Do you want to get all of your money stolen, along with your identity?
Me either, that is why you need to make sure that awesome-looking online casino is actually legit, or just some site trying to steal as much of your information as possible, or perhaps it is just rigged, and you actually never end up winning.
I put this guide together to help save you money, time, and potentially some much bigger headaches by showing you how to identify a safe online casino.
1. Is the Casino Licensed?
If the casino is legitimate, it will have to have a license to operate from whatever country it operates out of.
As a backup, you should review what the licensing requirements are, any win/loss ratio requirements, and any potential enforcement actions for casinos that violate the regulations.
2. What do the Terms and Conditions State?
There should be some kind of verbiage about the regulations they are required to follow and what they need from you so that you can legally gamble with them. If their terms do not align with their licensing requirements, something might not be quite above board.
3. Check Online Reviews
I do not mean check for other sites that review casinos. Many of those sites have some sort of financial benefit for promoting and positively reviewing some gambling sites. This does not mean they are legit sites, just that they are willing to pay other sites to promote them.
The online reviews I would be looking for is in gaming forums or other places where other gamblers would be discussing where they go to throw away there hard-earned money.
4. Check What Payment Methods They Accept
If an online business accepts payments direct from your credit card or through a reputable platform like PayPal, this is usually a good sign.
Why is it a good sign if the casino accepts reputable payment platform payments? Because if they are not legitimate, they will get booted from the platform and it is very easy for their customers to get refunds. So if they want to continue to have access to that payment platform they need to continue to operate above board.
5. Check the About Us Page
Legitimate casinos will be very clear who they are operated by and should make it very easy to verify who they are and that they are a real business.
6. Check the Contact Page
A good sign a company is the real deal is to see if they have a contact page and you can actually get a hold of someone. Generally, you will find an email, contact form, phone numbers, and mailing addresses.
7. Check for Testing Certification Badges
Real casinos want to prove they are following the rules so that more people will open accounts with them and spend their money. You should be able to identify some badges from third-party auditors, such as eCogra, iGaming Labs, and others showing that the published returns are accurate (RTP %).
8. Check how long the Casino Has Been Operating
Scam casinos are generally flagged pretty quickly, so if you find one that has been operating for a couple of years or longer, chances are that they are doing everything right.
This does not mean you can skip all of the steps above, things do get overlooked, so always do you own due diligence.
Remember, no one is more interested in you not getting taken by some online scam more than you are, so please do yourself a favor and spend a few minutes verifying you are giving your money and information to a platform that is going to protect it and protect you by following the law.