Casino Games
Most online casinos offer a wide variety of games to the public. Whatever the game is which you prefer, you can be sure to play it at one of the many different online casinos which we reviewed on this website. Of course, all of the casino classics which you would expect any land-based casino to have you can find back online as well. Whether you are thinking about the roulette tables in the Monaco casino or the endless rows of slot machines of the Bellagio in Las Vegas, you can rest assured that you can play all such games at every online casino as well. You will even find the variety of games being greater at most online casinos if you compare it with your average land-based casino!
The big difference between games at online casinos and land based casinos can of course be found in the virtual aspect of online casinos. Being internet-based, these casinos do not have the same restrictions as many land-based casinos have and do have a whole new set of opportunities which they handily use to their advantage. If you look at it from the perspective of a casino boss, you will see that a land-based casinos has to deal with the acquisition and upkeep of often expensive real estate, ever-increasing wages of casino floor staff and of course buying expensive casino hardware such as gaming tables and slot machine in order to operate the casino.
There are some obvious differences if you happen to operate an online casino! With all gaming activities being offered online, you do not need expensive real estate, can manage with a small fraction of casino personnel and only need to acquire the online versions of casino games. As these online casinos are not restricted by space, they are often able to offer a far greater variety of games than land-based casinos. You will find that there are multiple table games with all kinds of different betting limits, making them suitable for both high rollers as well as first-time gamblers, as well as endless rows of online slots.
Note Koen: Perhaps here put the buttons/images that link to the following sub pages?
- roulette
- blackjack
- slots
- craps
- poker
- live casino games
Different categories of casino games
Broadly speaking, casino games can be categorised into three distinctive categories. These are:
- Slot machines
- Table games
- Other casino games (not belonging to the above two categories)
Slot machines
The first category of slot machines is the most straightforward one to explain. Slot machines, also known as fruit machines or just simply called slots in everyday language, are machines on which gamblers try to win money by putting some coins into it and operating it, either by pressing a button or pulling a handle. Of course, the online variant of this classic casino game is not operated by putting coins into it and pulling the handle the old-fashioned way. Nowadays you just deposit money to your online casino account, press a keyboard button or click with your mouse, and the reels are rolling!
There are some great advantages of playing slots at an online casino as opposed to playing them at a land-based casino. If you are solely interested in the game itself, you will be happy to hear that there is a much greater variety of slot machines online than you would find in most land-based casinos. It is not uncommon for online casinos to have several hundreds of slot machine titles, with their assortment being regularly expanded and refreshed. All the old favourite titles can as easily be found back as the state-of-the-art new releases. All these games have top notch graphics and are good for hours and hours of playing fun. Of course, there are also progressive jackpot slots where you can win prizes as high as ten million euro. Why not give it a try?
If you want to get learn more about slot machines, as well as slots tactics and tricks and the best casinos to play them, we recommend you to read our dedicated slots page.
Table games
The second category of casino games encompasses perhaps the most evocative of casino games. The games in this category are the ones which are played on a specially designed gambling table. For example, the classic casino games of roulette, baccarat and blackjack belong to this category. But also a relatively new favourite such as Texas Hold’Em Poker is a great example of a table game. These games have in common that they are being led by casino employee, most often called a croupier or dealer depending on the game in question. This is the person who collects the bets, shuffles the cards, spins the roulette ball and pays out the winners. As a player, you most often will play against the house, either alone or together with some fellow player seated at the same table.
What attracts many people to such table games is the opportunity to interact with others. When you are playing slots, it is just you versus the machine, whether you play it in a casino or online. This is not the case when it comes to table games. We all know from different films how epic the talks around a casino table can be and how people can get together to watch a game unfold. There are dozens of films set in Las Vegas where half the casino watches a game of poker or blackjack comes to its conclusion, especially when big amounts of money are on the line. The same can be said of course when we take a look at the James Bond films, where our spying hero is often seen in the casino of Monaco dressed in a black dinner jacket talking with gorgeous women around a roulette table. And then there are is poker, with tournaments such as the World Series Of Poker (WSOP) attracting even millions of watchers on TV!
There is definitely some sort of suspense to watch these games unfold live in a casino, whether you are betting yourself or watching others. You can cheer on others in the hope they will win, celebrate your blackjack winnings together with the player next to you by buying him a drink, or sob together with all others at the table if you might all have a temporary losing streak. In the end, you are all playing against the house, and not against each other, which makes for a special kind of camaraderie.
Why people play table games
Even though technically you can win the biggest amount of money playing slots – as you can win a jackpot of multiple million dollars or euros with a single button click – the chances are actually fairly low that you are walking home with such a huge amount of money. Of course, the pay-out rate of slots are generally quite high and it is far from a bad choice to play them as they are good for hours of playing fun, but fact is that you can’t influence the game results. Your chances of winning are pre-determined by something called a Random Number Generator (RNG), which determines in at random in a fair and honest way which symbols will appear on the screen of your video slot. In the end, luck is the sole factor which plays a role here. With table games however, that is an entirely different matter.
Although luck is of course also the biggest factor which determines whether or not you will win your table game, there are some popular casino games where more than just luck is needed. Roulette is generally considered as a pure game of chance just like slots are. There are no ways to influence the game and the chances of the ball dropping on number 1 are as high as it dropping on 14. The same cannot however be said of other games such as blackjack, where as a player you need to make vital in-game decisions and can even use different strategies to improve your winning chances. When playing poker a whole different world opens up, as in this game (if played against other players) you can even bluff your way to winning. These factors make table games such a popular category of games as you can influence the outcome of games. It is no surprise that there are people around who are professional blackjack or poker players as they managed to master such tactics, earning them millions of dollars!
Table games at online casinos
Even though there is obviously a big reason why you might prefer to play table games at a land-based casino instead of an online casino (the vibe, the socialising!) there are a number of advantages when it comes to online gaming which you will not easily be able to find back in Vegas, Macau or in Monaco! One advantage is that you can play from the comfort of your own home. There is no need to dress up and drive for miles to the nearest casinos to take a seat behind a table. You can just open your laptop and start playing right from your couch, dining table or bed. Most online casinos are also accessible from your mobile phone. So why not make a bet or two while you are sitting in a bus or train making your daily commute to work? Thanks to modern technology, there is no need to play games like roulette, blackjack or baccarat in a land-based casino as you can as easily get all the excitement online!
Want to read more about the history of each individual table game? Master tactics and learn about unique tips how to increase your winning chances at blackjack or roulette? Find out what the exact rules are of such games as baccarat and craps? Curious about the best online casinos to play video poker? For each of these games we have dedicated pages where you can learn all of this and much, much more! Check out our baccarat page, blackjack page, craps page, poker page and roulette page to improve your game!
Other casino games
There is much more to casino gaming than slot machines and table games alone. The third and last casino game category encompasses all games which are not slot machines and cannot be considered as table games. Two of the biggest casino games which fall into this category are the games of keno and bingo. While they might lack the grandeur of games like roulette and the high jackpots of slots, these games are widely popular low-key games offering players to sit back and relax while placing a bet. Of course, there are also great prizes to be won here if you are successful!
Many online casinos now offer even non-traditional casino games on their websites. The two most common options are scratch cards and sports betting. We all know scratch cards from our local grocery shop or magazine stand – you basically scratch all of the boxes or fields on your paper ticket and the symbols or texts which slowly become visible show whether you win something or not. Many casinos offer online versions of such scratch cards. While these are probably not full games which keep you occupied for hours in a row like slots and table games can, they make for a wee bit of a fun and a great distraction if you have only limited time to play.
Sports betting
Sports betting has been one of the most popular ways of gambling since antiquity. Already in the era of Ancient Rome, and perhaps even much earlier in history, people were betting on gladiator fights and horse carriage races. Nowadays it still is one of the most popular ways to gamble. In almost every town in the world you are able to find a bookmaker, affectionately called a bookie by many. Whether your favourite sport is football (that is soccer for those living in the United States of America), American Football, rugby, athletics, horse racing or something completely different – you can all find it back at the bookmaker for agreed-upon odds.
Of course, you can just visit the local office of your bookie or go to your favourite online bookmaker which solely specialises in sports betting. You can however also find an increasing number of online casinos where you can bet on sports. There is one major advantage for sports betting at an online casino compared to doing it at the bookies. If you are a gambler who likes to play casino games, it means that you now do all your betting at a single website on the internet. You have just one online account to deposit your money on which you then can use for all your bets, whether it is a bet on Arsenal beating Manchester United, or a wager of a tenner on the colour red with roulette. This makes it easier to track your money and keep your betting patterns in check, you will save time for not having to go to multiple websites, and might even save some good money on payment transaction costs!
Live casino gaming
Online casinos have come up with a relatively new feature which allows them to compete even further with land-based casinos when it comes to creating that unique casino feeling. Nowadays the vast majority of online casinos have an online casino section which allows you to play on a real table while you remain seated behind your laptop or computer in your own home. By using a live video feed, you can watch a real casino table led by a dealer or croupier on your computer screen. You can then either place bets with the click of your mouse or keyboard, or even open your own microphone to talk to the dealer to place a bet for you on the table. You can then watch the game unfold through the live webcam feed.
The advantage of such live casino games are obvious: it recreates the tension and excitement of a real land-based casino and it feels like you are right in the middle of the action. If you want, you can also either chat or talk with the croupiers, dealers and fellow gamblers. All these live casino games are fully certified and are being led by highly professional dealers and croupiers. Whether you are playing live in Vegas, virtually at an online casino, or using the live casino option, your winning chances will always be the exact same. If you want to read more about live casino gaming, you can read our dedicated page about it.
Rake in bonuses while playing your favourite casino game
Another great advantage are the bonuses you can get when you play at an online casino. Whether you look at sign-up bonuses for new customers or fantastic offers for recurring visitors, these bonuses can easily get you up to 200 or even 300 percent on top of the money you deposit with an online casino. If for example you deposit 100 euro to your online casino account, you might be able to get a welcome bonus of 200%, which means that an extra 200 euro will be added to your account and you can start gambling with 300 euro! If you want to learn more about this topic, we recommend you to read our dedicated guide to casino bonuses where you will quickly learn which bonuses are being offered by casinos, how specific bonus rules work and which online casinos currently offer the highest bonuses.
Many online casinos also reward their most loyal customers by giving them additional bonuses such as free spins, higher deposit bonuses, cashback bonuses and free entrance tickets into tournaments. It is not uncommon for online casinos to reward their best customers by handing out freebies such as monetary prizes, luxury gifts, weekend getaways and even cars! If online gambling is your hobby and you frequently visit online casinos we strongly advise you to read our beginner’s guide to casino loyalty programmes where we explain how these programmes work, what exact benefits you can get out of them, and how to use them to get the most out of your online casino experiences.
Get ready to play
Whatever your favourite casino game might be, you will find it back at most online casinos. Before you start playing your favourite game we however recommend you to ensure to select a reputable and reliable online casino. Even though most online casinos are legit businesses, there are a couple of rotten apples on the internet where you should stay well clear from. By only playing at reliable online casinos you can be assured that all games are completely honest and fair. These reputable casinos all have full operating licences in one or multiple countries and are regularly checked by the regulatory authorities such as the local gaming authorities and independent auditors.
If you are new to online casino gaming and are not sure what the best casinos are to play slots, blackjack, roulette or poker, then we recommend you to read our beginner’s guide to casino selection and registration. In this guide, we will teach you how you can make sure that you select the casino most suitable to your own specific needs. On Gambling City, we have also reviewed dozens of online casinos in an unbiased way, not only talking you through both the positive aspects of each of those casinos, but also mentioning the downsides of every casino. All casinos which are given the thumbs up by our reviewers can be trusted as safe places to put down a wager as they all have gambling licences in respected jurisdictions (such as the UK, Scandinavia or Malta) and only use gaming software of the most trusted software developers in the world.