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It’s never easy for new players to choose a new legit online casino to sign up for. With so many different online gambling sites available to play on, it’s easy to underestimate how hard it can be to find a legit, trusted casino site. Luckily for you, we here at Citeulike have created this guide to help you find the best UK online casino sites in 2024. Whether you like to play online slots, online poker games, or live dealer games, you’ll find quality, legit online casinos in our elaborate lists.
The UK gambling market is one of the largest and most regulated markets globally, and the UK Gambling Commission is responsible for regulating all forms of gambling, including online casinos. The UKGC ensures that all operators in the UK market adhere to strict regulations and standards of conduct to ensure a safe and fair gambling experience for players.There are many legitimate online casino sites operating in the UK market, which offer a variety of casino games and features to attract and retain players. However, it’s important to conduct research and choose a casino that has a good reputation, operates transparently, and adheres to strict standards.
How to Identify Trusted & Legit Gambling Sites
One of the most common concerns amongst new players is: how do I know if I am playing at safe online casinos? When it comes to playing with real money casino games like online poker, these concerns are understandable and legitimate. How do we know if we are signing up for trusted online casino sites? Here’s a check we like to use when we review online casinos:
Approved gaming license
Real Money Games that are RNG-tested (random number generator)
Trusted payment methods for deposits and withdrawals
Great customer support
Good online reviews
Mobile apps for both Android and iOS
Programs and support for those with a gambling problem
Generous casino bonuses and promotions for both new and returning players
Top 5 Highly Rated Legit Casinos Worldwide
Want a quick reference to some of our top sites for gambling online? Here’s a list of 5 of the most highly rated legit online casinos for 2024:
Online Casino
Licence
Features
Neon Vegas
MGA/B2C/203/2011
Great online casino game selection with generous bonuses and promotions
Wild Fortune
MGA/B2C/394/2017
Highly rated with great selection of live casino games and free spin bonuses
Mr. Play Casino
MGA/CRP/148/2007
Wide range of the best online casino games and also includes a full sportsbook
FanDuel Casino
CA02, 007399
Great site to play online casino games with a full sports betting sportsbook and daily fantasy sports as well
Casumo Casino
MGA/CRP/217/2012
An award-winning site that is consistently mentioned amongst the top legitimate online casinos in the industry
How to Start Playing in Legitimate Online Casinos
It’s very easy to visit an online gambling site and enjoy a legal online gambling experience. Here are the exact steps you need to follow:
Visit your preferred online casino.
Create an account, making sure to provide the required data.
Log into your account and start making online gambling payments and deposits.
Pick any of the legit online blackjack, online slots, or live dealer games.
Start playing online.
By following the steps above, you’ll be able to play legitimate online blackjack for money and have an online casino legit experience.
Licenses of Legitimate Casino Online Sites
Are you wondering where casino operators receive their licenses to run their casino sites? While there is a long list of regulating bodies that hand out casino licenses, there are a few that are more common and more respected. Here is our list of the top jurisdictions where the most trusted online casinos receive their licenses to operate:
The Malta Gaming Authority
Malta is a small island that is south of Italy in the Mediterranean Sea. While the land mass is small, Malta’s impact on the global online gaming market is massive. Malta was the first country in the world to regulate online gaming. It also does not distinguish between online casinos and mobile casinos, eliminating a lot of red tape for online casino companies. With low taxes, the Malta Gaming Authority has issued licenses for approximately 10% of the world’s internet casinos.
Curacao Gaming Control Board
Curacao is an island in the Dutch Caribbean that is hope to tropical waters, beautiful coral reefs, and plenty of the world’s best online casino websites. Like Malta, Curacao has very low corporate taxes and an expedited process for casino sites to get licensed and regulated. Curacao is known as one of the easiest places in the world to get an iGaming license, plus it is a beautiful location to operate a company!
UK Gambling Commission
The United Kingdom isn’t often thought of as a place for top online casinos, but you might be surprised. The UK Gambling Commission is one of the top license issuers in the world, and was established thanks to the Gambling Act of 2005. Compared to Malta and Curacao, the UK Gambling Commission is considered much stricter and a license is well respected. Trusted online casino sites like William Hill, 888Casino, and Betfair all hold licenses from the UK Gambling Commission.
Isle of Man – Gambling Supervision Commission
The small island nation of Isle of Man has a high-level iGaming regulatory authority. In fact, this is one of the most respected iGaming authorities that regulate online gambling, in the entire world. There are many real money online casinos with a license issued by the GSC. There’s infrastructural support for iGaming as well as government support for the development in this industry. Moreover, the Commission works hard at preventing underage gambling and creating a safe online gambling environment for both players and legit casino sites.
Financial Services and Gaming Gibraltar
There are many online gambling and online sports betting brands that have been licensed in Gibraltar. Gibraltar is one of the iGaming safe havens. It’s estimated that over 12% of its workforce are employed on legal online gambling sites. That being said, this regulator has had somewhat of a bad reputation due to not getting involved in legal online casino gaming disputes between players and licensed online gambling sites.
Casino Testing and Regulation Authorities
When you are playing the best casino games, you want to make sure that you are playing on safe, legal online gaming sites. Obviously nobody wants to think that online casinos rigged the outcome of the games. So how can we be sure? There are several companies and bodies that regularly test casino games to make sure that you are playing on a legit gambling site. Here’s a few of the best ones.
eCogra
eCogra is a London-based online game tester that was established in 2003. As you can imagine, it works closely with the UK Gambling Commission to determine that a site is acting as a legitimate online casino.
iTech Labs
Being a leading brand in the field of accredited iGaming testing authorities, iTechLabs is the go-to testing agency for many of the biggest names in iGaming. Its guiding principles are meeting deadlines, quality, integrity, an set prices.
Gaming Labs International
Gaming Labs International or GLI offers testing services for both online casinos and brick and mortar casinos. It has its headquarters based out of New Jersey.
Eclipse Compliance Testing
This is another auditor that has been accredited to perform tests on online casinos by the Isle of Man’s Gambling Supervision Commission.
Safety and Security of Legit Online Casinos
Nothing is more important to us than for you to understand how safe the top casino sites that we recommend are. Just because a site offers popular casino games, it doesn’t necessarily make it a safe online casino. We here at Citeulike are determined to find you the best casinos and casino apps that you can feel 100% safe to play on.
Top Licensed Online Casino Software
There are several top-ranking software providers that offer their products in many online casinos and online betting sites. That being said, some of the biggest licensed software providers in iGaming are:
Microgaming,
NetEnt,
Evolution Gaming,
Play’n Go,
Yggdrasil,
Endorphina,
Red Tiger Gaming.
These companies have created thousands of products and solutions that casino online sites use. They also have a gambling license that shows they provide legit and safe casino online experiences at legal sites for players, which are, above all else, fair.
Legit Online Casino Games
Are you curious as to what are considered the best casino games to play online? Here’s our list of the top legit online casino games for 2024:
Online slots are some of the most popular games played at the best legit online casino sites. That being said, it’s important for slots to be regularly tested by independent testing agencies so as to ascertain that they are safe and fair to play. Below you’ll find our table on the most popular legit online casino slots.
Name
Software
RTP
Licensed
Starburst
NetEnt
96.01%
Yes
The Slotfather
Betsoft
95%
Yes
Mega Moolah
Microgaming
88.12%
Yes
Book of 99
Relax Gaming
99%
Yes
Book of Dead
Playn’ Go
96.27%
Yes
Legit Online Casino Payment Methods
Are you ready to sign up and play at one of our recommended real money online casinos? Well, first things first: you’ll need to deposit funds to your account. For all online real money casinos, one of the most important factors is offering players popular payment methods. Here is a list of some of our favorite ways to deposit and withdraw funds from your account.
Credit Cards – Credit cards like Visa or Mastercard are some of the most widely accepted payment methods in the world. If you can’t use a credit card to deposit funds, you might want to find another online casino.
Bank Transfer – The best online casinos will all accept direct deposits from your bank account. Whether this is done through a bank wire transfer or through a third-party application, this is one of the easiest ways to deposit fund into your account.
PayPal – With over 426 million global users, PayPal is one of the world’s leading money transfer platforms. PayPal is a hassle-free way of both depositing and withdrawing from your online casino account.
Cryptocurrencies – Definitely a newer addition to the online casino industry. Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum have become popular ways to deposit and withdraw funds. Why? The transactions are typically free and are instant.
Tips to Play at Legit Online Gambling Sites
So what have we learned in this article? We’ve provided you with vital information on how to choose the best legit online casinos. Here’s a review of some of our best tips for playing at legit online casinos.
How do you ensure that online casinos legit? Make sure that they have proper licensing from a regulating body like the Malta Gaming Authority or the UK Gambling Commission.
Choose a casino site that has its games properly tested for legitimacy.
Find a site that offers a wide range of payment methods including credit cards, PayPal, and cryptocurrencies.
Look for a wide range of the best casino games.
Find a site that offers a mobile app as well.
Make sure that the casino site you choose has great customer support.
Read some online reviews to see how current players feel about the site.
Legality of Online Casinos in the USA
The USA has some of the oldest, most beautiful land-based casinos in the entire world. The iGaming landscape in the USA is, however, a bit more complicated.
Making things even more complex is the fact that the individual states now have the power to pass their own online gambling legislation. The main goal of the industry, until recently, was set on the online sports betting sector. However, the fact remains that online gambling can turn out to be a much more lucrative industry – so the goal in the USA right now seems to be creating a safe, legalized online casino gaming landscape where players can legally gamble online without legal repercussions.
So, every state has its own gambling regulatory authority. If anyone wishes to create and run an establishment where people can play casino games or do some betting, then they will need to apply for an online casino site license. In many of the states, the number of licenses that can be issued to real money gambling sites is strictly regulated and limited.
Some of the US-based regulatory authorities are:
Massachusetts Gaming Commission,
Gaming Control Unit of Maine,
Florida Gaming Control Commision,
Delaware Division of Gaming Enforcement.
Even though land-based casino gambling is legal in many of the United States, there are several states where it’s illegal to fund gambling accounts online. There’s currently no federal law that prohibits online gambling, though, so regulating legal online gambling falls in the domain of the individual states.
That being said, back in 2006, former President George Bush had signed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act. This forbade legal iGaming sites from operating and players could no longer be playing online. The turning point was when the Department of Justice had published a revised opinion on the Federal Wire Act. The opinion stated the act only pertained to sports betting. So, this gave states legal powers to enact their own laws regarding online gambling sites.
US States with Legal Gambling
There are 6 states in the USA where online gambling is legal:
Delaware,
Michigan,
New Jersey,
Connecticut,
Pennsylvania,
West Virginia.
There are also states where legislation has been proposed. It’s estimated that New York will be most likely to legalize online casino gaming in the near future.
It’s also important to note that there are many states that don’t feature any regulation for online casino players and legit gambling sites. This is where off-shore casinos can operate – however, they’re not regulated in any way by the states, as they are not completely legitimate online casinos.
Responsible Gambling in a Nutshell
The reality is, anyone can find themselves addicted to gambling, especially when it is so accessible on the internet. Even if these sites folllow all of the online gambling laws, players can still find themselves spiraling out of control. Here are a list of organisations that help gamers deal with Responsible Gambling:
Now that you’ve read our guide to legit online casinos, you should have all of the information you need to sign up for a new account. In this article, you’ve learned how to determine if online casinos safe and what to look for when choosing a site to play real money casino games on. With so many different choices of safe online gambling sites, it’s never an easy decision to make. We hope that with this guide, making that decision has been made to be a little easier.
FAQs
If you’re playing at a legitimate casino, then you can make online bank transfers and play legally. However, it’s important to note that there are unlicensed rogue iGaming sites where you may get scammed if you aren’t careful.
Yes, there are many online casinos that are legal. You can legally play many games there, such as legal online poker, slots, blackjack, and others.
Yes! There are plenty of legit online casinos that are fully licensed and regulated and offer a wide variety of casino games.
Absolutely! Fully licensed legit online casinos have to abide by the rules and regulations of the authority that issued the license.
Yes, online gambling is legal in the UK, according to the Gambling Act of 2005. This law regulates online casino sites and gaming processes in general to ensure user safety.
You can use a VPN to gamble online, but be warned that you may have serious problems when attempting to withdraw funds as you will need to verify your address. So, many casinos have T&Cs that prohibit the use of VPNs for online gambling.
Yes, online slots made by renowned developers like NetEnt and Microgaming are rigorously tested by independent testing agencies – and they’ve been shown to be legit.
Every casino that’s has a valid license and that’s secure and fair towards its visitors is legit.
Yes, Spin Palace is licensed by the Malta Gaming Authority and it’s a legitimate site.
PlayAmo is licensed by the Curacao Gaming Control Board and it’s a legit gambling site.
22Bet is licensed by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission – and it too is a legit gambling site.
Emily Campbell (professional name) is our go-to person, and she has served as our Chief Editor since 2018. Educated at Newcastle University, Emily has worked in the marketing industry across the UK, helping various companies to gain traction and to build up quality, value-driven information aimed at readers.
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