Today's online casino members have it easy. With just a couple of taps and swipes on their mobile device, people have a whole Internet casino at their disposal. Back in the day, it wasn't that simple, and not everyone had the hardware or software to hop on a casino site when they first started launching.
With the introduction of the Internet in the 1990s, more opportunities started coming up, and more and more people were getting interested in playing casino games from home. Again, even though there were various limitations, people still tried to make things work.
Continue reading this article to see how and what it took for online casinos to become what they are today.
Early Beginnings
Even though the internet was becoming pretty popular, and more and more online casino sites were trying to make a breakthrough in the market, there was one specific event that changed everything.
In 1994, the Caribbean county Antigua and Barbuda, passed the Free Trade Agreement, starting to hand out licenses for online gambling. Because online casinos were not fully regulated at the time, this act made sure that everyone who got a license was legit and legal.
Seeing the success that this act brought, in the foreseeable years, more and more countries like Canada, Australia, and the UK, started to pass licenses. The US also hopped on the bandwagon, with New Jersey being the first state to regulate online casino platforms.
Before even licenses were being handed out, there were multiple software companies, who were dabbling in the market, trying to make, at the time, high-quality games for casino sites. Microgaming is considered the first vendor that started to partner up with multiple online casinos and provide them with casino games.
Casino Games
Today, players are able to pick from millions of games, from slots, table games, card games, and specialty games. As one would expect, in the beginning, there weren't many gaming options.
The whole technology package back then didn't have the capacity or tools to create these programs, 3D graphics, or animations that we see today. Talking about online gambling, there were a few options back then:
- Slots
- Poker
- Sports Betting
Slots
Fast forward to today, best uk casino online has thousands of different slot games, provided by various software vendors. Well, at the beginning of times, when only a dozen online casinos were running their sites, Microgaming was one of a handful of companies that were trying to bring more and more slot games.
No one can pinpoint, as it was never agreed upon which was the first-ever slot made and offered to players at online casinos, but that didn’t stop Microgaming. This game studio kept on creating online slot machines to this day, making them one of the main games featured.
Poker
Even before the idea of casino sites and their implementation, poker was the most played game at brick-and-mortar casinos. The majority of people were skeptical about the implementation of poker in online casinos, but with upgrades and the option for more people to play at once, poker essentially became another main piece to casino sites.
Sports Betting
Because today’s casino sites have their own sports section on their web pages, we have to take it into consideration. Back then, sports betting was not quite part of online casinos, but with bookmakers seeing the trend make huge strides, they wanted in on the action.
In the late 90s, a couple of popular bookmakers at the time decided that they also wanted to try to implement their business online. After many tries, and years of development, Betfair was the first sports betting site that had its own Pay-to-play payment system, which was a massive level-up.
Payment Methods
When online casinos first started to pop up, everyone was thrilled. However, when it came to depositing funds and later withdrawing winnings, people were skeptical about providing their credit card numbers and bank account info.
It took quite some time for operators to gain the trust of people, but as soon as people realized that many of the operators were legit, licensed, and regulated by their countries, the conclusion was simple. The majority of people could see the potential of this new technology.
Fast forward to today, all the big and well-known online casinos offer numerous payment methods from credit/debit cards, e-wallets, cheques, bank transfers, and the latest payment option, cryptocurrency.
Online Casinos Nowadays
There are pretty strong indications that online casinos such as bestnewzealandcasinos.net are only getting better and better each year. The live dealer section, which is a major implementation, showed the world that online casinos are creating something unique.
This was a clear indication that casino site operators were trying to dominate the gambling scene. Having the ability to stay at home, hop on your preferred device, whether it is your desktop computer, your laptop, or even mobile phone, head over to an online casino and sit down at a table where a live dealer is chatting with you and other players, makes you think. Why bother visiting a land-based casino at all?
Is Virtual Reality the Future?
We are all aware that this technology is just blooming, but in the past couple of years, massive firms have been developing platforms, breaking through the market. There are VR online casinos that can be visited, however, they aren't a complete product, at least not yet.
Even though not many people are hooked on the idea of a VR online casino, we all know that in the past people were skeptical or weren't interested in online casinos either.
Who knows, maybe in a couple of years, VR online casinos will make a massive boom, and what we all consider today an online casino, will change.
