5 Ways New Online Casinos Can Display Trustworthiness

Whether you are new to online iGaming or a seasoned pro like me who has been playing at them for years, if you’re currently looking for a brand-new site to join for the first time or just a change of scenery, there are several important tell-tale signs to look for in a trustworthy site.

Gambling websites, where you can place sports bets and play thousands of classic computer-generated online fruit machines, and table & cards like blackjack and roulette, are now more popular than ever, and the vast majority can be trusted.

However, there are a few bad apples out there, so you must always be careful. Over the years, I’ve discovered several important things to look for before signing up anywhere, which I believe everyone should know.

Five Ways Today’s Most Trusted Operators Can Display How Reputable They Are

When you next visit a site to check out your favourite titles, stop for a minute to think if the website is safe and if the owner can be trusted. Before I join anywhere, I specifically look for certain things.

Here are five ways the latest site operators can show me they are trustworthy:

1. Licensing and regulation – I like to know if a site is fully licensed and regulated to operate legally in my country and that it has obtained that license from the official governing body
2. Ownership and reputation – I also like to know that a site I’m about to join is controlled by a reputable operator with excellent standing in the industry. With new operators, it’s harder to tell but to obtain a license from a mid to top-tier licensing authority, they must be trustworthy because they will have been through a strict vetting process before being issued with a license
3. Website security – provided the website has passed my first two checks above, everything else should be fine. However, I also like to check if the website uses 128-bit or higher SSL (Secure Socket Layer) encryption to keep my details safe. If I visit the site via the app, before downloading and installing, I check the app is safe using my antivirus, and I will also carry out a couple of other simple checks, like clicking or tapping on the padlock icon in the address bar to see if the URL starts with “https://” and other basic website security that they use to protect me
4. Payment methods – If a website only accepts one payment method or ones I have never heard of, that’s a huge red flag for me. Therefore, before joining, I will go to the cashier section to see which payment methods they accept and, more importantly, if my preferred payment method is accepted. If not, I’ll try somewhere else. The most trusted online payment gateways I tend to use are Visa, PayPal, or Neteller. If I can’t use these for whatever reason, my backup methods tend to be Trustly, Apple Pay, Paysafe card or Skrill.
5. Games and software – similar to above, I will always check that the computer-generated fruits, table and cards, scratchies and other categories are supplied to the website by well-established, market-leading (and preferably industry-award-winning) software providers. If they have content from software providers and studios I’ve never heard of, I won’t sign up

These are the five golden rules I tend to abide by when I’m searching for somewhere new to play. Granted, finding information on new sites that have only just opened (say, less than a year or two old) isn’t as easy as finding info on much older sites that are ten or more years old.

However, I have found several globally renowned iGaming review sites that specifically spend countless hours searching for the best new casinos and then fully review them so that I don’t have to try and find out all this information myself.

All the sites they have suggested for me have been expertly reviewed using the same strict vetting process, and I’ve never encountered any problems on those sites.

What Other Things Make a Trustworthy Site?

I also take the time to see what kind of customer support methods they have, and I will even go as far as to try to launch the live chat feature to see how responsive they are. If the live chat, email, or telephone support is unresponsive, unfriendly, or unhelpful, it’s not a good sign.

In other words, you can find out about the true integrity of an operator by the level of customer service it provides. All of my favourite sites provide top-notch support.

As well as being licensed and regulated, I also like to know if the site is monitored by a third-party independent testing agency, like eCOGRA, iTech Labs, or TST, for example. It gives me an added piece of mind about how trustworthy the operator is.

Also, when they provide me with a range of safer gambling tools that help me stay in much better control of my spending. It helps me trust them even more, and then, if I like the website, its bonuses, and the software providers they have my favourite titles from, I generally sign up.