Online Casinos Introduction
Online casinos are essentially offline casinos that have been brought into the realm of the internet. In this way, online casinos are actually one of the purest embodiments of online gambling that exist in the world today. They have literally taken offline gambling and found a way to create an exact online replica of most of the offline casino functions. For this reason, you will see all of the offline casino games within the online casino institutions and you will also see quite a few unique online casino games in there as well. This online strategy that has been taken to offline casinos creates some advantages, but it creates some disadvantages as well in the minds of some people. Both sides of that argument are presented below.
Disadvantages
The main disadvantage to the online casino concept is that it does not allow for the same amount of realism that you would get from the offline casinos. While this is definitely true, it is at the same time something that is inherent to the game. Online casinos are played through a computer screen, mouse and keyboard while offline casinos are played in a physical building with physical cards, wheels and tables all around you. Until virtual reality gets to the point where it can rival real life, the unfortunate truth of the matter is that online casinos are going to carry this disadvantage for a very long time.
Another disadvantage that some people feel is part of online casinos also has to do with the lack of physical contact and that disadvantage is the one about money. Some people do not like seeing their money as electronic and not real bills in their hand. This is something that is not a disadvantage for everyone, but it is a disadvantage for enough people that it should definitely be considered when coming up with an overall evaluation of the online casinos that are in existence today.
Advantages
There are many more advantages than disadvantages to online casinos. The main one of course is convenience. Instead of having to drive for hours to get to the closest casino to your house, you can now use online casinos to simply take a look online and in a few minutes be playing a game of blackjack. There are no dress codes at online casinos either, allowing you to play in a bathrobe in the comfort of your own room rather than in uncomfortable formal clothing in a casino environment that might not be that conducive to comfort.
Speed is another advantage that online casinos are able to offer. The average spin at a roulette table or deal of a blackjack hand at an online casino is often two to three times faster than the same thing at an offline casino. This means that you can get the same amount of action in half or even a third of the time. That gives you better efficiency in the planning of your day and whereas a casino experience might have taken a whole day before, now it only takes a few hours and allows you to enjoy the rest of your day in other pursuits.
Online gambling is perhaps one of the most interesting topics to discuss in a modern context because they are completely fluid and dynamic, changing on a regular basis to suit the needs and whims of their customers often before the customers even realize they have them. Gaming on the internet is going to be around for a very long time and for that reason many gambling institutions have become big parts of the internet, spanning out and purchasing other online businesses as well. To truly understand internet gaming however, you need to understand the basics of it and then delve deeper to examine each area it touches.
The Concept of Online Gambling
The concept of online casino gaming is a very simple concept. People enjoy gambling a great deal. They gamble in an organized fashion through betting on sports or playing at a casino and they gamble in an informal fashion through making bets and pools with their friends, relatives and co-workers. There is no doubt that gaming in its most general form is a big part of the lives of many people. Online gambling as a concept is one that takes this great love of many people and transforms it into something that is very convenient for them to do. Many people do not live close to casinos and often live in areas where placing sports bets is a speculatively legal activity at best and therefore costs them a lot of money if they actually want to go through with it. For this reason, gaming on the internet has allowed many people the chance to experience the same thrill of gambling in an online arena that can be as close as the comfort of their bedroom depending on where they keep their computer.
The Origins of Online Gambling
While not a whole lot is known about the origins of online casino gaming, it can definitely be said that it predates 2000 contrary to popular belief of many people that are now involved in it. It might even predate 1990 in its purest form, since people before that were likely using intranet networks to send messages back and forth and some of those messages were likely informal gambling pools to predict things like the World Cup of Soccer. However, online gambling in the form it currently exists in (i.e. online casinos, bingo halls, poker rooms and sportsbook institutions) can not go back to much earlier than 1995. In fact, if you take a look at some of the oldest online casinos around, you will find that most of them date back to an area of time in the 1995 to 1998 range and this is also true for the oldest poker sites as well.
Online Gambling
While online casino gambling may have existed in one form or another before 2000, it certainly was not a very popular endeavor. The internet was in its infancy, the security notorious and therefore not many people were willing to trust online gambling institutions with their money. However as happens so often in the market the catalyst of the 2003 World Series of Poker being won by a total amateur catapulted millions into online poker and those people then filtered out into sports betting, internet casinos and of course bingo gaming as well.