Jackpots Heaven Casino Gets Prodded!

For anyone out there who thinks the days of lawless online casinos are no more, think again. Sure, it’s certainly not as bad as it used to be, but the fact remains there are rogue online casinos out there in the business of stealing your money, your identity, and certainly your peace of mind. This is no scare tactic folks. Them be dangerous waters out there!

While OCS is not here to deliver any guilt or innocence in regards to what this post recounts, players need to make up their own minds based on the information that is out there. Case in point was the recent turn of events that brought about the micro-surgery of Jackpots Heaven Online Casino. Nevermind the fact the casino is still online and taking player’s money, as far you should be concerned – since you are reading this – well…you need to think carefully before playing at Jackpots Heaven. Here’s why:

A player and longtime forum member of the highly respected online casino watchdog portal, Casino Meister, started off by making a forum post – innocently enough – expressing doubt that Jackpots Heaven Casino was not delivering fair odds on their Baccarat game. This prompted other forum members to give a closer look at Jackpots Heaven, and ended up revealing a whole lot more than unfair odds!

The irony of the situation is that the original forum post to begin with was not entirely justified, considering the player’s test sample of the Baccarat game was not large enough to accurately verify a discrepancy in odds. In other words, there was no “proof” per say, that Jackpots Heaven Casino was delivering unfair odds – the player was merely raising suspicion. But, considering what was dug up thereafter, it’s certainly understandable why the red flags were drawn.

The “thread” that started undoing the sweater of Jackpots Heaven was wielded by a Casino Meister forum member who decided to do some fine-print investigation by means of reading over the terms and conditions posted on the Jackpots Heaven Casino website. What this gumshoe found was certainly concerning. In one section of the terms, it was stated that Jackpots Heaven was licensed in Costa Rica under a company registration license #, followed by a random chain of digits, yet in another section of the terms a different set of numbers was used for licensing credentials. That’s worthy of an eyebrow raise.

On top of this, the terms also stated that Jackpots Heaven was regulated by the “Lotteries and Gaming Authority of Costa Rica”, when in fact, there is no such entity. Apparently, the owners, who are virtually based in the UK, were either trying to ride off the credibility of the Lotteries and Gaming Authority of Malta, which is one of the most respected online gambling jurisdictions in operation today, or simply did not know any better. Turns out it was the latter.

Here’s the catch – Even with Jackpots Heaven being licensed in Costa Rica, there is no regulation of online casinos in Costa Rica – the Costa Rica Commerce, Industry and Economy Ministry merely hands out operator licenses, but does not enforce regulatory standards. In other words, unless there’s a history of trust and a good reputation, playing at a Costa Rican based online casino poses more risk on average. The fact that Jackpots Heaven casino servers are not even based in Costa Rica, but rather, registered in the UK, where the server address is being sent to a cloaked dns server leading to Panama (which a Costa Rica gambling licenses does indeed allow, mind you – a remote license of sorts), will understandably draw suspicion – especially when there is no transparency about such a trail of redirects.

As more Casino Meister forum members began to jump on the bandwagon, so to speak, an increasing number of red flags were revealed about Jackpots Heaven. Another member found a passage in the terms directly lifted off the website of another questionable online casino, Casino Riva, thus bringing about suspicion that Jackpots Heaven was associated with Casino Riva. The player then proceeded to engage a customer service rep via live chat and asked if the two online casinos were indeed associated, to which the rep replied “Yes”. As the player began to dig more, the rep mysteriously turned on a dime and said the two were not associated – definitely something that makes you go hmmmm? Furthermore, screen shots of the software being used by Jackpots Heaven reveal graphics trademark infringement against top-shelf software developers, Playtech and Microgaming.

At one point, a rep/manager for Jackpots Heaven going by the name of Raphael Taub stepped in and embarrassingly tried to offer an explanation for the blunderings of the casino customer service rep. Getting nowhere with the players on Meister’s forum who persisted to ask the simple questions that Taub either could not or would not answer, he only dug a deeper hole for Jackpots Heaven, and eventually resorted to making legal threats.

The fact of the matter is that not every online casino, sportsbook or poker room based out of Costa Rica or Panama is a crook. We can’t for certain say that Jackpots Heaven Casino are crooks. Although regulations are more lax in Costa Rica, there are a good handful of top tier online gambling operators doing a fine job to ensure they are regulated by third parties. It all comes down to the history of the operator of their standing in the online gambling industry. But considering the fact that Jackpots Heaven went out of its way to hide where it’s based from, not to mention suspicion of association with Casino Riva and trademark infringement of Playtech and Microgaming Software, OCS believes this warrants a warning. And thus Jackpots Heaven Casino goes onward to the OCS Online Casino Blacklist for the time being.