With around 4.2 billion occasional and 1.6 billion gamblers worldwide and the ever-increasing market share, online gambling has been on a crazy run since the first online casino opened its doors in 1994. Boosted by the unceasing pandemic and the technological advancements like virtual reality, live dealer games, and provably safe casinos, the $75 billion-worth online gambling is projected to double in about five years and triple by the end of the decade.
But the abundance of online casinos doesn’t mean you can blindly trust a random gambling site. Just like any other industry that has to do with personal data and finances, online gambling is very susceptible to fraud, and there are still tons of untrustworthy casinos that may take your money and then be gone for good.
That said, it’s not that hard to separate the wheat from the chaff as long as you know the main safety criteria that any self-respecting online casino should meet. Without further ado, let’s move to the ultimate safety checklist that we compiled together with Aleksandra Maj, a gambling expert from KasynoHEX.
One Crucial Thing to Understand about Online Casinos
Before you start dealing with online casinos, the most important thing to understand is that there’s no such thing as a free lunch: even the most reliable and generous sites will always have an advantage over you – simply because it’s the backbone of their business, it’s what they’re living off of. And even if the advantage is as low as 1%, it still makes them good money in the long run and puts you at disadvantage.
That’s not to say that you can’t win at online casinos – of course, you can. Not for nothing did they invent volatility. But then again, the right mindset about gambling is paramount, especially for games of luck where nothing depends on you.
Five Steps to Choosing Your Safest Online Casino
#1 Licenses
You may sacrifice any other step of the checklist but licenses. A license issued by a reputable licenser, such as the UK Gambling Commission, the Malta Gaming Authority, or the Curacao Government, to a certain degree guarantees the casino’s reliability and fairness. When licenses are concerned, the final advice would be:
- Look for casinos with multiple licenses since it’s harder to comply with several sets of requirements put forward by different jurisdictions.
- At least one license is a must.
- Avoid unlicensed casinos at all costs.
But there’s one even more powerful trick up your sleeve: provably fair casinos. The best thing about these blockchain casinos is that they record all your gambling outcomes in a blockchain, thereby mathematically eliminating the possibility of fraud.
A typical provably fair casino works as follows:
- The casino generates a Server Seed, and the player generates a User Seed.
- The casino combines the Server Seed and the User Seed into a Seed Pair, which is then used to generate the player’s outcomes.
- At the end of the gambling session (or after the player changes his User Seed, which he can do anytime), the casino shares the previously used Server Seed with the player, allowing him to verify all the outcomes of his games.
As simple as that! Never before was there a possibility to verify the fairness of online casinos, but now you can do it yourself.
#2 Seals of Approval, Certificates, and Awards
In addition to licenses, it’s worth looking for seals of approval (for example, the ones issued by eCOGRA), certificates, and awards. These may not matter as much as license, but they do demonstrate how other gambling businesses treat this or that casino, as well as the accolades and experience of the casino.
#3 Verification and Payment Methods
Verification is one of the subtlest nuances of online gambling. Look for the following information:
- Is verification obligatory during registration?
- Is verification required to play for real money?
- Is verification required to withdraw?
The trickiest thing your casino may try to pull off is to ask you to verify your profile right before withdrawal and then refuse to pay if you’re not ready to pass verification.
Speaking of withdrawals, make sure that
- The casino supports your payment methods along with a few decent alternatives, such as e-wallets, kasyno Paysafecard, prepaid vouchers, and cryptocurrencies
- The withdrawal limits and fees are reasonable (ideally, there should be no fees except for the fees charged by your payment provider).
#4 Terms and Conditions
The Terms & Conditions webpage must contain everything that has to do with gambling at a particular casino, including the information on registration, bonuses, wagering requirements, payments, restrictions, etc. If the information you’re looking for is missing, you can consult the customer support team, but that’s already a red flag. Everything should be there and written in an understandable unambiguous language.
#5 Random Number Generators, Bonuses, and other Hooks
The expected payback (RTP, or return to player), bonuses, and other perks offered by the casino should also be counted, but not as much as the previous factors. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that many sites are luring players into spending money by offering allegedly munificent bonuses and favorable conditions – which turn out to be only half true or not true at all. The point is, don’t trust casinos on word – instead, verify everything they say.
Last but not least, keep your mental state in check. Gambling may be <a href=”https://www.forbes.com/sites/alisoncoleman/2021/01/07/the-entrepreneur-whos-helping-gamblers-to-beat-their-addiction/” rel=”nofollow”>addictive</a>. If you’ve spotted symptoms of addiction in yourself or your close ones, immediately ask for help at BeGambleAware, Gamblers Anonymous, GamCare, or your local problem gambling organizations.
