The Importance of Gambling at Regulated Online Casinos
Before you sign up to any online casino, regardless of their games, bonuses and rewards, it’s absolutely critical to verify their legitimacy. Unregulated websites offer no certainty that you’ll ever get your deposit back, let alone the alluring sign up bonus or any of your hard-earned winnings.
By choosing a licensed and registered casino, you can rest assured that an impartial organisation with the players safety in mind has checked that all levels of the operation are fair and reliable, and meet a certain standard. These organisations perform regular inspections to ensure that they maintain these standards and remain true to their clients.
Verifying a Casino License
There are quite a few online gambling licensing and regulatory organisations that are well known and trusted by both players and the industry at large. Though some are stricter than others, any casino that obtains one or more of these licenses is most certainly trustworthy.
First and foremost, check whether the website displays a licensing seal or logo at the bottom of their page. These seals, when clicked, will usually lead directly to the sites licensing information.
If you find no licensing seal, then try looking for the licencing info in the website’s terms of service. No online casino with honest intentions will make it overly difficult to find this info, in-fact most will actively try to make it easily accessible. There, you should be able to find their license number, which you can send to the issuing organisation along with the company name for verification. Even if a website clearly displays their licensing seal, it’s a good idea to go through this process to make 100% sure they’re legitimate.
A few of the most common licenses you’ll see are from the United Kingdom Gambling Commission (UKGC – all online casinos in the UK require this license to operate), The Malta Gaming Authority (MGA) and Curaçao eGaming. There are, of-course, licenses from other countries that you may come across, but these are the main ones to look out for. Most of them also offer a list of registered casinos, making it easy to find legitimate websites to play on.
Verifying your identity
Regulated casinos also come with a need to verify your identity, which can cause some complaints for players who just want to set up an account and start playing. Many players think that casinos are simply looking for an excuse to prolong your withdrawal process, but these regulations are in fact handed down directly from the licencing authorities.
Despite the extra time it takes, these measures are in place ultimately to protect both the players and the casinos themselves. Just as players have a right to protection and fairplay, casinos need to protect their assets against fraud. By verifying that players are who they claim to be, casinos can avoid fraud.
There are some casinos which offer Pay ‘n Play services from Trustly. Trustly is a company which stores players verified info, allowing casinos to more easily verify your identity.
At the end of the day
Your security is your responsibility, so do your research and play safe so you can have fun!