Many people enjoy a little bet on a sports match or gambling on a favorite casino game online. The world of online sports betting and gambling is a massive one and there can be huge amounts of money involved. Sadly, as with any industry, there are also unsafe sites, hacker targeting sites with poor security, and other problems. So how do you know if you are choosing a safe site?
The risks
The biggest risk when using an online site of any kind is that cyber criminals obtain your personal or banking information and use it fraudulently. Identity theft, phishing emails and inadvertently revealing information is a big problem across the internet and means we all need to be cautious with everything we do.
With gambling and sports betting sites, the risk is that you input information around your credit or debit card or bank details and if you don’t use a secure site, this information could be stolen and used for illegal purposes.
Finding safe sites
This means that if you are a sports enthusiast, make sure to pick secure betting websites but how do you know what is a safe site?
The first thing to do is make sure that the site is secure when you are using payment areas. This is easy to tell because there will be a little padlock on the address bar that will be green to show it is secure. This greatly reduces the risk that anyone could access your information. Also, look to see what the address is in that bar – it should start with https because the ‘s’ stands for ‘secure’ and shows that there is protection on the site.
When you set up an account with a site, make sure you use a secure password. There are lots of tools to create random passwords that are much safer than the ones we make up – because we tend to use words and numbers that are relevant to us and memorable. But sadly, thieves can now research our information and use software to guess these passwords.
Safe practices
There are other tips to help you stay safe while gambling online. For example, never share your login information with anyone – if they want to use the site, they should create their own account. Make sure you also have good antivirus software in use for any of your devices to protect you from attacks. Also, watch your bank statements for any transactions you don’t recognize and query them as soon as possible in case they are fraudulent.
