No one would blame you for feeling hesitant about signing up to play at an online casino for the first time. On a virtual platform that you are unfamiliar with, you place your hard-earned money at risk. In addition, you might be wondering if online casinos are legitimate, or are they rigged in order to make you lose? The answer is that regulated and licensed online casinos are legitimate, safe places to play.

The rest of this article will discuss how to identify an online casino that is reputable, as well as how untrustworthy casinos can rig the games in their favor.

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How to Ensure an Online Casino is Legit

Before you register with an online casino, make sure it is reputable by conducting some research. You can learn more about the website or application by reading reviews from independent, reputable online sources. The Action Network, a company you can trust to provide unbiased reviews of online casinos, is looking out for you, the player, and wants to help you make an informed decision about which brand to trust with your gambling.

You can also check if the online casino has an official gambling license. It does not necessarily mean the online casino is rigged if it lacks a gambling license, but the odds of it being fair are greatly reduced. In order to ensure that you are playing in a safe casino, casinos must be checked by regulators before being granted licenses.

Additionally, you should also examine customer reviews of the platform, but keep in mind that many users who lose money will attribute it to the app. In some cases, they will even accuse the casino of being rigged. Ensure you have done your homework by reading third-party reviews and cross-referencing them with other user reviews to get the best idea of what an online casino offers and if it is truly legitimate or not.

READ MORE: Best Online Casinos for Beginners

What Are the Signs of a Rigged Online Casino?

You should feel comfortable with your decision to play at an online casino if you have done proper research before making the decision. However, if you come across an online casino that is rigged, how can you detect it?

There are a variety of ways in which an online casino may purposefully stack its games against you. The software used by each casino is meticulously crafted by its developers. These developers can change the code in such a way that it is unjust to the user if they are untrustworthy. Casinos that have been tampered with will generally appear the same as their fair and balanced counterparts. Nonetheless, as you probably suspect, the major difference is that these machines are designed to steal your money and you will not be able to gain anything from them monetarily in the long run.

Tampering with the RTP and the RNG

Rigged online casinos alter some of the key components that generally make them fair to play. The code has been changed in such a way that the percentage of Return to Player (RTP) has been lowered. The RTP is a number that indicates how much money has been returned to players as they place their wagers. If a casino game has an RTP of 97%, for example, that means that players are likely to make $97 back for every $100 wagered.

Since this is an average, the results may differ from player to player, depending on the level of luck. The odds of online casino games favor the house, but not so much that you will ever feel cheated — if you are playing a fair game, of course.

It is possible for an online casino developer to lower the RTP in order to lower your chances of winning money. An increase of even one percentage point can mean the difference between you winning and the game taking your money. Rigged online casino games typically have an RTP so low that they are no longer worthwhile to play since winning is practically impossible.

Every online casino game utilizes a Random Number Generator (RNG). A reputable online casino developer will include an RNG in each game in order to ensure that the results are always completely random and legitimate. As a result, you can determine how likely you are to win an online casino game based on the "luck" component.

The developers of a rigged casino remove the RNG to eliminate any chance of winning. There is only one outcome here — you lose your money and hand it over to the game.

READ MORE: Online Casinos With the Best Odds