During the 1990s, when online gambling was in its infancy, it was an unregulated mess, to say the least. The same pretty much applied to all of the internet, because the entire world was suddenly connected and local/national laws that had previously governed the world, no longer applied. It was marshal law in effect and as a result, it was the golden age of scamming.
This was when the Nigerian 401 scams took hold, it was when hacking, spyware and viruses began to target home computers and users. For online gambling, it was like the Old West and this industry got a bad reputation that it struggled to overcome.
It managed to do so in time though and into the new millennium online gambling regulations, audits and industrywide standards changed the way that this industry worked and the way that it was policed. These days, legitimate sites outnumber the scam sites by over a thousand to one, and you’ll actually be hard pressed to find such a scam site. There are many reasons for this, all of which we will look at in this article, hopefully putting your mind at rest.
The Chaos
During the 90s, when scams flourished, it was easy to exploit the Google rankings. You just stuffed your site full of keywords and you were good to go. As a result, scam sites were able to stand alongside genuine sites. What’s more, review sites were rare and the ones that did exist, just weren’t used. The same goes for casino blacklists, scam warning message boards and more. These things just weren’t there and people chose a casino purely by its search ranking.
The likes of Microgaming, Playtech and other gaming giants were just getting their act together and they were competing with individual developers and make-shift developers. As a result, anyone could create or pretend to create and all gamblers believed that what they claimed to offer was actually there.
In these times, secure websites were only just becoming the norm and it was still common, believe it or not, for connections not to be secure. It was a breeding ground for scams, so it’s no surprise they flourished.
So, why isn’t it as common these days?
All sites are secure. It is difficult for scammers to make their connection secure because legitimate security providers are not interested in them.
All casinos need to be regulated and audited.
All legitimate sites use major software, such as Microgaming, who have no interest in working with scammers (and also charge more than scammers can afford).
Google requires more than keyword stuffing and it’s just not possible for scammers to shoot to the top of the search results straight away.
One search for these sites will produce results from message boards, scam lists, blacklists and review sites. If they don’t exist, they are too new to trust, if they do, then you should see a glut of warnings.
Legitimacy Pays More
Let’s play a game of hypotheticals here. Let’s suppose that a scam casino goes to the trouble of getting some legitimate software. Let’s suppose that it goes to the trouble of getting legitimate payment options and security software, and it goes to the trouble of paying for sponsored ads (although you should always base your choice on the top sites, not just the paid ones). And let’s suppose they go to the trouble of running a marketing campaign to get on the search engines and the review sites/message boards.
Wouldn’t it be perfectly poised to scam people then? Well yes, it would be. But by then they will have spent a small fortune, and they will never get that back through scamming. As soon as they scam a few people, the payment options, regulator and software provider will place a block on them, and that’s assuming they can even get a scam past the auditor.
And they would be stupid to do that, because the house always wins and that is especially true with online casinos. This is a money making machine and if you did everything you needed to do to run a legitimate casino and start generating all of that easy money, why would you blow that for a massive loss and a possible jail sentence?
The Safest Online Casinos
So, which trustworthy casino deserves your attention the most? For most Australians, Royal Vegas Casino gets the nod. This casino has been around for over a decade and it has attracted thousands of Aussie gamblers in that time, becoming one of the biggest online casinos in this country.
Royal Vegas Casino is regulated by the Malta Gaming Authority, it is audited by eCogra, it has all of the necessary security certificates and it has has a huge number of online reviews dating back many years.
There are many safe and secure online casinos out there and Royal Vegas Casino is by no means the only one. However, with a glut of bonuses, a loyalty program and much more thrown into the mix, Royal Vegas Casino has plenty more going on.