Knowing how to traverse the treacherous tides of the internet makes all the difference when you want to save your time, personal information, and money. The world wide web is an infamous place for the gullible and inexperienced users because scammers and hackers can be lurking behind every corner. This is a big problem, even bigger when you put one of the most lucrative industries in the mix. Sports betting has never been bigger and there are no signs it will ever slow down. Their partnerships and sponsorships with the biggest sports leagues and teams benefit both sides and it is the sports fans and bettors who reap the benefits as well.
In the 21st century you can easily find anything you want on the internet. However, this does not mean that everything is at it seems. If you are a sports fan who also likes to play an occasional bet, or a passionate diehard and an experienced bettor, the situation remains the same. You must know how to spot fake and unlicensed sportsbooks on the web if you mean to stay safe and protected. Luckily, this is not nearly as hard if you know what to do and in this article we will talk about exactly that. Keep reading to find out what to look for and be sure to check out sbobet to find out additional information.
Check for Licensing and Certification
The first and most obvious thing you must always do is check whether or not an online sports bookie has some kind of a license or a certificate on their website. These can usually be found at the very end of the page together with the rest of important and frequently asked info. Those who are legitimate proudly show it off together with the year they have started working, the address of their office, and all the contact information.
If they have won any awards or earned special certificates over the years, they will display they too. This is the easiest way to check if the sportsbook is unlicensed and fake. Now, some legit bookies may keep it in another section of the website, the ‘About Us’ or something similar. Do some research on their service until you find it. If you cannot, it may be better to move to the next one just in case this bookie is a scam of some sort. If they are fake, they will attempt to hide it by all means. On the contrary, if the sportsbook is legit, they will be proud of it and show it off to attract bettors.
Reviews and Ratings
Whenever you are unsure of the quality, legitimacy, or optimality of something that is present online, you can learn more about it by reading reviews and checking the ratings. A simple Google search is all it takes as it will immediately show you results in the form of first-hand experiences by people who came before you. Bettors who have already tried the sportsbook you are considering will have probably left either a positive or a negative review.
Whatever you can find is useful as it is a testimony of how the bettor in question found the service. If the reviews are good, you should have no problems registering and using their services. If they are largely negative, skip the bookie and look somewhere else. In an off chance of no reviews being available for a sportsbook, it could be a red flag. It is probably a new sportsbook that could be a fake. Regarding the ratings, they either come as numbers or stars. The higher they are, usually from 1 to 5 or 1 to 10, the better the chance it is a legitimate sports betting business. Ratings and reviews are also often combined, with first-hand experiences as reviews explaining the rating they gave the service.
Multiple Payment Options
Owning a large and diverse online platform requires strong servers, high security, and an optimal performance on all devices. This means that not everyone can do it properly. However, the most difficult thing to accomplish, or the trickiest, is offering the bettors multiple payment options. Their withdrawals after a winning ticket or deposits when they want to finance their betting need to available through many different mediums. Credit and debit cards are the most common, but they are hardly enough.
This is how most scammers and hackers steal away money and information from internet users. You will want a sportsbook that also has bank transfers, internet payment services like PayPal, and the latest trend which is cryptocurrency online banking with electronic wallets. When or if you come across a sportsbook that offers all of these, you can rest assured they are legit. It does not make much sense for the scammers to go through all of the trouble to open a fake casino. It is harder to mask their trail and to get away with anything when they have so many features available.
Amount of Sports, Leagues, and Bets
We must not forget the most important side of a sportsbook service, which is of course the betting itself. In order to properly do it the bookie has to offer the fans enough opportunities to make money. The odds will differ from bookie to bookie and make more or less sense based on the sport, the time of the season, and the condition of the teams.
However, the amount of sports you can place bets on, the national leagues, cups, and other tournaments you can play, and the types of bets to choose from give away a lot. The more diverse all of these are, the higher the chance they are legit and not a fake. Again, just like with the payment options, it takes a proper organization and a serious approach to include all of the biggest sports, let alone the lesser known ones that only a handful of nations play. If the bookie has the classics like football, basketball, tennis, F1, and fighting sports, but also cricket, American football, golf, and many other sporting disciplines, they cannot really be fake.
