When searching online for a new casino to ply your gaming skills at, it can be tricky to know how legit they really are. The choice of online casinos these days is truly overwhelming but picking one shouldn’t be such a gamble – pun intended!
So, how do you know your progressive jackpot casinos from your NetEnt mobile casinos? This guide is going to help you by highlighting what to look for to ensure that a casino is safe and secure to play at.
Check The Reviews And Feedback
Everything gets reviewed and rated online these days. From holidays to fridges, if you want to know what others think about something there’s no shortage of opinions on offer.
Online casinos are no different and with a quick search you can easily find a bunch of reviews and ratings for pretty much any online casino. Any good review should go into detail about things like payments, security, customer service and withdrawals. Giving a few reviews a read will quickly let you know if a specific online casino is safe and secure to play at.
It’s also a great idea to check out online casino forums such as Casinomister or Askgamblers to see how other players rate the outfit. Take some comments with a pinch of salt as people tend to have a good online rant if they have lost money. It might not mean that the casino is at fault or unsafe.
Check The Casino Licence
Okay, licences and legislation isn’t the sexiest thing to talk about but it’s a key indicator of how legitimate an online casino is. They are there to protect players by making sure that the casinos and bookmakers they licence comply with their rules and regulations.
Firstly, if the casino has no licence at all, get away from there as quickly as you can! You’ll have no protection as a player and might never see your deposited funds ever again.
There are several main casino licencing organisations around the world, but not all of them are created equally. Some will have stricter rules than others which licenced online casinos will need to comply with.
One of the toughest licencing body, is the United Kingdom Gambling Commission or UKGC to its friends. This authority has not been shy of dishing out fines to non-compliant gambling operators, including Ladbrooks and Betfred.
Check the footer area of FAQ section of your chosen casino to see where their licence is issued from. It’s good to know if this licence protects players from your countries. Any legitimate online casinos should be displaying a message stating that they don’t accept players from your country when you try and sign up for an account or log in.
Encryption Is Key
You wouldn’t trust an online bank with your money if it looked shady and the same should apply to online casinos. You want to be looking for banking grade security and encryption when seeking out a new casino to play at.
Look for SSL encryption provided by the casino, this is a mechanism to keep your personal and banking details safe and secure. You’ll want to see a padlock symbol in the address bar of your browser to show that the site is secure to use.
Also, be sure to read the security section of any casino reviews. This should tell you what the casino has put in place to keep you safe as a new player. If there are issues flagged in forums online then it might be best to give that particular site a wide berth.
