Making Sure Your Gaming Cash is Safe
Barely a day goes by without you hearing on the news or reading about another cybersecurity alert in the newspaper. Somewhere, a company is having its financial records breached, customers’ data is stolen – and the business loses thousands, if not millions, of pounds.
Hackers, cybercriminals, and thieves are everywhere, and it’s not just businesses that are under threat from these shady characters. Individuals and websites where payments are exchanged are sitting ducks. Gaming sites, where you spend money buying titles or play games to win cash online, are prime targets for these underhand criminals.
There are, however, some steps you can take to protect yourself online, especially if you frequently buy the best games online or visit online casinos regularly. Here are a few simple yet effective things you can do to ensure your gaming cash is safe.
Choose a Sensible Deposit Method
As you know, it’s easy to buy games online from platforms like Steam or the Microsoft Store, whether you’re buying a PC or console game. However, the best way to give you a little peace of mind when using real cash in your online gaming account is to use a secure deposit method.
Credit cards like Mastercard and Visa offer payment protection to customers, unlike debit cards. And payment portals such as PayPal or Revolut give you added protection, plus let you raise a complaint or concern if something goes wrong, looks suspicious, and starts alarm bells ringing.
PayPal’s app also incorporates your own fingerprint scanner to help verify that you are making the payment or requesting a withdrawal.
Check your Gaming Sites are Legit
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There are a lot of gaming and casino sites out there, but ensuring the online casinos you use are licensed and legitimate is paramount. A credible site like STS casino is licensed – if you scroll down to the bottom of the main page of your chosen casino site, you should find a logo or paragraph stating that the site is regulated and licensed under the United Kingdom Gambling Commission (UKGC) or similar. Check each site as you visit them to make sure and put your mind at rest.
If the site is licensed in this way, you can be sure that it has undergone the strictest financial tests to treat customer data and financial information safely.
For general gaming sites, it’s best to stick with trusted platforms such as Steam, Amazon, and official gaming sites like the PlayStation Store and xbox.com.
Check Your Connections
Charity begins at home, and so does your online security. So before you start depositing your hard-earned cash, you need to make sure that your PC, laptop, or mobile phone is secure and fully updated with the latest security measures – just to be on the safe side.
Check your internet security and firewalls regularly to make sure they are completely up to date. Clear your cookies and cache, too. You could also consider installing a VPN (a virtual private network), which protects your connection and stops hackers and cybercriminals from accessing your online private data.
When you are depositing cash into a casino site or even shopping on a site such as Amazon.com, you should also check to make sure that the icon that looks like a closed padlock can be seen in the address bar of your web browser. This icon means that the site you are visiting is legitimate and has a valid security certification and that your data is safe and protected.
Beware of Phishing Scams
Cybercriminals and scammers that operate online will stop at nothing to get their hands on your money, and phishing scams are used regularly to try and dupe unsuspecting consumers out of their cash.
Phishing scam attacks are carried out using emails to try and get your personal data, including passwords, pass-codes, and the like. These tricksters cleverly redirect unsuspecting consumers to a website that looks perfectly legitimate on the most part, but is fake, designed to relieve you of your cash!
When you receive an email you aren’t sure of, you must always check the sender’s email address. They will more than likely look a little odd and be completely different from any other emails you have received from the site previously.
Most internet security packages will pick these up and warn you that the email could be fraudulent, but the best advice is to not click any links that may be in the email, and if it looks a little strange, then it probably is and should be reported as a phishing scam.
Always log into whatever gaming site the email is supposedly from and double-check to see if there is a corresponding message there. This will help to protect your sensitive information, including payment information, from these online thieves.
Online gaming is fun and can be very lucrative (when it comes to casino games); if you play your cards right, excuse the pun. Just be careful and keep an eye out for tell-tale signs that you may be on the receiving end of a scam and that someone is trying to dupe you.