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Online slot casinos didn’t take off until the mid-1990s and this was only made possible because Microgaming developed the first online casino platforms in 1994 and these went live in 1995. However, the first casinos were all table game-focused, because virtual video slots were still being developed. Reel Em In by WMS was the first slot game to land online, it was also the first game to take players to a second screen for the bonus round – try Deep See Treasure slots.
This game proved a big hit and opened the floodgates to the development of the slots industry, which is now a major creative force in the entertainment world.
Online Casino Boom
The interest in slots fuelled an explosion in online casinos opening their virtual doors to many new gamblers. This created problems as the entire online gambling industry remained largely unregulated. This meant that online casinos could invent and play by their own rules to the detriment of the public. Back then it was not easy to spot a rogue casino slot site because there was nobody to license or regulate them and act as some quality control.
The UK Gambling Commission
The UK Gambling Commission was founded on the 1st of September 2007, and its purpose was and still is to license and regulate all forms of gambling in the UK. This means that when it comes to online gambling, all potential slot sites must follow certain rules and meet set criteria if they want to operate in the UK. They even have to pay a license fee to the commission itself.
The Benefits of a Gambling Commission
Bodies like the UK Gambling Commission make it so much easier to spot rogue slot sites. Before, it was almost impossible to do so, but now all you need to do is to look out for the UK Gambling Commission logo, or you can contact the commission directly giving them the name of the slot site in question. Not having a license from a recognized licensing body is a major sign that a casino is a rogue trader.
Other Signs to Look Out For
If you have read that a casino has refused to pay customers their winnings, then chances are that the casino in question is a scam site that may have unclear terms and conditions, or worse still, they may deliberately continuously change their terms and conditions to get around paying customers their winnings.
Furthermore, if a casino site does not show any evidence that it has allowed a third party to test its games, then this should set the alarm bells ringing as well. The whole point of allowing third-party testing labs is to make sure that all the games on offer have been tested for fairness and pay-out performance that reflects the RTP score that is advertised on each game. Slot sites that are not tested, cannot be verified as offering fair casino games to their customers.