Here at onlinecasino.ie we regularly discuss the advantages that the online casino and online sports gambling site operators have over their land based rivals, and how they have used those advantages to become successful. When the big bookmakers first set up their online sports gambling sites, the most obvious difference between gambling online and gambling at a high street betting shop was the massive improvement in the available gambling options. Most betting shops tended to concentrate their efforts on promoting horse racing, greyhound racing and football because these were clearly the most popular sports followed by the gambling community. The online sports gambling sites were however capable of offering a whole range of different sports and sporting events at very little extra cost to the bookmakers, which coupled with the convenience of being able to place bets from home or even nowadays from a mobile device has led to a big reduction in betting shop customers. This huge increase in gambling options as a result of the introduction of online gambling is probably even more significant when it comes to the range of casino games to be found at most of our online casinos. The first online casino games were introduced by the same bookmakers that had already established first online sports gambling sites, as a means of maximising the returns on their investments in the technology and software necessary to operate those sites. Nowadays we have access to an increasing number of different online casinos almost all of which offer a huge choice of games ranging from the traditional casino games such as roulette and blackjack, bingo and of course a vast range of slots and video slots. The online casinos however also have another huge advantage over their land based rivals and that is their much lower operating costs, which in turn has allowed them to introduce features such as the free online casino option on many of their games. Although the introduction of online casinos does not appear to have affected our real casinos or bingo clubs to the same degree as we have seen with the high street betting shops, their operating costs will always be a disadvantage when it comes to competing with their online rivals. With the best will in the world they will never be able to allow their customers to play their traditional casino games or bingo without staking any money, so the free online casino option will always be a feature of online casinos with which they can never compete. What they can do however is provide the atmosphere and excitement of playing casino games in the company of other gaming enthusiasts, something which in the eyes of many casino gambling fans will never be achieved by the online casinos even those which offer a live casino option. The real casinos and the bingo clubs therefore also have a significant advantage over their online rivals, which is probably why they have not suffered from the online competition in the same way as the betting shops. There is no doubt however than online casino gambling is attracting more and more fans, but it is probably also true that most of these new online casino customers are likely to be new casino games players for whom the free online casino option clearly has great appeal.
People starting to play online casino games for the first time will almost certainly take advantage of the free online casino option when it is available, even if only for a short while to get used to how the game is played or find their way round the graphics. Many traditional casino games are of course relatively easy to learn and would probably only require two or three free bets before a new player is confident to start playing with their own money, but others such as backgammon for instance are not so easy. There are a number of traditional casino games such as backgammon and poker in which skill and experience really are important factors, but there are others such as baccarat which have undeservedly gained that reputation primarily because most of us have never had the opportunity to play the game. Now that most online casinos offer us to chance to play baccarat online it has become very obvious that in spite of the rules of the game being a little complicated, it is not at all difficult to play because the player does not actually need to know the rules. There are only two hands dealt in baccarat and the whole game is controlled by the dealer, so all the player has to do is pick which of the two hands will win the game. It really is as easy as that so apart from the remote possibility of a tie, which is rarely backed by experienced players it is no more difficult than calling heads or tails on the toss of a coin. A couple of hands in the free play mode is all it takes to dispel the myths surrounding the game of baccarat. Where the free online casino option does come into its own is when a player wants to learn how to play casino games such as backgammon and poker, both of which are known to reward skill and experience in the long run. Texas Hold’em poker in particular can be expensive during the learning process because of the number of betting rounds and the changing value of each hand as the community cards are dealt. All potential new players would be advised to start playing this form of poker first in free play mode and then against the house for fixed odds before even thinking about playing against other players on one of the specialist online poker platforms. The traditional casino games are however not the only casino games which benefit from the free play option, many of the slots games now available at our online casinos can also be relatively complicated and a few free spins can be useful as well as fun.