Loading...
Cosmik Casino: a rogue casino owned by the notorious AffPower Group. Operating with a Malta license, they had months-long cashout times and used pirated games
Founded in 2013, Cosmik Casino belongs to a set of rogue casinos owned by AffPower. This management group has more than a dozen similar casinos to their name, all of which have a sketchy past. Most reviewers usually blacklist a casino of theirs at the very mention of the name of their owners, who are also known under the names of Conan Gaming or Game Tech Group.
The casino has been closed in the meantime, but you could still visit their website. Although none of the games are accessible.
First Impression
The website itself has a very modern feel to it. With a dominant dark blue color, you can easily navigate through all the different types of games. However, what you cannot easily navigate to is the terms and conditions of the casino, which, seemingly, you just have no way of accessing and reading upon. This should be a clear sign something’s going on behind the scenes. Every player must be able to check out clauses set out in front of them that they need to meet. Online casinos which hide this information usually call upon it once they decide to deny a player his winnings.
If you dig a little bit deeper into the website, you’d see that it has many spelling and grammatical errors. This leaves a visitor with a feeling that the casino owners don’t really care too much about their unprofessional appearance, especially since it’s obvious they could easily fix all of these mistakes.
The casino operated under the Malta Gaming Authority license, which is one of the best licenses a casino can obtain. This regulating body forces casinos under their jurisdiction to make sure that they use only games from those software companies which create games that are fair to the player. Practically, what MGA looks for is whether an accredited testing company like TST has issued their certificate after testing the games.
MGA’s license is enough for you to be able to work in almost any country in the world (except, of course, in those which the licensing commission itself has banned). This, however, doesn’t apply to Great Britain, which is under the jurisdiction of their own governing body. The UKGC’s license is a must if you wish to have players from the United Kingdom play in your casino. As you’d expect from a rogue casino, Cosmik didn’t stick to this rule and allowed UK residents to make a deposit and lost the MGA license.
AffPower
The company behind Cosmik Casino is a notorious group that is at the helm of many casinos which used to scam players and still do. They never found it important to hide their illegal activities from plain sight. For instance, they hacked into various blogs and posted links to their own casinos without the blog owners’ knowledge. Some of those ‘free’ marketing links are still circulating online.
They’ve also been caught using a pirated version of games from software providers Novomatic and NetEnt, although it’s worth mentioning that it wasn’t Cosmik Casino in question.
They’ve also used their terms and conditions to void players’ winnings and deny them payments. They would change the wording of it or just cling onto the tiniest of technicalities to cancel a withdrawal request. As we have mentioned earlier, some of these outright illegal activities aren’t traced back directly to the Cosmik Casino (however, their name, among others, popped up in the illegal linking scam). Nevertheless, they belong to the same company who employ the same or similar business model in all of their casinos, which should make you avoid them at all costs.
Games and Software
This casino used three different software companies as a source for their games – Betsoft, Thunderkick, and Gamescale. Cosmik offered two possible ways to play the games – via downloading a client or playing them in-browser, directly on the website. They also offered a mobile casino version, available for both iPhones and Android smartphones.
Having three different game providers gets you a selection of different games and game types to choose from, just like the logic would suggest. Betsoft is one of the newer software companies who focus on creating 3D games. Coupled with Thunderkick and Gamescale, casino offered a wide variety of slots, table and video poker games, including a few specialty games.
When it comes to different games offered, there’s no specific information to be found on what specific casino games there were. However, going off on the usual assortment these companies provide, we can make an assumption on what was on there. Just like pretty much every online gambling site, they had different varieties of classic table games such as Baccarat, Craps, Roulette, and Blackjack. When it comes to slots, the casino offered classic five and three reel slots, including some of the most popular games from the aforementioned providers like The Slotfather, Luchadora, and Treasure Hunters. Players could also enjoy specialty games – Keno and scratch card games, to name a couple.
Regarding making deposits and withdrawing the funds, you could put money into your account via MasterCard and Visa credit cards, as well as Postepay and Skrill. On the other hand, the options for receiving payment were limited to Visa cards, Neteller, Skrill and wire transfer.
Additionally, the website was available in five different languages – English, Dutch, French, German, and Russian.
Bonuses
The casino offered a 150% first deposit bonus to all newcomers, with 1500$ being the limit, as well as a 50% bonus on the second and third deposit. Regardless of how attractive these casino bonuses may sound to a player who’s just stumbled upon this website and is debating whether or not to sign up, the bonuses came with wagering requirements which made sure you wouldn’t be walking away with much of a smile on your face. Naturally, as stated before, they hid the conditions away from customers.
If you decided to spend your bonus money on slots, you’d have to make a playthrough of 55 times the amount of bonus given. Furthermore, if you played table or poker games, the requirements would grow to an unreasonable 500x bonus. If the word ‘unreasonable’ sounds like an understatement, that’s because it is.
The bonus money was also sticky, which means that they just gave you some chips to play with. When you make your first withdrawal, the amount received via the bonus gets removed from your balance. What’s more, they placed a maximum single bet at 30% of your bonus.
Oh, and remember those terms and conditions we’ve talked about, that you couldn’t find anywhere? Well, over there they added a maximum bet of 30% of your deposit, regardless of players claiming the bonus or not. This basically crippled players’ mathematical chances of coming up on top.
As most other casinos, customers of Cosmik could also redeem codes which would provide them with free spins.
User Experience
Many of the players faced issues while making payment demands. A lot of the customers saw their withdrawals delayed and declined. The casino offered customer support which you could have contacted via an email or live chat. However, this service wasn’t helpful and a large number of customers had to seek help online.
They used the dreaded T&C to challenge any complaint and to make the customers be in the wrong. Some players even complained about multiple bonuses being added to their account automatically, without their consent, which would be against the casino’s terms.
On a more positive note, once the players went public with their complaints, Cosmik worked on resolving most of them. Even if, in some instances, players had to go all the way and contact the licensing body in Malta. Due to the strictness of the regulating rules, casino tried to resolve most of the complaints, or at least provide a credible and extensive explanation as to why they were right to decline a player.
Pros and Cons
Whilst the casino didn’t have the most impressive spread of games, there was still enough gameplay for players to enjoy themselves. The casino operated under Malta jurisdiction, one of the best jurisdictional bodies around. They forced the casino to resolve many of the complaints received. However, players had to wait a while for the process to be completed (or even begin) and often had to go through a troublesome process of publicly slating the casino and even contacting their governing body.
Perhaps the biggest issue with the casino and one the main reasons why we consider them rogue is the transparency of their practices – or the lack of it, to be precise. They ignored the licensing regulations when it comes to players from the United Kingdom. They also hid the terms and conditions away from players, in which they put in some stipulations which really debilitated players’ ability to earn some money. If you can’t trust them, why sign up?
Our Verdict
As is the case with every other AffPower’s venture, Cosmik Casino raised some serious concerns when it came to being trustworthy towards its customers. They worked under a credible license, but they inserted many hidden conditions in their casino, which unaware customers suffered from. The casino is now closed, which is good news for everyone involved.
Casino Rating
Complaint resolution: 5/10
Cashout time: 1/10
Software: 3/10
Jurisdiction: 7/10
Overall rating: 4/10
