Online Casinos

As the internet took the world for assault, the different brick and mortar operations started expanding and the gambling industry was no difference. Online Casinos, Internet Casinos or virtual Casinos are the names called to the online versions of the traditional Casinos, the main objective it’s the wage of bets over the internet.  Because those Casinos don’t have the infrastructure costs that normal Casino would, they have a lot of giveaways on the form of lower house edge on pay table depended games, on slot machines and of course there are the prizes on a continuing basis. As with the era prior to the prohibition the start of the Casino industry online went through a lot because of the government regulations and because of the rigged Casinos that existed. By that time customers didn’t have the ability to interact with each other to establish the reputation of the online Casino’s they were playing in.  The serious operations doing business by that time decided to place on their websites the companies that was designing the software as a way of improving they reputation and separate themselves from the pack. Most of the companies doing online are locate offshore, on the Americas; they are mostly distributed between Antigua and Costa Rica, and on Europe on The Isle of Man in which case its government sponsors the creation of Online Gambling companies.

The history of the industry starts at the 1995 when the first company appeared on the Internet, the company was called Internet Casinos, (ICI) by that time the company offered 18 games and on its starts it provided online access to the Native American Lottery. Of course because of gambling regulations the company operated from Turks and Caicos, later we had The Interactive Gaming and communications that later became a publicly traded company on the NASDAQ. The company not only profited from the internet but also from the acceptance of wages via telephone calls to Antigua on a toll free line via satellite. The first online Casino derived from a real Casino operation is Atlantis with was a development made from the Atlantis Hotel, it was also the first Casino established on the Isle of Man on the UK.

Types

Because of the diversification of the internet and the expansion of the industry, game platforms have been continuously responding to customer demands. The most important trend that produced a change on the online Casino industry it’s the introduction of Adobe Flash Player, cross platform browser plug-in that allow programmers to port applications that required a download to operate, that element that segment the industry on two : Cross Platform and Download based.

Web-based Casinos

It’s a type of Casino that allow customer to start playing at the moment they hit the Casino and the proper funding, because in order to the software use doesn’t require any human intervention, like a java plug-in that install him. Those Casinos have the advantage of the rapid initialization of the game, which means a broader segment of customers could be available to play. The only pitfall of this type of Casino it’s the bandwidth, because all the game and graphics area on the servers and downloaded when the game starts. Also de graphics of the game, although good they will definitively fall onto the category of average, and the most the players is more avid to current computer graphics.

Download based Casinos

It’s a type of online Casino in which the customer’s needs to download software that connects him to the servers, this type of Casino its more realistic and fast that the web based specifically because the graphics and sound of the game area already installed. As a drawback the game has the fact that the average computer user might not have the required abilities to download software and installing it properly and then login in and configuring the application to suite his needs.

Live-based Casino

It’s a video feed of the Casino to the computer screen, users that area not interested on participating directly on the game activities area allowed to turn off their cameras and keep playing without video feed. On the case of the users that want, they could keep their video feed on and have the ability to interact with the customers on the game. On the realm of live-based Casinos there is an application, used mostly on Roulette that could be called an interactive Casino it’s an online Casino in which a video camera distributes a feed from top to down of the Roulette and the game table on the Casino floor and the computer screen of the players playing over the internet takes live action accordingly.

Bonuses

One of the major components of the marketing strategy for online Casinos it’s the reduced expenses they have when compared with normal Casinos which are mainly a very infrastructure based operations, on  the case of the online Casino they just have passed all those cost as benefits to the players by giving bonuses and prizes, large jackpots and so on. Add to that the place where the online Casino it’s located, it gives you an idea of the quantity of money they area managing as an excess of a normal Casino. Of course Casinos have placed restrictions on the bonuses differentiating between real players and cheaters.

There basically three type of bonuses:

1.       Sign-up bonuses: are bonuses added to the account of the player on the moment of signup, before he starts to play, the most generous Casinos give a 100% bonus meaning that if your funding was for 100 you start playing with 200, with the only limitation that you could only take the winnings of your playing after a definite numbers of bets, For example a player must make US 5,000 USD on wagers (that’s 25x$200). Some bonuses are designed to let the player try the game before they start the real betting, those bonuses come in the form of US10 free, free spins or time to play with a predetermined number of bets.

2.       Cashable bonuses: area bonuses that the player could cash out after certain amount of wages required have been met, for example a customer with a 100USD deposit that receive a 100USD bonus and they will be available to him as soon as he was a betting amount of larger or of 200USD.

3.       Stick bonuses, area bonuses that doesn’t get cashed out to the player but he could take the winnings with him. In finance the term its better known as financial leverage systems. In this case even without the advantage of taking the money out, the simple fact of having the ability to play with the double of the bankroll that you entered the game, gives you and great house edge. For example assume that you entered the game on with 100 and were given a bonus of 100, and made a profit of 50%, if you want to cash out you walk away with your original $100 plus the new $ 100.

Affiliate program.

According to Rolling Good Times Online, a popular gambling magazine, currently there are 452 gambling-related sites on the internet with thousands of subsidiaries, affiliates, franchises and co-branded sites, with an overall market of $49 billion dollars.

The affiliate program it’s a way of individuals with unique capabilities to enter the Casino world with a turnkey solution that enables them to take advantage of the opportunity by using their skills and proven track together with a professional team of Casino dealers to extent the business.

Online Casino Fraud

Online Casino fraud came in two ways:

Refusal to deliver payments, it’s a Casino that either delay the withdrawal of payments or that don’t do the withdrawals at all, in the firsts case it is done so that the player keep playing until the house edge erode the rock.

Rigging the RNG, although not much more usual today online Casinos used to have software for generating the RNG that weren’t that random, add to that the industry is illegal on most organized countries, with limit the power of a regulatory body within the industry that allows the user to play safely. Various support groups have been raised to count the “rouge Casinos”, which is the name they have between the users of online Casinos. Those websites have been recompiling info on the rouge Casinos and today they have their list that doesn’t recommend to new players getting their feet wet on the grand Casino arena.

Serious websites area taking steps to avoid been labeled as rouge websites by buying their software solutions, basically for the RNG, with is the key component of every website.