There is no doubt that the advances in technology that many of us have witnessed during our lifetime have been truly remarkable, particularly the ever increasing influence of computer technology and the internet. There are now very few areas of our day to day lives which are not influenced by the advances in worldwide communications for example, and internet shopping is also having a severe effect on our town centres. Almost all our work places rely on computers or computer related technology to operate and an increasing proportion of our leisure time is also spent using this form of technology, but while we can all admire and marvel at the engineering advances which have made all this possible we must not forget that the equipment would be virtually useless without the software which makes it work. Every internet site needs some form of operating software before it becomes useable and many internet sites, including online casinos need even more input from the software designers. In fact online casinos are particularly dependent on the skill and imagination of the casino software designers because most of their content is derived from the casino software companies. Even the traditional casino games such as roulette and blackjack need input from online casino software designers because without good graphics they would not be the exciting online casino games they are today. It is the slots games however where the influence of the casino software companies is most apparent because they are entirely the product of the imagination of the casino software designers, and because the slots represent the vast majority of the casino games we can play online that is why the casino software companies have become so important to the online casino sector as a whole. There are now far more online casinos featured on our recommended list here at onlinecasino.ie than ever before and they all have equally good operating software to manage their financial transactions and their data security systems, so the only obvious difference between them is the range of casino games they offer. It is of course absolutely right that the success or failure of an online casino or any other internet site should depend solely on the quality of the product or service they are offering, but in the case of online casinos that means that the popularity of a particular site is almost totally dependent on their choice of casino software supplier.
The most influential online casino software company is undoubtedly Playtech. Founded in Estonia in 1999 Playtech has been supplying software to the online casino sector since as early as 2001. They were the first to launch a live online casino option with games streamed from a remote studio using real dealers, and were also the first to introduce specialist online bingo and online poker platforms. The most significant key to their rapid expansion however was probably the licensing agreements they signed with Paramount Digital Entertainment in 2008 and with Marvel Entertainment the following year. These agreements allowed Playtech to use popular film and comic characters in their casino slots games and gave them an edge over their rivals. Playtech software and their casino games are still featured by the William Hill, BetFred and Ladbrokes online casino sites. In Ireland the two most popular online casinos are Paddy Power and the more recent All Irish casino. The Paddy Power online casino has relied on the casino software company Wagerworks almost since it was introduced, and Wagerworks software and slots games still form the most significant part of the site. Wagerworks was original a slot machine manufacturer, but is now exclusively focused on their casino software operations. Many of their slots games can also be found on the 888 casino site. The All Irish casino has chosen to use another casino software supplier, in this case the Swedish company NetEntertainment or NetEnt for short. NetEnt is probably the biggest casino software company in Scandanavia and they have become very well respected for the quality of their graphics as well as the unique characters featured in their video slots. The choice of NetEnt as their primary casino software supplier has proved to be an excellent decision by the operators of the All Irish casino site and there are now other relatively new online casino which have also chosen to feature casino games from NetEnt.
Another big and well established online casino software company is Microgaming, who are generally considered to have the widest range of different slots games in the industry. Microgaming is still a private company and is based on the Isle of Man. They have been in the business of supplying casino software almost since the beginning and were probably the first to offer roulette, blackjack and craps in download format. Last but not least we should mention the Canadian casino software company Chartwell, whose software is currently used by another online casino featured on our recommended list, the Bwin casino. Chartwell also hit the headlines recently when they agreed a licensing contract with the betting exchange company Betfair.
During the early days in the development and introduction of online casinos most online casino sites we could access here in Ireland were operated by the big bookmakers, and they all tended to use just one casino software supplier for both their operating software and their casino games. That situation has now begun to change with many of the new online casinos beginning to feature casino slots games from a number of different suppliers. CasinoLand, Yako and Instacasino for example all offer casino slots games from a range of different software companies, and even some of the original online casinos are beginning to follow suit. CasinoCasino on the other hand is a relatively new online casino to be featured on our recommended list, but they have chosen another approach. Many serious slot machine fans will be familiar with the iconic games produced by Amatic Industries, and will be delighted to learn that many of those famous slots games are now featured online for the first time at the CasinoCasino site.