Online Casino News & Free Casino Online

Online bingo is still a favourite

admin — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 10:23:58 +0000

It is reported that one of the fastest growing casino games being played at our online casinos is the good old game of Bingo. Some people may find this somewhat surprising given that the Bingo Halls in our towns and cities appear to be going through a difficult time with many actually closing down, but clearly the actual game of Bingo seems to be as popular as ever. The online casino operators even tell us that online bingo is now being played by customers of all ages, including young men. Almost all of the major online casino sites now offer online bingo, and many have introduced interesting variations of the original game with both 80 and 75 ball games on most sites, plus some new patterns which vary from the normal winning lines. The principles of online bingo are still the same however, and it remains a very simple casino game which has the added advantage that the cards can be purchased at very little cost so online bingo gamblers can have a great deal of fun without risking much of their hard earned cash. The online casino operators have also picked up on the popularity of the linked games which are available in our bingo halls, and most online casinos now run linked games on their sites, which of course raises the potential winnings quite dramatically. Many also run rolling jackpots with their online bingo games which again increases the potential winnings for their customers. When you think about it, we should not be surprised at the surge in interest in playing bingo online, because it clearly offers a great deal of fun at very low cost and still gives the bingo players the chance of a big win. If you’ve not yet tried online bingo, click on one of links and give it a try. Online bingo may be just the game you’re looking for.

Bwin casino now one of the biggest online casino operators

admin — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 08:32:14 +0000

As we have advised many times in these pages, the choice of which online casino site you use to enjoy playing casino games is very important, This advice also applies to online sports betting, as reinforced by a survey by Populus for Bet Butler recently published in which they claim that online gamblers are losing up to £960 million by not taking account of the odds being offered by different online bookmakers. In most cases, the odds offered by the various different online casinos relating to their casino games do not differ substantially, nevertheless online casino customers do need to be aware of other factors such as fairness and security which do have a significant bearing on how much they enjoy their casino games. Ladbrokes, paddy Power and Party casino are all very well known in Ireland, but amongst our other recommended sites is Bwin casino, which having merged with Party Gaming last year now claims to be the biggest online casino operator in the world. Size isn’t everything of course, but Bwin casino is certainly up there with the best online casino sites when it comes to the range of casino games they offer, and the site layout which is excellent. The casino game graphics are particularly impressive and contribute hugely to the enjoyment factor offered by the Bwin casino site. The Bwin Party group is listed in Austria, and in common with many other online casino operators is registered and regulated in Gibraltar. There is no doubt that Bwin casino is a safe, secure environment in which to play your favourite casino games, and well worth a visit if you fancy a change. Click on our link and take a look. You will find all the usual deposit options available, although some options do have limits on the amount you can deposit at any one time, plus all the well known casino games and a good range of slots and video slots to enjoy.

Online casinos have changed the face of gambling in Ireland

admin — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 10:47:34 +0000

Access to the internet has changed the face of gambling in Ireland beyond recognition. Sports gambling, particularly horse racing and football has traditionally involved a trip to the local bookmaker, or setting up a telephone account if there was no betting shop within easy reach. Playing casino games such as roulette, blackjack or poker was simply not an option for most of the population, unless they travelled to a casino. The advent of online casinos and their associated online sports gambling sites have changed all that, and gambling online has become a major leisure activity across the country. Even those who were able to play casino games at a land based casino now find that the new online casinos can offer a very much bigger range of casino games than any of Irelands established casinos could possibly manage, particularly when it comes to slots. At onlinecasino.ie we recognise that many people have little or no experience of some of the casino games now available at these online casinos, so we have attempted to set out the basic principles of many of these online casino games in our individual casino games pages, which we hope will encourage new online gamblers to give them a try. This brings us to the next feature of online casinos which you will not find at a real casino, and that is the option to play casino games for free until you are happy that you understand how the game works. We recommend that you always take advantage of this option when playing any new casino game online. Finally, because online casinos can operate with much lower overheads than their land based competitors, it is possible to play almost all the popular casino games for very much lower stakes, bringing this form of gambling within the reach of people with quite modest budgets. If you have not yet tried playing casino games online, the two best known bookmakers in Ireland, Paddy Power and Ladbrokes both have good online casino sites alongside their online sports gambling sites, so click on our links and have a go.

Live online casino is welcome but not for everybody

admin — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 09:35:10 +0000

For those of you who are new to playing casino games at an online casino, it is worth us pointing out the role of the Random Number Generator or RNG in many of the casino games available online. An RNG does exactly what you would expect from the name, and is used to supply winning numbers or combinations in many of the casino games which rely purely on luck. Provided the RNG’s are regularly checked and are fair, which we at onlinecasino.ie are sure is true of all our recommended sites, there is nothing fundamentally wrong with this method of determining winning numbers. There are some games however where the use of RNG’s does irritate some online casino games players, one of which is roulette where the movement of the ball on the wheel can appear somewhat erratic on the graphics as it moves to the pre-selected number. In response to their customer’s complaints many of the main online casinos have now introduced a Live Casino option, which provides the online casino games players with the opportunity to play roulette and blackjack with real dealers and a real roulette wheel. This is of course a major step forward for the online casinos, and brings online gambling much closer to the real casino experience. It is even possible to chat with the dealers on some sites, so that online games players do not feel that they are playing alone. If you have not yet experienced playing casino games online with real dealers, Paddy Power, Ladbrokes and Party Casino of our recommended sites all offer the Live online casino option and it is well worth giving it a go. There are however some drawbacks with the Live casino experience, and we know that it does not suit every online casino gambler. Because the use of real dealers inevitably increases the operator’s overheads, minimum table bets are usually higher, and the games are played at a much quicker pace just as they would be at a real casino. Those roulette players who like to take their time laying their bets may not enjoy the much faster pace of the Live casino option. The Live casino option is a welcome innovation, but should not be the only option.

Important casino tips when playing roulette

admin — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 08:03:37 +0000

The secret to maximising your enjoyment of playing casino games online is to take advantage of all the elements of a particular game that could be in your favour, and this is the basis of our casino tip this month. One casino game in particular has many features which fall into that category, and that game is roulette. The popularity of roulette is generally thought to be due to the wide range of bets available on every spin of the wheel, enabling the roulette gamblers to place their bets according to the degree of risk they wish to take. This is particularly true when playing roulette at an online casino, because there are no time restraints between each spin so you have plenty of time to place your bets wisely. Roulette is however also a casino game where it is very easy to get carried away and scatter your chips all over the table, often without any particular strategy, and suddenly your budget is gone. Our first casino tip when playing roulette online therefore must be to plan each online casino games session before you place a bet. There are two important questions which need to be addressed, first how much are you prepared to spend, and second how long do you want to play. If your budget is limited, roulette gives you the opportunity to play an even money game on Odd/Even or Red/Black for instance, so your money should stretch further and you can enjoy the excitement of the game for longer. Even if the size of your budget is not an issue, most experienced roulette gamblers will advise that any high risk bets on individual numbers or splits should be accompanied by lower risk bets which at least cover some of your stake on each spin. The range of bets available at the roulette table offer the chance for all of us, whatever the size of our budget to enjoy playing casino games for as long as we want, provided we start with some sort of plan and above all stick to it. Never ever chase your losses.

Your Laser card can be your online casino deposit option

admin — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 11:36:23 +0000

When you decide to register with your choice of online casino, the next question you will need to answer is how you are going to deposit money into your online casino account. Most online casinos provide us with a number of options including credit cards, debit cards, e-wallets and even cash in the case of Paddy Power and Ladbrokes who have an estate of shops in Ireland at which we can fund an online account. For many people a debit card is the most convenient, and because the money is immediately available you can start to play your favourite casino games right away. Many people in Ireland will have a Laser debit card, which of course is virtually unknown outside Ireland, but nowadays Paddy Power, Ladbrokes and Party casino will all accept a Laser card as a casino deposit option. The Laser debit card also enables you to put money into your online casino games account without incurring bank charges, unlike most credit cards, but remember that you must have sufficient funds in your bank account to cover your deposit. At onlinecasino.ie we can’t advise on which option you should choose, but we would certainly support the use of a Laser card if only because a debit card will only allow us to play our casino games with money we actually have available. We have already listed the Laser card casinos which are featured on our recommended online casino sites, so if a Laser debit card is your preferred method of funding your casino games, click on one of our links and start playing straight away.

Are slots now the most popular online casino games

admin — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 11:29:07 +0000

It would appear that in spite of the much reported squeeze on household budgets, consumers are still willing to spend their money on their leisure pursuits. William Hill’s latest trading figures show a 28% increase in online casino gambling during the last quarter of 2011, and probably more surprising an 11% increase in turnover in their betting shops. Much of this extra turnover appears to be coming from slot machines in their shops and of course the ever increasing range of online casino slots available on their website. We have to assume that William Hill are not the only online casino operator to be benefitting from our fascination for playing this form of casino game, so perhaps it’s time to take a closer look at why we are increasingly happy to spend our money playing slot machines and slots online. William Hill’s Chief Executive Ralph Topping appears to be convinced that the reason for their betting shops outperforming the rest of the High Street in these tight economic times is that customers can gamble for relatively low stakes. Many are convinced that this factor also explains the increasing popularity of playing many of the casino games online, and certainly it is possible to play slots at an online casino for quite a long time with even a limited budget. Value for money will always come to the fore when money is tight, and we all know that many leisure activities can be quite expensive, so perhaps we should not be surprised that more and more people are choosing to enjoy their leisure time at home by playing low stake casino games on their computer. It is difficult for us to identify which casino games are the most popular with new online casino customers, but it would be fair to assume that the online casino operators are responding to customer preferences when they consistently introduce new slots and video slots on their sites.

If you like your casino games quick and easy try Red Dog

admin — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 10:48:05 +0000

For those online casino gamblers who enjoy quick, simple casino games which require no particular skill and rely purely on chance, a few online casinos, including Bwin on our list, offer a casino game known as Red Dog, or sometimes Between the Sheets. Red Dog is an online card game played against the house using a standard 52 card deck which is shuffled after each hand so that there is no advantage to be gained by attempting to memorise the cards. First the player must decide how much they want to stake, and place an ante bet on the hand. Each hand comprises just three cards, with the first two cards dealt face up, followed by a third card dealt face down and normally positioned between the first two cards. The object of the game is to bet whether the third blind card has a value between the two cards that have been dealt face up, which would be a winning hand. Please note that the ace is always high in Red Dog. If the player believes he may have a winning hand, he now has the opportunity to raise his stake. If not he can call and the ante bet remains in force. The third card is then turned over and if it is a winning hand the player receives a pay out which is usually even money. There are however two situations which may result in a higher pay out. Firstly, if the two face up cards have a spread between them of 3 or less, a winning hand is clearly less likely but the pay out is usually higher. Then there is the situation where the two face up cards are a pair. Clearly it is not possible for the third card to have a value between them, but if the third card is the same value this constitutes a winning hand which is normally paid out at odds of 11/1. If not, the hand is declared void, or a ‘Push’ and the stake is returned. Similarly, if the two face up cards are consecutive numbers, for example an 8 and a 9, it is again impossible to have a winning hand and the stake is returned. As with any new casino game, we recommend that you play in free play mode until you are comfortable with how the game is played, but Red Dog is great fun so click our Bwin link and have a go.

Online casino software is a specialist field

admin — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 10:29:02 +0000

Those of you who play casino games at more than one online casino will have noticed that many of these games look very similar and in fact can be identical in layout and content. The reason for this is that online casinos do not produce their own software to run their sites, preferring to use one of the specialist casino software companies. There are currently four main online casino software companies who between them cover almost all the major casino sites we are likely to use. These top casino software companies are Microgaming, Wagerworks, Playtech and Chartwell, and for those interested in knowing a bit more about them we have put more details on our casino software page. To illustrate the power of these software providers, William Hill, Betfred and Bet365 all use Playtech as their software provider and when you look at these online casino sites you will see that they are almost identical except for the branding, and for the most part offer the same casino slots. Some online casinos will use more than one software supplier, with perhaps the main casino games such as poker and roulette being run by one supplier and the slots by another. It is worth noting that it is the casino software companies who negotiate any copyrite deals with the big entertainment conglomerates who own some of the characters or television shows they use as a basis for their slots games. At first glance it is tempting to accuse the online casino operators of being a little lazy in opting to use these same software suppliers, but when you realise that our personal data protection and security is also a function of the online casino software you begin to understand just how important the choice of software and the software supplier is for all of us.

Its all good news for our online casino companies

admin — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 09:43:41 +0000

As our regular readers will know, we like to keep abreast of any Irish casino news which we think may interest you, but in the absence of any new information relating specifically to our Irish online casinos, we will turn our attention to what is happening generally to the share prices of our main online casino operators. We have already commented on the recent boost to online casino share prices resulting from the possibility of an imminent relaxation of American online gambling laws, but last week also saw a significant increase in the stock market value of Playtech, the online casino software supplier. Stock market observers who take a specific interest in the fortunes of online gaming companies will know that Playtech have been involved in a joint venture with William Hill, which has not been particularly amicable of late, but Teddy Sagi the original founder of Playtech has now apparently increased his stake in the company to over 46% with the result that shares in Playtech rose by more than 5% last week. Clearly the stock market is looking to Mr Sagi to resume overall control of the company in the near future, so watch this space. It has also been reported that Bwin-party Digital Entertainment, another major player in the online casino business, is planning to float its payment division CQR in the near future. Bwin-party is a FTSE 250 quoted company, and its payments division is believed to process more than 2 billion euros a year. CQR also employs approximately 150 staff based in Britain and Austria, and any floatation is expected to be well received. Online gamblers who enjoy playing casino games with these online casinos may well also like to watch their share prices in what appears to be a bull market at present.