If you have decided to start playing at a casino or are just looking for a new platform for games, then the first question you are asking is which casino is better to play at. At first glance, the answer is obvious: honest, with fast payouts and good software. Another question is how to find such an institution and what signs guarantee its reliability and a good game? After all, there are a huge number of customized articles and frankly purchased reviews on the Internet, and it can be difficult to get to the truth. We will try to expand the search area and objectively answer the question of which online casino is better to play – Russian or European.
Online casino licensing
Real gaming atoms at Casino Netent
The main and indisputable advantage of European gambling establishments is the availability of a license. Why is this important for the player? The fact is that the gambling commissions of European countries:
- they impose strict requirements on the quality of services to licensees
- and carry out constant monitoring of casino activities.
Any player who believes that the casino does not comply with the rules, cheats or provides substandard service can complain to the gambling commission that issued the license. Filing a complaint is as easy as writing a letter to a friend: the websites of European casinos necessarily contain information about the license and the e-mail address of the regulatory authority.
Any complaint of the player entails a trial, and if the fact of violations of the licensing conditions is established, the institution will be punished up to the revocation of the license. The casino simply will not be able to continue working, because payment systems will not carry out transactions from casino players.
Player security
Fake Netent Video Slots
Now let’s imagine a conflict situation in a Russian unlicensed casino: who should complain? Who will call the casino to account? The answer is obvious – the player is absolutely defenseless before the arbitrariness of the institution, it remains to pour out bitterness and resentment only on forums, which many do. That’s just the money it will not return, and the reputation of domestic institutions is not guarded as zealously as their foreign counterparts.
Therefore, the main parameter of choosing which casino is better to play in is the availability of a European license. The licensees of the European Union have proven themselves very well in this regard, you can be sure of their work.
The Malta Lotteries and Gaming Authority’s Gambling Commission – LGA – has a reputation as one of the harshest.
Colleagues from other EU countries are actively adopting her work experience, in particular, a cooperation agreement was recently concluded between the LGA and the Dutch Gambling Commission (DutchGamingAuthority – DGA).
The presence of any other European license, for example, the UK or Germany, is also a good indicator.
By the way, the Isle of Man, which has issued licenses to about fifty gaming operators, is also a British territory, but with more lenient tax conditions, which explains its popularity for gambling.
Another popular address is the island of Curacao in the Caribbean Sea, near the coast of Venezuela, is no longer part of the Netherlands and has its own gambling commission, whose requirements are much softer than European ones.
Great software
View of the lobby before registration
The second important parameter for choosing which online casino is better to play is the availability of good software and interesting video slots. Cryptologic, Microgaming and Net Entertainment are the world leaders among the manufacturers of software for online casinos. How often can you meet their products in the lobby of Russian casinos? Let’s not be mistaken if we say that Microgaming and Cryptographic are represented only in the largest Russian institutions, and NetEnt is not in any, despite the frenzied popularity in European countries.
The explanation is very simple: the world’s leading manufacturers impose high requirements on their partners, which only a few domestic establishments can meet.
Almost a deception
The absence of any regulator generates fraud of all possible forms. Here are just a few of them:
Hiding the rules and conditions deeper and further away is the “gray” and most common scheme. On many Russian websites, casino rules are difficult to find and even more difficult to understand. The most audacious change the rules “on the fly”, for example, if a player has won a large sum, the institution retroactively enters some unthinkable rule violated by the player and refuses to pay.
Understated payout percentages by slot machines. This is a classic of the Russian gambling business. In many establishments, you will never actually get the stated 95% return on bets, at best – 80%.
It has become a familiar fact that the random number generator for a free game does not work at all the same as when playing for real money. The unheard-of generosity of slot machines or roulette miraculously disappears as soon as a player places funds from his deposit. Such a situation is simply unthinkable in European casinos, because the random number generator is licensed monthly and gives out exactly the same sequences, both when playing “for candy wrappers” and for real money.
Casinos use various schemes to delay the withdrawal of money from the player’s account. There can be many options: the requirement to provide new documents, long deadlines for paying money, ignoring the player by the support service. The calculation is made on the fact that the gambler will not have enough stamina, and he will continue playing for the money that he was originally going to withdraw. In the most neglected case, casinos simply ban the player’s account or even stop their activities after collecting money from gullible customers.