Trying Your Luck: A Bit about Casinos
Upon hearing the word “casino”, the first things that come to mind for most people are Las Vegas, flashing lights, and lots of money to be made. While these images certainly have undeniable glamour and appeal, this is certainly not the whole picture. In recent years casinos have gained popularity in an entirely different form due to the influence of the internet.
It is unclear exactly which online casino opened first. Among the earliest was a website known as Internet Casinos, Inc., introduced in 1995 and offering 18 different games to choose from. Also established in 1995 and still operating today, The Gaming Club is also one of the first to become available. Throughout the mid-nineties, a handful of others became accessible on the Internet. Their popularity was boosted by their high payout rates and reputation for being reliable and fair, as well as the novelty of being able to gamble online from home. However, strict regulations in the United States toward any form of gambling soon led many of these businesses to begin operating from Europe or the Caribbean Islands where the laws were not only much more lenient but governments often encouraged and helped fund gambling, seeing it as a profitable business.
The late 1990s saw the development of the first multiplayer games in online casinos. Previously, play was only against the computer software. Among the first to allow this option were Planet Poker, which still exists but no longer allows dealing in real cash, and Paradise Poker, whose software improvements greatly aided in game play and connectivity quality over dial up connections, further expanding the venue’s popularity.
Today there are approximately 450 online casinos in operation, such as FullTilt.com, all varying from each other just as much as traditional brick-and-mortar casino buildings. However, today’s online casinos can fundamentally be broken down into two types. Web-based casinos offer games that run strictly through the internet using applications like Adobe Flash. This enables players to participate in online games without downloading any software to their home computers. Download-based casinos are the exact opposite, forcing players to download certain software to their computer in order to play. While the former is more secure, the latter offers the advantage of being faster and more reliable.
Of course, online casinos are not immune to fraud and cheating. While there is always the possible risk of a website not paying out, it is more common that operators may design software so that odds can be adjusted by the company at any time, including during the game. This can be used to highly reduce the chances of someone actually winning, or increase the chances of winning when only playing for pretend cash in order to convince people to sign up with real money.
Even with their problems, online casinos have still retained high popularity due to their convenience and slightly higher odds on average than physical casinos. While there will always be those that prefer the atmosphere and experience of a traditional casino, online casinos remain a lucrative option for those who want something a little different.