Can I Chargeback Online Casinos?

Naturally, this is a grey area, and your success in charging back a casino deposit will vary from country to country, depending on the laws of the land and the casino in question. For one thing, chargebacks are often suspected in gambling fraud.

What Is an Online Casino Chargeback?

When we discuss online casino chargebacks, what we’re referring to is the ability to chargeback the casino for your deposit. In practice, after depositing at an online casino, you can contact your payment provider and ask them to refund the deposit. You’ll often need to state a reason why. With goods, this is often as simple as claiming that the product wasn’t delivered or that it was faulty. This is trickier to do with online casinos.

Given that the “goods” you are purchasing from an online casino are the ability to play games for real money, you won’t have a lot of luck here most of the time. You aren’t paying to “win”; you’re paying to “play”. 

If successful, your payment provider will either refund your deposit and then take up the dispute with the casino themselves, or they will dispute the case with the casino and only issue a refund based on the outcome of that investigation. However, there are key things you’re going to need to know to make a successful chargeback at online casinos.

Who Can Request a Chargeback from the Casino?

Any player can, theoretically, request a chargeback from an online casino, assuming the site and/or country you reside in provides such guarantees. It isn’t limited to high-rolling players or recently registered members. However, you’re going to need to prove that you’ve got a valid grievance to receive a chargeback. For instance, simply depositing at a casino, burning through your deposit, and not winning isn’t going to be a cause for a chargeback.

However, if you can prove that the games offered at the casino are unfair (perhaps they have very low RTP rates, far below the industry standard), that they are rigged or that the casino is blacklisted or unlicensed, you may be on the right track to chargeback the casino.

How to Make a Successful Online Casino Chargeback

You should know that most online casinos are going to dispute your claim as soon as you attempt to file a chargeback request. Ordinarily, some payment providers will let you request a chargeback through their own services. However, at casinos which offer this feature, there is a straightforward process to follow. It goes like so:

• You must reach out to the casino’s customer support team.
• Explain to them that you would like to activate the chargeback service that they offer. Your casino must provide such a service for this to be successful. If they don’t, you’ll need to contact your payment provider.
• Politely explain to the support team why you are entitled to a chargeback.
• You’ll need to state that the games are unfair in some way or that the casino is unlicensed.
• Successful chargeback requests can take anything up to 90 or even 120 days.

Even if you are successful and you receive a chargeback refund, there may still be consequences. Your casino will likely close your account after processing the repayment. After all, if you are arguing that their site is not fair and that you want your money back, you wouldn’t ordinarily want to continue playing there. 

Why do Casinos Allow Chargebacks?

Ordinarily, the gambling laws and consumer regulations of the country supporting the casino come into play. In some countries, all businesses (even casinos) are required to offer this service. Other casinos may see chargebacks as valuable customer service and user experience tools, so they might want to offer this service to win over the crowd. 

There are other reasons chargebacks may be permitted. Errors with payment, the double-charging of cards, and accidental payments are all valid reasons for requesting chargebacks, and many casinos understand these issues. These are the primary reasons they provide the service in the first place.

Chargeback Fraud in Gambling Explained

Not everything is rosy when it comes to chargebacks. In fact, chargebacks represent one of the most common types of fraud in the online gambling sector. Some fraudsters may make a deposit at a casino, splash the cash, and then claim that “it wasn’t them” who made the deposit. The goal here is to get their money back and then try the same procedure at another site.

The KYC process goes a long way to counteract this step, as does two-factor verification. In fact, the most reliable and trusted casinos may require you to verify your identity before they even process your first transaction. By deploying measures such as these, the casino cuts the risk that fraudsters can claim erroneous chargebacks against them. It is not in the casino’s interests to have compromised accounts, underage gambling, and fraudulent transactions – they can even be fined, or in the most severe cases, lose their license.    

Conclusion

Chargebacks can be a beneficial feature to help players recover funds when they have genuinely made a mistake, such as signing up at a dubious or unfair casino. However, they can also be a tool for fraudsters to try and eke out every last rand from honest casinos. Naturally, chargebacks form a reliable consumer protection mechanism. However, they should not be used unwittingly. It is always better to try and resolve the issue with the casino in question first before utilising the chargeback process.