Online casinos allow players to gamble throughout the Internet as well as in the comfort of whatever place they are in rather than traveling to wherever their favorite establishments are situated. They may be generally known as Internet casinos or virtual casinos due to this.

Much like their tangible "brick and mortar" counterparts, online casinos have ratings in the type of payback percentages and odds. Some of them even publish payout percentages on their own sites, vaunting higher payback and higher frequency than their competitors.

Payback percentage is defined as "is the overall percentage that a machine will return to the player in the long haul." This parameter may be programmed into what ever game the virtual casino might be running and is set based on the owner's specifications.

Because of its very nature of being virtual and intangible, online casinos have trust difficulties with prospective and even regular clients. In light of this many casino owners have purchased and/or leased proprietary software made by reputable software entities like CryptoLogic Inc, Realtime Gaming, Microgaming, and Playtech. They then peg their online casino's trustworthiness with the programming companies' reputations and also the stability of their random number generators.

Online casinos are classified into three types in line with how players connect to each other. They are:

Web-based online casinos - these types of virtual casinos don't require downloading files; they readily play through a wide variety of Internet browsers. Many of them require Flash or Java for a player to participate in games however. The good thing about this sort of casino is the fact that sound clips and graphics needed for the game is streamed directly to the client over the Net. This dispenses the need to download relatively huge files.

Download-based online casinos - Involved in this kind of casino involves downloading a client installer needed for players to access the virtual site. The advantage of this sort of casino is that it generally runs considerably quicker than Web-based ones. The disadvantage is that interested players need to download the client as well as the risk of installing malware from shady parties can be very much real.

Live-based casinos - In this particular sort of casino, players can hear, see, and communicate with other players. The web is just relatively an unobtrusive medium of communication as players participate in a real life environment.

Online casinos may offer any one or all of the following gambling pastimes: online poker, roulette, blackjack, baccarat, craps and online slot gacor games.