Operating an online casino is undoubtedly a lucrative business. Online casinos come and go almost every week. Nowadays, players can choose from more than 8,000 online casinos. Choosing an online casino from such a quantity may not be so easy, and it is. When choosing an online casino, it is necessary to take into account elements that are not obvious to novice players.
When choosing the best casino for you, you must first make sure that the casino meets the most important parameters, such as the acceptance of players from the country you live in and the casino’s reputation for fair play and payouts. Secondly, you can choose a casino based on the availability of customer support in your language, the casino design, or on their selection of games.
We try to list the casinos that have most of these features on our list of online casinos. Feel free to use our list of casinos with advanced filtering features to find the best online casino for you.
Choose the casino that accepts players from your country
When choosing your online casino, always make sure that the casino fully accepts players from a country where you have a place of residence. Many countries strictly prohibit online casinos from operating in their territory. In practice, not all countries enforce this ban on all casinos. In addition, not all countries have an influence on casinos based in legislative gambling havens. But many casinos prefer to retreat and not accept players from these countries.
If you come from such a country, a casino may allow you to register and play, but if you win, you will need proof of residency from another country, depending on their terms and conditions.
Choose the casino that accepts players from your country
When choosing your online casino, always make sure that the casino fully accepts players from a country where you have a place of residence. Many countries strictly prohibit online casinos from operating in their territory. In practice, not all countries enforce this ban on all casinos. In addition, not all countries have an influence on casinos based in legislative gambling havens. But many casinos prefer to retreat and not accept players from these countries.
If you come from such a country, a casino may allow you to register and play, but if you win, you will need proof of residency from another country, depending on their terms and conditions.
Choosing a reputable online casino
An online casino is like an insurance company. You won’t know if you have a good insurance company until after a damaging event and the insurance company will compensate you fairly for the damage. You will only know if you are playing in a good casino or not, after you have won a substantial amount and the casino will pay you your winnings promptly. There are many documented cases where online casinos have directly defrauded players.
The most common cheating practices are :
Refusal to pay a player’s fair winnings :
The casino marks the winnings as a software error and will not accept the player’s right to that win.
The casino makes it a condition of payment to continue playing.
The introduction of unreasonably low withdrawal limits that prevent the withdrawal of a larger winnings.
The casino justifies not paying legitimate winnings by other means.
Offering unlicensed manipulated games with a much lower payout rate. The games are often a faithful copy of favorite games made by honest game developers, essentially indistinguishable from the original.
The casino often uses a bonus abuse clause. The casino brands each player, who converts a bonus into real money, as a bonus abuser and cancels all bonuses in cash.
Because of these practices, it is a good idea to check the reputation of an online casino before depositing money. We do this for you and we regularly check the reputation of all the casinos on our list. If we find that a casino is acting unethically, we will remove it. Reliability is the main criterion for choosing an online casino.
Choosing a casino that complies with regulations
Each online casino is officially operated from a country (or territory with special status – jurisdiction). In order to operate an online casino from a specific country, that country must have favorable legislation for online gambling. Licenses are issued either by the state that wishes to regulate and tax the online gambling of its own citizens (United Kingdom, Belgium, Romania, etc.) or by jurisdictions that want to allow casinos to do business internationally (Malta, Curaçao, Gibraltar, etc.).
If a casino stubbornly refuses to pay you your legitimate winnings, the only option left is to turn to the regulator who issued the casino’s license. Only then will it be possible to see how important it was to choose a casino based on the person who issued the license. A good regulator should always stand independently on the side of fair gambling. It should fairly assess and investigate every formal complaint. In the event of a serious breach of rules by a casino, it may proceed to revoke their licence.
In practice, with some regulators, you cannot even access a contact form to file a complaint (Costa Rica, Panama, Anjouan, Seychelles). In this case, you have no chance of getting justice.
With some regulators, you may have a chance to get justice, however, their approach will generally be lax. Here we can include Curacao and Gibraltar.
However, there are respected licensing authorities such as Malta, Alderney and the Isle of Man. In case of a conflict with a casino licensed by some of these authorities, you have a fairly decent chance of getting justice.
High income compared to the amounts you play; reasonable withdrawal limits
Again, a parallel with insurance companies can help us here. Insure your home with an insurance company that collects less money annually than the value of your home? Most likely not. If your house burned down, the insurance company wouldn’t have the money to pay you and you would have to sue them. Maybe that would put them out of business, and you wouldn’t see your money anyway.
It is the same with online casinos. If you win a huge amount of money in a small casino, it would disrupt their cash flow considerably. The motivation of the casino to act dishonestly will be very strong in such a case. In the worst case, the casino will face insolvency. So it’s not a question of honesty or dishonesty, but rather the fact that they simply don’t have the money.
Some slot machines have such variance, that you can win up to 5000 times your bet in a single spin. In such a case, if you bet €50, you would win €250,000. Casinos don’t like to set betting limits on their games, so they don’t discourage the richest players. More transparent casinos get around this problem by setting a maximum limit for withdrawals. In such cases, you see that a casino does not have a high income and a really high payout would take you years to withdraw. The less responsible casinos do not address this problem and only hope that no one will win such a large amount.
In any case, before you start gambling, assess the financial strength of the casino. Always count on the best – with slot machines, make sure that the casino can pay even a win of 5000 times your maximum bet. If you happen to win a large amount and the casino doesn’t pay you, it will probably have an impact on your mental health.
Definitely also check the withdrawal limits. It would take you almost 7 years to withdraw €250.000 by receiving €3.000 per month. That’s enough time for the casino to go bankrupt, and it wouldn’t pay you the rest of your money.
Choose the casino that offers your favorite games
Another element to choose your online casino. If you favor a specific game, you are most likely looking for online casinos that have a specific game. Our list of casinos will certainly help you find a casino that operates games through your favorite gaming provider.
Player preferences vary. Some of them like table games – including blackjack, baccarat or roulette. If you like these types of games, you will certainly like it if a casino has a selection of several different variants and types of blackjack or roulette.
If classic roulette wasn’t enough, some casinos like to experiment with new types of roulette. Examples include a type of roulette played with two balls and a chance to win the jackpot – double ball roulette, and roulette with an additional type of bet – key bet roulette. You can find them by browsing our list of casinos with live roulette games.
If you prefer to play live dealer games, which are becoming more and more popular, our list will help you again.
Another category of games are slot machines. The difference between casinos lies in the number of games they offer. If you like slots, check to see if a selected casino offers enough games to choose from. If you like classic slots like Sizzling Hot Deluxe or Book of Ra, or if you want to play Mega Moolah slots for millions, you’ll be happy to find your favorite game added to a list of games.
Prefer scratch cards? Many casinos don’t offer this less popular type of game, but you’ll find them in some of them – our list will also help you find casinos that offer scratch cards.
Choose the casino with fast and efficient customer support
When you visit an online casino, you often need to check for ambiguities regarding bonuses, terms and conditions, or site operation.
In the case of customer support, the following rule applies: the quicker the better. Ideally, customer support will include 24/7 live service with a helpful and friendly person on the other side. Conversely, you can send your questions and complaints by email and then wait three days for a response or a phone number you can’t reach. So this is one thing to consider when choosing your online casino.
Choose a casino with great bonuses
Another element in choosing an online casino is that each casino tries to attract visitors with bonus promotions. The correct use of bonuses can considerably help a regular player to reduce the costs of his hobby. Some players even focus only on abusing bonuses to achieve long-term profit.
If you’re a casino player, it’s good to make sense of the tangle of bonuses and their requirements, even if bonus abuse is not your goal. While with some bonuses it is always advantageous to accept them, others have such unfavorable conditions that it is simply not worth it. An example is a deposit bonus, where wagering requirements apply to both a deposit and a bonus amount. With high wagering requirements, this bonus will unnecessarily limit your wagering and will also prevent you from withdrawing your winnings until you have met the wagering requirements.
Choose a casino with a site that is easy to navigate and graphically pleasing
The design of an online casino’s website creates the first impression of the casino, but it also influences the fun you will have playing there. Of course, you can also play in a casino with an opaque and poorly functioning website, but it’s not as enjoyable.
The rule of thumb is: large casinos usually have highly developed websites. The web design of a casino can become a competitive battleground between casinos. For example, the Fastpay casino on our list prides itself on its modern look, which is also easy to navigate, even on a smaller screen.
Support for mobile casino games
Another criterion for choosing your online casino. The modern information age has made online gamblers want to play not only on a PC, but also on their cell phones or tablets. Why sit at the computer, when you can sit comfortably in an armchair, or take your games with you wherever you go?
It is therefore natural that the availability of mobile gaming is becoming a new standard in the world of online casinos. We also help you make sure that the casino you choose doesn’t lag behind in supporting mobile casino gaming. For each casino on our list, we also provide information about its mobile usability.
Deposit and withdrawal options, fees
When choosing an online casino, it is certainly worth considering your deposit and withdrawal options. The fees for a debit card payment are not negligible, but also the waiting time for your withdrawal. In case of money transfer to a bank account it can take up to seven days.
Many players find it convenient to use Internet wallets like Skrill or Neteller, or even prepaid cards like Paysafecard. Less common options are to make deposits through a mobile operator. Not all casinos offer such deposit options. Therefore, on our list of online casinos, we have not forgotten to mention the payment options for each casino.
