Unbiased, “No Stones Unturned” Reviews by Industry Experts.
The key to avoiding the majority of dishonest gambling operators is to stay on top of what’s happening within the industry. By launching Legit Gambling Sites, I’ve decided to do the dirty work for you.
The key to avoiding the majority of dishonest gambling operators is to stay on top of what’s happening within the industry. By launching Legit Gambling Sites, I’ve decided to do the dirty work for you.I’ve already written down my top list of US gambling sites in addition to reviews of the top sites. There are also several online betting guides for you to read. (I’ve even written an in-depth report on state lotteries.)
Here’s what our recommendations have in common:
- They’re served their customers well for a long time.
- They have better-than-average odds.
- They deliver payouts fast (surprisingly rare in this industry).
Our Top Recommended Gambling Sites
Location, Location, Location
If you live in the US, your options are different from the rest of the world. Australia and the UK have slightly varied selections of real-money gambling websites as well, but the US market is distinctly different from the rest of the world.
My top US recommendations are:
When anyone asks me which sites to join, I always recommend signing-up at a few in order to take an advantage of the best odds in the market. A single site rarely offers the best odds for every game you’re going to bet on (if you had to choose just one specifically for sports betting, though, I would go with 5Dimes).
As mentioned, available sites for the rest of the world are mostly alike (and there are lots of ’em, too). Pinnacle Sports is a fantastic option for sports betting and often provides the best betting lines in the industry with ”reduced juice” moneyline bets. Again, though, I firmly believe the best way to go for sports bettors is to sign-up at multiple sites – therefore I recommend Bet365 and William Hill as well.
Non-US gamblers also have plenty of options when it comes to online casino games. Many online casinos come with NetEnt, Cryptologic and Microgaming software which are regarded as the highest-quality software providers in the online casino world, and also the ones who come up with the most innovative slot machines. They work well on mobile and feature some of all-time favorite brands such as Mega Moolah, Jurassic Park, and Dark Knight Returns.
US gamblers have limited options with online casino games – perhaps even more-so than with sports betting. Reliable and high quality brands are far and few between, so much that the US gambling sites recommended on this page are just about the only brands I would recommend for casino gamblers as well. It’s rare to find US online casinos with strong track records.
Finding legitimate poker sites is even harder since you need lots of active customers to operate a successful online poker room – this requirement alone eliminates all but few options. Outside of the US, you have the busiest site in the world in PokerStars, plus other high traffic options such as Party Poker, Full Tilt Poker, 888 Poker and Titan Poker. At PokerStars, you’ll have the biggest prize pools and the most opponents to choose from (all excellent reasons to sign-up, although you may want to read a recent PokerStars review by TrustedPokerSites.com before taking action).
If selection is thin outside of the US, it gets even worse for those living in the US. My top recommended overall gambling site – Bovada – is also my top recommendation for US online poker players. They have the highest US poker traffic by far and have serviced their customers at a high level throughout the years. They also deliver check withdrawals to US customers faster than anyone else in the US.
Finding Top Quality Sites
Without sounding pompous, I consider the selection of legit gambling sites at this website to be as good as possible. All the real-money online gambling sites recommended here have served their customers well throughout the years and, simply put, are the best of their kind – to the point where I’m unable to find better options even though I’ve been involved in the online gambling industry for over a decade.
My recommendations are based on experience and staying up-to-date on the latest developments in the gambling industry. Just as importantly, haplaydowns.ca is a hobby project of mine and I currently receive no income from this site regardless of what I recommend. While this may change at some point (I have no problem receiving money from sites which I would recommend anyway), my criteria never will. I want to sleep well at night and recommending legit real-money websites is the only way to do so.
Warning:
Many websites are influenced by advertisement income (my guess is around 99%). If finding a legit real-money site is difficult, just try finding a legit informational site.
With that said, you may get the urge to try-out some sites outside of what’s been mentioned here at haplaydowns.ca – perhaps you’ll even try a site recommended by someone else. I can’t blame you – after all, I like to play daredevil every now and then as well.
The only way to know if a site is legitimate is either to have years of experience from the industry (includes following online forums daily) or doing extensive research right now; the benefit of reading my recommendations is to save a lot of time and effort since I have the experience and have done the research for you. When determining how safe it is to join a gambling site because you need to know the site’s reputation, and to have a good requires time within the industry. In fact, reputation is the most important factor to look at when deciding whether to join a site. If the site has a bad reputation
A legitimate online sportsbook, casino or poker site handles these four areas well:
- Processes deposits quickly and with minimal fees.
- Operates fair games with reasonable house edge percentages.
- Answers customers’ questions swiftly and helps them as thoroughly as possible.
- Processes cashouts quickly and with minimal fees.
It’s not enough for a site to handle these areas well right now; in order to be legit, a site must have taken care of these areas for years without significant problems. And if they’ve had problems, how were they handled?
Details like bonus terms and progressive jackpot sizes are all real considerations but less important than the criteria above. A gambling website can have the best bonus offer in the world but unless it can reliably process your deposits and cashouts, operate fair games and provide excellent customer support, there’s zero sense in taking the risk to join the site.
Fortunately people like to complain. Searching Google for “[Site Name] Complaints”, “[Site Name] Scam” or “[Site Name] Payouts” is a decent way to find out if the site’s been involved in anything suspicious. Make sure to check the search results closely; truly legitimate gambling websites often have complaint and scam types of results because some websites auto-generate those pages. So make sure to check if the results are representing real opinions of real people.
Should a site pass all the criteria, details like bonus terms and house edge become real considerations (“house edge” is a term commonly used in the casino world to represent the % of a casino’s cut on average – in the poker world this is referred to as “rake” and in sports betting its known as “juice” or “vig”). Finding out all there is to know about bonus terms, for example, is a tall order for a beginner (I explain each site’s bonus terms in my reviews and consider them when ranking top US gambling websites in order, for example).