Online casino software

There have never been more gambling operations going online than today. Even though the 2006 UIGEA has somewhat slowed down the incredible growth the industry had registered before, online gambling simply switched focus from the US market towards Europe and Asia, and went about its business. Smaller, affiliate sites were affected, some even went offline. The industry giants remained on track though.

The very first thing you need to keep in mind when you choose an online casino is that your choice should fall on one of these "giants", whose status alone confers them a certain level of immunity against unforeseen events like the UIGEA. You do not want your casino to go bankrupt on you just when you were about to cash out your winnings.

If you do stick with one of the top online casinos, you should know that software-wise, these casinos are very similar. Certainly, game selections will be different, some casinos will have a distinct accent on - let's say - slots, while other focus on roulette or blackjack. Stability and reliability are not likely to be issues for you, whichever of these top online casinos you choose to play at.

Most modern online gambling operations will have you faced with two choices when you decide you indeed want to play at this or that or the other site: you can download their client software, or you can play online in their flash-based, no download casino.

Usually, the downloadable version of the software is the "complete" one. It has full features, great graphics, sound options, and a full selection of games. All this comes at a price though: first of all, downloading the installation kit takes some time (not likely to be a problem of any significance on a high-speed connection), then, once installed, there are a set of potential problems you might incur when running the software.

The downloadable client is the "complete" version because it requires a lot less direct traffic between the provider site and your computer to run. The graphics, the games, everything that makes the game tick, will be located on your computer. Even though it will be in a constant connection with the server, your client software does not down- or upload any large files to and from it. It updates your account in real time, and that's about all it does online. It does require though that a program which runs on your PC make contact with an outside source of information, an act that most firewalls and anti-virus software will consider a breach of their "policies". Therefore, after installation, upon your first connection attempt, you're likely to be repeatedly prompted for de-activating your firewall/anti virus, or granting special permission for the software to up- and download information. On your home PC you will not run into problems configuring your connection. On a shared network or on a PC on which you have no administrative rights though, running online casino software will be impossible.

If you have a non-Windows platform, you won't be able to use downloadable software either.

Web-based clients allow users from just about any platform to access and play casino games. Given the fact that Java clients make us of the network protocols and functions already available in your internet browser, firewalls and anti-virus solutions won't act up on you either.

While the data transfer between your computer and the remote server increases, so does security. If you have a fast internet connection and do not care much for nice graphics and full game selections, playing on a web-based client may be the optimum solution for you. Mind you though that, conversely, if you have a slow connection, downloadable software is the better solution because once downloaded and installed, it requires a minimum bandwidth to run smoothly and to load games fast.

Web-based clients cannot be started similar to any application from your desktop. Every time you want to gamble, you need to navigate to the website of the online casino and start the client from there.

With recent advances in flash and Java programming, web-based casino and online poker clients are likely to improve a lot in the near future. Provided they get to the point that they equal downloadable clients in performance, they may one day take over as the primary solution for online gaming operations. One thing is certain though: the bandwidth that they eat up will always be much bigger than that of a downloadable client.

Why is poker rakeback likely to turn you into a winner, even if you are currently finding it impossible to break even over the long-run? Because it deals head-on with the factor that is probably the biggest reason for your plight: the rake.