Upside of Online Casinos
It’s closer to home – One of the main benefits that online casinos offer is that you don’t have to travel anywhere to play at them. It usually involves simply downloading a piece of software and opening an account.
Being able to log in and play from the comfort of your own chair is far more convenient that having to travel long distances to find a venue – and online casinos are open 24 hours a day.
Reward structures – Because online casinos are a newer idea than brick-and-mortar casinos, many people initially needed incentive to risk playing online. These incentives have now become standard, and most casinos will give you a bonus when you open a new account with them and transfer some money into it. It’s not uncommon to find online casinos that will match or even double your deposit amount.
Because of the huge growth in the online casino sector, bonuses are an area of competition, and if you shop around you can find extremely good bonus schemes out there. A good bonus is basically free money to play with – what traditional casino will match that?
Better rules – Online casinos are run in software, so the overheads are much lower than a traditional casino. Because online casinos don’t need to earn as much to break even, you often find a much more relaxed and player-friendly set of rules being used online.
For the same reason, the payout odds are frequently much better too.
Crowds of people – You will encounter other players at online casinos, but you won’t have to put up with the noise and social unpleasantness that you might have to deal with if you turned up at your local slot hall. Your online play is never going to be ruined by some drunk guy yelling at a cocktail waiter.
Service is cheaper – The dealers and croupiers in an online casino are all pieces of software, so you don’t ever need to tip them.
Downside of Online Casinos
Less humans – If you do run into trouble it can be frustrating trying to get a real person on the other end of the line to talk to – you’re more likely to be redirected to a self help section of the online casino’s website if you have questions. Admittedly, this really depends on where you play as some online casinos do provide excellent customer service – but just as many have automated systems.
Banking statements and delayed payouts – At a traditional casino you’d take your chips to a cashier at the end of an evening and have them instantly turned into a cheque or cold hard cash. But because an online casino operates remotely, winnings are transferred electronically into your bank account, and depending on who you bank with, this can take a few days.
Most casinos won’t be mentioned by name on your bank statements – instead they’re usually identified by their Merchant Bank accounts. This means you’ll need to keep track of where you play if you want be sure which winnings came from where. This gets tricky if you visit many different online casinos.
Certainly, playing at an online casino is different than playing at a traditional casino, but whether that’s a good or bad thing is ultimately up to the player to decide. But because more and more people have access to online casinos, as opposed to land casinos, the numbers speak for themselves.
