Trusting Online Casinos with Your Money.

Gambling has always been a popular activity in all parts of the world, from pachinko in Japan to the ever-popular casinos in the United States. With the advent of the internet, gambling has taken root in the virtual world as well with online casinos, which are growing in popularity among gamblers.

With gambling comes its inherent risks, however. There’s always the possibility of losing a bet and the money attached to it, even losing control and losing more bets than you can afford. However, there are other risks included with gambling: risks to the safety and security of our personal information.

We place a lot of trust in our casinos, from the time we hand the cashiers our money to when we cash out and fill out our name, address, and sensitive personal information necessary for tax purposes. Everybody, these days, especially in the United States, feels hesitation towards handing out their personal information out of fear of what the damage that can be done with such information.

Despite this, we still give the casinos this information, partly because we trust an established organization such as a casino – a big name in the public eye, not to utilize malicious tactics as identity fraud, and partly because casinos have proven themselves to be masters of security. Video surveillance monitors the slightest movements of any gambler at the casino, security personell patrol the casino grounds, ever-watchful for suspicious behavior. Casinos have their property under lockdown. Nothing slips by. They wouldn’t be so negligent as to let sensitive personal information be leaked.

But what about online casinos? Growing in popularity, can they be trusted with our personal information? Can they keep security up to par with their classy, high-end counterparts found in Las Vegas or Atlantic City? They do, after all, require the same sensitive information from us. This information, in a milder context, can be used to spam our e-mail inboxes with annoying spam mail. In more dangerous contexts, this information can be used intrusively to access our credit cards, even steal our social security numbers and thus, our identities.

With all this at stake, it is important for us to hold online casinos to the same scrutiny, if not higher, than their Las Vegas counterparts. Are their firewalls up to par? The best online casinos‘ security firewall should have no less than 128-bit SSL encryption. This would, at the very least, prevent hackers from easily accessing the database of players’ information and stealing credit-card numbers en masse.

But not all security concerns are third-party. We should also be weary of the validity of the site itself. While a physical casino costs millions to develop, and a lot of money and credibility is on the line, online casinos can be started up with a relatively small investment, and by nearly anyone. Read the privacy policy and terms of service to ensure everything you’re endorsing is legitimate. Most people aren’t in the habit of reading the terms and conditions they agree to, but taking the time to do so can prevent a world of trouble and distress.

Even if the site is legitimate and securely protected from hacking attempts, there will always still be concerns when someone’s handling your money. Make sure the online casino properly handles (and tracks) all monetary transactions. Make sure also that these financial ledgers are available to you. That way, if there is any discrepancy with your money, you can see exactly where it occurred and can prove it to the online casino, to ensure you’re entitled to the money you deserve.

The Sensationalism of Online Casino Gambling.

Ever wonder where that online casino you frequent is located? If you check, you'll likely find that its headquarters are stationed in Antigua and Barbuda, or various other places in the Caribbean. If you're in the United States, playing on offshore casinos might sound a little sketchy, and that's exactly how it's expressed through the U.S. government and global detractors against online casino gambling, with their frequent attempts at trying to shut down these establishments in the Caribbean.

However, online casino gambling is immensely popular, and is still growing. It's gathering momentum at an enormous rate, and much like a freight train going full-speed; it won't easily be stifled, even by these powerful attempts to stop it.

In one case, a panel was investigating the dispute against Antigua and Barbuda, but found that the United States was violating its own policies with Antigua and Barbuda. In 1981, when the country gained its own independence, the United States established financial institution with Antigua and Barbuda to support their effort to expand their economic base and standard of living. In more recent years, Antigua encountered heavy vulnerability from natural disasters and economic disruptions, and online casino gambling became one of its highest sources for economic stability. The United States, between its aid to Antigua for natural disasters, and the financial institution supporting Antigua's economic base, could not budge Antigua's online casino gambling industry.

But it's not just Antigua and Barbuda. Australia is looking to incorporate online casino gambling into its job industry in Tasmania, creating hundreds of jobs in the area which suffers from high levels of unemployment.

In France, online casino gambling is gaining more momentum than anywhere, which the European Union inadvertently encouraged. By restricting land-based casinos, but unable to restrict online casino gambling, they have forced any casino-loving French citizen exclusively to online casino gambling.

The Japanese government has recently recognized a campaign which aims at legalizing online casino gambling as well. This is no weak campaign, either, as it's supported by Japan's political party which is currently in power, the LDP (Liberal Democratic Party.) This is especially meaningful, as gambling is banned in Japan under the Criminal Code, chapter 23, which the LDP has also tried to overturn in a campaign to legalize casinos in major cities to encourage tourism.

Other parts of Asia are succumbing to the sensationalism of online casino gambling as well. China has a large potential for the industry, as the game of Mahjong is a large part of Chinese culture and history. Mahjong is a multiplayer game heavily based on gambling, in a similar style to poker, and has become offered at online casinos with increasing popularity. Nearly half of all Chinese citizens polled in a survey reported playing Mahjong for money on a regular basis.

And online casino gambling may be right around the corner for Israel, the country’s social and economic cabinet having just given permission for two horseracing tracks to be built, equipped of course with full-fledged betting. In order to make this work, the Israeli government will be obliged to lift its long-standing ban on sports gambling.

Online Casino Odds, Odd Indeed.

Online casinos are popular worldwide, and grow in popularity with more and more players playing each day. For those whose only access to a casino is an online casino, this is understandable; however, these online casinos are nowhere near as close to the real thing when it comes to simulation.

The simulations of the online casinos are simply incapable of representing the real-world environment in which the scenarios play out. In the case of craps, the online casino determines the roll of the dice by randomly generating a number. But this “randomness” doesn't encompass all the variables its real-world counterpart would experience.

For instance, different craps players utilize different rolling styles. Shaking the dice, hurling them upwards, casting them against the back wall, or merely shuffling them across the table, all different styles of rolling undergo a tremendously different pattern dictated by complex laws of physics. The online simulations simply can't mimic all these variables.

The online casinos can only utilize programs to generate a random number. The online casinos may not even be utilizing proper odds if this is all they're doing. For instance, the numbers 1 through 12 do not have equal chances of occurring in craps, so if there is a number generator at work which is randomly generating numbers between 1 and 12, then the game has fundamental flaws in the rules and odds of craps. It would be more accurate for the online casino to consider all possible combinations, and the probabilities of each, and then choose randomly from that set and those probabilities, but certain elements of real-world play and the elaborate environment in which the game is played are still absent.

What I’m about to tell you is true and happens more frequently that one would imagine. A tester recently played at an online casino (Craps) to monitor the number frequency in the field. In a test run by the player, 150 rolls were played in craps and the results were analyzed for inconsistencies– and inconsistencies there were. In one set of 150 rolls, 11 non-field rolls were consecutively given, and later in the same set, 12 more non-field rolls were consecutively given. This may not sound particularly interesting to someone who doesn't play craps, but anyone who knows the odds knows this is outstanding. In fact, the odds of 11 non-field numbers rolled consecutively is over 1 in 600, and 12 non-field rolls in a row is over 1 in 1000. Of course, that's the odds given ordinary probability, which this site obviously didn't utilize, as both were seen in the same set of 150 rolls.

This is just one analysis of the failed inner-workings of the simulations provided by online casinos. If you're interested in playing at online casinos, you may want to run similar experiments to verify the generators were written properly and the odds add up. Even then, you need to be weary of the environment you're playing in, because it's not the same as playing at a real-world casino.