You will see the term eCOGRA listed over and over at the very best casinos. So what is this eCOGRA? And why do I have an entire page dedicated to it? To put it mildly, eCOGRA, which stands for e-Commerce Online Gambling Regulation Assurance, is the most important thing that has ever happened to the Online Casino. It is the system put in place in order to make sure that a casino is safe and honest. Read on for a short history lesson. I will make it as painless as possible and you might learn some useful things.

This is not a new organization. They have been around for a decade or so. They came into being in 2002 as a joint project by the two most respected names in online gambling: Microgaming and 888 Holdings. At the time, the industry was unregulated, and lots of casinos would pop up to steal money from unsuspecting victims, utilizing crooked software. This was a huge problem for the legitimate casinos because it had the effect of de-legitimizing the industry as a whole. Even if a casino was branded “rogue” there was still the problem for customers of how to recognize a rogue from a legitimate casino.

So 888 Holdings and Microgaming put their heads together and came up with eCOGRA, which was to be the industry watchdog. This company would be run independently as a third party and as a not for profit. Their role was to individually test online casinos to make sure their software was on the up and up. Today they are the industry standard. If you see an eCOGRA seal of approval, you can click on it and see a casino’s entire track record throughout its history. For a casino to maintain licensing, it has to be tested, and eCOGRA is generally the default testing organization. There are others, such as TST, and Norway has its own government facility, but eCOGRA remains the most widely used and most trusted.

What happens is that every month, eCOGRA will send an auditor to a casino at a random date and time. The auditor will spend time at the casino, running software analysis on the random number generator, making sure that if it says it pays back at a certain percentage, it actually lives up to its claim. Furthermore, they check to make sure there are adequate protections against hackers and data theft. These are the two most important criteria that determine whether a casino is “safe and fair” and if the casino passes muster, then they get to display the seal of approval.

There is a third thing that eCOGRA looks at when they audit a casino. They look at the transactions and try to determine if there is any illegitimate activity going on. If there is any sign of money laundering, or some other illicit activity, they will immediately report the casino to appropriate authorities. All this comes together to make eCOGRA a trusted name in the industry.

There are only about 100 casinos in the world today that are certified by eCOGRA. There are literally thousands of casinos out there. This means that eCOGRA has made your job much easier when it comes time to pick a casino or two to play at. If you look at the casinos I recommend on my homepage, each and every one of them has been tested and is fully licensed. If you want to do further research, eCOGRA’s website should be your first stop. Remember that it is your money, and you have to be responsible for what you do with it.