Rogue / Blacklisted Casinos

How to Spot a Rogue Casino?

Over the years, Casinomeister’s infamous and sometimes covetedRogue Pit” has spawned into a number of categories – each with it’s own level of roguish attributes. There is the most serious level of being a straight out “rogue” operation that is clearly a rip off joint to the lesser “Bumblings, Blunders and Negligence” and “Stupid Casino Tricks”.

Nevertheless, it doesn’t matter whether these operations are just plain sloppy or have intentions to cheat – the operations listed within these confines need to be scrutinized by the careful and diligent player.

The Rogue Casino list is a bit more serious than simply not being recommended. Most of these online casinos are guilty of gross customer negligence bordering on the criminal. Some of these online casinos have disappeared leaving their players empty-handed and downright disgusted with the industry as a whole.

Rogue Casinos That You Should Avoid

Over the years, Casinomeister’s infamous and sometimes coveted “Rogue Pit” has spawned into several categories — each with its own level of roguish attributes. The most serious level of being a straight-up “rogue” operation is to be a clear rip-off joint to the lesser “Bumblings, Blunders and Negligence” and “Stupid Casino Tricks.”

Nevertheless, it doesn’t matter whether these operations are just plain sloppy or have intentions to cheat; the operations listed within these confines need to be scrutinized by the careful and diligent player. Proceed with caution, and at times, trepidation.

CloudBet

Too many complaints

Ring Master Casino

Checkered past – questionable licensing

777 Casino

Ethically challenged marketing

Connected to the ethically challenged 888.com

Prism Casino

Slow pay or no pay from this group

Way too many complaints of non-payments for this casino group

Fly Casino

No casino rep, their owner does not respond to our emails

Aladdins Gold

Change of management – rogue casino operation

All Star Slots

Falling star into the pit – sad

Club World

Once awesome – but awesome no more

Unethical rogue casino

HighNoon

Bad business practice – sad

Lucky Red

The mother of all faceplants

Manhattan Slots

A downward spiral into the Rogue Pit

GoWild

Stalling payouts

Casino closing and stalling payouts

Slotty Vegas

Don’t care much for being honest

Buzzluck

Rogue casino operation

Unethical business practice

AffPower

Software piracy

Ethically challenged casino group – pirated software

Euromoon

Fake NetEnt Games, Worst Casino 2016

African Palace

Slow Payments

Atlantic Vegas

Deceptive marketing

Azteca Casino

False Licensing claim

Backgammon Masters

hidden Terms, non-responsive

Balzac

No pay – bad casino practice

BeTheDealer

Reneging on a Deal

Betport

Confiscating winnings – closing accounts – no response

Casino Atlanta

Stolen Novomatic Games

Casino Vega

Affiliate program closing – no pay

Casino4live

Fake License – Stolen Novomatic Games

Class1casino

Confiscation of winnings – No Response

Cyber-bets

Fake Gaming Certificate

DollaroPoker

Confiscation of €100,000

EuroPlay-Malta

No Pay, No Customer Service

What Makes a Rogue Casino?

Unfortunately, there are many different ways that rogue casinos can operate; sometimes, these sites are running a completely illegal online gambling operation, but others employ unethical but not necessarily illegal tactics. Below, we’re going to run you through some of the most common things we see rogue online casinos doing:

Lack of Fair Gaming

One of the most common things you’ll see at dodgy online casinos is a complete and utter lack of fair gaming. Many of these blacklisted sites — although they appear like thoroughly reputable online casinos — use shady online gambling platforms that aren’t tested and licensed, and many don’t even bother to apply for an online gaming license.

Not only does this mean you’re putting your fate (and your money) into the hands of, well, who knows who — it also means that the online slots you play, the casino games, and the live casino games you play could all be running on unaudited software.

What’s more, as there’s no way of confirming the fairness of play, you have no idea whether the casino games you’re playing are even legitimate. We cover this in more depth in a separate section below, but it all ties into the lack of fair gaming, something we see at pretty much every rogue site.

Online Casinos and Bonus Fraud

One of the biggest complaints about an online casino you’ll find online today is players claiming welcome bonuses, deposit bonus offers and free spin promotions at casinos who find, upon trying to cash out their winnings, that the casino is arbitrarily applying unfair terms and conditions. Worse still, some online casino sites go as far as even changing their terms and conditions pages if a player hits a big win.

Blacklisted online casinos may advertise amazing-looking welcome bonus offers in an attempt to lure in new players. Still, when it comes to the terms and conditions, there can be some incredibly ridiculous terms. Worse still, some online casinos may confiscate your bonus winnings without telling you why!

Always check our casino blacklist before joining a site you haven’t heard of before and try to remember the old saying: if something looks too good to be true, it probably is.

Refusing to Pay Out Winnings

Casino payment problems are something most casinos on our blacklisted list have in common. If you read casino reviews for any blacklisted site here, there’s a good chance you’ll see an entire section dedicated to casino payment problems.

It’s all too common, at blacklisted sites, for casino payment problems to appear, but never do they occur when you’re making deposits. Never do they occur when you’re continually funding your account to play casino games.

No, these casino payment problems only ever occur when you’re trying to cash out. It’s one of the hallmarks of rogue sites; they’ll let you deposit as much money as you want and play their casino games as much as you can, but when it comes to making a withdrawal — that’s when the casino payment problems begin.

Some sites will try to state that you’ve broken some obscure term in their terms and conditions page and run you around the mill for months on end, while others will simply not cash out your winnings and ignore any attempts you make to contact their customer support team.

It’s a really unfortunate reality, and we see it time and time again in the forums. There are so many scam artists out there today who simply don’t care about stealing from players. It’s yet another reason why it’s so essential only to play casinos you trust. We can help you find the best online casinos to play at here at Casinomeister, so be sure to check out our recommended casinos page!

Poor Security and Privacy 

Aside from questionable practices, online payment problems, deposit bonuses that are too good to be true, and the fact that they’re just cheating players a lot of the time, many of the sites you’ll see listed here on this page have terrible on-site security. This could be classified as questionable practice in itself.

This poor security means that your personal and sensitive data could be at risk. For example, when you use banking methods to make a deposit, your debit and credit card details could be stolen. Any ID documents you upload could be stored insecurely.

Make sure you only ever give your payment and sensitive information to completely fair sites. You can find a list of excellent casinos right here at Casinomeister.

No Response Online Casinos

Customer support — or, shall we say, a lack of it — is one of the hallmarks of bad casinos, and it’s yet another of the questionable practices that most blacklisted sites seem to share.

Poor customer support or nonexistent customer support is something you should expect to see at most of the shady casinos on this page. Maybe you have a question about the biggest welcome bonuses they’re offering, have a problem with their table games, or want to know about the special ultimate bet promotion that you won money on. Later, you find that when it comes to asking these questions, they go answered.

Many casinos will simply give you the cold shoulder. They may respond to you before you run into problems, but if, for example, you hit a nice win and want to make a withdrawal, expect those emails to go unanswered and those live chat sessions to never connect.

Thankfully, good casinos with fair games offer 24 hours a day, seven days a week customer support, so when you play at the right site, you don’t have to worry about poor customer support. On the other hand, Rogue sites, poor customer support and rogue gaming casinos go hand in hand!

Online Casino Rigged Games/Stolen Software

Arguably one of the biggest dangers of playing at an online casino that’s not licensed — or that simply doesn’t care about sticking to the rules — is the fact that you’re playing on software that’s either rigged or stolen. Let’s look at the difference.

Stolen software is when a casino (usually Russian-based sites) steals games from a company like NetEnt or Microgaming and then hosts these games on their own server. These games look identical from a graphical standpoint; the graphics, audio, bonuses, and features are all the same.

However, as the shady casino is hosting these games themselves, there’s no telling what they may have done to them, and that’s not to mention the fact that they’re broken multiple laws in stealing the intellectual property of another company.

On the other hand, Rigged games are games that are built from the beginning to cheat players. For example, you may play a progressive jackpot game that isn’t physically capable of paying out the progressive jackpot, or you may play video slots that have an RTP as low as 10%.

When you play at a licensed casino, every game has to be independently audited and certified, so you know you’re always playing a fair game. At unlicensed casinos, this isn’t the case; if you end up playing one of these rigged/stolen machines, there’s a pretty good chance you’ll lose all of your money incredibly quickly.

Dirty Affiliate Tricks

Affiliate websites — like us here at Casinomeister — make their living by getting paid a small amount of money when new players sign-up to a casino through their site. While we don’t allow brands to pay to make our recommended lists (actually, it’s the complete opposite), we do make a small amount of money from casinos — we are a business, after all!

However, shady casinos also have a habit of not paying affiliates like us. It’s not just players they stick to scamming. We’ve experienced it time and time again with rogue platforms. They make us think they’re a great new business venture, we begin to start earning, and then, when it comes to paying us, they start ignoring us.

As a company, we can deal with it; it’s the cost of doing business. But think, if they’re doing this to us, do you really think they’re going to end up paying out their players’ winnings? Nope. 

That’s why we have an entire section of our blacklist (see below) dedicated to casinos that scam affiliates, so other affiliates know which casinos to avoid, too!

False Advertising

False advertising is another major problem we find at scam casinos a lot. It often occurs when a casino says that they have a gaming license from a specific regulator when they really don’t.

In fact, the world’s biggest regulators like the MGA have started issuing statements when brands do this. Thankfully, it’s pretty easy to tell whether or not a casino holds a valid gaming license.

All licensed casinos are required to display their license in the footer portion of their website. In most cases, this is a clickable link; you can verify with the regulator on their website that this link is legit, so you can check yourself to make sure the casino is actually licensed and operating under the prefixes that they say they are.

Encouraging Problem Gambling

One of the most despicable practices we see rogue online casinos participating in is the advocacy of encouraging problem gambling. Some sites have been seen actively creating pages on their website targeted at keywords surrounding people trying to ban themselves from all forms of gambling online just to get them to join their site!

In addition to this, even if a casino doesn’t blatantly try to make people gamble when they shouldn’t, most rogue platforms simply won’t have the responsible gambling tools you’d find at legit casinos. You’ll not be able to set deposit limits, take a time-out or enter into a self-exclusion agreement. 

How to Spot a Rogue Casino?

There are often some tell-tell signs of when a casino is rogue and should be avoided. Fortunately, today it’s easier than ever to throw together a legitimate-looking website and tempt unknowing players into joining up.

The best way to avoid playing at blacklisted casinos is to check sites like Casinomeister; we’re completely unbiased. We have no problems blacklisting a casino regardless of their age, reputation, or relationship with our team.

You should also look out for licensing; generally speaking, most blacklisted casinos hold an online gambling license (if at all) from Curacao or Panama. While this isn’t always the case, if you play at a casino licensed in the UK or Malta, you should be OK most of the time.

You can also check out the customer support facilities before you join a casino. Many rogue sites simply don’t operate a customer support facility, so another good method is to see whether you can get in touch with the customer support team yourself before you join a casino. Our blog has more tips on how to play safely at casinos.

Finally, always make sure you do your research; Google the casino’s name and search our forum to see what other players are saying. If there’s a lot of similar themes appearing (a casino confiscating winnings, or not paying out etc.), then you can probably start to get an idea of why it’s not wise to join that particular site. And, if you ever aren’t sure, you can make a post in our forum — our members will be happy to help you out!

The 5 Rogue Casino Categories Here at Casinomeister

The Rogue Casino list is a bit more serious than simply not being recommended. Most of these online casinos are guilty of gross customer negligence bordering on the criminal. Some of these online casinos have disappeared, leaving their players empty-handed and downright disgusted with the industry as a whole.

We split rogue and blacklisted casinos into five categories which you can view below.

The “Not Recommended” casinos are just that; they are casinos that are not recommended because of substandard customer service, poor support, serious payment delays, bad bonus terms, and questionable business practices. Simply stated, these are casinos that you should avoid until they have corrected these malfunctions.

Rogue Affiliate Programs

These programs will cheat the affiliate by either detagging players, skimming profits, or practicing other unethical behaviour.

Bumblings, Blunders and Negligence

The “Bumblings, Blunders and Negligence” section is reserved for casinos that either screw up something fierce or are negligent by failing to protect their players from software bugs and stolen databases or commit other acts of profound stupidity. In the military, it’s called “dereliction of duty” and is punishable by massive pushups, water-boarding, or burning shitters.

Evil Casino Software Providers (Casino Rigged Games)

Certain software providers either have funky software that cheats or have a “hands-off” approach to their licensees, allowing the online casino to do whatever they please. In the past, we’ve seen casino rigged games to cheat players too!

Dungeon of Evil

This is the archived section of the Rogue Pit — casinos that faded away into the depths. Most are offline or out of business, but that’s not saying their operators aren’t. This is why this section exists. The complaints may be outdated, the sites may be dead, but in the Dungeon, they rot.

FAQs

What is a blacklisted/rogue casino?

Blacklisted casinos (also known as rogue casinos) are online gambling sites that have shown to be operating illegally, unethically, or against the strong code of conduct we’ve set out there at Casinomeister. If a site is in the rogue/blacklisted casino section, it means it should be avoided at all costs; we don’t place sites in this list lightly.

Why should I avoid blacklisted sites?

Blacklisted online casinos should be avoided for several reasons. First and foremost, there’s a strong chance they don’t hold a valid online gambling license; this means they’re not held to the same high standards as all other casinos, and it means that when things do go wrong, you’re unlikely to get your money back.

Other reasons you should avoid a blacklisted casino: rigged games, casino rigged, stolen games that, poor security, a lack of customer support, unethical business practices — there’s no limit on the number of reasons why you should be avoiding rogue casinos!

What should I do if I’ve already joined a rogue site?

If you find out that you’ve joined one of the blacklisted casino sites here, first of all, don’t panic. If you haven’t already deposited any money, then you likely have nothing to worry about. We would, however, recommend changing your password anywhere else if you’ve used the same password for the blacklisted online casino as you do with any other accounts.

If you’ve already deposited money, try to withdraw; make sure to follow the casino’s terms and conditions down to the tee, so they have less ammunition to try and withhold your winnings. If they simply don’t budge, or if they refuse, then you can try to issue a chargeback with your bank or credit card provider.

How can I find trustworthy casinos?

If you’re looking for the top Canadian online casinos and want to avoid gambling online at blacklisted online casinos, then it’s vital you choose a casino from a place you can trust, a place like Casinomeister. Here at Casinomeister, we’ve been working in the online gambling industry for more than two decades. We have a dedicated, full-time team of experts who find dodgy casinos and add the site to our list of blacklisted casinos sites and bring you the good, reputable casino sites.

If you play at one of the recommended casinos here at Casinomeister, you’ll be able to do so safely in the knowledge that you’re playing at one of our trusted online casinos. All are fully licensed, reputable, and actually pay out your winnings quickly!

Help! I’ve been scammed by a casino. What can I do?

If an online casino has scammed you, the first thing you need to do is check if they’re regulated or not; if so, it’s best to file a complaint with the online gambling regulator. You can also raise a PAB here at Casinomeister. However, if the site appears on our list of blacklisted online casinos, is part of the Virtual Casino Group or is known elsewhere as a blacklisted casino, there may only be so much we can do to help.

Not Recommended Casinos
The “Not Recommended” casinos are just that, they are casinos that are not recommended because of substandard customer service, poor support, serious payment delays, bad bonus terms, and questionable business practices. Simply stated – these are casinos that you should avoid until they have corrected these malfunctions.
Rogue Affiliate Programs
These programs will cheat the affiliate by either detagging players, skimming profits, or practice other unethical behaviour.
Bumblings, Blunders and Negligence
The “Bumblings, Blunders and Negligence” section is reserved for casinos that either screw up something fierce or are negligent by failing to protect their players from software bugs, stolen databases, or commit other acts of serious stupidity. In the military it’s called “dereliction of duty” and is punishable by massive pushups, water-boarding, or burning shitters.
Evil Casino Software Providers
There are certain software providers that either have funkified software that cheats, or they have a “hands-off” approach to their licensees, allowing the online casino to do whatever they please.

Dungeon of Evil

This is the archived section of the Rogue Pit – casinos that faded away into the depths. Most are offline or out of business, but that’s not saying their operators aren’t. This is why this section exists. The complaints may be outdated, the sites may be dead, but in the Dungeon they molder.
Casino Software Provider Level of Rogueness Reason Status
1cnp Casino Unknown Mega rogue Unethical Business Practice Dead site
747casino.com Aqualine Not Recommended Customer Service Dead
Action Online Casino Playtech Rogue No Pay – No Response Rebranded
Arcada Casino Unknown One of the first rogues Unethical Business Practice Cheesy Portal
Atlantic Lounge Casino RTG Rogue No Pay – Manager AWOL Crap Portal
Casinobar COA Software Mega rogue Software Dead
Casinoonair COA Software Mega rogue Software Dead
Casino Onliner Casinova Rogue with a capital “R” Unethical Business Practice Dead
The Chance Group Black Widow Casino Grand Banks Casino Sterling House Casino Playtech Not Recommended Slow Payments Dead
Goldengalleycasino.com 3WGraphics Rogue non-payment/no response Dead
Heroes Casino and Sports Book Who Knows Rogue Bad Casino practice Rebranded as JSSports
Hype Gaming HypeGaming Not Recommended No Pay – unresponsive to player complaints Dead
Incashcasino.com Max Skyweb Not Recommended Stupidity Dead
Inchilli Casino Hype Gaming Not Recommended Unresponsive to player complaints – stupid name Dead
Jonwood Poker – Unknown Rogue unethical business practice Dead
Londonscasino CWC Rogue Non Payment – angry cashier Dead
Lucknrollcasino Casinova Rogue with a capital “R” Unethical Business Practice Dead
Lucky Trump Casino Casinova Rogue with a capital “R” Unethical Business Practice Dead
Lucknrollcasino Casinova Rogue with a capital “R” Unethical Business Practice Dead
Magic Trump Casino Casinova Rogue with a capital “R” Unethical Business Practice Dead
Maxima Casino Playtech Rogue Confiscation of winnings – No Response Rebranded as Class1casino
Million Minds Casino and Poker Tain Rogue No Pay – No response Dead
Ministeringangel Casino Unknown funkified weirdness Stupifying Rogue Strange software, stupid name, casino rep calls forum member idiot, questionable business practices Dead
Naked Poker CyberArts Rogue Non-payment, no response Dead
Rochester Casino AST Rogue Non-payment, confusion Dead
RoccoCasino No idea Mindnumbing Rogue Plain and simple big-time rogue Dead
Shark Casino RTG Not Recommended Non-responsiveness – stupid name Dead
Starluck iGlobalMedia Not Recommended Incompetence Rebranded as Party Casino
Tajmahal Palace Casino Futurebet Rogue No Pay Crap Portal
Topspeedpoker Dynamic Gaming Systems Rogue No pay – no answer Crap Portal
Trump Casino Group Casinova Rogue with a capital “R” Unethical Business Practice Dead
Venice Nights Casino AT Gaming Not Recommended Non-responsiveness – confiscated winnings Crap Portal
Winner333 Casino Global Power Gaming Rogue Funkified software – vanished Dead
XXL Club Casino Playtech Not Recommended Non-responsiveness – payment problems Crap Portal

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