Review: Offshore Online Casino Operator Starscream and its Payment Facilitators

tamir
Fri, 02 Aug 2024 08:36:44 +0000
Reviews & Ratings, Binance Pay, Bipace, CASHlib, CoinsPaid, Cryptoprocessing, ePro, MiFinity, Neteller, Olky Payment Service Provider, Rapid, Skrill, Stardust Global CCS, Starscream

As part of our “Follow the Money” research strategy, we look at online casino and gambling schemes and analyze the facilitating payment processors. We often discover FinTechs such as Revolut, MoonPay or Binance Pay, but also many open banking service providers such as Noda. We also discovered a number of facilitating payment processors at the online casinos of the Starscream Group in addition to illegal activities. Here is our review.

Compliance Check

The Starscream Group operates a range of online casinos and gambling platforms through Starscream Limited, which is registered in Saint Lucia. This entity has a license from the Kahnawake Gaming Commission, but this is not sufficient to acquire players in Europe or other regions.

However, in our reviews conducted in July 2024, it was no problem to register as a resident of UK or EEA jurisdictions. Apart from the multilingualism, which also addresses German players in particular, payment options and payment processors for the EEA regions are also integrated.

Deposits are (partially) limited per transaction, but even without a KYC check, you can theoretically make unlimited deposits by bank transfer, credit/debit card, e-voucher, e-wallet or crypto. All this results in a clean red compliance rating. Once again, we don’t understand why the payment processors involved go along with this. Their compliance systems should be able to algorithmically detect the illegality of the activities without any problems.

Facilitating Payment Processors

The casinos of the Starscream Group use Stardust Global CCS Ltd, registered in Cyprus, as their payment agent. Players make deposits to this Cypriot payment agent using a variety of payment options. Here are the key findings regarding the facilitating payment processors:

We once again found Noda at SugarCasino, Zinkra Casino, and BluVegas. This time, Noda uses the domain WLPay.io to process instant bank transfers and to run the payment gateway. According to Urlscan, WLPay.io is clearly assigned to Noda.

At Crazeplay, on the other hand, we discovered the EPRO gateway for the Instant Bank Transfer and the bank details of Olky Payment Service Provider S.A. Behind it, a separate IBAN is generated for each customer when making a deposit.

We also found the Bulgarian open banking service provider Contiant and YAPILY for Instant Bank Transfers.

Furthermore, we found German and Austrian banks, such as Unicredit, Raiffeisen, and Volksbanken, as deposit options at SugarCasino, which seems to focus primarily on German-speaking players. Revolut also appears as a payment processor.

We found Bitpace as a crypto payment processor at all Starscream Group casinos. Bitpace has licenses as a crypto service provider in Estonia, Lithuania, and Bulgaria. The Austrian CoinsPaid and its sister brand CryptoProcessing also act as crypto payment processors.

We also discovered MiFinity at all casinos in the Starscream Group, whose market share appears to be growing steadily. There is hardly an illegally operating online casino scheme without MiFinitty.

In addition, we have of course discovered the usual suspects such as Jeton, as well as the e-voucher schemes CASHlib or Cash-to-Code or the Paysafe Card. This is no surprise.

Starscream Key Data

Trading names

Crazeplay, SugarCasino, BluVegas, LocoWin
Zinkra Casino, Anarchy Casino

Business activity | Online casino and gambling operators
Status | Active
Domains | various

Legal entity

Starscream Limited
Stardust Global CCS Ltd

Jurisdictions | St. Lucia
Authorization | Kahnawake Gaming Comission
Related individuals | not disclosed
Payment agent | STARDUST GLOBAL CCS LTD

Payment options

bank transfer, SEPA Instant, credit/debit card,
e-wallets, crypto

Payment Gateway | Praxis

Payment processors

EPro, Olky Payment Service Provider S.A.
Contiant, Rapid, Noda (wlpay.io)
CASHlib, Paysafe Card
Jeton, Skrill, Neteller, MiFinity,
CoinsPaid, CryptoProcessing, Bitpace, Binance Pay

Compliance rating | Red

Share Information

We encourage anyone with knowledge about the Starscream Group and its online casino operations, its facilitators, or any related activities to come forward. Your information could be pivotal in understanding and exposing potentially illegal or unethical practices within this organization. Your contribution is vital in holding the key individuals accountable and safeguarding the integrity of online gaming and financial transactions.