Casino Guru Badges for Fair and Safe Online Casinos
At Casino Guru, we strive to guide players towards online casinos that offer a fair and safe gambling experience through our casino review methodology and fair gambling codex, besides our other endeavors and principles we follow.
To recognize casinos that go the extra mile towards fairness and player safety, we have created 'Fair casino' and 'Fair and safe casino' badges, which you can find in our reviews of casinos that have met the criteria for one of the badges.
In this article, we will explain the criteria needed to acquire the badges, so that you know what to expect from casinos with one of the badges.
Requirements for 'Fair casino' badge
These are the criteria a casino needs to meet to qualify for a 'Fair casino' badge:
- No unfair clauses in T&Cs or unfair practices – We read the Terms and Conditions of all online casinos we review. Whenever we uncover an aspect we find unfair, the casino's Safety Index gets decreased. Naturally, casinos with a 'Fair casino' badge cannot have any rules that we consider to be unfair.
- Fair handling of complaints from players – Complaints are another important part of our casino review methodology. They show us what kinds of issues players experience and how casinos approach them. To qualify for this badge, casinos need to react to complaints submitted to Casino Guru in a timely manner and resolve them in a fair way. In situations described in our Fair Gambling Codex, they need to adhere to our requirements and recommendations on how to handle them.
- At least Above average Safety Index – Casinos with a lower Safety Index do not qualify for the badge.
- On the market for at least six months – Brand new casinos do not qualify for the 'Fair casino' badge, unless they are a new addition to an established group. Generally, only casinos that have been operating for at least six months qualify for the badge.
- Technologically enforced restricted countries – Restricted countries cause many issues at online casinos whose systems do not technologically prevent players from restricted regions from creating an account and playing. Casinos need to do this to qualify for the 'Fair casino' badge, while also making sure that bonuses are only given to players from regions that are not excluded from them.
- Self-exclusion policy compliant with our Fair Gambling Codex – Self-exclusion is an important safer gambling tool. Therefore, casinos must allow players to self-exclude from playing to qualify for the badge. Additionally, if they allow players to cancel their self-exclusion prematurely, a cooling-off period of at least seven days needs to be implemented.
Requirements for 'Fair and safe casino' badge
To qualify for the 'Fair and safe casino' badge, in addition to criteria for a 'Fair casino' badge listed above, a casino also needs to meet the following conditions:
- Maximum allowed bet enforced – We believe that to create a safe environment for players, a casino worthy of the 'Fair and safe casino' badge should not accept bets higher than the allowed amount, i.e., the casino's system should not allow bets above the specified maximum to be placed. This protects players from breaching the maximum bet rule by accident.
- Restricted games enforced – Similarly, we believe that 'Fair and safe casino' badge holders should ensure that games that are restricted for bonus play are blocked for players playing with a bonus, i.e., the casino's system should prevent players from placing bets in them. Alternatively, bets placed in such games should not count towards wagering requirements. In any case, playing them should not be considered a violation of the Terms and Conditions.
- Warnings for players who are about to do something against their best interests – Any action that, according to the T&Cs, might result in something against the player's best interest should be preceded by a warning. This should occur at casinos with a 'Fair and safe casino' badge, for example, when requesting a withdrawal with an active bonus which gets cancelled because of the withdrawal request.
- Multiple accounts enforced – 'Fair and safe casino' badge holders should make sure to prevent users from creating duplicate accounts. This involves using all the information available to the casino about existing players to check whether a player may already have an account. If a likely match is spotted, a KYC procedure can verify whether a player already has an account or not.
- Sufficient responsible gambling tools – 'Fair and safe casino' badge holders should give players the ability to block or limit their access to gambling through tools like self-exclusion and other self-limiting options.
