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'Online casinos', also known as 'virtual casinos' or 'internet casinos', are online versions of traditional ("brick and mortar") casinos. Online casinos enable gamblers to play and wager on casino games through the Internet.
Online casinos generally offer odds and payback percentages that are comparable to land-based casinos. Some online casinos claim higher payback percentages for slot machine games, and some publish payout percentage audits on their websites. Assuming that the online casino is using an appropriately programmed random number generator, table games like blackjack have an established house edge. The payout percentage for these games are established by the rules of the game.
Reliability and trust issues are commonplace and often questioned. Many online casinos lease or purchase their software from well-known companies like Microgaming, Realtime Gaming, Playtech, and CryptoLogic Inc in an attempt to "piggyback" their reputation on the software manufacturer's credibility. These software companies either use or claim to use random number generators to ensure that the numbers, cards or dice appear randomly.

Contents

Online casino types

Web-based online casinos

Download-based online casinos

Live-based casinos

Games offered

Signup bonuses

Fraudulent online casino behavior

Fraudulent player behavior

Legality

See also

External links

Online casino types

Online casinos can be divided into three groups based on their interface: web-based casinos, download-based casinos, and more recently live casinos. Some casinos offer multiple interfaces.

Web-based online casinos

Web-based online casinos are websites where users may play casino games without downloading software to the local computer. Games are mainly represented in the browser plugins Macromedia Flash, Macromedia Shockwave, or Java and require browser support for these plugins. Also, bandwidth is needed since all graphics, sounds and animations are loaded through the web via the plugin. Some online casinos also allow gameplay through a plain HTML interface.

Download-based online casinos

Download-based online casinos require the download of the software client in order to play and wager on the casino games offered. The online casino software connects to the casino service provider and handles contact without browser support. Download-based online casinos generally run faster than web-based online casinos since the graphics and sound programs are located within the software client, rather than having to be loaded from the Internet. On the other hand, the initial download and installation of a download-based online casino client does take time. As with any download from the Internet, the risk of the program containing malware does exist.

Live-based casinos

Live-based casino gaming allows web players to interact with games played in a real world casino environment. Online players can see, hear, and interact with live dealers at tables in casino studios worldwide.

Games offered

A typical selection of games offered at an online casino might include:

★ Baccarat

★ Blackjack

★ Craps

★ Roulette

★ Online Slot Games

★ Online poker

Signup bonuses

Many online casinos offer signup bonuses to new players making their first deposit. These bonuses normally match a percentage of the player's deposit with a dollar maximum, and almost all online casino signup bonuses require a minimum amount of wagering before allowing a cash out. Gameplay at specific casino games might be excluded from the wagering requirement calculation.
A fictional signup bonus offer follows as an example:

★ The online casino offers new players a deposit matching bonus of 100%, up to $100

★ The player must wager 25 times the total amount of the deposit plus the bonus before withdrawing

★ Wagers on baccarat, craps, roulette, and sic bo do not count towards meeting wagering requirements
For this particular example, this would mean that a player depositing $100 would start with $200 in his account. The player must make $5000 ($200 × 25) in wagers before being allowed to make a withdrawal.
Advantage play, bonus hunting, in casino signup bonus situations is mathematically possible. For example, the house edge in blackjack is roughly 0.5%. In the example above, $5000 in wagering with a house edge of 0.5% will result in an expected loss of $25. Since the player received a $100 signup bonus, the player has an expected profit of $75.
Advantage players who use bonus offers for an expected profit may be called "bonus hunters", "bonus abusers", or "bonus whores". Some online casinos have restrictions regarding "the spirit of the bonus offer" which they sometimes use as a deterrent to what they consider "bonus abuse".
Some bonuses require no deposit to claim them. Types of no deposit bonuses include:

★ A no deposit in pure monetary form, for example $10.

★ Free spins no deposit, this is where they allow free spins on particular games, and then allow you to keep the winnings.

★ Play for a predetermine period of time with x amount of dollars.
Players should carefully read terms & conditions before claiming a bonus. Some casinos have terms and conditions that are not favorable to the player, such as restricting play to slots (slots typically have one of the highest house edges of all games). Other casinos are not reputable and may pay slowly or may find excuses to avoid paying winnings.

Fraudulent online casino behavior

Fraudulent behavior on the part of online casinos has been documented. The most commonly reported behaviors are refusal to pay withdrawals or cheating software. An online casino with multiple confirmed cases of fraudulent behavior is often called a 'rogue casino' by the online casino player community.
One commonly reported behavior related to refusal to pay withdrawals is the refusal to pay withdrawals promptly. A rogue casino may intentionally delay a withdrawal in hopes that the player will continue gambling with the money in the account and lose it all back.
Cheating software appears to be less common than payout problems.
Some casino software has been mathematically proven to cheat, such as Casino Bar (evidence by Michael Shackleford and others). Elka System/Oyster Gaming software is known to cheat, also confirmed by Michael Shackleford. Screen shots from the back office of an older brand of software indicated the odds could be adjusted by the operator.
Much of the speculation about casino software cheating is usually the result of a player finding a pattern in a statistically small set of results. Most people in the online casino industry believe that most of the major casino software brands offer odds and paybacks that are the same as their land-based casino counterparts.
Many casino gambling portals and player forums maintain blacklists of rogue casinos. These can easily found in any major search engine, but most of them constitute individual webmaster and player opinions rather than anything official from any type of regulating body.

Fraudulent player behavior

Common fraudulent behavior from online casinos players includes the signing up for multiple casino accounts using different identities in order to claim a bonus offer multiple times. Another form of fraudulent behavior might be the use of a graphics editing software like Adobe Photoshop to create a false winning slot machine game screenshot in an attempt to tell the casino they hit a jackpot and didn't get paid for it.
Online casinos usually lock the player accounts for these people, and it's widely believed that online casinos share fraudulent player blacklists.

Legality

See online gambling for a discussion of the legality of playing at an online casino.

See also

★ Casinos

★ Casino game

★ Gambling

★ Poker

★ Problem gambling

★ Sportsbook

External links

★ Open Directory online casino listings