Park Lane Casino went online in 2016. It offers hundreds of slots and dozens of table games from 55 casino software providers. It also features live dealer games streamed from eight different studios. Its welcome package appears to be very generous, allowing players to claim up to $2,000 on each of the first three deposits and providing them with 100 free spins on each payment.
If this sounds too good to be true for a medium-sized offshore site, that’s because it is. This is a rogue online casino, offering pirated games and unfair withdrawal processes.
Park Lane Casino is an offshore online casino operated by GameTech, an unscrupulous company that first attracted negative attention in 2016 when it turned out that the casinos on its affiliate network were offering pirated games. On top of that, Park Lane’s terms and conditions are downright predatory, as it imposes strict withdrawal limits on their customers.
The people running Park Lane Casino don’t want their players to know any of that and market themselves as one of the safest casinos, so the website doesn’t contain any company information. The About Us section is filled with statements that don’t really mean anything, and they don’t even have the decency to inform you how or when their operation was launched:
The website doesn’t contain any licensing information whatsoever, but we do know that all GameTech casinos operate under a single Master License issued in Curacao.
Park Lane Casino also fails to inform players about the existence of its sister sites, such as EnzoCasino, EuroMoon Casino, or Casino1 Club. In short, the website is a massive transparency red flag.
In April 2016, the casinos on GameTech’s subsidiary affiliate network, AffPower, were caught hosting illicit copies of Novomatic games. This caused some waves in the online casino community, and the bootleg games were removed – only to be promptly replaced by pirated NetEnt slots.
Then, in an ill-conceived effort to put an end to the scandal, AffPower launched a negative SEO campaign against a site that uncovered the problem and reported on it. Predictably, this only added fuel to the fire, and more people noticed that something was wrong.
To make things worse, the pirated games were likely running on an altered random numbers generator, which was rightfully deemed dangerous for GameTech customers because there was a distinct possibility that the odds were modified to give the offending casinos a higher edge.
Adding insult to injury, the games were hosted on casinomodyle.com in a poor attempt to deceive players into thinking they were dealing with casinomodule.com, which was the name of the official NetEnt subdomain for hosting games at the time. The illicit slots also featured lower progressive jackpots because they weren’t connected to official pools.
The situation deteriorated to the point that AffPower started trying to pin the blame on GameTech, while GameTech suggested that the whole thing was just a misunderstanding and that the pirated software was obtained from a dishonest reseller.
At that point, the people running GameTech probably still had a chance to salvage their company’s reputation. However, once the casino community realized that they began launching new online casinos via shell companies, this chance vanished.
The rebranded casinos were tracked down because they were operating under the same license as the AffPower sites involved in the previous scandal, and many people were quick to connect the dots.
At that point GameTech apparently gave up and removed any and all business information from their sites, including licensing details. Thus, sites like Park Lane became impossible to associate with GameTech for a casual casino enthusiast. Fortunately, the details of their misdeeds can still be traced online.
Park Lane Welcome Bonus may be worth up to $6,000 on paper, but it comes with so many strings attached that it becomes essentially worthless. The 33x playthrough is the least of your worries here; the true danger is a little rule hidden in the general Bonus Terms & Conditions:
The 10x maximum payout limit alters the mathematical profile of most casino games. This is because beating the house typically involves getting lucky after a period of subjecting your account to a prolonged grind. You push through small losses and then score a big win to cover them and get ahead.
This doesn’t work that great when there’s a cap on the potential jackpot, especially if you decide to play slots. There’s also a different rule stating that once you start playing with a bonus on balance, your withdrawal will be limited to 20x the deposit currently in play.
The problem with unfair bonus rules is further compounded by the arbitrary $100,000 maximum winnings limit. If you win more than $100,000 within one day, the winnings that surpass this limit will be voided.
In addition, the real-money online casino only allows you to withdraw $5,000 per 30 days. Even assuming you manage to score the maximum win, withdrawing it will take you at least 20 months. Moreover, if you’re a budget player and you deposit $200 or less, you’ll be limited to withdrawing only up to 10x of the deposit in play.
Regardless of what you do, you’re very likely to end up in a no-win situation here.
Even if you try to explain the 2016 GameTech scandal as gross incompetence rather than malice, there’s simply no denying the fact that Park Lane and other similar casinos should be treated as rogue sites these days. Their Terms & Conditions give the house an unfair edge and turn playing exciting casino games into an exercise in frustration because of all the absurd limits and nonsensical restrictions.
If some of the games available on Park Lane really suit your taste, your best bet would be to find them on a fair and trusted casino site. You’re guaranteed to enjoy them more without having to deal with GameTech’s creative expected value alterations.
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