What Web Businesses Can Learn

From Online Gambling

Abstract: learn how to gain visitors’ trust by studying how online casino
websites have overcome enormous obstacles to building trust among site
.visitors

Online gambling is one of the fastest growing segments of ecommerce in the

US, an especially impressive feat since it is illegal in the US. Due to their
illegal status, gambling sites face high hurdles in the advertising and
promotion arena as well, since most US-based online media companies,
.most notably Google and Yahoo, refuse to advertise them

You might think that online gambling websites would face an

insurmountable obstacle in gaining users’ trust, as well. Trust has long been
an issue in ecommerce, historically plagued by credit card billings and
websites that disappear just before the orders were to be shippedand a
constant mainstream media drumbeat of the dangers of online transactions.
Building trust has long been a chief concern of businesses selling over the
.web

The trust issue is only compounded for the online gambling industry when it
comes to serving US customers. Would you trust a website with your money
if it were located overseas, and you had little legal recourse whatsoever to
get your money back if you were dissatisfiedand if the “product” itself were
essentially intangible, anyway? To top it off, what if the purchase itself was
?illegal

This is precisely the challenge that online casinos meet every day, with the
estimated 60 percent of their industry’s customers who come from the USA.
Casino websites owned and operated entirely outside the borders of the US
are free to accept US customers. But gambling online with real money is
illegal in the US under federal law, specifically the Federal Wire Wager Act,
not to mention a host of state laws

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.

?How Do Online Gambling Websites Gain Visitors’ Trust

Trust symbols: gambling websites’ businesses, being located outside the *

US, are not eligible for most US-based business certification programs such
as the Better Business Bureau or Square Trade. So, they created their own
trust seal: ECOGRA, E-Commerce and Online Gaming Regulation and
Assurance. Online gambling sites are also wont to make a prominent display
.of their secure connection certificates, from organizations such as Thawte
Assurances: users’ concerns about reliability are not just answered *
implicitly with fancy seals or confident language. One of the most successful
online gambling websites contains this prominent declaration on its
homepage: “We are licensed and regulated by the Government of Gibraltar,
and our games are tested by iTech Labs, an independent tester of gaming
and wagering devices to ensure that the games are fair and operate
”.correctly

Transparency: while it is often hard to tell just who is behind most *

ecommerce sites, successful online gambling sites are models of
transparency: the location of the company owning the casino is always
prominently displayed, and assurances of honesty are backed up with
.independent audits of the technology used

High-quality design: successful gambling websites always look great, no *

matter how small the business behind them. Plain old HTML may be enough
to convince people to post their room rentals on Craigslist, but it doesn’t
seem enough to make web users fork over their credit card digits to an
.online casino

Low barrier to entry: gambling websites generally either have a free option *
.or require only a small upfront payment

Highly optimized designs. It’s usually only a single click, if even that, from *
the homepage to the virtual betting tables. When you can get straight to
.doing what you want to do, there is not a lot of time to start nursing doubts

In short, if you take your online business’s trustworthiness for granted, you
may be missing out on potential customers who need additional assurances.
Take a lesson from websites that can’t trust their trustworthiness to be
taken for granted: make sure visitors to your site feel comfortable opening
.up their wallets
..