Pictured above – ‘A Night With Cleo’.
Many online gambling sites carry the newer games you would find at a traditional casino.
When you are playing at online casinos, you always want to balance the exhilaration of taking a risk against the cost of a high house edge. For this reason, we often talk about gambles you should avoid, like the tie bet in baccarat or the insurance bet in blackjack.
But never mind the bets with the highest house edges—what about the wagers you might be taking while gambling online that you do not need to take at all?
The only gambles you should be taking while playing online are the ones you take willingly—the money you wager on a slot machine spin, or the stake you put down at the poker table.
Nevertheless, a lot of gamblers take completely unnecessary risks everyday online. They risk losing their money not because they have gambled on red or black, but because they have gambled on the quality of the betting site or their understanding of the rules.
But if you just do a little research, you can avoid those needless risk altogether. Below are 11 bets you never have to make while gambling online. Save your money for the games instead of losing it through unnecessary risks.
1. That your online casino is safe and trustworthy.
Every day, gamblers type questions into Google like, “Is X Casino Safe?” or “Is Y Casino Trustworthy?” or “Is Z Casino Legit?”
These are important questions to ask before you deposit your money on gambling sites. But it is amazing how many gamblers are willing to stop at a cursory search and just take a shot in the dark without really knowing for sure that they have made a good choice.
This is especially prevalent nowadays with bitcoin casinos, which often have vague or no background or company information available.
But you do not have to take unnecessary chances with casino safety. You just need to be willing to do a little extra legwork to check on a site’s reputation.
That is why we have published guides like Quick Way To Evaluate Online Casinos Legitness, 8 Tips to Stay Safe, Secure, and Profitable When Gambling at Online Casinos With Crypto and Red Flags and Warnings Signs of Scam Bitcoin Casinos to help you evaluate sites thoroughly and answer any questions about them you might have.
It is also why we publish reviews on the few casinos online that meet our rigorous qualification criteria for recommendation.
Gambling online does not have to be inherently any more risky than gambling in a land-based venue. Wager on the games you play, not the site you play them on.
2. That your deposits will be transferred safely and expediently into your account.
Just as you do not need to bet on whether you can trust the online casino where you are gambling, you also do not need to bet on whether your money will arrive safely in your casino account. There are plenty of reliable and convenient deposit methods to use for online gambling nowadays, so there is no reason to take unnecessary risks with payment providers who do not trust.
3. That your withdrawals likewise will be processed safely and efficiently.
This holds true for withdrawals as well. You should not need to worry about whether your withdrawal will reach its destination (your e-wallet or bank account, most likely). Pick a withdrawal method which you can trust and a casino site which you can as well, and you should be able to rest easy knowing that your money will arrive in full and on time.
4. That you will be able to withdraw your bonus.
A bonus will almost always have a set of rules attached to it. Make sure you know what they are.
You may have encountered situations in the past where you went to withdraw a bonus only to discover that you couldn’t. When you asked why, you might have been told something about rollover requirements, or you might have been told that the bonus is simply ineligible to be withdrawn. Or you might have found that it was deducted from your withdrawal amount, and has since disappeared.
Since then, you may feel like anytime you accept a bonus, you are taking a chance with whether you can withdraw it or not. But all you need to do is look at the bonus policies in question and read them very carefully. You should always be able to find out in advance whether you can withdraw the bonus or not.
5. That you will be able to withdraw your winnings.
Even more alarming is the concern that you will not be able to withdraw your winnings, and are taking a gamble simply by depositing money into your account and playing on one site instead of another.
This is not the same thing as worrying that a withdrawal may not reach its destination. Instead, the concern is that the site will refuse to process the withdrawal altogether.
There are two main reasons why this might happen. The first is that you are playing on untrustworthy site that intends to rob you blind. This is avoidable, as previously discussed.
The second is that your winnings are tied up due to a bonus rollover requirement. Some sites don’t just lock the bonus up until those requirements are met; they also tie up any money you have won with the bonus.
The way to avoid taking this gamble is to again read the bonus terms carefully and completely. Doing so, you should be able to find out whether or not accepting a bonus could cause problems trying to withdraw your winnings.
If you do discover that the rollover requirements for a bonus could stand in the way of withdrawing your funds and that is something you do not want to deal with, simply reject the bonus offer. There should be no more surprises ever again if you always take the time to review the bonus terms in full.
6. That your money and personal information will be safe in your casino account.
This is both a matter of basic trust in the site you are gambling on and an issue of security protocols. No website you gamble on should be gambling with your security in turn however, so if you are playing on a reputable site, it should be easy for you to find information on encryption used to secure your account and funds as well as other measures taken to protect your data.
If you do not find this information on the site itself, you can contact customer service and ask one of the representatives for details. Once you know what is being done to keep your information safe, you can rest easy knowing your account is protected.
7. That the games you are playing are fair.
You can get more information about ‘Provably Fair’ here.
Online gamblers pose a lot of questions about the fairness of games. After all, there is something solid and reassuring about stepping inside a land-based casino and playing on slot machines you can actually touch and see. For some reason, we have a harder time trusting images on a computer screen.
This bias does not really have anything in the way of a rational basis however. Random number generators are now used both online and offline to determine who wins a round at a slot machine or other chance-based game.
Do some casinos cheat? Sure, but this is not something you are going to encounter with reputable ones. It is a lot less common than you might assume. You can also look for casinos which feature games from popular software providers that you trust.
Additionally, with crypto casinos, you can check for the “Provably Fair” seal. If you see it, you can use Provably Fair technology to personally confirm to yourself that the games you are playing are fair.
8. That the site or software will not malfunction while you are playing.
Sometimes gamblers worry that the casino sites they are using will crash or there will be glitches in the software powering the games which will cost them money. While neither of these are impossible, they are unlikely if you are gambling on reliable casino sites.
That being said, what is more likely by far is actually that your own connection or device might crash at some point while you are playing. You do not need to take any gambles here either, though. You can have a second device ready to go if your main device crashes, and you can even have a backup connection at the ready if you gamble a lot.
While a backup connection may seem like overkill for most players, it is something I would definitely recommend if you are gambling professionally (or working toward that goal).
9.That customer service will be there when you need it.
Do you feel like it is essentially a roll of the dice whether you will get someone helpful and knowledgeable when you contact online casino customer service or whether you will get somebody who doesn’t have a clue what they are doing?
This can certainly happen; a lot of sites are hit-and-miss when it comes to customer support. But that is not true universally. There are some superb exceptions out there.
Before you join an online casino, take a few minutes to talk to customer service via live chat. Then pick up the phone and call and ask another question. Check back in a few hours later and do it again. See how consistent your experiences with the support team are.
Is there always a chance you could have a bad experience with customer service in the future even if you have only had good ones now? Sure—there is no way to be 100% positive that customer service will perform up to par every time. That is always the case when there is a human element.
But if you take the time to test customer service out yourself, you can certainly feel a lot more confident that you will have good experiences going forward. If nothing else, it is far less of a gamble than going in blind.
10. That your winnings will retain the same value over time.
Different crypotocurrencies values do change over time. Make sure to keep track of their standings.
Another gamble which casino customers may unwittingly take involves cryptocurrencies. They withdraw their winnings to their crypto accounts and then simply leave them there, trusting that when they check on them again, their balance will still be the same.
Measured in cryptocurrency units, it will be of course. But these players may not realize that they are taking quite a gamble on the value of those funds as measured in their principle fiat currency. If you left bitcoin winnings sitting in your account from last year for example, right now their value in US Dollars or other fiat currencies is significantly reduced.
This does not mean you should not play using cryptocurrencies—just that you should be aware that cryptocurrency values undergo extreme fluctuations in value. If that isn’t a gamble you want to take, just convert your winnings to your fiat currency right away.
11. That you understand bonus or account abuse rules.
Finally, if you bypassed reading the rules before you accepted the terms and conditions to use a gambling website, you are taking a risk, even if you do not realize it.
Casino customers online regularly break rules unintentionally. They may commit bonus abuse without knowing it, or they might accidentally open two household accounts when only one is permitted. Actions like these can result in account closure, even if the rule violation was accidental.
It is just not worth it to take that risk, so make sure that you fully read the terms of use before you check that box and open your account. That way you will not gamble with the future of your account.
Conclusion: Gamble on Casino Games, Not On Websites and Services
When you gamble online, you want to feel the thrill of uncertainty as you watch the reels on the slot machine spin, wondering if this could be your lucky moment. You do not want to be holding your breath wondering if you will ever get to cash out your winnings or if the games you are playing are fair.
Take care that you are not taking unnecessary gambles. Usually when online gamblers lose money because something has gone wrong with bonuses, withdrawals, disreputable sites, or so on, it is because they did not take adequate time to do their homework before they started playing.
On our site, you can learn everything you need to know to get started gambling safely on fair, trusted casino websites. Take a look at our reviews, and check out our blog posts for advice for depositing and withdrawing money, accepting and using bonuses profitably, and managing your account.
Armed with our recommendations and information, you do not need to gamble on the safety of online casinos. Instead, you can enjoy peace of mind knowing your funds are protected and the games you are playing are fair—and you can save your luck for the slots and table games!
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