Playing at casinos online has become increasingly popular over the last couple
of years. The chances of winning are as good as on real life casinos and you can
play from your own living room whenever you feel like it - no dress code applies.
The only difficult part of playing at an online casino is knowing which one to
choose as there are more than thousands registered casinos on the Internet today.
Jacknoir.com is dedicated to helping you find what you are looking for. I have
reviewed more than a hundred casinos, poker rooms and bingo sites and gathered
all the necessary information for you to take your pick. Furthermore I have made
it possible for the players that use this website to review the casinos as well
so you don't have to rely on my judgment alone.
To help you get started I have written a little piece of advice on what to look
for when starting out at online casinos:
Things to look for
I started playing at online casinos in 2001 and have been playing on a regular
basis ever since. During this period I have seen both good and bad casinos which
have taught me what to look for when finding a new casino.
- Reliability
- Games
- Chance of winning
1. Reliability
First of all you should find out if the casino is reliable and offer a good service.
I usually do this in three ways: Checking the buzz on the Internet, checking the
casinos third party endorsements and finally contacting the casino myself to see
how they respond:
To check the reputation of an online casino you should know where to look. I recommend
using this website as a starting point (of course) because here you can see reviews
from other players which is not very common. Then I would also go to casino watch
dog websites like CasinoMeister and check other forums for players like the one on Winner
Online.
Secondly you should know that all truly reliable online casinos has an official
license to operate from the government of their country of residence. This license
is not always easy to find and confirm - and if it is too difficult to find it
is probably because the casino is operating without a license. Look for the license
seal at the main page of the casino or look in the "About" section of
the casino website for some descriptions of the company behind and it's license
to operate. Another thing that gives a good indication of the reliability of the
casino is whether their payouts are supervised by a third party company. Often
you will find that good casinos have their payouts revised by PriceWaterHouseCoopers
- the famous revision company.
Finally you should contact the casino yourself. Usually the casino has a section
called "Support" or "Contact". All respectable casinos offer
customer support by telephone and email. More and more also offer the possibility
of chatting live with an online representative. The amount of options offered,
however, is not really a qualifying indication of reliability and good customer
support. To get a clear picture you have to actually get in touch: Try sending
an email with some kind of inquiry or just some words showing your interest in
the casino and see how long time it takes before you receive an answer and what
this answer is like. A delayed answer or an insultingly short one is a sign of
arrogance and should turn on a few red lights in your warning panel.
2. Games
You probably have a favorite game or two and of course this is important when
choosing an online casino. Not all casinos offer the same range of games so to
save you some time Jacknoir lists all the games offered by each of the casinos
on our website.
Another aspect you might want to consider is whether you are on a fast or a slow
Internet connection. If you don't want to wait for a casino program to download
and be installed on your computer you might want to find casinos offering a no-download
solution like a Flash or Java based version so you can start playing right away.
You can see information about no-download versions on Jacknoir as well.
Finally there is quite a difference between the quality of the games at online
casinos. This generally comes down to a question of the gaming software used by
the online casinos. Most casinos use a licensed software instead of making their
own. The gambling industry is therefore divided into fractions of more or less
reliable software licensees. Generally you will be safe trusting brands like Cryptologic,
Boss Media or Microgaming. But keep away from anything admitting to be associated
with Unified Gaming, Gambling Federation, Real Time Gaming, Golden Palace and
Clock Media. Generally speaking that is. You can read more about the different
types of gaming software in the Software Guide.
3. Chance of winning
A last thing to look for is of course how big your chances are of actually winning
some cash - that's what it is all about to begin with. Online casinos - unlike
real life casinos - actually offer new players free cash for registering as a
new player at their casino. This cash is called a bonus or a promotion. The size
of the bonus and the terms for taking advantage of it together with the general
odds and payouts of the casino (see above) and your skill at the particular game
you play decide your chance of winning anything on your first deposit at a casino.
Generally if a bonus is more than 50% of the qualifying deposit amount, and if
the terms says that you need to wager 10 times the (bonus + deposit) or lower
the bonus offer is very attractive and you stand a good chance of winning some
money. Anyway because you receive money from the casino to begin with theoretically
your chances of making a profit are always better than on real life casinos. You
can read more about the different kind of promotions in the Guide to Promotions
Guide.
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