—TechRound does not recommend or endorse any gambling, financial, betting or trading advice or practices. All articles are purely informational—
Trustworthy online casinos employ the latest and frequently updated software to protect user data. “Frequently updated” is the key here, as it guarantees protection from newly discovered vulnerabilities and exploits.
With so many bad actors around, it’s incredibly important for gamers to take precautionary measures by looking for safety indicators on a site before making any transactions. There are a lot of online gambling platforms, but only a few are safe and offer comprehensive protection from cyber-attacks.
Look For Licencing Information
Online casinos need to obtain licences to run their operations in various territories and regions. These are only issued when the casino passes fair play and other rigorous tests by the government or independent entities. Authorities like the United Kingdom’s Gambling Commission, the Malta Gaming Authority, and the Curaçao Gaming Control Board are the largest licence issuers to online operators around the world. Most online casinos will have permission from these to operate in your country, and that’s all they need to run their international operations legally.
To verify a website’s online gambling licence, you will need to look for a licencer’s logo on the bottom of its homepage. This logo is usually a link that takes you to the official page of an issuing authority. A red flag here is to be aware of fraud websites that place a logo that is either unclickable or leads to a fake website.
An alternative method of verifying a licence is by looking for the online casino’s name on the licencer’s website. Trustworthy online casinos usually show their licence information, like the issuing authority and their registered number, in the footer of their pages. You can manually look for the number on the licencer’s website to verify its permissions.
Licenced Games and Secure Payment Methods
Reliable casinos offer original games provided by developers, and these games are licenced by the operator before they are placed on the website for players. A case in point are Bovada casino games, which comprise a range of titles curated on one, reputable platform, in collaboration with various developers in gambling the industry. This is an industry standard for conveying the fairness and integrity of the games, where players put their trust in the brands that curate them.
There are many knock-offs of popular games offered by shady websites, but only legitimate platforms deliver original games. Some knowledge about games can help a lot here to identify games and their publishers. Besides, you always have Google a few clicks away should you need to research.
The next big indicator of a trustworthy casino is the availability of secure payment methods. Just like licence information, this is usually displayed on a website’s footer. Not every payment option functions the same, none are equally secure. E-wallets like PayPal offer advanced fraud prevention features, whereas VISA and Mastercard may offer insurance benefits.
Some platforms also support cryptocurrency transactions, these have an edge over traditional payment options as they are much cheaper and faster. Furthermore, cryptocurrency payments provide users with financial anonymity, a feature not found in credit cards. Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, and Bitcoin Cash are some of the most commonly used digital currencies for online gambling.
Your Data’s Unbreakable Shield: Encryption
Encryption is among many advanced measures taken by online casinos to make sure the user data on their site remains safe. A very complex encryption algorithm makes it impossible for hackers to decrypt the data by brute force. The popularly used technologies for encrypting casino websites are TLS and SSL. This is what players need to first look out for during the due diligence process.
To verify if the website is protected by TLS or SSL protocol, look for a padlock icon in the address bar, usually shown by browsers on the top left. If the padlock icon is not closed, then it means the site you are visiting is not secure. Another indicator of a suspicious website is the use of “HTTP” instead of “HTTPS” in its URL.
Some browsers may not display the padlock icon despite the site being secure; for instance, new versions of Chrome only display the encryption certificate options when a user clicks on the new “tuning icon” shown before the URL.
Additionally, you can use free services like SSL Checker to view detailed information about a website’s encryption protocol, including its validity and expiration date. In most cases, you won’t need to do this, but it’s a nice tool.
Online casinos are one of the most visited sites in the entertainment and gaming space, and like every other online platform, they are not safe from cyberattacks. Since online casinos deal with a lot of sensitive information, they are among the top target hackers.
Fortunately, they are leveraging the ever-evolving technology to protect their users from any potential threat. In addition, if players do their own due diligence and practice good online safety habits they will significantly reduce falling victim to fraudsters.
—TechRound does not recommend or endorse any gambling, financial, betting or trading advice or practices. All articles are purely informational—
