With so many scams around, how do you know that the online casino you are dealing with is legitimate and can be trusted. How can you know that it is safe and that the pokies it offers are fair?
Well, in this article we aim to help you with that, as we look at ways that you can determine whether a casino and the pokies it offers are fair.
Established vs New
It doesn’t matter if a casino is old or new, it doesn’t matter it if is big or small, it still needs to attract new players. However, smaller and newer casinos need to try harder to attract players, which means offering bigger and better bonuses.
The question is, is it worth taking a chance with a new casino, knowing that there are few reviews out there and that it hasn’t been around long enough for anyone to realise if it is secure and trustworthy? The simple answer is no, because if something looks too good to be true, then it probably is. Scam casinos launch and close all of the time and in order to attract new victims, they offer unrealistic bonuses. The gambler in you finds it hard to say no to these, but the logical person in you knows that these sites are bad news.
So, try to stick with established casinos, ones that have been around for a long time and are popular with your countrymen. Because not only are these legitimate, but as we mentioned above, the fact that they still need to lure in new players means they still offer big bonuses. Royal Vegas Casino is a prime example of what you should be looking for, as this casino has been popular throughout Australia for over a decade. It also has everything else mentioned in this article.
The Best Software
There are several developers that you can rely on in this industry. These guys create the pokies for the online casinos. They set the house edge and the payouts, they fix the seed amount for the progressive jackpot and they even provide the casino with the layouts they need to piece together their site.
There are many different developers out there, and these supply thousands of online casinos between them. But some are more trustworthy than others:
Microgaming: This developer has been around longer than any other. It was actually the first to launch an online casino and the first to license its software to others. It has been the best for a number of years and continues to lead the way. Microgaming have more pokies than anyone else and these have the highest payouts. Royal Vegas Casino is one of the most popular online casinos that uses this software.
Playtech: Often listed as the main competitor to Microgaming, Playtech can also be trusted. However, their expertise lies in table games, and not pokies. You won’t find the best pokies here and you won’t find the highest number either. To top it off, most Playtech pokies have middling to low RTPs, and only a handful of them are respectable.
Realtime Gaming: RTG games do not have the best graphics, but they do have a large number of games available. There are also more RTG casinos than other developer. However, RTG do not vet their licensees as much as the other developers do, and there have been many blacklisted RTG casinos in the past. To make matters worse, RTG also allow the individual casinos to tweak the payouts on the games, which can be (and has been) abused.
Net Ent: There are a handful of great Net Ent games out there and these are secure, but overall, there are far fewer pokies than you will find on Microgaming, and some of them are really poor, with low payouts.
Audits
All honest casinos will be audited. If you can’t find an audit report, then think twice about joining.
One of the most popular auditors is eCogra, which runs regular reports on Royal Vegas Casino, 32 Red and a number of other big names. This is a third-party service that runs a check on the casino’s games and banking options, making sure the former are fair and the latter are secure. You can view this report yourself by clicking on the eCogra link on the casino page, or by visiting the eCogra website directly and searching through their listed of trusted casinos.
This report is conducted when the casino is launched, with further reports taking place at random. Not only does this mean that things are okay when the site opens, but it helps to make sure that they remain that way. It gives trustworthy online casinos the incentive to remain that way as well, ensuring that if they step out of line then they will be discovered.