Online gambling is becoming quite popular. Over the past few years, the numbers of online players have simply skyrocketed. It’s odd, because 10 or 15 years back, there’s no way people would have trusted the Internet with their hard-earned money – especially not a sleazy online gambling site.
People are starting to trust the Internet more and more – sometimes too much. Intelligent consumers often ask the question: can I really trust online casinos?
The short answer is that you can trust the good ones. Like anything else, there are high-quality, legitimate online casinos, and then there are low-quality casinos that are either shady or just flat-out scams.
Make your own research
It’s usually pretty easy to spot the latter. Poor designs, glitchy software, and poor customer service are all signs of a bad online casino. Now just because an online casino isn’t well run doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a scam, but still, be careful.
When you choose an online casino to play at, take your time.
Don’t just find the first casino you come to and join it. Shop around, and find the ones that look legitimate. Before you join ANY casino, even if it looks as professional as Caesars Palace itself, do some quick research.
The Internet is your friend when it comes to researching online casinos. Just do a quick Google search for whatever the name of the casino is, or, better yet, the name of the company that owns the casino.
If you want to save some times, you can have a look at this page, where you can find some of the most trusted online casinos, reviewed and rated.
If there are any scam reports on the top few pages, you should steer clear of that casino. If there are informational pages and positive reviews, chances are the casino is safe.
If you can, try to research the company who actually owns and operates the casino. Usually it’s pretty simple to find this information. Just go to the front page of the casino, and scroll all the way down. You should see a copyright sign, followed by a company or individual’s name in the footer of the website.
If you don’t see anything there, check the “About Us” page or anything that looks similar. If this information is not readily available, move on to the next casino.
After all, if an owner doesn’t want you to know who he is, there’s obviously something he’s hiding.
Another aspect you should check
If you’d rather play it completely safe, you can join a casino that’s part of a network. As the popularity of online gambling climbed, the bigger companies in the industry expanded their portfolios by building new casinos.
Today, some of the larger gambling networks have 5, 10, or even 15+ gambling sites under their belts. They are all under the same ownership, and you know that they’re legitimate, because they’ve been in the industry for years and years.
You should always check the age of a casino before you join it, as well. If it’s a recent addition, you might want to avoid it.
However, if its part of a large network, it doesn’t really matter how old the site is, as it’s managed by the same people and the same software as all the company’s other, older casinos.