Online casinos to avoid are not just those associated with low joining bonuses or those based overseas. Online gaming is great fun. Jackpots at online sites can be much higher than traditional casinos because of the much lower overheads of any online business as opposed to its bricks and mortar equivalent. But which should you trust and which do you run from? Here are some criteria you need to consider when deciding which online casinos to play at. This list is by no means exhaustive.

Avoid bad spelling and grammar on websites. Any online business worth its salt pays attention to detail. That includes things like checking spelling, punctuation and grammar. If a website owner doesn't bother about those basic things then what is to be expected of their customer care? Worse still, if the bad spelling and grammar is there not because the website owner didn't care about it, but because the owner wasn't capable of correcting it - in other words, that was the best he could do - then there is a real problem. Just click away from there as soon as possible.

Avoid any online casinos associated with spam. It is likely that any email spam you get about online casinos will originate from over-zealous affiliates who haven't learned the rules yet, and not the casinos themselves. However, all reputable online businesses make it quite clear in the terms and conditions of their affiliate programs that spam will not be tolerated under any circumstances. Any online business which is slack on this policy should be given a wide berth, whether it has acted in good faith or not.

There are lists of online casinos to avoid in various rogue casino

lists. There are blacklists and other "not recommended" lists which you can access just by typing a query in the search engines. Try typing in "Name of Casino" + "scam" or "blacklist". It's true that online casinos are run with properly regulated procedures nowadays, but that wasn't true even as short a time as five or six years ago. Vigilant watchdogs have a long memory. Even though the casino may have cleaned up its act since being placed on such a list, it won't do you any harm to avoid them if they have been listed in the past. It also encourages new casinos not to stray from the straight and narrow.

Misappropriation of fair-play seals and logos. This includes accreditation to reputable sounding but fake "authorities" and "ethical commissions". Look out for accreditation to eCOGRA (eCommerce and Online Gaming Regulation and Assurance) as a sign of genuine probity. That's not to say that if they're not on the list they are an to avoid, just that it's a sign that a casino has reached a certain standard of worthiness.

The should have transparency of auditing of both its accounts and its log files. Look for references to third party auditing in the online casino's terms and conditions.

Online casinos to avoid also include those which do not respond to enquiries or complaints. Unfortunately there is no way you can tell this from the online casino's site itself, as they are not going to say bad things about themselves! This is where it's useful to join online forums where such matters as which online casinos to avoid are regularly aired. Be aware of people who simply have a grudge against individual casinos because they have been unlucky. But also look out for several people saying the same thing about the same casino; consensus usually means there's something to complain about.

Online casinos to avoid like the plague, along with any other online business, are those where the chief contact email is a hotmail or a yahoo address! Or any free account, for that matter. If the casino is called CasinoName, then the contact email address should be something like support "at" CasinoName or admin "at" CasinoName.