Friday, November 17, 2006

Casino Fraud

Fraudulent behavior on the part of online casinos has been documented. The most commonly reported behaviors are refusal to pay withdrawals or cheating software. An online casino with multiple confirmed cases of fraudulent behavior is often called a rogue casino by the online casino player community.

One commonly reported behavior related to refusal to pay withdrawals is the refusal to pay withdrawals promptly. A rogue casino may intentionally delay a withdrawal in hopes that the player will continue gambling with the money in the account and lose it all back.

Cheating software appears to be less common than payout problems.

Some casino software has been mathematically proven to cheat, such as Casino Bar (evidence by Michael Shackleford and others). Elka System/Oyster Gaming software is known to cheat, also confirmed by Michael Shackleford. Statistically non-random video poker has been reported at Playtech, see article "OCA STATS". Screen shots from the back office of an older brand of software indicated the odds could be adjusted by the operator.

Much of the speculation about casino software cheating is usually the result of a player finding a pattern in a statistically small set of results. Most people in the online casino industry believe that most of the major casino software brands offer odds and paybacks that are the same as their land-based casino counterparts.

Many casino gambling portals and player forums maintain blacklists of rogue casinos. These can easily found in any major search engine, but most of them constitute individual webmaster and player opinions rather than anything official from any type of regulating body.

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