A Beginners Guide to Online Casinos

 

In this article we provide essential information that all players should understand before they venture into the realms of online gambling. Principally aimed at beginners, the information provided will allow you to take the correct approach to gambling in order to maximise your experience when participating in online gambling.

 

 

Should you have confidence in online casinos?

You can take comfort in the fact that you can have confidence in many online casinos. However, some do appear to have a few dishonest practices. In order to avoid these ‘rouge casinos' we recommend that you play only at the sites that are popularly advocated on online casino review website. Our list of recommended casinos is reliable as we have tested each casino individually in order to establish their good practices.

 

In reality, online casinos have no reason to cheat in order to win money, they already operate from an advantaged position over the individual players, as do all real world casinos (N.B. the house advantage varies according to the games played), they can also rely fairly on errors made by players that leads them to lose when they could have won, errors such as a lack of concentration at a critical moment.

 

Additionally, because online casinos have to purchase expensive licences, pay extensive duty and tax bills in order to legally provide a gambling service, to cheat would be to lose customers, and thus money, ultimately leading to liquidation of the business, meaning that they would have wasted money- the licences alone can cost in the region of £35,000pa.

 

How do you choose an online casino?

The main criteria to take into consideration when choosing which casinos to play with include the following; the variety of games on offer, for example, do they have the game you are most interested in playing; the redistribution percentages, i.e. the amount of the money that gets deposited that is returned to the player, this should be at least 95%; the options concerning monetary transactions, the means by which you can deposit and withdraw, the time it takes for winnings to be returned to your bank account; and finally, and most importantly, the level of customer care- are they available 24/7? Do the respond well to queries and within a reasonable amount of time? How are they available, telephone, email, live help, etc.?

 

Playing on your computer:

In general, the procedure consists of downloading the casinos software onto your computer then installing and running it. On almost all the software provided a free play mode can be selected, often called ‘Play Money' or ‘Fun Money', before playing on real money games we recommend that you spend a while practicing, particularly if you are new to the experience of online casino gambling.

 

There are several online casinos that do not require any download, this is particularly true of sites which offer bingo, and these casinos will usually use Flashplayer or Java, these casinos are good because they allow you to start playing immediately, the only problem may be in playing if your computer is relatively old and slow as they can often crash.

 

Buying Chips:

After having played a few games in the free version of the casino, you can now begin to play with real money. There are several means in existence of transferring money into your player account; normally you will be using a bankcard, or electronic banks, such as Neteller. Once you have made your transaction the money should appear in your account automatically and there will be a portion of the screen that will tell you how much you have left, and will debit amounts in real time as you wager on games.

 

Withdrawing Money:

Different casinos will have different policies regarding the withdrawal of funds, some set limits on the minimum and maximum amounts that you will be able to withdraw in any one transaction, they may refund by cheque or via the banking system, and they will ask you to verify your identity through the provision of copies of official documentation. Read carefully the terms and conditions relating to withdrawal policies of the individual casino that you have chosen to play at.

 

Deposits are not necessary to take advantage of bonuses:

Certain online casinos offer their players a bonuses, generally this is around £10, it is often the case that you will have to provide proof of identity and also your bankcard, but nothing will be debited.

 

Welcome Bonuses:

All online casinos now offer a bonus to players on their first deposit. Sometimes these are fixed price bonuses, but on other occasions it is dependent on the amount of the deposit. Occasionally the bonuses will be represented as a percentage according to the deposit, such as 100% bonus, meaning that if you deposit £10 you will receive £10, normally the maximum amount they offer is £50.

 

Conditions for obtaining the bonus:

The bonuses are for players benefit! The casinos want players to avoid players obtaining the bonus and then leaving the site on the same day once they have won, to stop players from doing this, casinos put in a clause that you must play through a certain amount of times the value of the bonus, for example, if you get a bonus of £50, they may insist that you play through £500 before you can withdraw any winnings- this does not mean that you will need to deposit £500 in order to get the bonus, because you are very likely to win games and you will thus be playing through most of the necessary amount with money that you have won- if you win £1000 on a game, you could walk away with £500!