Online Casino Blacklist

Last update: June 30, 2010

Blacklist

My blacklist is a place for the most unethical of Internet casinos. Reasons for inclusion on the blacklist include:

Game results are not consistent with a random game.
I expect all casinos to offer a fair game as evidenced by the fact that the cards or dice observed fall in line with statistical norms.
Non-payment of legitimate gambling winnings.
Granted the word “legitimate” is rather vague. I would prefer to say “any” gambling winnings, but many online casinos have a policy to not honor winnings in the case of extremely aggressive bonus abuse. While I strongly feel that casinos should honor their own rules, I want this list to consist of casinos that are significantly worse than the industry norm. Seizing deposits, or prior gambling winnings to the current withdrawal, are not acceptable, and justify blacklisting.
Non-payment of affiliate royalties.
Internet casinos typically pay advertisers according to how many players they deliver or how much those players lose. It is not unusual for untrustworthy casinos to short-pay their affiliates, either by changing the commission formula retroactively in their own favor, or simply to stop paying without explanation. Either way, a casino that can not be trusted to pay their advertising debts also can not be trusted to pay winning players, in my opinion.
Stealing web site content (typically mine).

Here is the Blacklist, starting with the most recently added.

Be the Dealer — Added June 30, 2010
Be the Dealer makes the blacklist for failure to honor affiliate royalties to bj21.com. I will let Al Rogers of bj21 state the problem in his own words.

BJ21.com had an advertising relationship with BeTheDealer.com. We were paid promptly and regularly. Suddenly the payments stopped. In 2008, after many emails back and forth, we agreed to waive about two-thirds of the past due balance, in exchange for small monthly payments. The payments on the agreed-upon $32,000 balance were to be $1,000 per month. Payments were made from April 2008 until June 2009. In June 2009, again the payments stopped, and nothing has been paid since. We are still owed $14,887 by BeTheDealer.com. Numerous emails and phone calls have resulted in nothing more than broken promises and stalls.
It appears that BeTheDealer.com is in poor financial condition, and cannot or does not intend to honor its obligations. Potential customers and advertisers should be warned to stay away.
Al Rogers
BJ21.com
I gave BeTheDealer a chance to state their own version. A BeTheDealer representive named Martin said that they agreed to resume payments, to avoid the threatened bad publicity by both Al and me. Before that deal was made, Al Rogers posted a warning at onlinecasinosuite.com. I'm not sure of the timeline, but Martin said the post was a violation of their understanding, and thus he never resumed the payments.
Perhaps there is a chance this can still be resolved. However, until Al asks me to take down my warning, players should be aware of the problems BeTheDealer has in honoring their debts.
Ultimate Bet — Added June 9, 2008
Both Ultimate Bet (UB) and Absolute Poker (AP) (see below) are owned by the same parent company, Tokwiro Enterprises. The cheating and alledged cover-up at AP was also occuring at UB. A UB player by the handle "NioNio" stole millions from other players, by way of super-user access, which allowed him/her to see his opponents hole cards. His win rate was many orders of magnitude better than the best poker players on earth. Yet, this went on undetected, and perhaps aided by insiders, at UB for months. It took the player community to expose what was going on. If UB/AP wish to refute any of this, I would be happy to print their corrections or comments.

More information on Ultimate Bet cheating scandal:

Poker site cheating plot a high-stakes whodunit

Superusers and Silence: How UltimateBet let players get cheated for millions

Absolute Poker — Added November 30, 2007
Absolute Poker was placed on the Black List because of a hole-card scandal, and the denial that followed. Anybody can be make mistakes or be hit by holes in security. However Absolute Poker had glaring evidence that a particular player was playing with evidence of competitors hole cards, and still denied it. For more information, please see my Absolute Poker invesigation.
Virtual Casino Group — Added Nov. 13, 2007
This group of casinos is blacklisted for slow-paying and not paying players at all. I defer to the Casinomeister for the details. One of the many affected players is a good friend of mine, who has been owed money by three of these casinos for years. Virtual casinos are: Cirrus Casino, Prism Casino, Cool Cat Casino, Palace of Chance, Club Player, Vip Lounge, Bet Royal Casino, and SlotsofVegas.com

SBG Global, Bet Royal — Added October 25, 2007 for non-payment of winnings.
These two sports books claim a group of players were all following the same radio handicapper in Connecticut, and such "syndicate" play is against the rules. In my opinion, this is a ridiculous reason for non-payment. Some handicappers have huge followings, who all bet the same way when the picks are released. Take your losses like a man and pay, for crying out loud!
Enterbet — Added January 19, 2007.
Enterbet is placed on the blacklist for stealing content from my site. Much of their games rules were copied word for word this site.
All Elka System/Oyster Gaming casinos:
After getting some anecdotal evidence that Netgaming.com was cheating in free play mode I gave them a try. In their single zero roulette game I placed 200 bets on red. My results were 133 wins and 67 losses. The probability of 133 or more wins in 200 spins is 1 in 3,788,515. So obviously they were letting me win. I blame the software for this and thus add all Elka/Oyster Gaming casinos to my blacklist. Besides this reason they have had a terrible reputation in the industry for years. Furthermore one of their clients, NetGaming, sold me out to pornography spammers. I used to maintain a list of Elka/Oyster casinos here but checking a random sampling of about ten 100% had vanished. So I believe this group to be fortunatly defunct. However the Casino Meister keeps a list of casinos that have used their software.
All Start Your Own Casino casinos
This software by their own admission can guarantee the operator a specified minimum win. As stated on their web site, "Our proprietary random number generator is calculating your profit before the winning/loosing number is sent back to the game. you can set a minimum profit that is always kept for you! this also ensures that you will not wake up with $20000 debts!" Thus the games can not be completely fair and random. I used to list three casinos using this software, but all three links are dead, as of July, 2009.
All MGM Gaming Systems casinos
The Wizard of Odds recommends you to not play joker poker at all casinos that use MGM Gaming Systems software. Based on my play at Transnet Casino (click here for full story) I very strongly believe that this software is not playing a fair game of joker poker. Besides Transnet other casinos that use this software include Axel, Casimodo Palace, Casino XO, Lazarus, Master Blackjack, Moon Palace, Paradise Players, Players Palace, Tiger Dragon, and Vino. (Update: All these casinos seem fortunatly to have vanished)
All Vegas Strip casinos
I played at Cleopatra's Casino when they had a $100 bonus for $100 deposit promotion. I ran my balance up to $300 and cashed out. The $200 in bonus/winnings arrived 20 days later by Fed Ex, with an apology for taking so long. As usual with Real Time Gaming casinos everything went very smoothly and the bonus was paid quickly and without fuss. However I got a complaint from a player in July 2001 saying he responded to a Cleopatra promotion through this site. The player in question claims they refused payment of winnings and ignored all his inquiries. I put in an inquiry myself about the situation, which they never responded to. Failure to respond to my inquiry is just cause for me to remove my endorsement. This casino is part of the "Vegas Strip" family of casinos, a group I have been hearing a lot of complaints about. The GameMaster reports they have refused to pay winnings to players just for living in Denmark (a country known for Internet casino fraud). Other Vegas Strip casinos include America's Online Casino, Cleopatra's Casino, Club Regal Casino, eWorld Casino, and Club Mardi Gras Casino. Last date played: May 9, 2001. (Real Time Gaming software)
Casino Bar
When I played at Casino Bar on May 27, 2002, and December 13, 2002, the evidence will show that I didn't get a fair game of blackjack. Three other webmasters also tested them and the results were also not in line with a fair game. For the entire story please visit Casino Bar investigation. Date last played: December 13, 2002 (C.O.A World Entertainment software). As of July, 2009, Casino Bar seems to have vanished.
Golden Palace/Casino Depot
During the glory days of Internet casino bonus hunting the Golden Palace offered a 20% bonus on purchases up to $10,000, every month. I personally collected $2000 in bonuses every month, and sometimes from their sister casino Casino Depot as well. In April 2000 they evidently started to realize what was going on and sent players letters stating that if they didn't play more during off promotions they would not be offered future promotions. This was fair and I gave them more free play. Others made deposits immediately after receiving this letter and played. Shortly after this they took an even stronger stance and locked out all players suspected of bonus abuse. By early June they had finished their investigations. Some players, including me, got their money back, and some did not. Golden Palace says those funds were donated to charity. I am of the opinion that every online casino should abide by its own rules. Seizing funds from players whose only fault is taking advantage of the bonuses that were offered is not acceptable. Not until the Golden Palace refunds the accounts of all players from this debacle will I remove them from the blacklist. For the long version of this story visit my Golden Palace statement. (Playtech software)

Here are some more warning lists by other webmasters.

The Wizard's other sites: Wizard of Vegas, Wizard of Macau, Math Problems The Wizard recommends: The Bear Growls, Casinomeister, Online Casino Suite