Rigged online casinos are far less common than you might expect. If you manage to find an unlicensed casino or a gambling site that had its credentials revoked, you run the risk of playing rigged games. Generally, if you stick to recommended sites, you won't have to. Licensed online casinos are overwhelmingly fair because they have strong oversight. Doing your research and taking action when things are suspicious helps keep online gaming fair.
Perhaps no other thing can destroy the inner peace of a punter as to know that the other side is cheating and has been using a loaded dice.
Casino rigging works in a similar way as the house or casino rigs the game to minimize payouts to as little as possible.
By casino rigging, we mean rigging in the real sense of the word or to put it another way, manipulate the outcome in such a way which will lead you to lose no matter what you do.
Most casino games are defined as games of chance and a game of chance means that you may win or lose as everything depends on the chance and odds.
But if a casino is rigged and you are going to lose anyway then it’s no longer a game of chance, indeed it is just another way of stealing your money by promising you a fair game of chance where your winnings or losses depend on the odds.
Trust is the foundation of a business and nowhere this maxim is truer than in the world of online gambling.
As often, most people especially those new to online casinos ask themselves a question before making a deposit that whether they can trust the casino establishment to play in a fair manner.
In this article, we will answer if it is possible that behind the scenes, can online casinos be rigged?
Casino rigging is a practice which is probably as old as the casinos themselves.
Successful and well-run casinos don’t need to rig a game.
To be profitable as by offering lower than theoretical odds, they ensure that no matter how good a player they will have to pay lower payouts and winnings as would have been the case with ideal odds.n
This practice is known as “house edge” and most professional players are aware of this. Most veteran punters accept this as they also understand well that casinos need to earn profits to be in business.
So, now we hope we have covered the basics and have differentiated between house edge and casino rigging, let’s move to the main discussion.
In one word, yes, it’s possible to rig an online casino and online casinos can be easily rigged and are often rigged by unreliable owners and administrators.
Although, thankfully there is a huge community of online casino players and it doesn’t take long for them to identify an online casino which is rigged unfavourably against its players.
How Online Casinos Are Rigged
One common way for online casinos to rig a game is by advertising high payouts signifying that their take will be small or even 0 in some cases and then offer lower odds to players.
This experience is shared by lots of customers and is legally a fraud.
Although, to prove that a casino is cheating, you must have quite advanced mathematical skills, and must play thousands of time and then compare the records which you have collected.
Although, to prove that a casino is cheating, you must have quite advanced mathematical skills, and must play thousands of time and then compare the records which you have collected.
Online casinos offer free games as bait for attracting customers and often advertise 100% payout, while most will never pay more than 95%-96%, if done legally they can claim this to be their take or house edge.
But if a casino is advertising 100% payouts when the real payout is 96%, then they are committing a legal fraud using false advertising and marketing tactics.
Many customers complain that when they played a free game, odds favoured them and they could win most of the times, but after switching to a paid game when they’ve bet their own money, they started losing.
This is a sign that the online casino has rigged the game and you must stay away from online casinos which follow this sort of or any similar practice.
Most incidents of fraud occur with card games, where casinos offer lower than random odds and do their best to make a player lose.
Veteran players can easily detect such a fraud, but not all of us have the gut feeling required to detect that a game has been rigged from the start.
Blackjack, for example, has clearly defined mathematical odds, which slightly favours the house or casino.
For someone, with no prior experience of blackjack or of its several variants, it’d be almost impossible to know that they’ve been given weak cards from the start.
Although, someone with a good understanding of the mathematics behind the game and the game itself it’ll be quite easy to detect such a thing.
Some online games other than table and card ones can be programmed to be rigged using other more sophisticated methods by modern technology.
Most online casinos use random number generators, which is basically a software running on various mathematical algorithms and an RNG ensures that the game is random.
Casinos and gambling whether online or offline are basically about randomness as if an outcome of a game has been decided even before the start, and there is no randomness involved in terms of the outcome.
Random number generators used by online casinos ensure that the outcome is random and minimize the chance of rigging.
Random number generators are used in most roulette games offered by online casinos as it’s these RNGs whose job is to generate a random winning number.
So, if you are playing with an online casino which uses certified random number generators, then chances of rigging are almost nil.
To decide whether online casinos can be rigged it’s necessary to separate fact from fiction and the answer can be both Yes and No depending on your own perspective.
Technical things aside, we still can’t say for sure that random number generators generate 100% random results.
Nonetheless, online casinos using these are considered more trustworthy than those without a random number generator.
How To Protect Yourself From A Rigged Online Casino
Now, it has become clear that there is no silver bullet which will protect you from a rigged online casino.
And to tell the truth there are very few ways in which a normal player can identify when an online casino is rigging the game.
Identifying rigged online casinos is an expensive and lengthy process which will require you to play thousands of hands with them, keep all the records, tally the odds promised with the actual results and sadly most of us also do not have the time to do this.
All you need to do is to avoid online casinos which have been known to employ shady practices and where other players have faced trust issues.
Old habits die hard and this is also true with online casinos.
Many casino owners try to start new casinos after defrauding people, but thanks to the vigilant gambling community online, you can get information about most of the online casinos and the people who are running these establishments.
After all, genuine business people don’t hide information as there is no need for them to do this.
Make sure that you play only with reputed online casinos and don’t choose a casino based on their advertised free bonuses and welcome packages only.
Instead, you must carefully read the reviews about them and pay close attention to what other punters have to say about their own experience with a specific online casino, before you choose one.
Conclusion
We’d like to conclude this article with some practical advice for our readers.
As you’ve seen an answer to the question; can online casinos be rigged? is Yes, as it’s possible to rig an online casino using various method identified above which directly affects the outcome of a game.
Online casinos also use other tactics which make withdrawing your winnings difficult or impossible.
This doesn’t mean that the initial game was rigged but is certainly a sign of caution as no reputed online casino would like to risk their reputation on a few bucks.
The only thing which you can do is do your best in terms of research and read all the reviews about a casino before choosing one.
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You know the feeling. You get a roulette bonus, all seems to be going well, and you’re stacking up chips. Then, you start playing with your own money, and your fortunes change.
This scenario happens to everyone at least once or twice. It’s enough to make most players ask: “Is online roulette rigged?”
In this piece, I’m going to explain to you that online roulette is rigged, but not in the way you think it is. I’m also going to ease your mind and reassure you that there isn’t some evil casino genius interfering with the game algorithms, at least not at legit roulette casinos.
Is Roulette Rigged?
If you look at Reddit posts about roulette or at posts on other gambling forums, you’re going to find a lot of people who believe that online casinos are scams. Many posters are 100% convinced that online roulette is programmed to screw them. If you read enough of these opinions, they can be convincing.
I’m not going to tell you that every online roulette game is legit. There are scam casinos, some we have added to our casino blacklist, and they will rinse you for every cent they can.
What a lot of these forum posters are suffering from is called “gambler’s remorse.” They’ve lost, they can’t accept it, and they’re looking for someone to blame. Gamblers can be superstitious and paranoid. And when they lose money, especially at a new online casino they have never played at, they can start drawing irrational conclusions.
How can I be so sure? I’m going to explain to you how I know online roulette isn’t rigged most of the time.
Random Number Generators
There’s a great, in-depth post on Random Number Generators here. You can read that if you want to know the full details on how game outcomes are determined.
If you don’t have the time, I’ll briefly summarize it for you here. Random Number Generators (RNGs in industry parlance) are computer algorithms which spit out millions of numbers per second. Each number is associated with a game outcome. In roulette’s case, that game outcome is a number such as 10, 18, or 32. Each number has an equal chance of being chosen on each spin.
As soon as you click “spin,” the program selects one of the numbers which the random number generator has created. There are even Provably Fair games which you can use to check that no funny business has occurred. These use Bitcoin technology such as hashing, and let you check game outcomes for fairness.
You should also remember one important thing: The casinos do not control the Random Number Generators. Third-party software companies such as Microgaming program them. More often than not, they’re tested by an independent third-party organization like eCOGRA. They don’t work for the software firms and have no incentive to certify their games fair.
Online Betting Licenses
The second thing to consider is the online gambling licenses a casino has. It’s true that some of these aren’t worth much, but there are others which are. For example, if a casino has a gaming license from Malta or the UK, that’s a sure sign its games are legitimate.
These countries have a vested interest in keeping things fair. They generate a substantial portion of their tax revenue from online gambling. They can’t afford to license rogue casinos and lose that hard-won trust. The UKGC, for example, conducts its own random tests of casino games. If you believe that both the third-party testing companies and the national governments which issue licenses are in on rigged online roulette games, it may be best to lay off gambling for a while.
If you’re playing a Microgaming roulette game, or a game by any other reputable provider and the casino has a legit gambling license, you can be sure the games are not rigged. It’s much more likely that you’ve experienced a natural losing streak. All experienced gamblers will tell you that this can and does happen.
My Own Experience and Testing
I didn’t want this post based only on trusting big-name companies and organizations. While I know for a fact that they can be trusted since I work in this industry, I understand that some of you won’t have that same level of trust.
Therefore, I decided to put online roulette to the test. I played 500 spins on a game of European roulette to see if it was truly random. I placed random even-money bets worth $100 per spin.
Please Note:The results are as you would expect them to be. There’s no probabilistic difference between the number of red/black or odd/even spins. There are tiny percentage differences between these, with the zero appearing 4.2% of the time.
For this test, I was using popular online software and was placing red or black bets. The only thing that immediately jumps out at me is that the number 20 came up 4% of the time, and both 16 and 30 came up more than 4% of the time. Some players would call these “hot numbers” and advise you to bet on them, but I believe it’s just an anomaly and, over enough spins, these numbers wouldn’t appear more than any other number.
Are Live Dealer Roulette Games Rigged?
We’ve ruled out the idea that most online roulette games are rigged, but what about live dealer games? Wouldn’t it be easier to run a crooked roulette wheel from a game studio?
The answer is the same. There are rigged live roulette games at scam casinos, but if you stick with the legit ones like Evolution Gaming, that’s not the case. These guys didn’t build multinational businesses which hold UKGC and Malta gaming licenses by behaving like criminals.
As a matter of fact, live dealer roulette games are even less likely to be rigged than electronic games. There are often dozens of players watching at any given time, you can see what the dealer is doing, and it’s just so much harder to fix a live game than it is to slip something shady into an invisible game algorithm.
Live dealers from reputable companies are not:
- Using a brake under the table to stop the wheel and make sure the majority of people lose.
- Spinning the wheels at different speeds/forces to make it more likely that certain numbers will land.
- Flicking the ball, dropping it from a certain height, or using weighted/magnetic balls to make sure a certain game outcome occurs.
I’ve seen these accusations online. It’s ridiculous to think that award-winning companies like NetEnt are doing this. I don’t know what else to say about it than that.
Here’s a list of legit live dealer roulette firms. I can guarantee you that their games are not rigged:
- Evolution Gaming
- Extreme Live Gaming
- Ezugi (owned by Evolution)
- Authentic Gaming
- Playtech
- Microgaming
- NetEnt
As for the others, I’m not saying they’re not legit. I’m just not going to put my reputation or the reputation of LegitGamblingSites.com on the line to recommend them yet.
Where can you play these live roulette games? At one of our top-rated casinos, of course.
The One Way Which Roulette Games Are Rigged
Remember how I said at the beginning of this article that roulette is rigged, but not in the way you think it is? I meant that. It’s not rigged in a way where the casino is cheating, fixing spins, and conning you. However, the casino does have a built-in mathematical advantage. It’s called the house edge.
The roulette house edge depends on the variant you’re playing. You always have slightly worse odds in American roulette because of the double zero. You can learn all about the different roulette variants here.
The main point to remember is this—roulette is fixed in the sense that the casino has a mathematical advantage which ensures it will make money over the long run. You didn’t honestly believe they were running these games for the good of their health, did you?
In that sense, online roulette is fixed. It’s unbeatable over a long period. However, in the sense of “these guys changed the rules when I started betting with real money,” it isn’t. The only way that’s possible is if you’re playing at a rogue casino. You won’t find any of those recommended on this site.
Conclusion
Is Online Casinos Rigged
Hopefully, you can now see that the vast majority of online roulette games are not rigged. Third parties which have no incentive to scam you decide game outcomes and my own analysis proves that at least one major casino software company is running fair games. You’ll have to trust that the same game testers and regulators that keep these roulette games fair are doing their job with the rest.
Is Online Casino Software Rigged For Real
Don’t believe the guys and gals who always bet too much then rant online. Bet within your means, play legit online roulette games and remember that the casino always has a slight advantage. With these practices, you’ll have an enjoyable and honest online gambling experience.