There have been many years since the first online casino made its appearance on the web. Now there are thousands of them on the internet, each with its own design, games, offers and so on.

With this virtual cornucopia it can become hard at times to make a decision where to stop and take your mouse away from your browser address bar. Most of all it’s very confusing as to which casinos are safe and reputable, and which are not. So we have a few tips on how to choose, finishing with our own suggestions.

The first thing you have to look for is if the casino is licensed. While a lot of online casinos really are licensed, a substantial number of them are not. There are many unlicensed and illegal gambling casinos which are scam operations out to take your money. You should be very careful and avoid these casinos. Sometimes it’s also important where the casino is licensed as well. If it’s licensed in Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Gibraltar, Kahnawake, Netherlands Antilles, United Kingdom and the West Indies, then we recommend it. But if it’s licensed somewhere like Eastern Europe… well, not so much; you should approach it with extreme caution.

Professional recognition is a key factor. The online casino has to be officially recognized by various gaming bodies and authorities. For instance, are the payout percentages of the online casino independently reviewed by auditors such as PricewaterhouseCoopers? Is this information made publicly available?

Is the online casino you've just found blacklisted for any reason? There are many of them which have been blacklisted by several gambling portals for one reason or another. Although not all blacklists are credible sources of information, you should avoid online casinos which appear in several blacklists. There's a reason they're there.

The support service is also very important. Who knows when you wake up at 3 in the morning realizing that you’ve given the wrong account number, right? Or something like that (but not necessarily). If the place offers 24/7 phone, fax, live chat and email support, you’ll probably sleep better knowing that there’s a human there ready to deal with your craziness. Test the customer service department by asking them a few questions about their games, casino bonuses, etc. and measure how long it takes to receive a decent response.

Also, the software platform on which the casino is based is really important. Casino software providers such as Microgaming, Playtech, Random Logic, Real Time Gaming and WaterLogic are very popular and have excellent reputations in the online gambling industry. Most of the casinos will have one of these names on the home page.

With so many online casinos appearing and disappearing out of the blue, and with so many cons and scams surfacing on the internet every day, you really need to be careful when registering your credit card or transferring money to an online casino. While the lookout list above is not exactly complete, we don’t want to scare you off, because it’s not that hard to land somewhere safe, fun and profitable.

You can always try Best-On-Line-Casinos.com or Cazinos.com for a list of great casinos in which we place our trust because we talk to the people behind them and know some of them personally. These two gambling portals also show a number of other details for casinos like bonuses, promotions, payout rates and everything needed to make a decision like ‘Where to get more money from?’ after you’ve decided to park your mouse and money for a while.