Smaller online casinos can have an advantage over large ones

Irish casino players are lucky in one respect but rather poorly served in another. The lucky side is that Ireland probably has more choice of online casinos than most other European countries due to the fact that the Government has not tried to intervene in the free market. Compare this to other European countries such as the Netherlands where they want to try and stop everything that is not Government controlled. Even land based casinos in that country are all called “Holland Casino” and are Government owned and operated which probably brings in considerable income. The reverse of this is that when it comes to land based casinos Ireland is very poorly served as they appear to be impossible to establish whether Government owned or not. The only real attempt, which was a few years ago now, was thwarted by all kinds of objectors who linked casinos to various forms of crime and prostitution and ignored the employment it might create and the taxes that it might bring in. That is water under the bridge and it does not look like changing anytime soon so for Irish casino players online is the only way to go but, as stated, there is plenty of choice.

It can be difficult, when faced with what appears to be an endless choice, to make a decision about where to play as there are a number of factors to be considered but fortunately there are sites such as Casinos.ie or Onlinecasino.ie that are there to help and offer advice. First and foremost is the question of licensing. In order for an online casino to operate legally in Ireland it must have a license issued by a recognised authority in Europe. Most casino players will not know which countries are recognised and which are not which is where sites such as casinos.ie and onlinecasino.ie come into their own as they do know. There are a number of territories which are well known for issuing licenses and overseeing operations of online casinos and other i-gaming companies but the best known are probably Malta and Gibraltar with the Isle of Man and Alderney also up there. It should come as no surprise that this list also coincides with a list of low tax countries. Online casinos that claim to be registered solely in obscure places like Mauritius should be treated with care. As an extra safeguard look out for those that also hold a UK license from the UK Gambling Commission which is needed to operate in the UK. This is not required to operate in Ireland but it should provide an extra level of comfort for Irish casino players. Interestingly enough the UK license does not add anything to the requirements for safe and honest operation of the casinos as it is purely a mechanism for the UK Government to extract extra taxes by insisting that any online casino pays UK taxes on proceeds from UK players regardless of where the online casino itself is based.

Needless to say any online casino on the recommended list at casinos.ie or onlinecasino.ie is correctly licensed and operated. The next question is what sort of an online casino you want. There are very large organisations such as Paddy Power Betfair which offer all sorts of online gambling but clearly the larger the organisation the more likely it is that you are just a number. If this is what you like then fine but smaller specialised online casinos can often offer a better more personal approach plus, maybe surprisingly, they often also offer a better choice of casino games. Any form of online gambling is driven by the software in use and when it comes to sports gambling it is quite usual for online companies to write their own which is where the larger companies have a distinct advantage in being able to invest in development. Online casino software on the other hand is developed by specialist companies and sold/leased to online casinos which means that they can pick and choose which software they want to use which is what can create a difference. Paddy Power Betfair for example chooses to use a single casino software supplier called Playtech which is without doubt one of the major players in the industry but others such as CasinoCasino.com use multiple suppliers of casino software which means far more games especially in the area of casino slots. Some of these casino software suppliers are smaller outfits which does not in any way imply that the games are any less good, it simply means that there are fewer of them but online casinos listed that use multiple software sources also use the major suppliers such as Microgaming and NetEnt which offer some of the largest slots jackpots around.

This means that you are not missing out by selecting a specialised online casino rather than a larger online gambling player. Possibly the greatest choice of casino slots can be found at CasinoLand.com as they have incorporated no fewer than 17 casino software suppliers onto the site giving literally hundreds of slots to choose from. Particularly worth mentioning is the casino software and slots from Amanet. The reason for this is that many Irish casino players seem to like the idea of following what is going on when playing a slot. While this is not strictly necessary to receive winnings it does add to the enjoyment. Some of the more complicated casino slots contain so many symbols and winning line patterns that it becomes nearly impossible to determine whether you have a winning line or not before the software has decided for you. Several of the Amanet casino slots are much more simple and often use only fruit symbols and bars which have been around for years and even slots such as All Ways Fruits™ which has five reels makes life easy by not having winning patterns. Matching symbols anywhere on the reels results in a win as long as it is left to right. In the free spins game even that is not necessary so wins pop up from everywhere.