Online casinos became a reality in the mid 1990s only after a mechanism to conduct secure financial transactions was evolved. The level of security implemented by online casinos today with regard to financial transactions is considerably more sophisticated than in those initial days. Yet one of the biggest stumbling blocks in the more widespread wagering at online casinos is the concern over secure financial transactions. Two questions dominate. One is that if I give my credit card details to an online casino how can I be sure that a hacker will not get access to it. The other is that how can I be sure that funds remitted to online casinos will reach them and not be intercepted and diverted by hackers during transmission. This article addresses both these questions.

Players who remit funds to online casinos through credit cards necessarily have their credit card numbers stored on the server of the online casino. Other details like addresses and passport numbers or social security numbers are also stored on the server of the online casino. And there will be thousands of such entries. Therefore online casinos take steps to ensure that the servers are not accessible to third parties. Only a few designated senior employees of the online casino have the passwords and security clearance to access these servers. Detailed logs are automatically created of who has accessed the servers, when and for how long. These online casino personnel are accountable and can be called upon to explain why they accessed the servers. Even then the sensitive information is at best accessible to them in encrypted form and not in actual form. Online casinos also use firewalls to make their servers secure from unwanted access. Firewalls are devices that act as filters. They prevent unauthorized users from entering the servers but allow authorized users to go through.

Potential players at online casinos need to be assured that when they remit funds from their bank accounts or electronic wallets the funds will actually reach the online casinos. This is done through the use of secure transmission systems. The instructions to remit the payments are encrypted before being transmitted. When the encrypted message is received at the online casino it is decoded and only then the financial transaction is given effect. The security mechanism installed ensures that the decoders are available only with the recipient of the funds. If the transmission is intercepted, and this happens only in the rarest of rare cases, the interceptor will not be able to cash the funds because he does not have the decoder. Hence the funds may not reach the online casino, but they will be in the player’s account and at worst the player may have to try again. The encryption protocols used by online casinos are known as Secure Sockets Layer protocols. These are designed by experts and are regularly improved upon so as to increase the security level of the transactions.

Online casinos engage independent specialists to install, verify and audit their financial security systems and certify that everything is in order. Two of the most reputed independent agencies that assess the financial security at online casinos are Thawte and VeriSign. Certifications from these agencies are displayed at the online casino web site and this enhances the confidence reposed by the player in the online casino.