It’s completely natural to be anxious before joining your first online casino. After all, you’ll have to make a real-money deposit on an online platform and trust it with your funds. If you are wondering whether online casinos are rigged, we’ll provide both a short and a long answer to that question. The short one is — no, they aren’t, as long as you stick to licensed and regulated ones.
If that does not convince you, make sure to read this article and find out more about different ways online casinos can be rigged and how to stay away from such platforms.
There are many ways to rig an online casino. Simply put, all casino games you play online use sophisticated underlying software. Developers working for reputable online casinos and content providers make sure to write code so that it cannot be tampered with.
All it takes to rig an online casino game is to alter its code so that the game is not fair anymore. Rigged online casinos usually offer games that are identical to the ones in fair and licensed casinos — the only difference is that you don’t really have an opportunity to win any money. In other words, you’ll pay and not get anything in return.
The probability of winning a prize in a rigged casino is usually much lower due to low RTP percentages.
RTP stands for Return to Player, and it’s a figure that shows how much money is returned to players when they make bets. If the RTP is 95%, players should receive $95 for every $100 they invest in online slots. Online casinos and developers will take the remaining $5 as a profit. Naturally, some players will be luckier than others and win bigger prizes, while the less fortunate ones will leave empty-handed.
Nevertheless, the overall distribution of prizes is such that casinos should take only a small portion of invested money while distributing the rest to players.
Rigged casinos often lower the RTP so much that it doesn’t pay off to play games. If the RTP is low, the casino will take most of the money you invest and your chances of winning a prize will be extremely low.
How do these casinos set the RTP? The answer is simple — they change the code and do not include the RNG.
Every game of chance available in online casinos needs to have a random number generator (RNG). This is a piece of code included in casino games that ensures that they are truly random.
To explain the RNG further, we must first ask you the following question: How does luck work?
Nobody knows. It’s a complete mystery to us. The only legitimate answer is to say that luck is a product of the universe being random. Some people are luckier than others when playing casino games. You can look at the outcome of playing games of chance as one way to measure someone’s luck.
But how do you know that games are random? The answer is the RNG. Developers made a program that always comes up with entirely random results in games. Therefore, once they set the parameters and insert the RNG in the game, you can rest assured that there are no people on the other side adjusting the outcome — unless you’re playing in a rigged casino.
Games in rigged casinos aren’t random since they lack one of the essential pieces of software — the random number generator.
One of the safest ways to ensure that a casino is not rigged is to research the web and find additional information about the platform. Many professional reviews will tell you about all the disadvantages and disadvantages related to the platform you want to join.
Alternatively, you can find user opinions about specific sites and gather more info on their trustworthiness. Please note that users sometimes leave negative reviews about casinos and call them rigged simply because they weren’t lucky enough. However, if all user reviews agree that a certain casino is rigged, you should definitely think twice before you open an account.
The good thing about the online gambling industry is that rigged platforms have short lifespans. In other words, if someone proves that they are rigged, other players will find that information rather quickly. Such sites are usually then added to blacklists all over the web and players start to avoid them right away. Being busted, rigged online casinos then stop operating as they aren’t able to scam people anymore.
Yet, you should still be careful, as online scammers don’t give up easily. If their rigged platform is shut down, they often don’t hesitate to start the whole process afresh and lure newcomers into giving them their money.
If an online casino claims that it’s fair and trustworthy, why should you trust them? After all, they could lie about this and still proceed with illegal operations. That’s why independent auditing companies exist.
These are usually companies that are highly reputable as being independent and honest in their reports. They often check online casinos and other gambling platforms for fairness, after which they publish the results. To ensure that a casino is fair, auditors check their random number generators and many other things that help them determine whether a casino is fair and trustworthy.
Companies that are currently considered leaders in the online gambling industry are eCogra, GLI, and iTechLabs. If you find certificates from these auditing firms in an online casino, you don’t have to worry.
If an online casino lacks a licence provided by an official regulatory body, we advise you to stay away from it. It may not be rigged, but having no licence is not a good sign. Reputable licence providers will never compromise their reputation by giving a licence to a rigged casino. Sure, some casinos become rigged over time, but as soon as regulators find that out, they revoke their licences for that platform.
Who are these regulators? In most cases, they are official commissions that decide who gets a licence. For example, in the UK, the most well-known gambling authority is the United Kingdom Gambling Commission. Casinos licensed by the UKGC need to pass a strict test that ensures no illegal operations are taking place.
There are also a couple of “global” regulators that license online gambling platforms, such as the Malta Gaming Authority, which is highly respected in the online gambling industry. Therefore, if you access a site and see that it’s licensed by the MGA, you can be sure that the casino is fair and trustworthy.
To find out whether an online casino is licensed or not, you should scroll down to the footer of the site, where information about licences is usually provided. You can then check the licence number to make sure that the information is not false.
Apart from licences, it’s also important to check who the owner of the casino is. Companies that own online casinos have either a good or bad reputation, and you definitely don’t want to play in casinos owned by companies that have a history of running blacklisted casinos.
Even legitimate online casinos can become rigged if they fall into the wrong hands. For example, they could undergo a cyberattack and hackers could rig games in some way. Luckily, that almost never happens nowadays.
All reputable online casinos use state-of-the-art technologies that make sure nobody can tamper with the games. Moreover, these technologies protect users, their sensitive data, and their funds from all kinds of cyberattacks. For example, every casino needs to use SSL (Secure Socket Layer) encryption to ensure secure communication.
We live in the day and age where information travels fast, which is why it’s pretty easy to spot a rigged online casino. They don’t have any security measures, licences, RNGs, and many other things required to operate properly.
However sophisticated, rigged casinos are fairly easy to see through, and that’s why we highly advise you to explore the site before joining it. If you’re still not sure, feel free to read reviews provided by casino experts and users. They’ll provide you with vital information about the site you’re considering, including whether it’s rigged or not.