Do People Prefer Online or Land-based Casinos?
Gone are the days when you had to travel hundreds of miles to find a casino. These days, you don’t even need to leave your house to play slots or poker. All you need is an Internet-enabled smartphone and an account on a genuine online casino.
Of course, not everyone wants to play casinos games using their small pocket devices. Las Vegas, Macau and Monte Carlo promise more fun with their glitzy skyscrapers, glamorous interiors, seas of slots and crowds of people.
Despite the glamor of land-based casinos, more people still prefer to use online casinos. Here are some of the most common reasons people give.
Convenience
Let’s face it, not everyone lives near a land-based casino. Most people have to drive, take a flight or board a bus to a district or city with a genuine casino. Then there’s the issue of parking, finding accommodation and security for your money.
First-time casino players also have to research thoroughly to learn about casino etiquette, dress codes and casino jargon. If you have a family, more so kids and pets, you must figure out who’ll take care of them for the day and night you’ll be off.
By comparison, online casinos give you all the convenience you need. You can gamble anytime, anywhere using a laptop, desktop or mobile device. You can bet in your pajamas or your office suit.
Bonuses for Everyone
Imagine visiting the Bellagio Casino and asking its management to let you play games for free. Why? That would be the first thing they would ask you. And depending on how you answer, you would be tossed out immediately or be allowed to play one game for a few minutes.
Online casinos take a different approach. They welcome you with bonuses even if you have no plans of spending real money. You could receive a dozen free spins on a slot machine or £20 to play roulette, blackjack or poker.
If you deposit real money, the best online casinos match your money 100% up to £10,000. Of course, the establishments make a lot more money. Data published on www.bestcasinosites.net show online casinos make up to £4.7 billion per year. That’s more than double what brick and mortar casinos make on average in the UK.
Wide Range of Games
Online casinos provide hundreds of slot machines, card, table and scratch card games. Essentially, they offer every other game you would find in Las Vegas, London or Macau. Even better, they organize their games such that you can find any game you want effortlessly.
Many land-based casinos also feature hundreds of games. But finding the specific slot you want might not always be easy. Think of slots. A typical casino could have 400 slots lined up in a series of rows. They might have names on digital boards, but you can’t sort out hundreds of games with ease.
Sometimes a casino might not have the specific blackjack variation you want. That means you need to settle for what’s available or drive to a different casino. With the Internet, all you need is a second tab on your browser to search casinos with games you want to play.
The best online casinos provide up to 1500 games. You can choose slots inspired by all sorts of things in life. You can play poker against the dealer or fellow players. There are sportsbooks, lotteries, bingo games and Slingo – the combination of bingo with slots.
Better Payouts
Land-based casinos may give you a better social experience, but online casinos offer better returns. By law, Las Vegas casinos are required to pay out 85% of wagered money back to players. Due to competition, however, most casinos have games with payouts of 88% to 92%.
Although a 92% payout rate looks decent, it doesn’t come close to the 97% payment percentage by the best online casinos. Some online games pay up to 99% of wagered money, meaning the house has a house edge of 1%.
Of course, a low house edge doesn’t mean you’ll always win. But it means you have a better chance of winning than if you played a game with a poor payout percentage. Money-wise, online slots also handle huge payments these days.
Since the late 2000s, casinos have been paying out millions of dollars each year to winners. It’s not unheard of for someone to win €10 million at an online casino!
Government Support
Online gambling is legal in dozens of countries around the world. Even where governments don’t license online casinos, they allow their citizens to use overseas gambling sites. As a result, more people feel free to play online because they won’t be breaking any laws.
In the US, for example, there has been an uptick of online gamblers since the Supreme Court gave states the authority to regulate online sports betting in 2018. Again, more online casinos are targeting US citizens and other countries that recently legalized gambling.
In many cases, online casinos market their games and bonuses aggressively. They give out free spins and betting credits to whoever is willing to accept them. They offer more rewards to paying customers or people who can bring more customers.
Privacy and Security
Land-based casinos are a lot more secure than back when the mafia operated them. Still, most people are afraid to walk into crowded casinos with bags of cash. Some people don’t want to advertise their profits as well; something land-based casinos enjoy doing.
Online casinos provide the privacy and security everyone handling money wants. Whether you want to bet €10 or €10,000, no one apart from the casino knows how much you gamble. When you win, the casino processes your profits privately. Of course, you might need a VPN and strong passwords to keep everyone at bay. But generally, gambling sites provide better privacy than land-based casinos.