An Internet (or online) casino is an Internet site where you can play one or more casino type games, such as blackjack, for real money. In other words, online casino sites bring the casino to you instead of you going to the casino. Unlike real casinos, at an online casino you get to decide whether or not you want to play by yourself or with someone else. Many people find this extremely important as they like to avoid a crowd.

While some will let you play for free, the real reason to play is the same as Las Vegas - to win money. The online casinos do something that no other casino does which is give you start up money and match up money. Take advantage of the sign up bonuses at online casino sites. While there are hundred of different casino games around now, most people stick to the core favourites of blackjack, roulette, craps, baccarat, slots and poker. Some online casinos give you free chips or match any purchase you make, just for signing up at their site. If you want to make real money bets, you'll need to establish a real money account.

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When you choose your online casino, the appearance and graphical layout of Internet casinos should be judged.  If it is put together sloppy, then you should stay away from wagering with them.  If they are not willing to take the time to appear respectable, then you shouldn't be gambling in their casino.  Those casinos that barely meet the minimum for acceptable appearance are probably just there to take your money. Just like in any business transaction, make sure you read the fine print.  Check for any fees a casino requires.  Furthermore, compare the fees from casino to casino - and do not hesitate to inquire how fast online gambling winnings are paid up.

The other main thing you should check before choosing your online casino is the approximate "house edge" with each of these games.   Without wanting to get too technical this is essentially the percentage of the money that you bet that you can expect to lose on average when you play the game.  As you will see in the basic rules and strategy guide below, some games are fairer than others.

Basic Rules and Strategy Guide Blackjack
Its common knowledge that Blackjack is the most played game in online casinos today. The game is played by one or more players against a dealer with the objective of getting a higher total than the dealer without going over 21.

Hundreds of books have been written about blackjack strategy but they all are founded on the basic probabilities of the cards you and the dealer can expect to get.   When playing the game of blackjack there are two factors you need to consider

• the total of your cards
• what card the dealer has showed

Because the dealer has to play a certain way you can calculate the probability that he will get any given total from 17 to 21 or bust based on the knowing the card he has. The key rule that the dealer has to follow is that he must take a card on 16 or below & must stick on 17 (some casinos vary this rule slightly). This makes it possible to identify times when the dealer is quite likely to go bust.

The main part of the strategy is to realise a few key things about the game. These are illustrated below.

Your advantages:

• You can see one of the dealers cards & modify your strategy accordingly
• You know what the dealer is going to do (but not what cards he’ll get)
• You sometimes get the opportunity to double your stake or split cards if it suits you
• You get paid one & a half times your stake for a blackjack

Your disadvantage is that you play first – so if you bust you lose, even if the dealer subsequently busts.

In practice you don’t really need to understand the strategy to follow it but it does help you to remember it & makes the game more fun if you have a basic understanding of it.

Here are some basic observations that are the foundations of the strategy. 

1- The dealer will only score 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 or bust . That means that if you stick on 12 it’s no different from sticking on 16 – you’re still only going to win if the dealer busts. Identifying when the dealer is more likely to bust is a very important part of the strategy.

2- The most likely next card is always a “10” . This means that he dealer has a higher chance of busting if it has a 4,5,6 – so you want to avoid busting yourself  and the dealer has good chance of winning if it has a 10 – so you probably need to take a card until you score at least 17.

3- When you double or split you are putting more money on the table.  This means that you only want to do this when things are in your favour.  If the dealer has a 4,5,6 & hence has a high chance of a bust (roughly 30%) then you will be more likely to want to make the play.  If the dealer has a 10 then in most cases you can’t really expect to win so you normally don’t want to bet any more money.

Typical Black Jack House Edge: 0.5%

Poker
Poker has evolved into many versions.  Games played using single or multiple hands are available. There is a level of skill involved in the game of Poker. Different casinos have different rules and win ratios which affect the odds of the game, which if you choose carefully can be very good indeed.  For more information on the game rules, the versions, the strategies and the odds see our Online Poker article.

Typical Poker House Edge: 0.5%

Craps
Craps is a part skill, part luck game often associated with glamour in real casinos and a game that if the luck is with you can make a lot of money in a very short period of time.  While there are a wide range of different bets and terms to master to be proficient at Craps the basics of the game can be learnt in a few minutes and like roulette your overall odds (in terms of the house edge) are relatively fixed, yet better than roulette.

Craps is an exceptionally fun game once you get to understand the fairly complex way in which the betting works.

There are a huge range of different things to bet on in craps.  However the house edge on these bets does vary considerably, hence for the shrewd punter there are actually only a handful of bets that are relevant.

The Pass and Don't Pass bets are an even money bets on whether the "shooter" will make the "point" or not.  

The shooter makes the point (Pass) by

- throwing a 7 or 11 in the first roll

OR

- throwing a 4,5,6,8,9,10 in the first roll, and then throwing the same number again BEFORE a 7 is thrown.

The shooter fails to make the point (Don't Pass) by

- throwing a 2,3,12 (craps) in the first roll

OR

- throwing a 4,5,6,8,9,10 in the first roll, and then throwing a 7 BEFORE the same comes up number again.

The first thing to appreciate is that your bet is not necessarily settled in a single roll of the dice.  If you bet on the Pass line, then you would win on the first roll if it was a 7 or 11, and you would lose in the first roll if it was a 2,3 or 12.  However if the first roll is something else (say a 6) then the bet wont be settled until either a 6 (where you win) or a 7 (where you lose) is thrown.  Potentially this can take a lot of throws, and you can’t remove the bet from the table once the first throw has been made.

One other thing to mention is that while you will see areas ("lines") on the table for Pass and Don't Pass bets the Don't Pass bet doesn't pay out on double 6 (hence if the first throw is 12 then Pass bets will lose and Don't Pass bets will push).  This is where the casino makes their margin.  Were it not for this then it would be a totally fair game (heaven forbid!).

If you look at a craps table you will see that there are dozen of other things you can bet on but the odds are never as good as this bet which has a house edge of about 1.4% (bets on the pass line) and 1.3% (bets on the Don't Pass line) - that's right, Pass and Don't Pass are not the same odds.

What’s more important is that you can improve your odds still further by placing side bets on your pass or Don't Pass bet.  The opportunity for this bet arises when you have a bet on the pass or Don't Pass line which isn't settled after the first throw.

When this happens you are able to add additional stakes behind your original bet (called an "odds bet" that pays at TRUE ODDS.  This means that you can average the house edge down by making these true odds bet. You can make this side bet any time after the first throw (and before the original bet is settled) and can adjust it from throw to throw.  In an ideal world you’d want to stake as much at "odds" as possible to improve your overall odds, but in practice Casinos restrict the amount you can bet in this way to a multiple of your initial bet (usually 2x).

The Come and Don't Come bets are also worth mentioning as they also have the same good odds and work in the same way as the Pass and Don't Pass bets.  In fact they are essentially exactly the same bets as the Pass/Don't Pass game except that you can place them at any time.  Again though once placed they can’t be removed until they have won or lost.

So the come bet has exactly the same rules as the Pass bet just that your bet is governed by the NEXT roll of the dice rather than needing to be the first.  So basically a Pass bet is just a Come bet on the very first roll.  If you place it on any other roll then you place it on "Come" on the table.  Similarly Don't Come works like Don't Pass for subsequent rolls.

Again just like the Pass and Don’t Pass bets the Come and Don’t Come bets can have "odds bets" by clicking next to the come stake, which if not settled in the next roll will have been moved to the relevant one of the number boxes corresponding to the number that was thrown immediately after you placed the bet.

Typical House Edge: 0.5%

Baccarat
Baccarat is the best odds game of pure chance that you can find.  If you know what to bet on and where to play you can get very good odds. Baccarat is most well known for being the game favoured by the high rollers.

Similar to blackjack, in baccarat the player and the dealer are both dealt 2 cards.  Cards are valued based on the face value with aces counting as 1 and 10 to King counting as 10.  A player’s cards are then added up to make a total, and then reduced by ten as many times as required until the total is between 0 and 9 (mod 10 for mathematicians).  So for example cards K and 7 would make 17, which would get reduced to 7 and that would be the players score.  Consequently every hand has a value of 0 to 9.

Before the cards are dealt you can bet on whether the player (i.e. you), or the banker will have the higher score, or if it will be a tie.

After the two cards are dealt, both the player and the banker may take another card depending on a few rules

if either the player or the banker can make a score of 8 or 9 then the game ends

if the players hand is 5 or less then he gets another card, otherwise he stands

if the player stands then the banker will take a card on 5 or less

if the player hits then the banker will either stand or hit depending on the bankers score and the players third card

The first thing to realise is while this sounds a bit complicated, there is actually no decision for the player to make, hence it is a simple game to play (although a bit harder to understand what's happening).

The only real strategies for baccarat are to know what to bet on.  
Because of the way the game is structured, the banker is actually slightly more likely to win than the player, but as you can bet on the banker this means that the odds are adjusted to be a bit lower too. 
Betting on the player pays even money, and betting on the dealer pays about 95/100 (often thought of as even money less a typical 5% commission).  This gives a house edge of about 1.1% on the banker bet and 1.25% on the player bet, and something like 14% on the tie bet based on 8-1 payout or about 5% based on 9-1 for the tie.

The bottom line is that the banker bet makes the most sense, and particularly where you can get a commission of under 5.

Typical House Edge: 0.6%

Roulette
Roulette is one of the simplest casinos games and is particularly popular for that reason.   A ball is rolled round a big wheel and will land on one of 37 numbers.  The numbers are 0 (which is green) and 1 to 36 (half of which are coloured black and half red)

The bets you can make are as follows:

bets that Pay Even money

Red or Black

Odd or Even

1-18 or 19-36

bets that pay at 2-1

Block of 12 (1-12,13-24,25-36)

Column (the numbers are arranged in 3 columns)

bets on the numbers

You can bet on individual numbers (pay 35-1) or on combinations by placing your chips on various intersections of the neighbouring squares such as across 2, at the join of 4, at the end of a row of 3, overlapping the end of two adjacent rows of 3.

What all the bets in above have in common is that they all lose if a zero comes up, but otherwise you are getting fair odds.  Hence every bet is the same from an odds perspective and all are equally bad with a house edge of about 2.7% (being 1/37).

Hence there really isn't any opportunity for strategy, except for the fact that there are various versions of the game.

The game as described above (with one 0) is commonly known as European roulette.  There is also a version called American Roulette which is the same game except the wheel has two green 0s (a 0 and a 00).  What this serves to do is make the odds much worse for the player, at over 5%.  For this reason your first rule is to never play Roulette with two 0s on it, always find a single zero wheel.

Just like American Roulette is one to be avoided, there's a type of French Rules Roulette that is worth checking out.  This can have a concession called "En Prison" which gives you 50% of your stake back on all the even money bets if the 0 is rolled.  This effectively halves the house edge to 1.35% for the even money bets, and this is by far the best version of roulette you are going to get.

Typical House Edge:

American (Double 0) Roulette: 5.3%

European (Single 0) Roulette: 2.7%

French (Single 0) Roulette with En Prison: 1.4%

Slots
The Slots require no skill to play and have a huge variety of games to choose from. Selecting to play a 3 or 5 Reel machine is normally based on a personal choice. Research has actually shown that the overall payout on each is very much the same. The main attraction of the slots is the Jackpots.  If you want a chance to win thousands of pounds in a single click then only slots will do.

Slots can be a lot of fun, but this is an area were you have to be really carefully.  Unlike the card and dice games where we are working with probabilities for known possible outcomes, with slots we are talking about wheel spins and its virtually impossible to analyse the games with any degree of confidence.

The attraction of slots is similar to that well known terrible odds game millions of us play every week - the National Lottery.  With slots there is the chance to win big, really big.  If you strike it lucky on the slots you could win 10,000 or 100,000+ in one click.  No great odds table game goes close to that.

The other attraction of slots is the range of fun games that are available.  The variation in the games with the different bonus rounds and challenges makes each one quite different and it can be fun to learn new ones.

Its long been said that it you stick a pound in a fruit machine in your pub the "house" edge can be anything from 10% (if you're really lucky) to over 50%.  In casinos the house edge is generally much more reasonable based on random numbers and defined payout probabilities, yet slots on average would have the highest house edge of any game at a casino.

Typical House Edge: Unknown but not good.

A last word of advice

This is the most important & least obvious part of the strategy. 

These are called the “Never” rules as there will be great temptation to break them but you are ultimately guaranteed to LOSE money if you break them.  These rules apply to a single gambling session. 

Money Management:

Allocate yourself a bank of cash to play with and NEVER go above it

Only bet amounts that you can really afford to lose.  If there is an added stress because you need to win then you are more likely to break the rules.

Do not stake more than 2% of your initial bank (you’ll get taken out by the +/- swings too early). Don’t get greedy.

Always bet the same initial stake, NEVER increase on a “feel lucky” type of instinct, or because your pot has grown. If you have a successful session then you can set different rules (e.g. higher bank fund & stakes) for subsequent sessions. 

Set yourself a monetary target to leave with (of no more than 50% profit) and NEVER play on if you reach it.  Leaving with a profit is the hardest thing to do. Leaving with nothing is the easiest thing to do.

Gameplay:

Set a time when you will stop playing based on your concentration levels (less than 2 hours is recommended) & NEVER go beyond it no matter how good or bad you think your run is or how close you are to recovering your losses etc.

NEVER think that if you break one of these rules & it pays off for you that this makes it a good strategy.

If it stops being fun or your concentration levels wander then leave immediately before you break some of the rules.

Don’t play too fast.  You can find yourself getting into a rhythm of clicking away at a rapid rate which can lead you to clicking on the wrong button. 

Myths
For an online casino don’t believe in hot tables, hot dealers, lucky streaks, losing streaks – they have no bearing on future events.  In an online casino, every hand is independent of the previous ones & governed by statistical probabilities. Of course in the course of events statistically you will be able to look back & say that things went well or badly for a prolonged period.  However you never know when this will end.  The next hand is just as likely to be good (or bad) for you as any other.

In the offline world where there can be clusters of tens & non tens in the decks being played it is possible for the chances of success to change & if you are a card counter you can take advantage of this.  There is no such opportunity in online casinos so forget about it.

If you can follow these rules then it may seem like its not going to be much fun.  Don’t panic, winning is fun & knowing you have a good strategy is fun.  Being maverick & winning is most fun at all but it’s not possible to do this consistently.

Now that you know the basic rules you need to practice and get used to how the games are played. Take a look at our recommended online casinos and register with a site. Don’t go spending all your money yet – watch some games and play at the free play tables when possible. Once you get used to how the games play and defined your strategy, well… Prepare for fun, tension and exhilarating moments!

©Before-Buying.co.uk 2006