Are Online Slots Safe to Play? – Complete Check List to Know for Sure

If you ever wondered “are slots safe?”, just know it’s not simply an intellectual exercise. Many of us like to play the slots—and playing them online is fun and occasionally profitable.

The problem is that with landed-based casinos, you can see the machine you’re playing, sitting there nestled in amongst all those other identical machines. You don’t have to worry about some secret conspiracy to defraud slot players.

Online, however, who knows? That uncertainty might have been plausible in the olden days of steam-powered modems and kerosene-burning keyboards. These days, it takes a surprisingly large crew to keep an online casino operational.

Still, there is room for concern. I’ve developed a list of five questions you should get answered for any online casino you plan to patronize. Each of these questions highlights an area of potential weakness or risk.

Once you can answer each of the five questions below, you will have your answer to the main question: “Are slots safe to play online?”

Casinos That Are Safe to Play Slots

How We Rate

Safety & Security

You should be able to gamble online without fear. So we only recommend licensed sites that use the latest security and encryption techniques.

Bonuses

Maximize your bankroll with fantastic bonuses. Our recommended sites offer valuable bonuses with fair terms and conditions, including manageable wagering requirements.

Games & Betting

The best sites have the best wagering options. That’s why you will find extensive games and betting opportunities on our recommended sites.

Banking

Getting your money to and from your account shouldn’t be a hassle. We only recommend sites with a variety of convenient banking methods, including cryptocurrency and e-wallets.

When I say jurisdiction, I mean legal areas of control where the government can force enterprises to obtain a license before accepting a wager and where the government can tell online casinos what they may and may not do regarding their patrons.

To answer the question of are slot machines safe, it’s vital that you first know what jurisdiction (if any) oversees the operation of a selected online casino.

Virtually all online casinos are licensed by one political entity or another. In fact, if the casino is not licensed at all, run away!

But even if your selected casino is licensed, some of the entities doing that licensing are more lax than others in the regulatory side of the situation.

For example, Costa Rica licenses quite a few safe online casinos for gamblers, but the government of Costa Rica is not all that stringent about its regulations of same.

This means that while an online casino licensed by Costa Rica might very well be safe and legitimate, it is not because the Costa Rican iron fist of wagering regulation squeezing them into compliance.

So, the question “Is it safe to play slots online” would be less encouraging for a casino licensed in Costa Rica than it would be for a casino licensed in Gibraltar, for example.

Two of the most stringent licensing and regulatory entities are the United Kingdom and Malta. You can rest assured that any online casino with an actual license from either of these two governmental entities has jumped through far too many expensive hoops to risk that investment with rip-offs and scams.

If you want to learn more about the different online gambling laws around the world, including details on the jurisdictions where gambling sites are licensed and regulated, head to the page below.

Online casinos are not in the slot-building business but in the casino business. They leave the slot design to the experts. And the experts have a huge investment in equipment and manpower.

If a casino wanted to cheat its customers, finding a slots software developer willing to risk its reputation (and existence) on a scam would be incredibly difficult.

Most online casinos lease or license their slot games from a very small pool of legitimate developers. Some of those are giants, like RealTime Gaming and BetSoft. Others are small, growing contenders, like Dragon Gaming and Arrow’s Edge.

Incidentally, online casinos use other software besides their wagering and slot programs. Their front end (the graphics and functionality you as a patron encounter and use whenever you visit that casino. And the back end handles the actual gaming, wagering, banking, and data processing.

It doesn’t hurt to be aware of the advantages and shortcomings of all the various front and back-end operations of an online casino.

Check out our guide to online casino software developers to understand the basics of software and why it’s so important.

One of the best ways to discover the answer to “is it safe to play slots online” (at least regarding a specific online casino you want to patronize) is to check with the firms that audit that casino.

Auditing—checking the veracity and accuracy of all sorts of statistics, from RTP (Return To Player) percentages to adherence to bonus and payout promises—is an integral part of any business.

And—true to Hanlon’s Razor—while auditing can (and does) uncover shady dealings, it also finds errors that are owed more to sloppiness, laziness, or ignorance than bad intent.

Like the casino’s licensing and certifications, the logo of its various auditors should appear on the casino’s home page.

These companies make it their business to answer your question, “are online slots safe to play” honestly and without equivocation.

If you can’t find evidence of auditors, licensure, or certification (or if the evidence proves fake), then find another online casino.

You can check a site’s ratings and reviews page to know for sure if it’s audited and legit, or you can take my word that Ignition Casino is one of the safest casino to gamble on slots at.

Ignition offers a well diverse slots inventory, with progressive jackpots and other casino games. They have an exclusive welcome bonus of 300% up to $3,000.

But don’t let me drone on and one, see for yourself with our expert Ignition Casino review, then head there to sign up!

Remember secrets? Yeah, they used to be a thing long before Al Gore invented the Internet. These days, secrets are nonexistent, and the truth is… well, it’s out there.

But before you make that first deposit to play online slots for real money, be sure you’ve checked out what others are saying.

Where? Use your favorite search engine like Google, Bing, Yandex, or DuckDuckGo. The internet is the world’s largest lending library.

Unfortunately, it’s also the world’s biggest automat for rumors, lies, half-truths, bald-faced lies, and statistics. Did you know that 93.6% of all statistics are made up on the spot?

So, one or two bad opinions of a casino aren’t necessarily caused for alarm. It’s more concerning when you discover an entire thread of commentary about a casino’s shady dealings.

Incidentally, the answer to the question “are online slots safe” is always “no” if you have little or no self-control.

Be sure you are gambling with money you can afford to lose—regardless of whether your chosen casino is a brick and mortar building with flashy lights or an online casino with easy access and great deposit bonuses.

Playing slots online with a legitimate casino is relatively safe, but your financial, personal, and/or private data is of enough value that the information alone may be worth stealing. Be sure to check the online casino’s reputation for data integrity and privacy protection.

So, is it safe to play slots online? The real answer is different for every online casino you want to visit, but our blog below discusses the slot tips every beginner needs to know.

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You know the answer to this question. Whenever you’re dealing with financial matters, your primary concern should always be protecting your money, the integrity of the transaction, and the record-keeping.

A straightforward way to improve the sanctity of your dealings with online casinos is to ensure each casino permits or insists on you using 2FA (two-factor authentication) whenever signing on.

Of course, you should also use a virus and/or scam blocker on your PC, tablet, and mobile. Any time you contact the cyber world, the personal data you share is at risk.

Be sure to patronize only online casinos that use SSL (secure sockets layer). And change your password regularly.

If you’re like most people, you probably won’t heed this advice, but hey—don’t be most people and learn how to use 2FA when gambling.

Assuming that you like to play slots in the first place, your answer to “are online slots safe” should be a qualified “yes,” always dependent on your personal vetting of each casino.

If you’ve followed the advice in the preceding sections, you can be pretty certain that the online casino you’re patronizing is legitimate and safe.

And answering the question “are slots safe” about a particular online casino can’t help you feel more confident when you finally make that sign-up deposit and start hitting the SPIN button on your favorite online slot.

Does that mean you’ll win more? Alas, that question is above my pay grade. But win or lose, you can be assured that your wins and losses resulting from your own current luck status.

Now that you know the answer to are slot machines safe to play, you’ll want to develop a sound slot machine strategy. The post below can help with that.

Best Online Slot Machine Strategies

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Footnotes:

• Effectiviology discusses the philosophy behind Hanlon’s Razor.