You only need to look at the official figures from the UK Gambling Commission to see that online gambling is a booming sector.
It is now worth £6.9 billion a year, surpassing land-based activity, which recorded gross sales of £4.6 billion in the period between April 2023 and March 2024.
The real stars of the show are the online casinos, which are responsible for £4.4 billion in revenue. Looking even deeper, slots are the biggest contributor to this total at £3.6 billion. Even if the number of players is never announced by the operators themselves, it is almost certain that they will also increase. Adam Volz from Casino.org has done his research on the best UK online casinos and found that the highest payout rate is 98.76%, which goes a long way to explaining why they are the most popular type of casino games.
The search for security
It’s a sad fact of life that whenever money is involved, someone somewhere is trying to get it through underhanded means. This is obviously very relevant for online casinos. It is their nature to constantly accept payments and distribute profits. They may also have a significant amount of their players’ personal data.
Therefore, anyone planning to play on them needs to know that both their money and their identity will be kept safe. As part of the requirements of their license issued by the Gambling Commission, online casinos must demonstrate that they are secure and have measures in place to prevent another one of the countless cybercrime attacks that well-known companies constantly report.
Players also need to know that the online casinos themselves are trustworthy. For example, do they have the financial reserves to pay out winnings and are the games themselves played fairly? Therefore, they have taken a number of measures.
The steps casinos take
In fact, there are four key areas that online casino operators focus on to ensure their players can fully trust them.
Player ID and verification
The first of these is to make sure they know exactly who is playing on their site. So when someone registers to play, they must clearly identify themselves. This generally includes proof of name and home address so that casinos can verify that the person is who they say they are.
Site encryption
This protects not only the player’s personal information, but all systems of the online casino from malicious outsiders. It does this by scrambling the data in a way that would take thousands of years to exhaust all the permutations and crack the code. Here, too, a minimum level of encryption is stipulated in the license regulations, but this is clearly exceeded by many casinos. Everyone should also indicate on their website the exact level of encryption in place or be able to provide information upon request.
Trusted third parties
Every online casino has many points of contact with external providers. All of this represents a potential weak link if not chosen carefully. For example, the best online casinos only use games provided by highly respected developers who also have a good reputation.
More importantly, they need to work with a variety of payment providers as more and more players use digital wallets such as PayPal, Neteller and Skrill instead of the more traditional banking methods. To ensure that the random number generators that run all online games are truly random, they also need a trusted third-party auditor to check them regularly.
The advantages and challenges for casinos
It goes without saying that online casinos offer many advantages that meet all of these requirements. Not only will they be the ones that consistently receive five-star reviews, but they will also attract new players. In addition, they can be completely confident that their operating licenses are secure.
The biggest challenge with compliance is cost. Running a safe, regulated casino will inevitably cost more with everything in place. This will inevitably affect the bottom line. However, it should also lead to attracting more players.
Looking into the future
Advanced technology, for example the rise of AI, is likely to help online casinos be even more secure and compliant in the future. The proposed introduction of digital ID cards in the UK will also make it even easier for them to confirm that players are who they say they are.
This will all help the best casinos thrive, even in the very competitive environment in which they find themselves. Most importantly, it will allow UK players to feel safer than ever before.
