Don’t forget to read our online casino reviews before choosing your site

The first online gambling sites were all set up by the big bookmakers and they were all focused on providing their existing customers with the opportunity to do their sports gambling over the internet rather than having to do it through a high street betting shop. It wasn’t long however before the site operators decided to try and maximise the returns on their investments in the technology and the software necessary to operate their online sports gambling sites by introducing a few games. That decision kick started what we now know as the online casino sector and proved to be the beginning of a huge expansion in the number of online gambling sites. The number and variety of casino games available on these online casino sites proved to be the driving force behind the introduction of more and more online casinos with even more new site operators. Here at onlinecasino.ie we have been following the development of the online casino sector for many years and with the help of our regular online casino reviews we have been able to keep our readers up to date with developments and produce a list of recommended online casinos to help new casino games players find an online casino site to match their needs. In the early days of course the only online casinos that were available in Ireland were those operated by the well-known high street bookmakers, but these were quickly joined by a number of other bookmakers who were specialist online operators with no interest in running any betting shops. The result of this was that there were more online casinos for our online casino reviews to consider and a much wider range of casino games for us to test. The reason for the expansion in the number of different casino games was that as the number of online casinos grew so did the number of specialist online casino software companies who were responsible for the design and supply of those games. That situation has become even more accentuated over the last few years because we are now able to access online casino sites operated by a whole new type of online gambling supplier specialising solely on the online casino sector rather than covering the whole range of gambling options provided by the major bookmakers. All of these developments have of course been very welcome for online casino games enthusiasts such as ourselves, but they have also made our online casino reviews here at onlinecasino.ie even more relevant in assisting potential new players to make the right decisions and enjoy their online gambling experience to the full. Our list of recommended online casinos clearly still features many of popular high street bookmakers who established and operated the first online casinos, including of course Ireland’s most popular bookmaker Paddy Power. Paddy Power probably own the largest number of betting shops in Ireland, and their often quoted slogan is that they are “the punter friendly bookmaker”. They certainly have a lot of fun with their marketing strategies and their advertising can be a bit near the mark at times, but there is no doubting the quality of the Paddy Power online casino and they have always had a prominent position on our recommended list.

Next up as far as the more established online casinos are concerned in Ireland would probably be the Ladbrokes casino, again because of a huge high street presence in our towns and cities. Ladbrokes offer a huge range of online betting options and their specialist online poker and online bingo platforms are extremely popular here in Ireland and of course elsewhere in Europe. Another of the major online gambling sites to include an online casino within a larger site offering sports gambling options as well is the Betfred online gambling site. Betfred  is one of the biggest bookmakers in the UK and Ireland and does also have a chain of betting shops here in Ireland, although not as many as either Paddy Power or Ladbrokes. Betfred was originally a telephone betting service but went into online gambling in 2004 and then established an online casino the following year. Most of the other major bookmakers who feature on our recommended list are solely internet based and have no high street presence anywhere in the world. Bwin for example is one of the newer online only bookmakers which was founded in 1999, but their online casino is excellent and they also offer mobile phone betting services. The 888 casino is another online casino operated by an internet only bookmaker, but their online casino is equal to any of the multiple betting option sites accessible in Ireland and has again featured on our recommended list for many years.

Last but not least are the most recent specialist online casinos which concentrate solely on providing an exciting selection of casino games and do not offer any sports gambling facilities at all. If you are a fan of sports gambling and playing casino games, you may prefer to use the large multiple option online gambling sites operated by the big bookmakers, but if your main area of interest is in playing casino games then you will not do better than opting for one of these specialist online casinos. CasinoLand, Yako casino and Instacasino all offer a huge variety of casino slots games supplied by a number of different casino software companies rather than featuring games from one supplier as is the case with many of the larger sites. For those of you who are serious slot machine enthusiasts and have enjoyed playing the famous slot machine games supplied by Amatic Industries, the good news is that many of these iconic slots games are now available online for the first time at another of the newer specialist online casinos namely the CasinoCasino site. All of these smaller online casino sites offer a whole range of casino games which are not available on any of the bigger sites, and for that reason alone are well worth a visit.