Online casinos can for certain games offer better odds than land casinos on slots and other formats where the chance of winning is determined by the house. Table games like blackjack have an established house edge; for a given set of rules, they offer the same payout, online or offline. Reliability and trust are hard to establish. To solve this issue, many online casinos purchase their software from well-known companies such as Wager Works, Microgaming, Playtech and Cryptologic, though a little research into credentials of any e-commerce site you plan to use is common sense. These software companies use a random number generator to ensure that the numbers, cards or dice appear randomly. All reputable companies operating in a regulated environment use robust random number generators.

Casino types

Online casinos can be divided into two groups based on their interface: web-based casinos and download-based casinos. Some casinos offer more than one interface.

Web-based online casinos

Web-based online casinos are websites where users may directly play casino games without loading any software to the local computer. Games are mainly represented in the browser plugins Macromedia Flash, Macromedia Shockwave, or Java and require browser support for mentioned plugins. Also, bandwidth is needed since all graphics, sounds and animations are loaded through the web via the plugin. A very small number of casinos allow games played through a plain HTML interface.

Download-based online casinos

Download-based online casinos are the most common casino web sites. On these websites, users have to download certain software to play casino games. After installing the software, it connects to the casino service provider and handles contact without browser support. An advantage of these compared to web-based online casinos is speed, since it does not need to load graphics from the Internet because all multimedia is inside the downloaded software. On the downside, there is an initial download and the need for the installation of the program, and the risk of the program containing malware (though this is very uncommon).

Games offered

A typical selection of games on offer at an online casino might include: blackjack, roulette, baccarat, craps, pai gow poker, video poker, and slot machines.

Rogues

Occasionally a rogue casino will be discovered. There are two ways a casino might misbehave: refusing to pay customers or cheating software.

Cheating software appears to be extremely rare. There are some casinos that have been mathematically proven to cheat, such as Casino Bar (evidence by Michael Shackleford and others). Some players often accuse certain popular software brands of casinos of cheating, for example Boss Media, Cryptologic, and Playtech, but they are likely “finding” patterns that are not actually there, as tests for cheating at these casinos has never turned up positive. This does not mean that all software providers are honest (for example, Elka System/Oyster Gaming software is known to cheat, also confirmed by Michael Shackleford), but the most popular software is more likely than not.

Blacklists

These are rogue casinos to avoid. Different authors have different opinions on which casinos are worth avoiding, so always read the reason that they are on the blacklist and decide for yourself if you want to play there.

• The Wizard of Odds’ blacklist
• Casinomeister’s list of rogue casinos
• Casino Man’s Blacklist
• Online Casino Conditions’ Blacklist
• Top Gambler’s Casino Blacklist

Player fraud

Although there is the occasional rogue casino, sometimes it’s the players who are deceitful or irresponsible. One of the most common cases is a player who signs up for multiple accounts at a casino using fake names to reap the bonus more than once. Another player might use Adobe Photoshop or a similar tool to manipulate the graphics of a slot machine screenshot to try to fool the casino into believing she hit a jackpot and didn’t get paid for it. These are invariably gross violations of the terms of service of the casino and usually are frowned upon, even by many “bonus hunters”. Casinos do not tolerate such behavior and will usually lock the account or accounts of the player responsible, and may inform other casinos and/or the software provider to keep the player out of other casinos.

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.