we make every effort to keep you away from them and point you only in the direction of trustworthy sites. Just stick to online casinos running honest operations here on AskGamblers, and you will be safe.
