Jackpots Heaven - Hmmmm…

A very interesting turn of events around the various gambling forums over the past couple of weeks, which would be amusing if were not so serious. An “online casino” called Jackpots Heaven has reared it’s head out of the notorious Costa Rica jurisdiction. On the face of it, it’s just another online casino, but dig deeper and as many forum posters are pointing out, all is not quite what it seems.

It started with a player on a forum questioning the results of a baccarat session he played there. Now being honest, it’s not uncommon to get unusual runs of luck that look out of place, but one or two other posters decided to take a look at the software to form their own opinions. What they uncovered was interesting to say the least. The first warning sign became apparent when they spotted that the casino website said it was “licenced” by the Lotteries and Gaming Commission in Costa Rica. Aside from the fact that this organisation doesn’t exist, Costa Rica itself doesn’t issue casino licences, which is why it is regarded as a very dodgy jurisdiction for online gambling.

A forum poster (see below) also suggested the casinos’ Terms & Conditions had been lifted from a legitimate casino called Casino Riva, with just the jurisdiction of Malta changed to “Costa Rica” along with a little tweak here and there. Another red flag of course - but the real fun was yet to come.

A couple of players downloaded the Jackpots Heaven software - presumably with anti-virus well and truly working in overdrive - and on a closer look at the games, they spotted some familiarities bearing more than a passing resemblence to games from other casinos. As it turns out, some graphics from games by Microgaming and Realtime Gaming (RTG) had been lifted, had their colours altered a bit and used in the games, but it didn’t stop there. The names of these games at Jackpots Heaven also bear strikingly similar names to those from the legitimate games. For example, RTG software’s ”Caesar’s Empire” slot game was magically transformed into “Caesar’s Magical Empire” at Jackpots Heaven, complete with rehashed graphics and an identical paytable.

Clearly, the software developers - actually, let’s call them “re-developers” - obviously got tired of renaming games, so Microgaming’s “Thunderstruck” slot, became Jackpot Heaven’s “Thunderstruck” slot, complete with borrowed symbols from both Thunderstruck and other Microgaming games. Just to add some insult to injury - why do things by halves, eh - they also appear to have “borrowed” Microgaming’s button console layout too (see pic, below).

Well, the story continued on along similar lines until a representative from Jackpots Heaven turned up in the Casinomeister thread and again over at the Latest Casino Bonuses website forum. One of the key points he made was that the software was from a “freelancer” they employed going under the name of “Salus Technologies” and he intimates that they developed the software together. Whether this is designed to put distance between the casino and the clearly patent-infringing software I’m not sure, but either way, the software has been launched without the required TST RNG certificate of legitimacy. I’ll leave you to make up your own mind regarding his posts on the Casinomeister thread, but if nothing else, it’s highly entertaining and it leads us nicely into Phase II - the legal threats - which I’ll come onto in a minute.

Meanwhile, over at LCB, one thread advertising an “exclusive bonus” at Jackpots Heaven took a twist when the administrator became suspicious of a couple of posters who were actually praising Jackpots Heaven perhaps a little too enthusiastically! Turned out that these two posters had similar - in one case identical - IP addresses to the Jackpots Heaven rep on the board! This is commonly referred to as ”shilling” - getting people you know to pretend to be happy players with a view to duping real prospective players. It also begs the question as to why on earth are LCB exposing their players to bonus promotions from casinos they haven’t checked out first. But anyway…

Phase II was the casino’s reaction to it all. After trying to convince players they were perfectly legit - albeit without any answers to the questions posed - every webmaster who allowed these conversations to go on, or who commented on the Jackpots Heaven issues was soon to be threatened with legal action. This in itself is leading to more and more threads on the Jackpots Heaven situation springing up around the web which is kind of ironic in that the threats are clearly designed to try and reduce the exposure!

The facts speak for themselves and need no comment from me, however the Jackpots Heaven situation could either turn out to be a very harmful turn of events for the casino industry, or quite the opposite. While this “event” might feed some politicians and moralists with more ammo, it will probably make other, more astute, politicians realise that while regulation in jurisdictions like the USA (and Costa Rica for that matter) is ignored, the people they are responsible for are at a much greater risk.

Comments are closed.