Is Online Sports Betting Legal and Safe?
Betting is becoming increasingly popular worldwide, and the UK, which has the largest fully controlled market, is no exception. Even so, gaming still has a bad reputation for some reason, which we think is very unfair. Gambling is safe, fun, legal, and normal, so if you’re unsure about betting online, let’s eliminate a few myths and false beliefs.
Is it legal to bet online?
If you survive in the UK and are 18 or older, you can bet online as long as you visit the site from the UK. It’s that easy, and you don’t have to worry about anything, whether you want to bet on football or any other sport or play at an online casino or bingo site. There may be limits for people in other countries, but people in the UK can bet as much as they want, knowing that what they do is legal, controlled, and taxed by the government.
Is Online Betting and Gambling Safe?
Online betting is probably one of the better things you can do online for several reasons. Since November 2014, any gaming site that offers to people in Britain or lets them gamble online must have a license from the UK Gambling Commission. This is true no matter where the site is stored or where the company owns it.
The Gambling Act of 2005 made the Gambling Commission and gave it full power in 2007. It controls a wide range of gaming, including sports betting over the phone, online casinos, the National Lottery, bars, bingo halls, and just about every other kind of betting you can think of, including betting online.
The Gambling Commission is the world’s most well-known licensing and regulating body. In the past, many UK-facing sites may have been licensed by less strict bodies in Caribbean tax havens, but now the Gambling Commission regulates, monitors, and licenses almost every site a UK bettor can join.
All the sites we list here fall under this category, so you can be sure that your cash, personal details, and financial information are as secure as they may be when you bet on any of these sites. Also, the sites we recommend have good names, get few complaints given how many customers they have, and are ones we use ourselves.
These betting sites use top-level security software to keep your information safe, and some lock up player funds to protect returns. They all pay winners quickly, though. Many brands we feature have been around for 50 years or more, so they are well-known. You should feel just as safe and secure using their online services as you would using the websites of any big UK store.
How to Find Out if a Betting Site Is Licenced
It’s good to say that all bookies, casinos, betting sites and other gaming sites that require accepting British clients must be licensed by the UK gambling commission, but how do you verify that they’re following the rules? After all, a bookie could just say they have a license when they don’t.
It’s simple to determine if a site has the right license; just do a quick search in the licensing officials’ database. Just type in the name of the sportsbook you must know about, and it will tell you if they are licensed. For example, if you scan the database for “Coral,” you get the following results.
As well as checking the database by hand, it is the law that each bookmaker must give users their license number and a link to the page on the commission’s website where the information can be found. Most of the time, you’ll find these that the bottom of the page.
Can I complain about a website for online betting?
Fortunately, complaints aren’t more frequent given the laws that betting companies are required to follow and the fact that negative headlines can be quite damaging to the reputation of a bookmaker.
But as with any other transaction or circumstance involving customer service, things may go wrong for various reasons, including difficulties with the technology involved, occurrences that individuals have no control over, a simple misunderstanding, or a simple error.
In this predicament, the first step should be to report straight to the broker. You may do this by e-mail or using our live chat feature. There is a possibility that your issue may be resolved quickly and to your pleasure, but even if this is not the case, you still have a few choices available to you.