10 Things You Didn’t Know About Online Gambling

Online gambling is a huge industry, with an almost infinite number of services and game types to choose from. You’ll find companies offering sports betting, casino games like poker and blackjack, traditional popular betting pastimes like horse betting, and many others. There are lots of things you might already know about online gambling, but there are some fascinating things you might not. Let’s have a look at 10 things you (probably) didn’t know about online gambling.

How Much is the Industry Worth?

It’s probably no surprise to you to learn that online gambling is worth an enormous amount of money, but just how enormous? Try almost $50 million US dollars a year. That’s not all though, it’s also growing at a really fast rate. Some analysts report year on year growth of more than 10% for online gambling, so it’s no small market.

The Random Number Generator is Everything

Apart from sports and horse betting, the traditional casino games need their machines to be simulated online. To do this, a special piece of computer code is used called a random number generator. Everything about the games needs to be random – from the cards drawn in poker or blackjack to where the virtual slot machine stops spinning and using this random number generator this is achieved.

It keeps the online casino honest too, since if everything is random, it’s not possible to cheat.

The Games Aren’t Rigged (Probably)

Gambling is mostly luck and just like in real life, this applies to online casinos too. The way casinos win is by using clever and complex mathematics to ensure they have an edge. There’s more maths involved than we can explain here, but understanding that the odds are already in the favour of the house, even when the game is legitimately using the random number generator, there isn’t really a need for the gambling site or service to cheat, so why would they? It just means they have the risk of getting found out and going out of business for being too greedy.

The Biggest Game in the Industry

Think of a regular casino and picture yourself walking through it. What game takes up most of the floor space and has the most people engaged with it? That’s right, just like traditional casinos, the biggest game in online casinos is the humble slot machine. By some accounts, it accounts for over 70% of profits made in the online gambling industry. It’s not particularly surprising given that it is accessible and easy to play.The actual technology and odds of winning are surprisingly close to its real-life counterpart too.

Choosing a Gambling Site

Research. It’s the only thing that you can do to ensure you choose a legitimate gambling site. You can also check that their merchant service is reliable which will guarantee that your payments to credit your account are processed safely. A smart online gambling site will speak to gaming experts to choose the best merchant service with advice from industry experts like the Merchant Advice Service.

Traditional Cheating Methods Don’t Work

This one might seem obvious, but most traditional ways of cheating at your local casino aren’t going to help your chances at winning with an online casino, particularly when they rely on physical pieces of a game. This is because of our friend, the random number generator.

Blackjack, for example, uses physical cards in a casino, which are periodically shuffled. This allows for adept players to know when a deck is in a promising or less promising position based on what cards have already been played, and whether to bet high or low at any time. In the electronic version, you best believe that the card stack is ‘shuffled’ using the random number generator after every hand, so counting cards isn’t going to get you anywhere.

Don’t Be Fooled by Signup Bonuses

Almost every online casino or gambling site you visit will offer you some form of signing up bonus. Of course, these bonuses, as with everything else in the gambling world, favour the house. Without going into too many complicated maths equations, just know that there will be rules in place to prevent you from taking advantage of this sign up bonus.

No Game (Other Than Card Games) Pays Out More Than Any Other

There are no games that are easier or give you a better chance of winning than any other. You can confidently play your favourite game without fear that you’re missing out on an opportunity for an easier win somewhere else.

That is, until you start playing games where some skill is involved. Poker is a good example, where a lot of what happens is luck, but a lot is also skill and deception. Blackjack too, actually might in some cases have a slightly higher win rate when played correctly.

Don’t Trust Online Advice

This is probably true for almost everything, and not only online gambling, but you should never trust the advice of anything you see or read online, particularly those that are presented as if they come from fellow players, like on a forum or message board. Casino shills are everywhere, and so are online casino competitors trying to bring down their competitors’ reputations. Rather make up your own mind or accept the advice of people you know and trust.

Is Online Gambling Safe?

Yes, online gambling is definitely safe, provided you’re using a legitimate website. There are very few scam sites online, as they get found out and word of mouth eliminates them quite quickly, but it’s always worth doing your research before fully trusting one.

These are a few of the things we found interesting about online gambling you probably didn’t know about. Online gambling in its many forms is a behemoth money-making machine, and millions of people around the world enjoy playing one or more of the games on offer, or betting on sports or similar. Provided you’re responsible about what you have to spend (and potentially lose) it’s a fun hobby that can provide a lot of entertainment.