We can now play a huge range of gambling games online

There is no doubt that once again there has been another significant shift towards internet shopping over the busy Christmas period resulting in yet more concern over the future of our high street stores and our town centres in general. At the moment however we have not seen a similar reaction to the increasing popularity of online gambling, although the opposition to the Fixed Odds Betting Terminals in our betting shops may alter that at some time in the future. It is also true that the introduction of some gambling games onto the original online sports gambling sites, which began what we now refer to as the online casino gambling sector has also had very little if any effect on the real casinos or even the bingo clubs. The most likely explanation for those different effects we have seen in the retail sector and the gambling industry following our increasing use of the internet is that almost everybody needs to shop at some time or another whereas not everybody enjoys gambling on a regular basis. It is therefore likely that many of the people now playing gambling games online never actually went to a real casino or a bingo club before online gambling became available, but those who did use a casino or bingo club still do. Online casino gambling in particular has clearly been able to attract new customers because of the shear variety of gambling games the online casino gambling sites are able to offer when compared to any of their rivals who operate from a building, because they have none of the space limitations their competitors obviously endure. Leaving aside the huge number of slots games that every online casino gambling site offers, even the range of traditional casino gambling games they feature far exceeds anything their rivals can offer. We are no longer confined to only being able to play roulette and blackjack, we can now play all those traditional gambling games which we only ever saw if we went to one of the big casinos when we were on holiday abroad. We can now even play America’s favourite gambling game, craps without leaving the comfort of our own homes. It is far cheaper than flying to Las Vegas, although perhaps not nearly so exciting. That may of course be another reason why the increasing popularity of playing casino gambling games online has not seriously harmed the real casinos, because even playing games such as roulette or craps in the live online casino mode does not totally simulate the atmosphere of playing those games in a real casino.

Roulette and craps are both casino gambling games with multiple betting options where all the players are placing their bets on the same table at the same time, which naturally increases the tension and excitement of playing these games in the company of other players. Some of the other traditional casino gambling games we can now play online are however totally different and some would say are actually more fun to play online. There is one gambling game which has seen a huge resurgence of interest since online gambling became accessible, and that is the game of poker. Although poker clearly has a long history, with 5-card draw poker in particular being the game of choice for all gamblers across America for many years, it had fallen out of favour over here in Europe and was rarely played outside our own homes amongst groups of friends. Nowadays the game of poker has re-established itself as the game of choice for serious online gambling enthusiasts, and the specialist online poker platforms are now in play twenty four hours a day. Most of these serious poker players will now concentrate on the Texas Hold’em format of poker rather than the simpler 5-card draw version of the game, and Texas Hold’em poker is also the version of the game played at almost all the major tournaments around the world. The popularity of Texas Hold’em poker is primarily due to the fact that it involves the use of community cards and therefore has multiple betting rounds leading to much bigger pots than most other versions of the game. For those of our readers who do not know the Texas Hold’em version of poker we have detailed all the rules on our individual gambling games pages here at gambling.ie, but be aware that it is a gambling game which most observers believe rewards skill and experience in the long run. It is therefore advisable to learn the game by playing for fixed odds against the house at one of the regular online casino gambling sites before trying your luck on one of the online poker platforms.

Poker is of course not the only traditional gambling game which rewards skill and experience as well as luck, the game of backgammon also falls into that category. Backgammon is another game which was not often played here in Ireland before the online casino gambling sites made it readily available, but it now has an increasing group of serious enthusiasts who love the fact that it requires a degree of thought as well as luck. Although the number of moves each player can make is determined by the throw of two dice, it is how well the checkers are then moved around the board that usually determines the winner. Another of the traditional casino gambling games which we can now play online is the game of baccarat. This is a casino game which is ever present in most of the big casinos on mainland Europe, but never to our knowledge available in Ireland or even in the UK. Many people probably think that baccarat is also a gambling game which requires skill and experience to play because of the way it is often portrayed in films, but nothing could be further from the truth. Baccarat is very easy to play, particularly when played online because although the rules are a little complicated you do not actually need to know them because the game is totally controlled by the dealer. The odds of winning a hand of baccarat are almost 50:50.