Online casinos are precisely what the name suggests, casinos that are available to play on the net. You can play the same games while you would expect to find in a bricks and mortar casino.

You can expect to find similar odds that you would find at a land based casino; on the flip side, some online gaming sites claim better odds with their slot machines than bricks and mortar counterparts. Some publish their payout percentage audits on their own web pages, this is something you should definitely check out, if possible, when deciding on an online casino to join when you can chose the one with the highest payout percentage thus increasing your probability of winning.

Online casinos can be separated into three groups determined by how the player can play their games. These groups are:

Web-based - Download-based - Live

Web-based Casinos allow the player to play the casino game of their choice directly on the net, without having to download any of the casinos software to their computer. The casino games are often delivered in Macromedia Flash, Java, or Macromedia Shockwave and can require your web browser to possess the relevant plug-in. The plug-ins are free to and easy install if you don't already have them enabled on your web browser. Most browsers already possess the plug-ins installed. You will also need a good bandwidth as the casino games are made up of sounds and animations requiring decent band-with to run properly.

Download-based Casinos require the player to download the online casinos software onto their computer in order for them to play the games. The best online casino gambling casino software connects directly to the online casinos vendor and allows the games to be played without the need of you using your web browser. The good thing about this really is that the game-play runs faster as the software uses the graphics and sound programs from the casinos software, as apposed to it being run through your browser on the internet. Obviously the software shall take just a little while to install itself on your computer and there's always the risk (as with downloading any software) that the on-line casino software contains malware and potentially infecting your computer.

Live-based Casinos is comparatively new and allows the player to communicate with games played in a real world Casino environment. The players can see, hear and connect to live dealerships in casinos worldwide.