If you were born and lived in the last century, chances are you know what a casino is. You may have walked into one or played in one once or twice in your life. You’ve seen it up close or in a movie. You know what kind of place it is: a place to gamble. Now that everything is digital, even casinos have gone online casino.
So what differentiates a land-based casino from an online casino? In a battle of online casinos versus traditional casinos, here are the things you need to know.
Online Casinos
Simply put, an online casino is a platform – usually a website or mobile app – that offers you traditional casino games that you can play online. Just like a casino that you can walk into, online casinos are played for real money and you can also win real money with these games.
In terms of games, online casinos offer mostly the same form of games that you can find in a traditional casino: there are online slots, online card games such as blackjack and poker, and table games such as roulette and craps.
Traditional casinos
A traditional casino is a casino that most people are familiar with – some call them land-based casinos, brick-and-mortar places. Those flashy, glitzy Las Vegas places you often see in the movies? That’s a traditional casino. Basically, any physical establishment where you can bet and gamble with real money, and potentially win real money as well, can be considered a traditional casino.
ADVANTAGES OF ONLINE CASINOS
With the growing number of online casinos popping up every day, what are the advantages of playing at one or more of them? Here are some ideas.
Play anywhere, anytime
Since an online casino is based on a website or mobile app, you are not limited to playing at a single physical location. As long as you have your device – it can be a computer, laptop, or smartphone – and you have a working Internet connection, you can play.
If you’re stuck in traffic, you make a quick bet on a round of roulette. There is no need to physically travel anywhere, as you practically carry the casino with you, and it can literally be in the palm of your hand.
Not only that, online casinos are not limited to any hours of operation. You can play virtually any game as much as you want, and at any time you want. Feel like playing online slots on a chilly night? You can do it at an online casino. On your lunch break and looking to kill some time? Simply open the app on your smartphone and you can play a game or two of whatever takes your fancy.
Access to thousands of slots and casino games online
One thing about online casinos is that they are MASSIVE. In a traditional casino, seeing hundreds of slot machines running is already huge. In online casinos, you have tens of thousands of choices across all legal sites and apps. A casino’s game library is important, as it will be one of the limited means by which an operator makes money. Traditional or land-based casinos have other sources of revenue for their establishments, such as restaurants or tourist accommodations.
Do you like slots? You can have online slots with different skins, different amounts of jackpots, and different special mechanics added according to the game design. How about an online poker game? You can play all variants of poker whenever you want, and some online casinos also offer some added twists to the mechanics and gameplay.
There are thousands of options on a single site or app. Multiply that by a thousand (or ten thousand), and that’s how many game options you have, and you can access all of that right from your device.
Total privacy
One of the common concerns of players is their privacy, with the stigma that still surrounds problem gamblers and also the idea of their safety (especially when there is a large amount of money at stake). Others, on the other hand, simply don’t want to be bothered by anyone, either with annoying small talk or strangers who sometimes get too close or too friendly for whatever reason.
In an online casino, no one knows what you are playing, when you are playing, and how much you are winning. It’s all between you and the online platform you have chosen. Not only that, with the use of a VPN, you can also mask your IP address and your real location so that even the online casino doesn’t know where you really are.
Add to this the use of cryptocurrencies to make your deposits, and your gambling can be completely untraceable to you.
ADVANTAGES OF LAND-BASED CASINOS
Although playing at an online casino brings a lot of convenience and innovation, that doesn’t mean that land-based casinos are becoming a dead industry. In fact, here are some of the main advantages of playing at a land-based casino that you shouldn’t miss out on as well.
True casino immersion
You know what they say: nothing beats the real thing. While an online casino may allow you to virtually play the games you know and love, and may also make you some money, the “authentic” atmosphere of a casino is sometimes what people love to experience: the noise, the cigarette smell of the other players, the sound of the dice rolling or the ball dropping on the wheel, being able to roll and see real slot machines, and being able to play with real cards.
And not only that, playing in a land-based casino is usually accompanied by an unlimited supply of your favorite drinks, from champagne to beer, or anything else you feel like, like a little casino bonus. Sometimes they even have a bar where you can relax and have a drink. An online casino may offer you the experience of playing and winning on an app, but the “real” casino experience you can only get in a physical establishment.
Escape from the daily routine
The advantage of land-based casinos is that you can really “escape” from the stress and pressure of the daily routine for several hours or even a day or perhaps several days. Although an online casino can also give you a “break”, you are not immersed in it as you would be in a regular casino.
You can also make a casino visit part of a vacation to a place like Las Vegas, a visit to your hometown or a simple break from your work routine. This can give you a chance to relax, have fun, or maybe even have a few good drinks between games.
A planned casino vacation can also be a great way to refresh your state of mind with a break from all the stress and pressure of work or business. Combined perhaps with beaches or anything else, a casino vacation can be your much-needed respite.