Butler casino opened in 2009 and wasted no time in getting down to business. The business, in this case, being ripping off customers as well as another casino operator. When pressed for answers, casino representatives took to the message boards, acted as players and tried to salvage the reputation, to no avail.
Stealing A ? Rival?
Butler was caught stealing red handed in November, 2011 when a forum user posted his experience online.
The player had been lured into depositing for an advertised ? Free Chip? He chose the Rich Horrific game on iButler and when he started to play he noticed a lot of similarities to a slot from a different casino. The other casino was Rival Games and their slot was called Scary Rich 1. The pay tables were exactly the same, and the graphics were almost identical.
Players were quick to mock the rep and laugh at the absurd and obvious theft.
The interesting part of this blatant theft is the role the regulators played. It was only after players complained that the issue was even looked into at all. Perhaps, this explains why the Malta LGA was the back-to-back-to-back-to-back winner of the tongue in cheek ? Sitting on One? Hands?
Shilling and Spamming
If stealing another casino? Butler also regularly employed shills on message boards to try and uphold the facade of a legitimate operation.
After a user asked whether it was safe to deposit on iButler, he gets a reply complete with smiley faces at the beginning and the end that gives the ? The player says he won a small amount and was paid very quickly. The only problem is that the ? Butler casino employee. This was discovered about a month after the reply was posted. Casinomeister had its team trace the computer and found it was a shared PC between another user who was a casino rep. Busted!
This is a common tactic used by not just online casinos, but online gambling sites of all kinds. Manipulating public opinion, or in this case, player opinion is all that it may take to lure some unsuspecting players into depositing.
Luckily for players, iButler was not very creative, to say the least. Even the name itself is confusing or misleading at best. What does it even stand for? Internet Butler? It has no real connection to gaming whatsoever.
This lack of creativity allowed the scam to be uncovered a lot faster and more easily than if they did a bit of work to cover their tracks.
It is terribly unethical to have customer service posing as players to give a false impression, but it is downright lazy to not change up the messages but this is exactly what iButler did. They simply copied and pasted the same text over and over to various forums and message boards. This behavior earned iButler a spot on the CasinoListings Blacklist.
Closed For Business? Contact Support!
Normally this is where we advise players to exercise caution when choosing a casino, but iButler did not enjoy a long run as a scam casino. They only lasted three years before closing their virtual doors for good. In August 2012, iButler was offline and not coming back. Even after they closed, their reply was to ?
Sometimes it is the little details that can raise suspicion. In this scam example, there were minor details that led to bigger problems. When customer support can?
Of course, iButler went above and beyond simple mistakes and copied entire games from other online casinos. It seems there is a never ending bag of tricks that casinos use to try and deceive, defraud, and confuse players.