Sin Me Casino: Suspicious Games & Nonexistent License in Anonymous Online Hub [Rogue Casino Report]

People sometimes think it’s easy to establish global and interactive digital business these days. You take an original idea or inspiration from fast-growing industries. You buy an internet domain and the website theme. If necessary, you purchase the turnkey software solutions to run the backend and secure initial funding. You create some nifty content, and off you go. While the greatness of technology is undoubtedly at play here — empowering people to take the initiative, which is great — it doesn’t mean that everyone can do such a thing. It takes much more than a few simple steps to do it properly.

Nowhere is this more applicable than in the iGaming industry.

Excited by gambling legalizations in full swing around the world, new casinos are popping up on at the rate that would make mushrooms after rain blush. Demand is so high that the supply chain can put up with new competitors. As long as legal and business aspects of such online enterprise are set correctly — in terms of licensing, originality of games, players’ relationship management, and payments’ processing, including content diversity and a healthy dose of luck — the undertaking might be lucrative both for owners and patrons. Again, a great thing.

Unfortunately, some online casinos just don’t get it right.

The latest case of Sin Me Casino — caught hosting suspicious games and operating without the license in almost complete anonymity — only seems to underline the trend.

That is where reputable affiliates, in addition to national regulators, get into the iGaming picture. To take care of players’ safety, to keep them in position to get more value during their gambling explorations, and to promptly point out any discrepancies in — or blatant noncompliance to — overall fairness and legality of the entire eco-system.

With that in mind…

…we bring you results of the latest investigative effort of our team — to a certain extent based on concerns of our members regarding the originality of the casino’s games — in what seems to be yet another attempt to bend the well-established industry rules.

Who is Sin Me Casino?

For starters, it’s not easy to answer this question.

At first glance, the casino seems to offer a plethora of online slots featuring NetEnt, Novomatic, Aristocrat, EGT, Playtech, Microgaming, Wazdan, and Quickspin releases, to name a few. The website’s header features several bonus packages, free spins, and up to 25% monthly cashback.

But…

…when it comes to establishing the identity, there seems to be virtually no information on ownership structure available.

Well, OK. Some people prefer to keep their cards close to their chests. That’s what online gambling license is there for, right? Sure.

But, Sin Me Casino does not have any licensing information displayed whatsoever. No problem. The LCB team reached out to this hub, looking for clarification on the matter.

We received the following statement from a person speaking on behalf of the casino management: “They are currently waiting for the Curacao license, however, they work through a fully licensed platform that provides games package and payment solutions: OutcomeBet.”

It takes approximately three weeks to get the gambling license from Curacao jurisdiction. According to different online sources, Sin Me Casino began with operations either in December 2019 or in January 2020.

(Side note: Imagine yourself being asked for a driver’s license by the highway patrol. “Well, Officer, I don’t have my license, but she does! She’s an amazing driver that has so many different cars, and she just loves to ride at my backseat. So, I don’t see any problem here, Officer. Do you?”)

Except…

…there’s nothing funny about not having the required online gambling license. We’re talking about players’ protection and money here.

Then, there are T&Cs.

Sifting through, we’ve learned that the validity of the document will “be governed by National Law of Moldova.” Thus, at least to a certain extent, we realized where the casino comes from.

But, we also found a couple of interesting details players should be aware of.

Sin Me Casino Terms and Conditions

T&Cs mainly focuses on rules and restrictions that patrons have to comply with when playing in this online hub — breaches, interpretations, waivers, and other provisions — and, to a lesser extent, to country restrictions, currencies, and withdrawals rules.

They’re rather strict and relieve the casino of any liability via myriad disclaimers present.

Sin Me goes on to state that they will accept no responsibility in case of a loss of players’ profit that comes as a result of the “improper functioning” of their website (Article 28.2). On the other hand, if such malfunctions do result in the patron’s benefit, he/she is obliged to reimburse the casino immediately.

(Apparently, it’s OK for the casino to make money by failures in their software infrastructure, but it’s a big no-no for a player to do so.)

In fact, the casino is not responsible for any kind of loss or damage that may occur while using their website (Article 28.1).

Furthermore, Sin Me does not guarantee that services are authorized, satisfactory, secure, exempt from error, updated regularly, nor adequate, continually operational, reliable, and virus or bug-free (Article 27.3).

The "True Random Number Generator" determines all outcomes of games. By agreeing to T&Cs, players accept this fact (Article 24.1). No one explained what exact type of RNG the casino deploys — including information on the purpose-made page — nor are there any fair-gambling certificates visibly present.

The casino expressly rules out the governance of T&Cs by mandatory Vienna Convention, which stipulates that the seller’s goods must be of the quality, quantity, and description required by the contract. This multilateral economic treaty signed by Moldova, shelters against infringement of industrial or intellectual property rights, and allows aggrieving parties to claim damages at court.

So…

…while we could not establish who is Sin Me Casino, lack of their license and a rather telling Terms and Conditions speak for themselves.

Additionally, they kind of set the stage for games’ originality inquiry.

Suspicious Domains & Games Outlook

Following up on the statement from the casino, our engineers took an in-depth look into the servers that host games at Sin Me Casino.

Online slots we looked into are hosted on the same domain — notorious gamingmodule.com, known as the pirated one. As our chief investigating engineer commented, “There is no way that Novomatic, Microgaming, and NetEnt games can be hosted on a common domain.”

Exactly right.

The original games are always hosted at the official domains of gaming providers — where they are supposed to be. For instance, all NetEnt’s games should be at casinomodule.com server.

There’s no science behind this. It’s a well-known fact that enables the sustainability of fairness in the iGaming. Hence the certifications and the whole effort of developers to create the original content.

We’re not talking here about one game at Sin Me Casino but all of them. Thus, since those games do not seem to use the official domains…

…we have a reason to believe they are fake.

Suspicious Novomatic game at Sin Me Casino

Suspicious Microgaming game at Sin Me Casino

Suspicious NetEnt game at Sin Me Casino

And then, there’s this tinny matter of fact that “online casinos licensed by Curacao cannot offer Novomatic and Aristocrat software,” as we already underlined so many times.

Why is this important?

Because, if Sin Me Casino gets the license they said they’re waiting for — in a bona fide effort, we can only take their word for it — and continues to offer releases from these two providers, it will only confirm our initial suspicions.

Like all of this is not enough…

Our Quality Assurance testers observed several user interfaces’ discrepancies in Novomatic games that lack a working Help button. They’ve also noticed a few Aristocrat games no longer offered by this provider — such as Choy Sun Doa — but remains present at Sin Me Casino.

Right.

Fair-Play Outreach & Takeaways

Striving to perpetual objectivity in our work, we reached out to Sin Me multiple times. We politely asked the casino to address these concerns and our findings. We inquired about their games supplier. We wanted to hear their side of the case. To a certain extent, we wanted them to contradict our conclusions, to make a statement, and to point out that none of this is actually happening.

Thus far, we received no response.

While we continue to hope these developments will be straightened up by swift reaction from the casino — after all, young online business endeavors are sometimes prone to beginners’ mistakes — the taste of the whole perception is, at least for the moment, a bitter one.

Amazingly strict Terms and Conditions protect the casino to the greatest possible extent. Other than covering option for nuclear war, everything in the document put the entire onus on players and relieves the hub of any business responsibility.

OutcomeBet, the company that the casino’s rep referred to, develops ready-to-operate gambling products, according to the information on their website. They have nothing to do with casinos’ licensing and market themselves as casino game developers.

The results of games at Sin Me Casino are solely governed by the in-house RNG engine that patrons must accept as given, no questions asked. (A rather high 25% cashback now sounds a bit different, does it?)

And then, to top it all off — Novomatic, Microgaming, and NetEnt games are hosted on pirated domain.

We shall leave the conclusion as an exercise for our readers.

One thing remains, though.

To run a successful online gambling business in the right way, entirely in line with legal and industry standards, requires much more than an idea, software infrastructure, seemingly enticing content, and telling the story right. It necessitates a significant amount of responsibility, safe and secure operations, and above all, trustworthy practices.

True to this notion, we thought you should be well-informed about these findings that will, hopefully, help you in being better prepared for your next iGaming adventure.

With that in mind, stay vigilant, play responsibly and within the limits of your budget, have a good one — and even better luck.

Other reports based on our findings:

Vorsicht - Fake Spiele im Sin Me Casino - report by spielerkartell.com