Bingoversity Security

Probably one of the primary concerns of new players curious to try out online Bingo for themselves is the issue of security. Particularly in the early days of the general public’s uptake of the Internet, there were plenty of scare stories about users’ details being ‘hijacked’ by nefarious people as they were being sent voluntarily to a respectable online destination. However, the truth was that the World Wide Web wasn’t quite the Wild West populated by online outlaws that the traditional media wanted to portray, and legitimate online businesses were quick to make issues of privacy and security paramount in order to survive. The logic was clear; if customers didn’t feel safe about transacting real money online, online business was dead in the virtual water.

Online gaming, such as Internet Bingo, was one area where long-term success was dependent on players being able to deposit and withdraw money using online accounts. Such accounts had to be easy to use but also absolutely secure from prying eyes and greedy fingers. After all, can you imagine playing online Bingo where you send your money by traditional post to the company’s HQ, say in Gibraltar, every time you want to make a deposit? No, neither can we!

To play online Bingo for real money, it is now a well-established process that players register with their chosen online Bingo site to create a unique, personal account and then place money into that account via a number of payment options. Deposited money can then be used to buy tickets for Bingo games or to play any of the alternative betting games the site might offer, for example Slots. The player’s account is also where any winnings and bonus payments are credited by the online Bingo hall.

The very best online Bingo halls, such as those listed here at InternetBingo.co.uk, attract many thousands of players and each one will have their own secure account. So how do online Bingo halls ensure those thousands of account details, and all the money transactions to and from them all-day-and-every-day are safe and secure? After all, if someone were able to access the database holding these players details they could potentially harvest a vast number of credit/ debit card details and other personal details useful to commit fraud.

Happily all the UK online Bingo halls we list employ a number of security features that have been designed and tested to ensure there can be no unauthorized access to the sensitive customer data they hold, or interception of data between them and a logged in customer. Central to this is the 128 bit secure socket layer (SSL) encryption software used between the online Bingo operator, its customers and its customers’ banks. If SSL and 128 bit means nothing to you, don’t worry – the technology works behind the scenes and is invisible to the user other than showing a lock or padlock on the user’s Internet browser to indicate a secure link to the website on the screen. It is also a highly complex encryption that is effectively impossible to crack without huge amounts of time and simply vast amounts of computing power i.e. it would require resources and effort that are a uniquely powerful deterrent to criminals.

Beyond the use of such highly complex encryption, online Bingo halls typically use separate, secure computer servers to store members’ personal data, and will also track IP addresses (the ‘identity’ of a computer that has accessed the Bingo site) to ensure only its members access the account registered in their name. Another common security measure is for online Bingo halls only to store the first or last four digits of a members credit / debit card number on its database.