The Online Casino Has Bought Gambling To The Masses
The world without a gamble would not progress in any way. Every important decision we make has an element of gamble to it. Even the small ones are a bit of a gamble, what’s the weather going to do will it rain? Shall I wear a coat? An extra layer? Without the biggest casinos in the world, the stock markets, we would have a financial system stuck in the middle ages. But forget all that, we love to gamble, the shuffle of cards, the spin of a wheel or reels falling into place they’re all thrills we enjoy.
Not everybody is lucky enough to live near a brick and mortar casino, or can afford to go regularly either. No longer out of the average person’s reach the internet has given us the opportunity once again, to enjoy a pastime not normally available. If you are looking into having some fun online but have no way of knowing what goes into making the best online casino, this guide can help. When it comes to online casinos UK offerings are some of the best in the world. However there are many variables when it comes to choosing.
What Goes Into Making The Top Online Casinos?
Well mostly it’s a matter of taste when it comes to making the decision which is the best casino for you. You may like a lot of colour, and flashy games with a lot of gimmicks attached or you may be more subdued in your taste and prefer a more subtle approach. There are however some things that are a given and should be mentioned. Getting paid out on time and with as little fuss as possible is a major consideration. You should check the methods of deposit and withdrawal before signing up. Make sure the method you want to use is available. Then, most importantly read some reviews and visit a few forums. If there are any cashing out problems with the casino you want to join you will find some chatter on the subject.
A good online casino makes a profit and has no reason to not payout on time. If there is a lot of bad press about one in particular steer clear, there’s no smoke without fire as they say! Delays in payouts is quite often a forerunner to the collapse of a casino. All of the best real money casinos have multiple methods to cash out. Visa, MasterCard and Maestro debit cards are accepted at all UK facing sites with a wide range of e-wallets like PayPal, Neteller, Skrill and Ukash supplementing the bunch. Casinos that have high street bookmakers are also offering a cash deposit and withdrawal service such as the William Hill Cash Direct. If a casino only offers one or two methods to cover the financial transactions they probably are not very good.
Software Is The Key To Success – Gameplay is Everything For Online Casinos
The software running the games can make or break casinos online, real money is needed to get a quality offering up and running. You can tell a lot about how much effort and expense has gone into a site by the variety, looks and feel of the games they offer. There are tens if not hundreds of software companies that have developed for the online gaming world. The lion’s share of the market is held by just a few however, Microgaming, Playtech, Cryptologic, NetEnt and Cassava are five that spring to mind. These companies offer an off the shelf type deal and casinos running the same software will have a lot of the same games and the sites will feel the same too.
A real money casino that puts in the effort will mix and match to cover a wider range and have different feel. There are very few in the market that have truly a standalone bespoke set of games. Having software written and maintained just for you is a very costly enterprise. This area of choice is a personal one you may like the games on Microgaming for example. What is a must however, is that the games run well. Just because a software company is not so well known is not a bad thing, what is a bad thing is if the games just don’t entertain.
Look Into The Payout Tables To Discover The Best Real Money Casinos
As with any financial transaction the smart people never slack on their due diligence. Part of that should be for everyone to look into the percentages that casinos make. Not many people realise that the payout levels, commissions and so on are built into the software. These are not determined by the casino but by the software platform. This area can have some differences between companies. All the top casinos have lists or payout tables somewhere on their site. Most slots games for example run at around 95%. But there may be the odd one better or worse which can be a factor when choosing which game to play.
Baccarat played at most online casinos has a 5% house commission on winnings, if it’s much more at a particular casino look elsewhere to play this game. Microgaming is one software company that does not issue payout tables for its games. It is recommended that the casino in question is contacted for this information. If none is forthcoming there are plenty of others to choose from.
The Big Guns Lead The Way
One of the advantages of using the big names is they have been around a long while and their software works. Again personal preference will come into play, but take Playtech for example their platform is so well put together it gives the casinos a multi layered approach. This allows a wide range of customization enabling the sites to look and feel different. But still keeping the favorite games onboard like the Marvel™ themed slots.
The likes of Playtech and Microgaming have been at the point of the industry since the outset. They have so much experience now, that the games they bring out are out of the box perfect. No more glitches that get discovered after launch with the need to be ironed out while online. Having a large market share means more resources for R+D this is great news for the punters as fresh games coming out more often.
Big Jackpots Need Lots Of Stakes
One of the main reasons that casinos stick to the major developers is the linked game with progressive jackpots. Linking certain games, usually slots, means that jackpots can be huge. When we mean huge we mean huge millions can be one for very small stakes. Playtechs Giant Jackpot slots game is regularly over £3M and is a popular game on many sites. When jackpots available are really big more players want to join the site. When more players join to play the progressives, more money goes into the pot, so the jackpots grow. This just wouldn’t be possible without pooling the players, so the smaller developers loose out. All the best online casinos for real money are part of a network, some are part of more than one.
What Is On Offer? – What’s New To Excite Me?
The site with the most games available is not always the best online casino UK punters are a discerning bunch. There are a few with over 500 games but most of these are mainly slots. All will have many versions of roulette, blackjack, baccarat, video poker, keno, bingo, and of course slots. Who thought you could have a Marvel™ based roulette game? Or Gladiator blackjack? The best casinos are those that have all that and bring the more obscure games to the table.
Spending money on something new is risky but it shows commitment. Without this approach pai gow poker and sicbo the Asian dice game would never have been heard of outside of Las Vegas and Macao. New games are becoming popular simply because casinos are giving them a platform. How many people in the UK had ever played craps before online casinos? So look for casinos that offer a wide range of games that have something different in their lineup.
Feeling Happy Makes You Want To Play
When you play real money casino games you want to have fun and feel comfortable too. Brick and mortar casinos took the easy route to this, free alcohol! It takes a little more work for online casinos to be able to pull it off. It all starts with a well laid out website. If you have a struggle navigating the site in the first place you will quickly become frustrated. Lots of flashing banners and advertising will soon put you off too. But you have come to have fun so a boring site is just as bad. A happy balancing act is pulled off by many fortunately. Bonuses are the online substitute for alcohol. While there are catches, and you can read more about that on our home page, what’s not to love about extra money to gamble with?
A Real Money Casino Bonus – Sign Up And Collect
Bonuses are the marketing tool of choice for online casinos. Every single one will give a welcome bonus. This how most attract customers in the first place. Comparing the welcome bonuses of different sites is a great way to gauge the brand. How transparent are the terms? Does the offer look brilliant with a huge cash sum but dig a little and you realise the terms are just ridiculous. The ones that offer smaller cash incentives are usually the better ones as the terms actually give you a chance to get the money! The amount of promotions that a casino runs is another big decider for a lot of players. If you play a lot at a particular site you should get a few perks. Casinos that run loyalty schemes have to be a better choice than those that don’t.
A Fair Game Played At Online Casinos For The UK
With competition as strong as it is the only way for online casino brands to stay in business, is to play fair. It takes time to build a reputation and the way to build that reputation is to have a site that people trust. Nobody will come back to play if they think they have been cheated out of winnings. They will shout from the roof tops, and if enough people shot everybody will hear. Every casino will have a dispute now and again, it’s how they deal with that dispute that makes or breaks them. This is why all the top casinos the UK has to offer subscribe to an independent arbitration service.
The best known and most respected being IBAS. The service really is unbiased and is set up to keep the industry honest and healthy. There are quite a few other trade organizations that liaise with authorities and industry, but don’t confuse them with arbitration. To aid in the dispute process, a data base in the backend of the software records the details of every game ever played. Check with the casino that they have such a comprehensive record system. If they don’t have this how can they hope to resolve any issues with customers?
Yes The Games Really Are Random
Unless you’re an MIT card counting genius wanting to break the blackjack tables, random chance is the reason you play casino games. Not knowing the outcome makes the whole experience. At a land based casino the very nature of how the games are played ensures a chance result. A dealer shuffles the cards, the wheel is spun and the ball bounces around the slots of a roulette wheel. These are all just physical acts designed to bring about an unknown result.
The slot machines are the exception, electro mechanical slots started the revolution, interacting software with physical reels. The fully electronic video slots were the first to use the software that allowed online casinos to exist. Enter the random number generator or RNG. Without this rather complicated piece of maths virtual casinos could not possibly expect people to gamble real money with them. So how does it work? Well it all revolves around a very complex algorithm that produces a very large random number. Starting with a seed number, this number is over 200 000 digits long, entered into the software the resulting number is used to determine the outcome of a game. This number is then looped back into the RNG as a new seed and a new number results and so on ad infinitum.
This all happens at a phenomenal speed and creates a truly random game. The algorithms are so complex they can’t be hacked. The only way you could predict the outcomes would be to know the original seed number and have some very talented mathematicians available. The seed numbers are kept very secure, with only a handful of top executives even knowing where the location is. There are a few casinos that go one step further to ensure the random nature of the seed by asking the player to confidentially supply a number that is added to the seed. The resulting number could never be worked out and the figure is so large it is virtually impossible to crack.
If It Isn’t Mobile It Won’t Last
The internet is very quickly evolving and it moving ever more mobile oriented. The rapid growth of mobile technology means any online casino without a good mobile version will be left behind. Smartphones and tablets are so good now that playing games on them can often be a better experience than the desktop versions. If you use your phone a lot of the time you will want to be able to play your favorite games on it. This area is where casinos differ the most and some have a lot of catching up to do. There are casinos out there that are dedicated mobile offerings and while they may not have as many games as the others they will soon.
The Law And UK Online Casinos
The UK has some of the most liberal gambling laws in the world. Brits love to have a flutter! This doesn’t mean the law is slack however. Any casino taking UK residents on as customers must be licensed and regulated by the UK Gaming Commission. They have stringent rules and perform audits of the sites that they deal with. If a site is not licensed by them and you are resident in the UK don’t use them. An illegal site will definitely not be fair and square.
All reputable online casinos are committed to responsible gambling. They should have safeguards in place to recognized patterns in gambling behavior that can lead to serious problems. Most are linked to charities such as GamCare which are set up to help with gambling addiction. Remember gambling is fun the minute it isn’t stop doing it.