How Online Casinos Secure Financial Transactions

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The crux of online casinos lies in transferring funds to the casino for wagering and withdrawing the winnings. If these transactions cannot be done securely then online casinos would not function. However the fact is that online casinos have been growing rapidly since their introduction in the mid-1990s. Airline tickets, hotel reservations and several other purchases are being made online. Yet new players have a fear that their funds will get stolen or hijacked if they wager online. This article aims to allay their fears by explaining how online casinos make financial transactions absolutely secure.

There are two aspects in connection with securing financial transactions at online casinos. The first is to ensure that sensitive information in connection with these transactions is secure while stored in the online casinos servers. The second aspect is to ensure that the instruction for transferring funds cannot be intercepted and misused by a third-party.

Players who make payments through credit cards have their credit card numbers stored on the server of the online casino. Therefore online casinos ensure that hackers are unable to access the servers. Online casinos adopt a twofold strategy for this. Only a few of the senior most employees have the passwords to access these servers. Even then every log in entry of theirs is recorded so that a complete trace is available of who accessed the server and when and for how long. The second method adopted to make the servers secure is the use of firewalls. Firewalls are a combination of hardware and software devices that prevent unauthorized users from entering the servers. Though they have the same objective as passwords they function differently and set up a second line of defense against hackers.

The larger problem is when instructions to deposit or withdraw funds are being sent over the Internet. There can be no restriction imposed on who uses the Internet and it is possible for unscrupulous persons to intercept these instructions. However these instructions are sent in a coded form and only the intended receiver of the instructions has the facility to decode them. Therefore even if any third-party intercepts these instructions they will appear as scrambled characters on his computer. The encryption protocols are designed by experts and are known as Secure Sockets Layer protocols. These are regularly improved upon so as to increase the security level of the transactions. Online casinos keep on upgrading the Secure Sockets Layer protocols as and when latest versions are available.

Online casinos do not depend on their own assessment of the level of security that they employ. They engage independent specialists to audit their financial security systems and certify that everything is in order. This not only gives the online casino management greater confidence but the players feel more confident wagering at certified casinos as well. Two of the most reputed independent agencies that assess the financial security at online casinos are Thawte and Verisign. Online casinos that have engaged one of these two agencies usually have the seal of the agency displayed at the lobby of the online casino so as to inform players that the financial security systems have been audited and certified.

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