Safe Poker Online
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Perhaps no consideration is more important to poker players when choosing an online poker site than safety. Given the huge amount of trust players must place in online poker sites when playing for real money, safety is rightfully a critical concern, but how are players meant to tell which sites place a high priority on safety and which sites are cutting corners?
Our experts only recommend the safest poker sites online for players. Our reviews are written by longtime experts in the industry to help players choose the one that suits them most appropriately. We monitor online poker forums and activities to ensure that any site with significant complaints or issues are confronted and removed from out list of recommended sites.
The following list is our most up-to-date ranking of the safest online poker options for American players.
The Safest United States Online Poker Site
Without any doubt, the safest online poker sites are the ones available to players in Nevada, New Jersey, Delaware, and Pennsylvania. These are regulated by state entities that have created extremely tough rules for operators to follow, including financial regulations that mandate the separation of player funds from operating money.
The primary sites upon which all skins operate are PartyPoker, PokerStars, and 888poker. All of these have extensive histories in the online poker business and are the most trusted sites in the world. They are the poker options available only to players in the states listed above.
As for the sites that we recommend to almost every state in America, all of them have security measures in place that have been proven solid. Ignition and Bovada have never suffered from complaints about the safety of player funds or the security of their data. Americas Cardroom has improved over the past few years to build its reputation and ensure that players feel the site is fair.
Needless to say, there are more than a handful of safe poker sites, not just one.
How Do Sites Protect You Against Cheating?
Most of the security measures taken by online poker operators happen behind the scenes. They ensure that player funds are safe, player data and account information are protected from hackers, and personal data will not be sold to third parties.
Sites take different measures, however, with regard to cheating. But in recent years, more operators have become more transparent and detailed in the prevention of cheating.
As operators have become more concerned about a fair playing environment and the desire to attract more recreational players, most have decided to be more vigilant with respect to cheating and bots. Players have also demanded it. This has prompted many sites to clarify and report their policies.
PartyPoker has been the most transparent in this regard. They have not only dedicated a section of their website to their “Fair Play” initiative, they put together a fraud detection team of former professional poker players to monitor the site for bots and other cheating tools. The team also investigates all reports of fraud or cheating, and they work together to implement technological tools that will automatically detect any unethical behavior.
Via social media and the site itself, PartyPoker is now very transparent about all cheating-related activity, including the number of bots detected and closed, and how much money is confiscated from those accounts and redistributed to players. In the first 12 months of doing this, the team closed 768 bots and refunded nearly $1.4 million to players.
Other sites have chosen to follow PartyPoker’s lead. PokerStars has become more transparent in its policies regarding cheating. Americas Cardroom attempted the same but has not been nearly as consistent as players hoped it would be.
This doesn’t mean the sites are not safe. They all work to prevent cheating so as to maintain their reputations in the poker community and keep a fair playing environment for all players. Some sites have simply taken a more public and proactive stance with regard to cheating than others.
How Can You Tell That the Games Are Fair?
One easy way to tell if a poker site ensures fair games is to look for its RNG (Random Number Generator) information. The software used for RNG must be cleared by any regulator issuing a license to an operator and is checked regularly. Sites also provide certification of the RNG.
All of the sites we recommend have provided RNG certification.
Another fairness test can be found in the privacy policy of a poker operator. All reputable poker sites use encryption methods to ensure the safety of player data. With more frequent hacking attempts and DDOS attacks on poker sites in the past several years, poker operators have upgraded their encryption methods. At one point, all sites used 128-bit SSL, but many increased that to 448-bit or 1024-bit RSA.
Employ Two-Factor Authentication for Your Accounts
No guide to the safest online poker sites would be complete without an appeal to players to take safety into their own hands. While players certainly can expect that rooms will provide them with a secure environment for online poker, a poker room can only do so much. If you’re not protecting your personal information on your end, then no amount of security in the world on the room’s end can offer you protection.
Given that money – often substantial sums – is in play, online poker accounts are especially attractive targets for hackers. As a result, anyone playing online poker for real money should use two-factor authentication whenever possible – certainly for the email attached to your poker site accounts, and certainly for the room itself if offered. While rooms play a part, the responsibility for a safe online poker experience is ultimately in the hands of the player, so make the smart bet and do everything in your power to secure your accounts before you play another hand.
I remember what happened a few years back.
There was news coming in that many poker websites were going bust and were seized or closed by the FBI.
FBI did so for various reasons and I also heard stories about accounts being frozen for many players who ended up losing their bankrolls and saved balances.
However, people still play online poker and the number keeps on increasing as it is an easy way to make fast money and the best part is that you can achieve all this from the comfort of your home.
You don’t have to go to a casino, the casino comes to you!
Also read: Online Poker Versus Live Games: Which Is Your Game?
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2018: Safer and better?
Are you feeling safe playing poker?
A few years have passed since the problem that a lot of poker sites faced and most of them have either gone out of the market or have been taken over by other larger poker sites.
The thumb rule to help you out is to see just how large the website is, technically the larger the website, the less chance it has of going bankrupt or being shut.
It is just like any business situation, a larger company is much harder to go down than a smaller company, the same situation applies for the poker websites, the larger they are, the safer they tend to be.
Normally the best poker sites are regulated by third parties and as part of the safety measure, they have to keep all the money deposited with them in a safe account which cannot be hacked or played with by others.
To keep online poker safe it is necessary to check out if the website is regulated, checked and verified by other third-party regulators.
Online Poker Safe
Smaller but not safer
The real issues come up when players decide to play at smaller, less known poker websites which don’t turn out to be as safe as expected.
The problem with the smaller websites is that like in the normal business scenario they do not enjoy the level of safety that large poker websites do and thus they still have a chance of going bust or bankrupt if things don’t go right for them.
Many of these smaller websites have gone into administration in the past because they were not making the profits required to continue doing business and trying to get your money back from these sites just becomes a tough task.
However, there still are quite a few players who would prefer to play at the smaller websites because they either provide better winnings or have players who are not as experienced as those in the larger rooms. The big payoff from these sites might not compare to the larger sites but you do have a better chance of winning.
Safety might be a big criterion but the reward taken from the risk could be something that would interest a few players.
So a simple thumb rule for anyone thinking about playing online poker on a website should look into these things;
- There should be a lot of players
- They should have been in the online poker business for a few years
- They should be audited and regulated by various third parties
These are the things that should be looked at to see if a poker is safe for online players.
You could still take a risk by playing on the smaller websites as they have fewer players who are experienced but that is a risk you are taking unless they fix the above criteria.
Programmed rigging, not always
Robots playing poker?
Another thing that people get worked up about is that when they are playing online poker, they don’t think it is safe since they believe that the program is rigged and it isn’t fair to them or other players.
This often comes out from the fact that they end up losing quite a few hands and the best thing to do is call the grapes sour.
A couple of things should be looked into this; firstly, like in any normal game of poker, unless you are really good at the game you will lose quite a few games.
Safe Online Poker Sites
You are not always playing against the same people online, unlike the times you play with your friends, so don’t think the website is not safe or that online poker is not safe.
There was an issue about a certain program being used which could help a player with software which could show him the other players’ cards, this was patched recently and that has stopped this kind of cheating.
The programs in the top websites are usually really reliable and are trustworthy.
Online poker is actually quite safe and most large websites can actually end up being safer than banks which have become bankrupt over the years. There should be a couple of things to remember about the runs that you have on websites, you may end up losing quite a few games and then end up thinking if the website is reliable and safe or not?
A safer online poker world
Safe Poker Site
We must understand that most of the larger websites have millions of $ being pumped into them in a year and if they do not ensure safety they could end up losing more than just a few players but they could end up losing the business.
It is their priority to make sure their online poker website is safe since it is a growing online phenomenon.
Just remember, larger sites are safer but are tougher to play in since they feature so many players and experienced ones at that.
Bet Online Safe Poker Site
The smaller ones might be ones that don’t seem as safe but they have a better payout as there are fewer experienced players.
Poker online, free
Online poker as a whole is safe and although you should not start an account with hundreds of $ from the get-go, you should slowly play and learn about the game before you start pumping the money in to win more.