Online casinos allow players to gamble throughout the Internet as well as in the comfort of what ever place they are in rather than traveling to wherever their favorite establishments are located. They can be generally known as Internet casinos or virtual casinos due to this.

The same as their tangible "brick and mortar" counterparts, online casinos have ratings in the form of payback percentages and odds. A lot of them even publish payout percentages on their own sites, vaunting higher payback and higher frequency than their competitors.

Payback percentage is defined as "is the overall percentage that a machine will return to the player within the long term." This parameter will likely be programmed into whatever game the virtual casino might be running and is set based on the owner's specifications.

As a result of its very nature of being virtual and intangible, online casinos have trust problems with prospective as well as regular clients. In light of this many casino owners have purchased and/or leased proprietary software produced by reputable software entities like CryptoLogic Inc, Realtime Gaming, Microgaming, and Playtech. They then peg their online casino's trustworthiness with the programming companies' reputations as well as the stability of their random number generators.

Online casinos are classified into three types in line with how players connect to each other. These are:

Web-based online casinos - these types of virtual casinos do not require downloading files; they readily play through a wide range of Internet browsers. Some of them require Flash or Java for a player to participate in games however. The benefit of this kind of casino is the fact that sound clips and graphics needed for the game is streamed directly to the client over the Net. This dispenses the need to download relatively huge files.

Download-based online casinos - Taking part in this type of casino involves downloading a client installer needed for players to gain access to the virtual site. The benefit of this kind of casino is the fact that it generally runs considerably faster than Web-based ones. The disadvantage is the fact that interested players need to download the client and also the risk of installing malware from shady parties is very much real.

Live-based casinos - In this kind of casino, players can hear, see, and interact with other players. The internet is just relatively an unobtrusive medium of communication as players participate in a real world environment.

Online casinos may offer anyone or all of the following gambling pastimes: online poker, roulette, blackjack, baccarat, craps and online slot gacor games.