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One of the most common questions with regards to online sports betting is “Am I using a safe bookie?”. In today’s article, we go over a few factors that make a good bookie.
Licensing & Regulations
One of the quickest ways to ensure the integrity of a sports book is to check if it’s licensed and regulated by a high authority site such as the MGA or UKGC. One can easily check a list of novel secure betting sites where one can find top-regulated bookies from the UK. Any genuine UK bookies must need a licence from the UKGC to operate. For the most part, this means that at the bottom of the site(this varies) operators will list the licence badge and number.
Sites generally want to showcase that they are indeed genuine and have an official licence badge. This is due to the fact that it showcases the bookie is willing to be transparent with its clients and goes to rigorous checks from the governing body to make sure it offers fair gameplay.
Generally, trustworthy bookies will hold one of the two licence authority sites mentioned earlier but there are several other gaming commissions operating too.
Good Reviews
Before even heading to the bookie one should always take a good peek at the reviews of said site. After all, the closest experience to the one you will probably go through is that of other players. If you find a lot of negativity surrounding said bookie it might be best to look the other way. On the contrary, if the site has a lot of positive reviews around it, the bookie of choice is clearly winning clients over and therefore doing something right.
Similar to client reviews one can make use of bookie review sites for in-depth comparisons of the best bookies. These review sites usually tend to only have the best bookies listed as well as all the payment methods they accept, games available to wager on as well as the variety of bets accepted.
The moral of the story is read the reviews!
Safety/Trustworthiness
These days browser technology has become insanely good at picking out phishing websites. If you use a well-known browser such as Google Chrome or Firefox before entering an unsecured or bad website the browsers usually block entry unless you manually approve going forward.
If the bookie of choice had no warning message when entering the site chances are it’s not a horrible site. Today most trusted bookies operate using SSL encryption on their sites. In order to tell whether or not the site uses SSL encryption just got to where the site link is, to the right of the URL one should see a locked padlock and HTTPS before the URL link of the site.
Additionally, the License is a strong suit to have as well as private licences from independent auditors and testimonials. A great indication of how well the site takes its security is if it allows its users Two-Factor Authentication.
Data is super important in today’s digital world and is in fact exactly why Facebook was being sued over the Analytica data scandal.
Customer Service Options
Customer service is a make or break for an online bookie. If the online bookie of choice has very limited customer service options it’s lost its chances of being the bookie of choice. Customer service, although rarely needed, is the wall of the industry. Any queries or issues you may have when betting will have to go through customer service if you would like those queries or issues resolved.
That’s exactly why sites offering live chat options rank higher in many people’s opinion. Live chat offers many benefits such as the ability to send screenshots of your issue in real time and not have to wait hours for a reply. Live chat allows for users to get their questions answered almost immediately depending on the busyness of the customer support team. It also speeds up the process with technical issues since you can describe everything at the moment and not several hours later when you can barely remember all the details of the issue.
Payment Methods
Payment methods are one of the main reasons online betting became so popular in the first place and addresses the first point… trustworthiness. Before the internet was a thing, it was still fresh and heavily unregulated leaving room for lots of scammers. Come to companies like Skrill and Paypal that ensure safe payments to and from users and companies as a third payment that can step in when something is not right. The gaming industry was quick to include several payment methods that make their users feel safe and a site with very few payment methods therefore should not really be trusted.
Conclusion
There are many factors that make an online bookie a safe one. Just like the Playstation 5 coming out in 2020 made huge headlines, online sites that do not take their customer’s safety and data safely, also make headlines. It’s safe to say this list will hopefully help out a few newbie bettors to have a little more trust in their bookie of choice and if not, at least know what to look for!
