The Rogue Casino: Avoiding Unregistered, Illegal and Blacklisted Online Gambling Sites

If there’s one lesson to be learned about online gambling, it’s that not all online casinos are made of the same cloth – not all are registered, or even legal. Casinos that don’t make the cut are often listed on online casino “blacklists” that keep track of casinos with bad business practices, as well as outright frauds. Here’s everything you need to know about what gets a casino on the blacklist, where to find these lists and how to protect yourself.

Editors Note: This is not a sponsored article, there are no paid links on this page. Here at Great Bridge Links we want to be sure our readers are properly informed and protected. This article was checked January 2024 and the Blacklist links at the bottom of the page are current.

Check the Law – and Double-Check Casino Registration

The first step for any aspiring online gambler should be to check the laws of their country to see if online gambling is legal. For some countries, sports betting is allowed and online gambling is not. Always check to be sure!

Gambling from a country where it’s illegal can get you hit with severe penalties like fines, laundering charges, bank account closures, funds seizures or sometimes even jail time.

GamblingSites.org has a handy list of laws covering North America, Europe (UK), Australia, Asia, South America and Africa.

Most countries in the world have a national Gambling Board, Regulator or Commission in charge of issuing gambling licenses. Check if a casino is registered with the national gambling regulator for your country first – and if they’re not, file a report and steer clear.

Check Casino.org for a list of worldwide gambling regulators.

Help! I’ve Already Been Screwed

If you’ve already encountered a rogue or dodgy casino site and deposited your money, all is not always lost. While it can be hard to recover your money from an unregistered or rogue online casino, your first potential steps should be:

Contacting the online casino’s support team first. Remember to keep the e-mail and any notifications from your bank as proof.
Sending a report to your national online gambling regulator that can help them investigate the casino operator.
Filing an official police case for fraud where possible; this is where relevant proof becomes important.
Finding a lawyer who can help you to institute a court case against the operator. This isn’t always possible or affordable because of international laws – and yes, many operators know this.
A report to your bank can sometimes help an investigation, and in some cases reverse the transaction that lost your money if within a reasonable time.

The Blacklisted Casinos

There are several reasons why a casino might be blacklisted. A casino doesn’t have to be unregistered to make it on a blacklist – sometimes bad business practice or a lack of support from a registered casino might also put them on the no-list for gamblers.

Here are some of the reasons:

They’re Not Registered to Operate

Most online casino operators have to be registered as such in the countries where they want to operate. This is why national gambling regulators (and the gambling licenses they issue) are in place.

All casinos with a domain based in a country where electronic or online gaming is illegal can be considered ones you should steer clear of.

Whois.com lookup services can sometimes reveal in which country a domain is really registered

They Use Flawed or Pirated Software

Legitimate online casino software has to be extensively tested, and their Random Number Generators have to be guaranteed to be truly random and bug-free. If they aren’t, the online casino’s odds are almost certainly stacked against you from the start – and many blacklisted casinos are notorious for using software guaranteeing an endless loop of playing with no wins, ever.

Pirated games are a major no-no, as it means that the math for the games can be altered to make them unfair. It’s also stealing from legitimate game developers, who put in time and money into developing quality games.

Disappearing Payments

Only deposit money to reputable and registered online casino websites – and double-check before forking over any of your cryptocurrency or cash to a site.

Blacklisted casino sites will often cause any money paid in to “disappear” – or come up with a sudden “technical flaw” that keeps you from accessing your funds. Some will just outright refuse you access and steal your cash.

Payout Fraud

The issue rears its ugly head when you attempt to cash out your funds or winnings.

This is one of the most common reasons for a website to make it on a list of blacklisted gambling operators – and it’s the one that can do the most damage.

Make sure you only place your bets with registered operators that carry a good reputation. If you aren’t sure, you find bad reviews (or ones that look faked!) or have any trouble finding their registration info, avoid.

Lack of User Feedback

User feedback is one of the most important things when dealing with an online casino (or any website), and if they take too long to get back to their users or don’t get back to them all, it’s only natural that they can end up on the blacklist for this, too.

Horrendous Bugs

Flawed software doesn’t always just refer to software with rigged RNGs, but can also refer to software that’s filled with more bugs than the average swimming pool filter. Software that lags or freezes for users can also send a casino to the blacklist.

Checking Blacklisted Casinos

There are plenty of websites out there that keep updated listings of blacklisted casinos that have been reported for any of the above. A lot of these rely on submitted reviews and reports from users – and if you’ve been scammed, submit your report in order to help the process for others.

Here at Great Bridge Links we loved Wizard Of Odds although their list of Blacklist Casinos is dated 2019. The Pogg used to host an extensive Casino Blacklist with descriptions and reasons and more but now recommends we check out their casino recommendations instead – you can find their article here. But fear not, you can still find an extensive list of rogue casinos on LCB CASINOS which shows casinos that are blacklisted, have warnings, are on probation or closed altogether. This page is current (January 2024).

Easy enough to double check these lists before joining an online casino. Some other good websites to check blacklisted casinos can be found below. We have check this list and have determined (to the best of our ability) that they are all current.

What’s a Self-Blacklist?

You might have also heard of something called a self-blacklist for casinos. This happens when someone requests a voluntary ban for themselves from a casino (online or otherwise). Many cases, a blacklist of this type can also be requested on someone’s behalf – but only with the necessary legal documents.

Why? Usually, this is done in cases of bad debt or gambling addiction recovery.

The GBL Responsible Links Disclaimer

Great Bridge Links always advocates responsible gambling. We encourage registered and accredited online gambling and gaming websites and we provide resources for users to double-check the reputation of an online casino before forking over any cryptocurrency or cash.

Great Bridge Links relies on casino links and banners to support the website. Most of these links will take you to a new website page with a list of casinos. We have not played at nor vetted all the casinos on all the lists. We hope this article will help you with due diligence and keep you safe from Rogue Casinos!

The Rogue Casino: Avoiding Blacklisted Gambling Sites