Online casinos have taken the gambling world by storm. These days, most people prefer to stay home or in their office and gamble the hours away. Traditional casinos are still visited a lot and preferred by many for their real life gambling feel and environment. However, gambling online offers a lot more advantages that one cannot enjoy while gambling on land.The first advantage is that the online environment is more international and inclusive. The casino is usually multilingual and the currencies provided are varied. This means that people from various parts of the world can play with each other without worrying about the currency of the payout.Another advantage that the online environment offers is privacy. Gambling is usually frowned upon in most circles because of its addictive nature. However, gambling online does not have any of the shame and guilt that comes with gambling in a casino due to the privacy. Furthermore, a land casino usually has a lot of cameras and security men all over the place. The player’s every move is usually captured and scrutinized by a number of people. This could make a player anxious, especially players who are not fond of being recorded. This is not the case with gambling online as the website administrators will not even know how the player looks like.Gambling online is considered safer than gambling in a traditional casino. This is because the player is able to gamble in the safety and comfort of their own home. The websites are usually very safe and the player can be sure that none of their cash will be stolen. However, players in a land casino can easily be robbed by others as they will carry their cash with them. Furthermore, when a player wins big, everyone will know and their safety will be compromised.An online gambler can eat and drink whatever they want. They can also wear what they want, from track suits to their underwear. This is not the case with gambling on land as most casinos have a lot of rules. There are dress codes which must be followed and there is also a rule on what can be eaten or drunk. By wearing what they want, an online gambler is able to feel more comfortable while playing the game.The online environment is usually considered more profitable because they have fewer overheads. They do not have to pay for the building or security or even purchase the equipment. They therefore have better payouts and rates compared to their counterparts on land. Playing online is also considered less expensive since one plays with money as opposed to chips. The player will therefore have a clear idea of how much money they are winning or losing. This will help them to decide whether to continue playing or to call it a day.While playing online, the gambler has the option of playing with free chips for practice purposes. This will help them to hone their skills and to practice so that they can be ready to play for money. This is never the case when playing on land. The atmosphere is also more relaxed online, and there are less distractions and noise. The player can also play from absolutely anywhere and at any time. All these advantages are what have propelled online casinos to their current height of popularity.

While some casino games have a skill element in the outcome, some casino games are purely based on chance. Because all online casino games are partly or completely driven by chance, all casino games rely on a random number generator, or RNG in the software that powers the game. The RNG is a mathematical application that does exactly what it says: generates a completely random number. Not all RNGs are the same, and they have to be tested extensively to ensure that the numbers they generate really are random.In some games, the use of an RNG has an obvious role. In European roulette, for example, the RNG generates a number from 1 to 37 (with 37 corresponding to “0”) on the roulette wheel. The RNG generates a number, the casino stops, and bets are paid or forfeited.In craps, the RNG has to generate two random numbers simultaneously, and in single deck card games, the RNG has to generate a number from 1 to 52, with each of those numbers corresponding to a specific card. During a single deck card game, the RNG has to “remember” which cards it has already dealt so that they won’t be dealt again. With multiple-deck games like online blackjack, the RNG has an even more complicated mathematical algorithm driving it.Some RNGs require the user to specify an initial “seed” value, which itself varies randomly. Some of them use the time on a clock as a seed, so that there is no human intervention at all in the RNG. There are some RNGs that actually involve numerous RNGs running all at the same time, with one RNG picking from among the results, creating a sort of super-randomness to the calculation. Of course, these are very oversimplified ways of describing how RNGs work, but it gives you some idea of the “brain” behind the many online casino games you enjoy.To be deemed as fair, numbers spit out by any RNG have to be unpredictable and unbiased. To make sure that this is the case, internet gaming platforms have to be tested regularly by independent testing entities like eCOGRA. The testing groups have to test the RNG algorithms over millions of hands of card games or millions of throws of dice to ensure that the numbers are unpredictable and unbiased.In your online research about internet gambling, you may stumble across a person or site telling you that a certain slot machine has a “cycle” that is predictable enough that you can learn when it’s “due” for a jackpot, or that may want to sell you some sort of system for predicting hits. These ploys aren’t gambles at all: they’re just good ways to throw away your money. Save those hard-earned dollars for something else!When choosing among online casinos, you should look for ones whose gaming software is tested by eCOGRA, Certified Fair Gambling (CFG), Gaming Associates, BMM International, Technical Systems Testing (TST), Price Waterhouse Coopers, or another reputable independent auditor. A casino online that is up front about its software platform and independent auditing is far more likely to give you a fair and fun internet gaming experience.

It’s always a humbling experience when we stop for a while and look around us. Half of the things we take for granted today were just the stuff of dreams and ambitions just a few decades ago. Take online casinos, for example. How many people wake up, open their computers, log into an online casino, and proceed to play the day away?Back then, people had to go to Las Vegas just so they could play at a casino. They would travel for miles and miles just to play a single game of blackjack or baccarat. You really have to appreciate how people succeeded in making this happen.In the Beginning…Online Casinos started cropping up during the mid 1990’s, although there’s much debate as to who exactly opened the first one. Many believe it to be ‘InterCasino’, an online gambling site which opened in 1996. However, there are some that believe that it was actually ‘Gaming Club’, which opened in October 1995.It is not unlikely that this is the truth, considering how Microgaming, the owner of the said site, is also the first online gambling software provider to be established. Either way, these new online casinos only received their go signal when Antigua and Barbuda passed an act called the “Free Trade and Processing Act”. This allowed online casinos to open at the said country without fear of litigation.Of course, though the online casinos were based in the Caribbean, the bulk of their users resided elsewhere in the world. And, due to the very nature of the internet itself, this made all the users prone to exploitation.This prompted the Kahnawake Gaming Commission to be established in 1996. They regulated the online gaming activity of people and casinos and also issue gaming licenses to the online gambling sites. They aim to keep the online gambling industry transparent and fair. The Kahnawake Gaming Commission is based in Canada and, up still provide excellent service to casinos and the users alike.By the late 1990’s, online casinos were already very much established. However, connectivity issues were rampant and the action in general was rather slow due to the lack of bandwidth. It was only until after the new millennium that this issue was solved. But by then, online casinos had new problems.The UIGEAIt is impossible to talk about the history of online casinos without talking about the legal fiasco that happened in 2005. Antigua and the US were in a dispute over cross border online gambling.The World Trade Organization decided to side with Antigua and, as a result, the US passed the UIGEA. This was a last minute addition to their Safe Port Act. The act made it incredibly hard for online gambling sites to cater to the US, so a lot of them just decided to close their doors to US citizens altogether.Even until now, this piece of legislation is still under debate, especially since it hurt not only the online casinos but the US players as well. There’s a change in the legal climate these days, though, since the European Union seems to be rather supportive of the online gambling industry.There’s even talk that the US is considering some concessions. Either way, it seems that Online Casinos not only have a colorful past, but a great future ahead too.