Nat Sauteed
I won, now what?
With online casinos, some people have some serious trust issues. They’ll say the games are rigged and the casino will never pay you if you do drop that mega progressive jackpot.
The fact is, more often than not, online casinos are reputable these days. The big names make a lot more money just by offering a fair and transparent service. All casino games and slots are weighted mathematically in their favour anyway and one report of them withholding winnings from a player in a national newspaper could do much more harm to the venue’s balance sheet than if they were to just pay out.
Of course, that’s not to say that all online gambling websites are reputable. Although much less common than in the early days of the internet, there still exist some operators that existing outside of regulatory frameworks. I guess the point is, you need to avoid these venues if you want to be sure that you will be paid.
How to Make Sure Your Casino is Trustworthy
You want to avoid dodgy casinos at all costs. After all, you’re playing with real money here. Your own real money. Fortunately, there are a couple of ways to make sure you only play at reputable casinos.
Go for Big Names
One of the best ways to home in on a trustworthy online casino is to just stick to big names in the long-established industry. The likes of William Hill, Paddy Power, Bet365, and Ladbrokes have high street stores across the UK and have risen to the top over the years because of their consistent fair treatment of players.
Although it’s good practice to check a licence at an online casino, you really needn’t bother at names you see with brick-and-mortar locations. They’re the real deal and they’ll pay you out.
If the win is truly huge, they might offer to pay you in instalments. This is perfectly within their rights, but they will eventually settle the total amount providing you’re abiding by all terms and conditions to win your monster pay-out.
Check for a Licence
Although the big names do offer some great welcome bonus offers, they are often smaller than some up-and-coming casinos. The likes of Ladbrokes and the other huge names from the UK industry already have an established client base and its reputation is a powerful lure. They don’t need to dangle huge welcome promotions to attract customers.
Smaller operations do need to use such offers. However, you are also running a higher risk of finding yourself playing at a casino that will flat out refuse to pay you.
To make sure you don’t, just try to find a licence somewhere on the page. There are many reputable licences to look out for including the UK Gambling Commission, Curacao Gaming Control Board, and National Indian Gaming Commission.
To achieve the status of licensee, a casino must prove itself and its games as fair and trustworthy. As long as you are not somehow excluded from the terms of the licence, you can play with confidence. Exclusions may occur if a player if playing from outside of the authority’s jurisdiction.
Of course, a really shady operation could just post a picture of the UK Gambling Commission’s logo on its website and use this to lend it an air of legitimacy. If you’ve never heard of the online casino dangling that too-good-to-resist promotion in front of your nose and the venue claims to have a licence, head over to the relevant regulator’s database and check the name versus their listings.
If you’re really still not sure, there is value in online review pages. Try to find ones that are clearly written by real people, not some paid promotor page. Make sure you read a bunch of reviews before settling on a specific casino and particularly pay attention to issues surrounding withdrawals and the wagering requirements on no deposit, free spins and match bonuses. Reddit is also a great place to find real opinions on gambling platforms.
Terms and Conditions: The Devil May Be in the Details
Finding a legitimate casino that will definitely pay you out a massive win is easier than it might first sound. Sticking to big names, looking for licences, and avoiding obscure operations (no matter how good that welcome bonus might look) is all it takes. You can then cross reference findings on lesser known venues with reviews and Reddit posts.
All that said, some casinos do place maximum withdrawal limits on their platforms. These are usually colossal sums of money, maybe £250,000 (should this be 500,000 if they want to withdraw 250,000 two weeks in a row?)
Unfortunately, such terms rarely seem to state what this means. Can you withdraw £250,000 one week, play £1 hands of blackjack, and withdraw the other £250,000 next week? It’s usually not clear from the wording of standard terms and conditions, although casinos almost certainly do have a procedure for this incredibly unlikely scenario.
However, you can sometimes completely ignore this if you’re playing using a bonus. It’s much more common to see a maximum win amount listed as part of a welcome bonus or any other casino promotion. When combined with a bonus, these maximum withdrawal limits can be rather unfairly low. Alternatively, they can be in the thousands. To avoid falling foul of such a restriction and ending up disappointed by potentially severely capped winnings, you should always read the terms of conditions of a promotion thoroughly prior to claiming it. This goes for all promotions, always!
