When it comes to gambling, Australia is one of the countries that love doing it. In fact, Australian spend around 20 billion dollars each year on gambling. Their most favorite way to gamble is by playing with poker machines or pokies.

Now, whether it’s legal for online casinos and sportsbooks operators to locally operate in Australia or not can be a bit confusing because of the Interactive Gambling Act or IGA. The IGA came about to ensure that the negative impact or risks of gambling on Australians can be reduced.

Based on the IGA, online casino gaming is prohibited in Australia even if it is legally licensed offshore. However, there are still web-based gambling operations that are not found illegal based on the IGA. Online Slot machines or pokies, for example, are legal for local players. Since it’s the favorite of the locals, online pokies have quite a big market in the land down under.

The regulation of online gambling in Australia is executed at two levels. First is through the Federal Government. The second level is the regulation by the state and territory authorities. So basically, local territories still have the choice of what type of gambling they could legalize as long as it’s federally allowed.

With how popular gambling is in the country, it can’t be helped that many are still at risk when it comes to it. Since there’s really no law that prohibits Australians to place bets on offshore casinos, what the players can really do is to be cautious about what they do.

Here are some practices that ensure safe gambling whether you’re on a local online casino or not.

  • Check the security of a site

A secured site is fairly easy to spot. Most of the time, an online casino would even boast of how secured its website is. You can also check this by clicking the padlock icon on the address bar of Google Chrome when you log in on a website. It will display the site’s address and how many cookies the site use.

It’s also better if you choose to play on casino sites that use HTTPS instead of HTTP. This means that the exchanges you made on that website are all encrypted, and that’s always a good thing.

  • Check for license

A licensed online casino simply means that it was able to reach the requirement of the jurisdiction to be able to operate. Whether it’s local or offshore, it’s best to check whether the casino is licensed. Know that there are still many online casinos out there that operate without a license and that’s just extremely risky.

  • Read through online reviews outside the casino site of your choice

Before you even create an account on any casino site, make sure that you do your own research. Try to check websites that review online casinos and bookies. It’s also best to look for sites that allow customers or players to share their thoughts and opinions about a site.

This way, you can read real and honest reviews. Know that even if a site has negative reviews, you still should always weigh in how the experience of others is. At the end of the day, all services are not perfect and so one negative review shouldn’t scare you.

  • Choose the safest payment method for you

Once you’ve already created an account, that’s the time that you can finally make a deposit and play your favorite casino games. As much as possible, go for online casinos that offer payment options through digital wallets and currencies.

PayPal is one of the most commonly used digital wallets out there. Using this is additional protection for you as PayPal has their own policies that protect their users. Another option is using cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. This is commonly used for people who don’t want to share their banking details and other personal information to a vendor.

  • Make sure you really read the policies

If you’re guilty of immediately ticking the ‘agree in terms and agreements’ checkbox on most sites that you create an account with, this is something that you shouldn’t do with an online casino. Make sure that you read through the policies.

Know whether they require a minimum amount to be able to withdraw your winnings when you want to. Some online casinos are sometimes sneaky about this. Many players would only realize it late that they have to make more deposits or win more just so they can get their money.

Image by David Peterson