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Moneystorm Casino: a no longer active, rogue casino with pirated software and a license from Costa Rica. They failed to send payments on time. Not recommended!
Welcome to Moneystorm Casino, a storm of unsent and late payments whizzing through a neighborhood of player complaints. Founded in 2013, they form — or formed, at least, while they were around — a part of a group of online casinos under the management of Operia casinos (their full name being Operia Costa Rica Sociedad de Responsabilidad Limitada).
They have been blacklisted and labeled as a rogue casino for quite some time now, which is seemingly one of the reasons why they decided to close up. The website is no longer accessible, despite still having a sea of unresolved complaints. Probably for the best, if you ask us.
The Operia Group had five casinos listed to their name, all of which became notorious in the online casino community for tampering with their gaming software, as well as having an ever-growing number of complaints concerning withdrawals. Additionally, as the name of Moneystorm’s organization suggests, they fall under the jurisdiction of Costa Rica, and they obtained their license there. Although, we weren’t able to find any additional information on the license itself.
But what does all of this mean to a player and why should you care where they are based? Well, we’ll discuss that in more detail further below.
First Impression
If you visited the website, you would see a pretty standard modern design (well, when it used to be running that is, now you’ll just see Google telling you there’s nothing there anymore). Perhaps not the greatest of solutions to put black letters on that specific shade of gold, but admittedly, to complain about that would be quite nitpicky of us. The website seems to have been easy to navigate, with all the needed sections being accessible through the landing page.
The casino, as well as the entire Operia group which they belong to, is based in Costa Rica. And this jurisdiction is known to be fairly lenient towards the casinos that fall under their governing body. Moreover, there are no extensive regulations required to be fulfilled and that’s the main reason why many of the rogue casinos choose Costa Rica as their license of choice.
You see, with more credible and stricter jurisdictions (United Kingdom’s or Malta’s gambling authorities, to just name a couple), casinos are required by law to be fair to their customers. They need to make sure all the payments are issued on time and the games they choose to have on their website must originate from a gaming software which is tried and tested to be in accordance with the rules.
On the other hand, some governing bodies, such as Costa Rica’s, don’t give out such strict requirements, and therefore, many casinos which decide to go about their business in a fraudulent way base themselves in this Central American country.
Games and Software
Thankfully, since this casino is no longer around, you can’t join them. But if you did, you’d have a 300% bonus for your first deposit of at least $20. However, in general, whenever a casino greets you with a starting bonus (which is ever so often), you’d be wise to check out the terms and conditions beforehand. You should do that because there are always stipulations and requirements you need to fulfill behind the bonus, which rogue casinos almost never state clearly. Basically, they rely on your laziness to read a boring set of rules before chipping in and doing what you’ve come there to do — play games.
Well, behind this casino bonus, there were wagering requirements of 50x the bonus. This meant you had to complete a playthrough of 50 times the amount of the bonus received. That said, more spins represent more opportunities for you to end up on the losing side.
And to make things worse, the bonus was also sticky. Translated into plain English, you couldn’t have withdrawn the bonus itself. Once you had completed the wagering requirements, the bonus chips got removed from your balance and you were left with what you’ve earned by playing. I mean, not that it was likely you’d ever actually see any of that money, but we’ll talk about that later on. Additionally, there were also bonus codes you could have redeemed for free spins, as well as a no-deposit bonus, which also came with their own set of wagering requirements — 80x the bonus. On top of that, all bonuses came with a maximum cashout of 10 times the bonus amount.
Now, let’s check out the games themselves. Moneystorm used games from several different software companies, including BetSoft, Visionary iGaming, Novomatic, and NetEnt. All of these companies in their official releases contain games that TST certifies. In that regard, TST is a company which regulates the validity of games. Essentially, they make sure all the games are coded accurately in regards to the Random Number Generator.
However, Moneystorm used pirated software on their website, which is the prime reason for being blacklisted. The fact that they didn’t use the official versions of the games doesn’t necessarily mean that they’ve altered them in their favor — but it’s pretty much safe to assume so. I mean, if you had the ability to tip the odds in your favor and no governing body was restricting you from doing so, wouldn’t you do it? Hopefully, you wouldn’t, but keep in mind that not all people might be as nice as you.
Furthermore, the fact that they’ve used a pirated version of their games can be abused even if they haven’t lowered the RTP rates. In fact, they could have even raised them if they were feeling witty. What they could have done was just basically remove random and progressive jackpots from the game. In order to gain a significant amount of winnings, most players rely on jackpots to get them there.
What is more, using pirated games means they could have said: ‘Hey, this game has an insane jackpot that activates randomly, be sure to check it out!’ And then, you start playing the game without knowing it’s not just bad luck you’re not hitting the jackpot — it’s actually because there’s no jackpot at all.
On a brighter note, all of the games could have been played on your browser, although they also offered a mobile version, compatible with both iOS and Android smartphones. They split the games into two sections — ‘Games on Offer,’ and ‘Our Games.’ From what we could find, they had only five Games on Offer (Barbary Coast, Heist, House of Fun, Once Upon a Time with a Shrek theme, and Mr Vegas), which really makes you wonder if this separation was actually necessary.
On the other hand, in ‘Our Games,’ they stated they had hundreds of 3D games, but those hundreds equated to just 40 in reality. Unsurprisingly, slot games were by far the most popular type in this casino. They offered classic and video slots with three and five reels. What is more, they had progressive slots on offer with huge jackpot promises, but, as we’ve mentioned earlier, you should be wary of this, as the odds of hitting that jackpot were most probably altered (if not removed altogether).
Apart from slots, they also offered video poker and table games. You could have enjoyed several table games, which included classic games like Baccarat, Blackjack, Craps, and Roulette. All of these games, minus the Craps, offered an additional option for users to play them as live games, which they would get a $10 chip bonus for. Moreover, you had access to these live games 24/7. And concerning video poker games, they had a variety of games on offer, including the most frequent ones, such as Deuces Wild, Jacks or Better, and All-American Poker.
Lastly, in case this selection didn’t satisfy your demands, you could have also played Keno, scratch card games, and virtual horse racing.
Finally, when it comes to money transactions, you had the ability to make a deposit via a MasterCard or Visa credit cards, as well as Neteller, Entropay, and Skrill. And as far as withdrawing money goes, you could have used all the same options theoretically, but their attitude towards paying up was another reason why we’re glad they are no longer in business.
User Experience
Most (if not all) customers were unaware they were playing pirated games. However, what they were very aware of were the issues with slow payments. If you look around, you’ll find numerous complaints regarding the fact that the casino didn’t send them their money on time, or in some instances, they didn’t send it at all.
Moneystorm offered a 24/7 customer service to concerned players who could get in touch with them via a phone number, an e-mail, or a live chat option they had on the website. However, the customer support was never really attentive to complaints coming in. It would usually take them days to respond (maybe they had a different opinion on why there’s a word ‘live’ in live chat).
And once they did respond, they would usually just make a fake promise and tell the customers that they would transfer the funds immediately. As you might have figured out on your own, that wouldn’t happen. In addition, some of the players had to face a delay of several months, even going up to a year at times.
Of course, with the casino now being closed, all the unresolved complaints will remain that way. Everything the conned players can do now is to kiss their money goodbye and move on. Perhaps the only silver lining was that their business practices were restricted in quite a few countries, predominantly in Eastern Europe and Asia.
Pros and Cons
The disadvantages of playing at this casino are way too grand to ignore and neglect in favor of the few good things they offered. Seemingly, the greatest advantage to a rogue casino such as this one is that it’s out of business.
On the other hand, Moneystorm had a nice design and the navigation through the website was smooth. Every section of the site was easily accessible. Perhaps not the most amazing assortment of games, but still, they had all the classic games on offer, including many more which could have kept you entertained for hours on end. Also, they offered their players an opportunity to play live games against other users of the casino.
However, they used pirated software, which meant you could have safely assumed that the games were working against you, as well as that you had to fight against even tougher odds than you usually would. Or maybe just never hit that random jackpot you were hoping for.
However, their website was available in five different languages, and they had several different options for making payments. But despite that, not only have they messed with the games themselves, they’ve also had many problems with issuing out payments to their players, and at times, they straight-out refused to accept customers’ withdrawal requests.
Our Verdict
The Moneystorm Casino is one of the rogue casinos which took an opportunity to make decisions which would deceive players on pretty much every step possible. Having said that, they deserved to be blacklisted even more than some of the other rogue casinos. They opted for a license which doesn’t regulate their business thoroughly, and they used pirated software, which is unacceptable in the online gambling world.
As if that wasn’t enough, the ‘lucky’ players who managed to get their balance to stay positive had to deal with terrible customer service which wouldn’t resolve any of the issues regarding the players receiving their money. Suffice to say, it makes us happy to know that this casino is no longer active.
Casino Ratings
Complaint Resolution: 1/10
Cashout Time: 1/10
Software: 1/10
Jurisdiction: 2/10
Overall Score: 1/10
