Some 1,700 virtual casinos attract more Internet users each month than the French gaming company. However, they are completely illegal. And players who defy the ban to expose themselves to risks against which they will have no recourse for lack of regulation. Place your bets, no more bets! Roulette, blackjack, and other penguin bandits are now just a click away on the Internet. No need to take out your tuxedo or gala dress to play, the Web is full of some 1,700 virtual casinos
Games are virtual, but the risks are very real
As a result, fun88 no legal recourse is possible in the event of non-payment of winnings, for example. However, in virtual casinos, as elsewhere, rampant scammers of all kinds who take advantage of this legislative vagueness. And if the games are virtual, the risks are not. Because the surfer attracted by the lure of gain has very few landmarks and guides to choose his casino. Who to trust? The rankings of the ‘best casinos’ presented on several sites are to be taken with tweezers. Most of the time, they prefer to highlight the establishments paying them commissions rather than the most serious. “I receive dozens of requests per week from sites that want to be included in my ranking for a fee,” says Anthony, webmaster of the Casinostrategie.com site, who lets Internet users make their own ranking based on their experience. Another element making it possible to judge the seriousness of virtual slot machines: the rate of reimbursement, that is to say, the percentage of bets which is paid back to players. More than thirty sites display certificates issued by the company d ‘Pricewaterhouse Coopers financial audit, attesting to their reimbursement rate (around 95%). Difficult, however, to know if these figures are not falsified by the sites. Despite the risks and the obvious lack of transparency, many French internet users flock to the tables of online casinos every month. We asked NetRatings, which assesses the audience of websites using a panel, to provide us with precise figures. The result is astonishing: Casino On Net alone attracted some 348,000 French visitors in March 2004. According to our estimates, based on figures from NetRatings, more Internet users go to illegal casino sites than to that of It is true that to attract visitors, casinos put the package, especially in advertising. In 2003, Casino On Net? “The most active in France?”