The range of online gambling games continues to increase

The increasing popularity of online gambling mirrors the increases we see in how much we now seem to be buying online instead of on the high street. So far however online sports gambling does not appear to have had the same effect on the high street betting shops as we have seen in the retail sector, although many of the big bookmakers are beginning to sound warnings in that regard. The popularity of buying products and services online is primarily because of the convenience being able to do so from home and at a time that suits us, coupled of course with what are often lower prices. When it comes to online gambling however many observers would argue that it is the massive increase in gambling options which has driven its success as much if not more than the convenience of being able to gamble from home or even using our mobile phones. Sports gambling fans now have a much wider range of sports and sporting events available at the big online sports gambling sites operated by our leading bookmakers, but it is in the online casino gambling sector that the increased choice is most obvious. The huge number of gambling games we can play on all the online casino gambling sites is phenomenal, but that is not the end of the story because we are also seeing a steady increase in the number of online casino sites we can access. The first online casino gambling sites were all hosted by the big bookmakers as part of their online sports gambling sites, and these sites have all steadily increased the number and range of different gambling games they offer with some now featuring well over two hundred different games. That vast increase in the number of gambling games we can play online has now been supplemented even further by the introduction of the new specialist online casino gambling sites which have come on stream over the last few years. These new sites have introduced us to a completely new range of gambling games from different casino software suppliers. Although almost all the online casino gambling sites feature many different versions of the traditional gambling games such as roulette and blackjack, it is the slots games which form the majority of games on every site. This is also where we see the influence of the software designers because they are responsible for all the slots games we can play online.

Whereas the slots gambling games are by far the biggest proportion of the games featured on almost every casino gambling site, casino games enthusiasts are also now able to access a number of other traditional casino gambling games which are popular around the world but rarely available in our real casinos here in Ireland. Most of our real casinos are relatively small and therefore have limited floor space, so they usually concentrate on traditional casino games such as roulette and blackjack. Some organise occasional poker tournaments for their members, but apart from a few slot machines that is usually the full extent of the casino gambling games they can offer. The online casino gambling sites however have no such space limitations so they can offer a full range of traditional casino games. We can now play baccarat, backgammon and even craps at most online casino gambling sites, none of which were widely available here in Ireland before the introduction of internet casino gambling sites. These traditional casino games can of course be found in the bigger casinos all over the world but we have always had to travel to enjoy playing them. The fact that these games are now so accessible online has also dispelled a few myths, particularly when it comes to the game of baccarat. For many years those of us who had not had the opportunity to play baccarat probably believed that baccarat was a complicated gambling game and that it was generally only played by high rollers in separate rooms away from the main floor of the casino. That reputation was confirmed by a number of Bond films for instance, with 007 playing the arch villains for huge sums of money on each hand. It is true that the rules of baccarat are a little complicated, but unless you are playing the role of banker/dealer you do not actually need to know those rules to play the game. When playing baccarat at an online casino the game is clearly controlled by the dealer so all the player needs to do is choose which of just two hands will win. There are only two hands dealt in any game of baccarat, one for the dealer and one for the player so the choice of which hand will win is no more challenging than calling the toss of a coin. To be fair a tied hand is possible but very rare and therefore hardly ever backed by an experienced player. The fact that we can now regularly access the whole range of traditional casino gambling games whenever we choose has also led to the huge resurgence of interest in the game of poker. Poker is of course a relatively old gambling game which first became popular in America during the gold rush and on the river boats, but over the years its popularity had waned and here in Ireland the game had become confined to just a few enthusiasts playing amongst themselves at someone’s house. The advent of online casino gambling however led to a huge increase in the number of people playing poker online and even boosted attendance at the big poker tournaments which until online poker platforms became available had been solely the preserve of professional players. The specialist online poker sites have become one of the big successes of the online gambling revolution and more and more people now claim to be serious poker players and compete regularly against other players from all around the world. Poker is undoubtedly now one of the most popular online gambling games in the world.