Many people who don’t have much experience gambling online question whether or not it is safe to gamble at online casinos. Those of us that remember a time before Google and eBay still have a healthy fear of the Internet and its anonymity. Some people are still afraid of shopping or making any financial transaction online, afraid of having their identity stolen or being ripped off by a hacker.
Much of your safety – or lack thereof – comes down to the work you put in before you join an online gambling site. We recommend you commit to doing an hour or two of research when coming up with your shortlist of online gambling sites you think you want to join. Most casinos, poker sites, etc. Have similar games, bonuses and banking options.
Like any online business, there are safe and legitimate online casinos and there are casino sites that make money by ripping people off. The same is true for anything you can buy on the Internet: some sites use security encryption, others don’t. Some sites tell you about fees and other charges upfront, others don’t.
Online casinos have another factor working against them in the court of public opinion: depending on where you are in the world, some people will always be suspicious of gambling. These tend to be the same people who think slot machines are fixed or controlled by the casino to be hot or cold, the same people who recommend the Martingale system for fool-proof casino winnings. People already suspicious of gambling in general may look at gambling on the Internet and see red flags all over the place.
The truth is, there are plenty of safe online casinos. Many world governments regulate and run their own version of online casinos, while others are run by multinational companies with a long history in the gaming business. The biggest online casinos in Europe are those run by gambling firms that used to specialize in roadside betting shops, household names that are obviously safe by virtue of how long they’ve been accepting bets.
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What Are Safe Online Casinos?
A safe online casino is any casino site that does fair business with its customers, processes deposits and withdrawals in a timely manner, protects customer’s financial information, and has been tested and certified fair by a third-party auditor.
You can tell that an online casino is fair due to its certification of fairness by a third-party auditor such as Technical Systems Testing.
These auditors test the mathematics and software that a given online casino runs on and certifies it to be fair. The best and safest online casinos update this certification information multiple times a year, while a casino that isn’t so safe may never update their certification or even display it.
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The best way to know if an online casino is processing payments fairly is to read casino reviews and other material written by members of that site. Word gets around fast in the online gaming world, so when an online casino takes too long to process withdrawals or outright refuses to let a customer withdraw funds, sites dedicated to online casino reviews and news let their readers know about it. If you read a lot of reviews of a given casino that indicate they aren’t processing withdrawals quickly enough, you can assume that’s not a safe online casino.
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It’s important to understand what can happen if you open an account with an unsafe online casino.
The most obvious danger of signing up at an online casino that isn’t safe is the loss of your funds. It’s possible for a sham online casino to accept deposits and never make the money available to the client, completely ripping them off with a simple credit card form. But not all online casino safety problems are that obvious.
Established safe online casinos have a history of good business dealings to lean on, but some (not all) new online casinos don’t have this pedigree to prove they are safe. It’s not always easy to tell if an online casino will be selling your details to a third party or advertiser; this isn’t exactly a safety issue, but many view it as an invasion of privacy. Just remember that you’ll be handing lots of sensitive information to an online casino when you join, and that giving your banking details to an unsafe online casino can lead to identity theft or loss of funds.
How to Find a Safe Online Casino
Recognizing a safe online casino requires a few different skills. The first is simply the ability to know when something doesn’t look or feel right. If you have lots of Internet experience, you can see the signs of a ripoff: not enough content on a site, confusing details about registration and licensing, and little or no history of doing business with real customers.
When you’re evaluating an online casino, look for licensing and legal information.
The safest online casinos proudly display and announce what sort of gambling license they hold, along with certificates from companies that test and verify the fairness of casino games and random number generators. If a casino site doesn’t make this information easy to find, or lists contradictory information about their licensing and certification, you should assume it isn’t a safe online casino.
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If you don’t trust your instincts, there are a few things you can do to look into an online casino before you decide to do business with them. Online gambling is a huge industry, with millions of customers all over the world. Naturally, these customers started to post reviews of online casinos and participate in gambling forums and other websites to share their experiences in online gambling. Thanks to these reviews and note, you can avoid casinos that may not be safe simply by reading customer reviews about negative experiences. If you don’t think you can tell a rip-off from a legitimate online casino, your best bet is to study up on casino reviews online.
As of this writing, safe and legitimate online casinos still outnumber unsafe casinos. That’s thanks in part to the active online gambling community warning others about unsafe business practices. When you’re ready to try your hand at online gambling, it is important to do your homework and choose a safe online casino to gamble at. An hour’s worth of research into a casino’s practices now could save you hours of headache and hundreds of dollars in losses in the future.
Covering Gambling Laws In Australia, News And The Most Reputable Online Casinos, Poker And Sports Betting Sites That Accept Australian Players
This guide was created as a fact based and reliable resource for Australian gamblers seeking legally licensed online betting options. It is comprised of up to date information concerning the legalities and availability of Internet gambling for Australian residents, created by experienced industry consultants and analysts.
Is Online Gambling Legal In Australia?
There are a few key pieces of information we want to convey right off the bat. First of all, online gambling is perfectly legal in Australia. Our guide will focus on casino, poker and sportsbook gambling, though legal online lottery options and horse racing are also available to gamblers in Australia.
Secondly, we want to provide you with a listing of destinations that can legally accept Aussie punters. These have each been vetted by our team of professional gamblers, and are verified to hold legal licensing and subject to regulatory oversight by a jurisdiction that has legalized online gambling in their region. They all offer a high quality experience, sophisticated security protocols, and an efficient banking suite for processing your transactions. These sites are considered to be among the most trusted brands offering legal online gambling to Australian residents.
Online Casino And Pokie Options In Australia
In general, gambling is legal in Australia. The land based casino industry is regulated by the Casino Control Act of 2006, which provides oversight on how the casinos are allowed to operate. The law also provides guidance for the structure of state and territory gaming committees. The brick and mortar casinos in Australia are given the freedom to offer a wide selection of popular games, including the beloved pokie machines. Online casino gambling sites are permitted through the Interactive Gambling Act as long as they are associated with a land based casino, however they are not permitted to offer their services to local Aussie residents.
That being said, the IGA does not prohibit Australian players from participating in offshore online casinos as long as they are licensed and regulated outside of Australia's borders. So to summarize, you won't find any of the local brick and mortar casinos offering online real money games, but there are many reputable and legally licensed international casinos that gladly accept players from Australia. The sites we recommend below all fall into this category and are extremely reputable sites. We also have a page dedicated to legal Australian online casinos that goes into much more detail.
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Is Online Sports Betting Legal In Australia?
Sports betting is the one type of mainstream betting that is fully embraced in Australia. Not only is it perfectly legal to bet on sports as a resident, but it is also legal to operate an online sportsbook that caters to Australian gamblers. Therefor, Aussie sports fans have the option of betting at local Australian based sportsbooks or at legally sanctioned offshore sportsbooks. It is the best of both worlds.
We have compiled a listing of the industry's leading online sportsbooks that accept Australian bettors, and have personally vetted each brand for quality, security and legitimacy. They each hold legal licensing and are regulated by a legitimate jurisdiction. The section below outlines our criteria for selecting the brands that we recommend to our visitors, and what is required to make it into our guide. We also have a complete section for legal online sports betting in Australia that offers a lot more information regarding laws and how it all works for Aussie punters.
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Are Online Poker Sites Legal In Australia?
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Australia has produced some of the world's greatest poker players including Joe Hatchem, Billy Argygros and Gary Benson, both previous winners of the WSOP. Australia has also hosted some of the most prestigious poker tournaments, such as the Asian Pacific Poker Tour and the Aussie Millions. Pub poker is very popular throughout the country as well.
However, online poker is another story in the Land Down Under. It is not legal to operate an online poker site within Australia. The good news is that there are no restrictions regarding playing poker online as long as it is done at an online poker room that is located, licensed and regulated outside of Australia. The legal online poker restrictions in Australia are limited to operating an online poker site rather than participating in real money online poker gaming.
The online poker sites we have recommended all accept Australian players, and are legally licensed and regulated. Aussie poker players will not be violating the IGA by visiting or betting at any of these destinations. You can read our legal Australian online poker guide if you want to read more on exactly what laws come into play and how it all works.
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Gambling Laws In Australia
The long-standing law governing online gambling in Australia has been the Interactive Gambling Act of 2001, also known as the IGA. The original writing of the IGA failed to clarify the legal status of all facets of online gambling, with online sports betting being the only platform explicitly defined as legal. This left the online casino and poker sectors in a gray area, allowing offshore providers to service Aussie players. The law was directed towards the owner operator side of the gambling market.
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The IGA makes it illegal for anyone who owns and operates an online casino within Australia's borders to offer their services to local residents. It also prohibits the marketing and advertising of their services to local residents, with hefty fines in place for violators. Online gambling operators based inside the country's borders must only accept players from approved regions outside of Australia.
Now, a much-anticipated revision to the 2001 law has materialized in the form of the Interactive Gambling Amendment Bill 2016. The amendment has been successfully passed through all parts of the Commonwealth and is set to become law. The revised bill prohibits unlicensed international operators from servicing Aussie players. Unfortunately, the legislation fails to make provisions for how brands can acquire approval to enter the local market. The new IGA imposes a strict ban on iGaming providers and forced several big names like PokerStars and 888Poker to withdraw from Australia. Under the new law, online gambling becomes more difficult for local players. Anyone who gambles with an offshore brand is doing so at their own risk. These restrictions do not apply to online sports betting. It is legal to both own an online sportsbook and allow Australia's residents to place wagers. So as long as Aussie punters seek online casino and poker gambling at destinations based outside of the country, they are not at risk of violating any gambling laws in Australia.
How Do I Know if an Aussie Friendly Gambling Site is Legal and Safe?
Not every online gambling site that welcomes players from Australia is legally sanctioned, secure or high quality. It pays to be discerning when selecting the destination at which you intend to gamble online. To save you some time and effort, and to assist those who are newer to online gambling and may not know what to look for when vetting an Internet gambling destination, we have placed each of the brands we have included in this guide through an intense review process. We have very stringent requirements for inclusion in our guide, and we wanted you to see just how thorough we actually are. The following list is a small sampling of the elements of an online gambling site that we scrutinize to determine the value of an online gambling site to the industry. In order to be included in our guide, an online gambling site must possess these qualities:
- Legitimate licensing and regulatory oversight from a respected jurisdiction that has legalized online gambling for their region
- Compliance and fair gaming certifications resulting from third party audits
- Sophisticated security profile that includes advanced data encryption, firewall and anti-virus protection, fraud prevention technology and a technical staff to monitor these protocols
- A robust banking suite that offers multiple payment and withdrawal options, and supports multiple currencies including (AUD Australian Dollars)
- A competent, responsive and knowledgeable customer support team
- Comprehensive and reputable software solution for supporting their gambling infrastructure and services
- Industry leading features that demonstrate a commitment to providing their customers with the optimal online gambling experience
- Legitimate and generous bonus offers that are attainable and beneficial to players
- A reputation throughout the online gambling community for being a trusted betting destination that treats their customers exceptionally
There are actually many more elements of the businesses that we evaluate, but the list is far too lengthy to list in its entirety.
The Future of Online Gambling in Australia
The future does not currently look bright for online gambling in Australia. However, there is a chance for the new ban to be overturned. The Australian Senate’s Environment and Communications References Committee heard from local players, lawmakers and other stakeholders on the current state of online poker in the country. Arguments were presented on why legalized online poker is a much better option than the imposed ban on iGaming. The Committee is preparing a report detailing the findings of their inquiry into the current market and is expected to publish that report by September. If the report finds that legalized online poker is indeed the better option, the potential return of legal iGaming in Australia increases in likelihood.
Playing Responsibly
We are big advocates of responsible gambling. If anyone feels they are losing control or that gambling has become more than just entertainment, please visit the government problem gambling website for Australians and get some help.
Australia, one of the biggest gambling countries in the world, is set to become one of the …
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