Online casinos offer an ever increasing range of casino games

Before the advent of online casinos the number of people in Ireland regularly playing casino games was relatively small, primarily because we have a limited number of real casinos and a great many of us do not live anywhere near those that we have. Some would also argue that the limited choice of games we could play at a real casino was also a factor, and that if we included regular bingo players and fans of slot machines into the figures they would be much higher. This brings us to the question of what we now mean by the term casino games. There is no doubt that if you had asked most people what they understood by the term casino games before online casinos came on stream, they would probably have replied with roulette first of all, with possibly blackjack or poker as alternatives. The reason is obvious, because in most Irish casinos that was all the choice there was apart from perhaps a few slot machines. When the big bookmakers started to introduce gambling games on their online sports gambling sites however, we were suddenly presented with a much bigger choice of games and the online casino was born. Since then of course that range of casino games has grown and grown, not only at the major online casino sites operated by the bookmakers, but we have also seen the introduction of a number of smaller specialist online casinos which have concentrated on giving us an even wider choice of casino games, particularly slots games. The rapid expansion of the original online casino sites, coupled with the introduction of these new specialist online casinos has provided us with a huge choice of games to enjoy, all of which we now include in the term casino games. We have already mentioned that the majority of these new online casino games are slots games of one form or another, but whilst it would be easy to simply classify them all as just slots games this would not adequately reflect the variety of these games and the imagination of the software designers who have created them. Slot machines have been popular for many years, even dating back to the era of penny arcades on seaside piers, but modern slot machines are much more sophisticated and although online casino software designers have a number of advantages when it comes to developing new concepts, the games developed for the real machines have also become popular and even iconic among real slot machine enthusiasts. In fact slot machine games made famous by companies such as Amatic Industries almost have a cult following, so slots fans are very excited that these games are now available online at the new CasinoCasino site.

Of the traditional casino games available at our online casinos, roulette is probably still the most popular even though there are still some people who do not like the graphics associated with the use of RNG’s to determine the winning number. Nowadays of course roulette can be played at most online casinos in the Live casino mode with the game streamed from a studio or even in the case of the All Irish casino from a real casino in Malta. The game of roulette is very simple in principle, with the only aim being to predict the winning number. The excitement comes from the fact that there are many betting options on each spin, ranging from even money bets on Red/Black or Odd/Even, to rows, columns, pairs and of course single numbers, and although there is no limit on how many bets can be placed on each spin, new players should be wary of over-doing it and reducing their odds significantly as a result.

Blackjack is also a very popular traditional casino game both at our real casinos and online. Again the concept of blackjack is simple, although sometimes misunderstood by new players. We should therefore stress that the aim of the game is not to achieve a hand as close as possible to 21, it is simply to beat the dealer’s hand without exceeding 21. Remember when you are deciding what to do with your hand that the dealer must draw a card on 16 and is therefore statistically more likely to bust than not. Most online casinos also offer blackjack in the Live casino format with real dealers and the opportunity to communicate with them as you would at a real casino.

Another traditional casino game often available in the Live casino mode is the game of baccarat. Very popular and widely available at real casinos on the continent, baccarat is a casino game with a very unwarranted reputation as a complicated game only played by high rollers. The rules of baccarat are indeed fairly complicated, but the player does not actually need to know them because the game is totally controlled by the dealer. When it comes to playing baccarat at an online casino the player simply has to choose one of three possible outcomes of each hand. Either the dealer wins or the player wins, or very rarely there is a tie. It really is as easy as that, but if you do want to know the rules out of interest, we have detailed them on our casino games pages.

We have already commented on the fact that online bingo is now considered to be a casino game, and there are a variety of related numbers games such as Keno also available at most online casinos, but the casino game which has benefitted most from the introduction of online casinos is undoubtedly poker. The game of poker has really taken off as a result of the introduction of online casinos and the Texas Hold’em format in particular has become the game of choice for most serious online poker players as well as tournament players. Serious poker players now have a number of specialist online poker forums which enable them to compete with other players over the internet, but most of the online casinos also offer a range of other poker games. These include Caribbean stud, 5-card draw poker and let-it-ride. You can even play 3-card brag at most online casinos.