There is dishonesty in all walks of life and hence online casinos cannot be an exception. There are honest online casinos and there are dishonest ones, known as rogue casinos. The onus is on the player that he exercises due diligence in selecting an online casino for gaming. Fortunately this is not a very difficult task. Just as a man is known by the company so is an online casino. Three service providers give vital inputs to online casinos and the reputation of these service providers determine the reputation of the online casino. These are the licensor, the software provider and the auditor.

Online casinos are required to obtain a license from the designated authority of the jurisdiction in which they are situated. For example online casinos registered in the Netherlands Antilles have to obtain a license from The Curacao Internet Gaming Association and those in Malta jurisdiction have to be licensed by The Lotteries and Gaming Authority. These licensors are required to check out the background of the promoters, assess whether the applicant has the financial and technical resources to carry out online gaming operations and after licensing keep periodic track of the online casinos. Some jurisdictions are known to perform these tasks well and therefore online casinos licensed by them are bound to be reputable. At the same time other jurisdictions are known to be careless and online casinos licensed by them are avoidable.

The key component of the software is the random number generator. Good software providers ensure that the numbers generated are truly random and there is no way that these can be manipulated. It is these random numbers that are converted to cards dealt or the dice rolled. However today the function of the software provider has gone beyond providing only online casino games. The software provider offers a complete online casino management system that interfaces with the payment processing, computes the bonuses and comp points and also keeps a record of transactions for audit purposes. The reputed software providers such as Microgaming, Cryptologic and Playtech offer all these features in their software. Hence online players should play only on those casinos that are powered by reputed software providers.

Reputed online casinos voluntarily offer their operations to be audited by an experienced agency such as eCOGRA or Technical Systems Testing. These auditors perform two functions. They test the random number generator for fairness and the compute and report the actual payout ratios for each game. If the payout ratio for slots is 96% then the online casino has paid out 96 cents for each dollar wagered on slots. Some online casinos only indicate that their operations are being audited, some others even name the auditors but the most reputed online casinos actually put up the auditor’s monthly reports in the public domain.

Usually the logo of the licensor, software provider and auditor will be given in the lobby of the casino and therefore performing this check is quite simple.