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Online casinos can for certain games offer better odds than land casinos on slots and other formats where the chance of winning is determined by the house. Table games like blackjack which have an established house edge: for a given set of rules, they offer the same payout, online or offline. Reliability and trust are hard to establish. To solve this issue, many online casinos purchase their software from well-known companies such as Wager Works, Microgaming, OddsOn, Playtech and Cryptologic, though a little research into credentials of any e-commerce site you plan to use is common sense. These software companies use a random number generator to ensure that the numbers, cards or dice appear randomly. All reputable companies operating in a regulated environment use robust random number generators.

Legality

The government of the United States has not officially determined whether or not online gambling is legal (but see Federal Wire Act for an example of a law often cited). Nonetheless, the Department of Justice has successfully pressured Yahoo! and Google to remove ads promoting online casinos. In addition, most credit card companies don't allow payments to and from online casinos. The online gambling industry has found ways to bypass these bans by using other forms of online payment, such as Neteller, FirePay, 900Pay, Citadel, as well as the more traditional wire transfers or bank drafts. However in the United Kingdom and some other territories, online casinos are deemed legal and may apply for licenses. This does not affect the view of Google and Yahoo!.

Casino types

Online casinos can be divided into two groups based on their interface: web-based casinos and download-based casinos. Some casinos offer more than one interface.

Web-based online casinos

Web-based online casinos are websites where users may directly play casino games without loading any software to the local computer. Games are mainly represented in the browser plugins Macromedia Flash, Macromedia Shockwave, or Java and require browser support for mentioned plugins. Also, bandwidth is needed since all graphics, sounds and animations are loaded through the web via the plugin. A very small number of casinos allow games played through a plain HTML interface.

Download-based online casinos

Download-based online casinos are the most common casino web sites. On these websites, users have to download certain software to play casino games. After installing the software, it connects to the casino service provider and handles contact without browser support. An advantage of these compared to web-based online casinos is speed, since it does not need to load graphics from the Internet because all multimedia is inside the downloaded software. On the downside, there is an initial download and the need for the installation of the program, and the risk of the program containing malware (though this is very uncommon).

Bonuses

Many online casinos offer large bonuses, often a "100% match bonus". For example, common terms and conditions for a bonus might be:

For this particular example, this would mean that a player depositing $100 would start with $200 in his account. He must make $5000 ($200 × 25) in wagers before withdrawing. This can be played at a game such as blackjack.

Some simple arithmetic shows that if the player leaves after meeting the requirements, he has a very large edge. For example, the house edge in blackjack is around or less than 0.5% at most online casinos. $5000 × 0.005 = $25. Therefore, the player expects to show a $25 loss—however, he was given a $100 bonus. Therefore, the player's expected profit is $75, a massive 75% advantage. Usually, taking advantage of such a promotion is the only way to gain an edge over the casino.

This has often led to players playing at casinos to take the bonus, and leaving after the wagering requirements are met. These players are called by (and have adopted with pride) a variety of labels such as "advantage players", "bonus hunters", "bonus abusers", and, perhaps the most vulgar, "bonus whores". Strictly speaking, this behavior is usually prohibited by the casino, because their terms usually dictate that players may play for recreational purposes only. In practice, players are rarely caught doing this, and usually when they are they simply have their promotion privileges revoked.

A player who wishes to do this at a large number of online casinos must be careful. Some casinos are rogues (see below) and do not pay. Others have terms and conditions that are not favorable to the player, such as most bonuses that are restricted to slots.

Rogues

Occasionally a rogue casino will be discovered. There are two ways a casino might misbehave: refusing to pay customers or cheating software.

Cheating software appears to be extremely rare. There are some casinos that have been mathematically proven to cheat, such as Casino Bar (evidence by Michael Shackleford and others). Some players often accuse certain popular software brands of casinos of cheating, for example Boss Media, Cryptologic, and Playtech, but they are likely "finding" patterns that are not actually there, as tests for cheating at these casinos has never turned up positive. This does not mean that all software providers are honest (for example, Elka System/Oyster Gaming software is known to cheat, also confirmed by Michael Shackleford), but the most popular software is more likely than not.

Player fraud

Although there is the occasional rogue casino, sometimes it's the players who are deceitful or irresponsible. One of the most common cases is a player who signs up for multiple accounts at a casino using fake names to reap the bonus more than once. Another player might use Adobe Photoshop or a similar tool to manipulate the graphics of a slot machine screenshot to try to fool the casino into believing she hit a jackpot and didn't get paid for it. These are invariably gross violations of the terms of service of the casino and usually are frowned upon, even by many "bonus hunters". Casinos do not tolerate such behavior and will usually lock the account or accounts of the player responsible, and may inform other casinos and/or the software provider to keep the player out of other casinos.