Online casinos offer a huge range of casino games

There are many important aspects to be considered when comparing the merits of one online casino against another, but surely the most important should always be the quality of the casino games available on the site. We can discuss the financial management of each online casino, the privacy and security offered and even whether one online casino offers a better bonus deal than the rest, but in the long run we visit an online casino so that we can enjoy playing casino games and for no other reason. Every online casino now offers well over a hundred different casino games, and in some cases the figure may be nearer two hundred or more. This is of course where the online casinos can totally eclipse any real casino, even the massive super casinos of Las Vegas, because there are no physical space restrictions associated with an online casino. The vast majority of the casino games offered by almost all the online casinos are of course slots games of various forms, but those of us who enjoy the traditional casino games have also benefitted from the introduction of online casinos. We are no longer restricted to playing roulette and blackjack which were usually the only casino games available at our real casinos, we can now play traditional casino games such as baccarat and backgammon, both of which were often available in the real casinos of mainland Europe but not in Ireland. We can even play that American casino favourite craps at most online casinos.

Playing these traditional casino games has formed the basis of casino gambling for many years and is where many of us discovered our love of playing casino games in the first place, but the joy of playing these casino games was also enhanced by the atmosphere of a real casino and the fun of playing with other casino games fans. In the early days of online casinos many people found that they missed that atmosphere, but there was also the controversy surrounding the apparent behaviour of the ball on the roulette wheel graphics. The response of the online casinos was to offer us the opportunity to play some of these casino games in what they called the Live casino mode, with real dealers and a real roulette wheel. Most online casinos offer this option by streaming the appropriate casino games from a studio somewhere in eastern Europe, but recently a number of the smaller specialised online casinos such as the All Irish casino have taken this one step further and now stream some casino games from a real casino in real time. There is no doubt that the Live casino option has greatly enhanced the excitement and satisfaction of playing some on these more traditional casino games online.

When discussing the increased availability of the traditional casino games which has resulted from the introduction of online casinos we must include the game of poker. Poker is the casino game which has really surged in popularity since the online casinos were introduced, and there are now even specialist poker forums online which enable poker players all over the world to play each other. Even the poker tournaments such as the Irish Open have seen the benefit of this increase in the number of people playing poker seriously, with most tournaments oversubscribed as more and more people want to get involved. The version of poker played in almost all the poker tournaments is of course Texas Hold’em, but all the online casinos also offer a variety of other poker formats which can be played against the house for fixed odds. You do not have to be an experienced poker player with a reasonable budget to enjoy playing poker online, most online casino sites have suitable poker games for everybody.

Before we take a look at the biggest section of almost every casino games range found at our online casinos, the slots, there is another classification of online casino games we should not ignore. Often found under the heading ‘other games’ these can vary from bingo and other numbers games to lotteries and scratch cards. Bingo is of course a very popular game in Ireland, and although the high street bingo clubs have taken a bit of a hit over recent years there are still a lot of people who enjoy playing bingo from home at an online casino. There are also a variety of dice games in addition to craps, ranging from the easiest game usually called Roll ‘em in which the player simply has to predict the total value of two dice, to dice games such as Miami Dice at Paddy Power which uses five dice and offers a whole range of potential multiple bets similar to that found in roulette. If you’re looking to try something different it’s always worth clicking on ‘other games’ to see what’s on offer.

Finally we must turn our attention to the huge number of slots games and video slots that we can now play online. This is where the online casinos have really gone to town and taken advantage of their lack of space restrictions. It is also the element of online casinos which has spawned a whole new business sector. The slots games we find on our online casino sites are usually designed by the casino software designers, and many of the major online casino operators use specialist casino software companies such as Playtech to design and manage their sites. Consequently Playtech has rapidly become a dominant player in the online casino sector and is responsible for more of the slots games we find at our online casinos than anyone else. Unfortunately that also means that we see a certain amount of duplication in the casino games range of some sites. There are exceptions of course with Paddy Power using their own software and some of the new smaller specialist online casinos such as CasinoCasino and Casinoland offering many brand new exclusive casino games provided by smaller casino software suppliers such as Netent and Microgaming. If you are a fan of the slots there are some very interesting games to be found at these smaller online casino sites.