It's not news to anyone that the online casino business has gone stratospheric in recent years, with more and more countries embracing the chance to play, and increasing numbers of providers offering them the games to enjoy. One thing you can be sure of, though, is that when something becomes popular, there will always be a lot of comment passed about it. Sometimes that commentary will be informed and illuminating, and at other times it will be best ignored.
Learning the difference between the myths and realities of online gaming is essential to fully enjoying the games that are out there. So it is worth taking a look at some of the things that people claim about iGaming and seeing what the truth is. You may be surprised by how inaccurate some statements are.
“Online casinos are fixed, you can only trust brick-and-mortar gaming”
Here's a stat worth mulling over: in a land-based casino, the average return to player (ie. how much of the money gambled there is won back by customers) is around 85%. In an online casino, it's around 95%. So if the above statement is true, it suggests that online casinos are incompetent when it comes to fixing their games. More realistically, they're not doing that at all – it's just that when people don't win, they want someone to blame, and an unseen hand is always a good scapegoat.
“You're more likely to win if you play at certain times of day”
No, that's not it either. Pick any of the Top 5 casino games and play them at 10 am, 5 pm or just after midnight, and your chances of winning will be the same each time. The results of casino games aren't dictated by the clock. Just because there are fewer people playing, that doesn't mean the casino will say “oh, well, just give a jackpot to the guy playing the genie slot”. Equally, the casino being busy doesn't mean that payouts will be more common – at least, not proportionally. If you usually win while playing in the afternoon, but lose at night, that's a statistical anomaly – but those are pretty common with small sample sizes.
“Online casinos encourage underage gambling”
No. To sign up for an online casino – at least, any of the reputable ones – you will need to supply proof of age. You can't just go to the sites shown here and bet without detection. Casinos need to apply stringent restrictions in order to get and keep a license – and if a casino doesn't have a license, you should steer so far clear of it that you forget it exists. As an adult, you should certainly keep your login and payment details completely secret. But saying that online casinos encourage underage gambling is like saying that online wine merchants are encouraging underage drinking. It's just not true.
Online betting is something that you should always do with care and responsibility. However, the idea that it's some unregulated Wild West is completely untrue, and easy to disprove.
