Not only do you have to consider which website has the best odds, or whether any of them have signup bonuses, but also whether the site itself is trustworthy. With online scams an ever present danger on the web, it is not unreasonable for people to be a little wary of where they store their credentials, and in particular where the store their bank details.
Safety first
Becoming the victim of online fraud is not a given though, and with just a little common sense, research, and taking general precautions, you can dramatically reduce your chances of falling prey to the bad guys, and get back to using online services without worrying. With online gambling in general, it’s pretty easy to decipher the good sites from the bad. Checking to see if the web pages you are loading use Secure Socket Layer protocol (or SSL) is a good first step when checking out a gambling site’s payment page.
To check whether SSL is active, simply look for the padlock in the address bar of your browser when on a payment page. Is the padlock ‘closed’? If it is, then rest easy, as this particular site is keeping your bank details private, and that this transaction can only be seen by you, and the site you are visiting. If a site allows you to transfer funds without encrypting your data, be very wary of that site.
Other aspects of safety to bare in mind are pretty much common sense. When you receive emails from any online service, rather than clicking on a link inside, go directly to the site itself. This can help protect against phishing scams, and is a particularly easy way of staying safe online. It is also good practice to use ‘e-wallets’ such as Paypal for transferring money to the gambling website. This completely cuts out the movement of banking details to and from the website itself.
The ‘Sweetener’
Plenty of gambling sites now offer ‘free bets’ to new customers when they sign up. This is indeed something to look out for when choosing which site to gamble with, but sometimes, not all is as it seems. “Free $100 bet” may sound amazing, but when you read the small print, you can quite often find that the winnings from you $100 needs to be spent on the site, and cannot be withdrawn. This is a common way to lure customers in, and is also a fairly reasonable thing to do in the eyes of the bookies, but many customers are caught off guard by this, so bear it in mind.
So depending on whether you are happy or not winning more “free bets” from your initial free stake, you should sign up with a company accordingly.
Take heed of the reviews
As with any service that has an internet presence these days, user reviews are extremely useful to consider before signing up for anything, and gambling is no exception. When you have 5000 reviews for a company, all giving realistic, but decent reviews, then you can generally rest assured that the service you are considering is a good one. Equally, if there are 5 bad or mediocre reviews, then you would do well to look elsewhere.
It is not always a case of simply having good reviews though. Any site with 5 perfect reviews, all telling you how amazing this service is, can sometimes look a little ‘set up’. Be aware of this and, as with anything online, use a little common sense. 5 reviews are easy to ‘game’. Thousands of reviews, on the other hand, are pretty difficult to manufacture, especially if they are all quite different in their tone and nuance. The more you look for fake reviews, the easier they become to spot, and while there will always be a few unhappy customers, if the vast majority are happy, the chances are you will be too.
In conclusion
Gambling online should above all be fun and safe. Making sure your chosen site has the best ‘welcome pack’, safe money transfer, and decent customer service is a pretty simple thing to do, and will let you gamble without the stress and worry that you may associate with less scrupulous sites. Follow these simple rules and you are sure to get the most from your betting experience. Now, isn’t it time to spin that roulette wheel?