If you're familiar with the exciting world of Las Vegas, and you're familiar with the possibilities of the World Wide Web, then the marriage between the two may be obvious to you. Many people, perhaps like yourself, were fans of the Vegas lifestyle, and only recently became enlightened of the fact that you could actually place bets on the Internet. Many assume there are too many security problems, but apparently, with effort and technology online casinos have made the mainstream. It wasn't so long ago that you could be easily unaware of the presence of any online casinos, but recently, the internet's community fascination for online gambling has scaled new heights.

So what are online casinos? And how are they different from traditional land based casinos? Well it certainly is a close cousin to our old friend land based gambling, as you may well know there are a lot of games within the casino's walls that are already digital. Modern gambling is ever more technologically based. Slot machines run from microprocessors, video poker machines are binary to the core, and many table games have simple logic, which allows them to easily have software versions of the game created. Then as the security of online transactions and privacy caught up with the imagination of the game makers and players, the free versions of online blackjack, slots, and a million other games, suddenly became reality and online gambling was born.

Most online casinos let you open accounts via credit card transactions, or some proxy service designed specifically for online purchases such as NETeller, FirePay, PrePaid ATM and others. The standard procedure is to download a package from one of these online casinos and run the software. Within the software there are usually a couple of options, and you can probably play a selection of the games for free before you register. At that point you have the option to visit a registration screen and put in your credit card number, or purchase credits via an alternate method of payment. If you're connected to the Internet the software can communicate with the casino server, and approve your credit transaction. From that point you can choose to gamble for real money! The bets you place are almost exactly the same as the bets you would place at a traditional casino (be sure to read up on the particular online casino's odds and payout rates, and compare them to standard ones.

The most common question new online gamblers may have about online casinos once they find out it's all for real is, how do I win? How can I actually get my money? Well, for the most part, they mail you a check. Sometimes, if you are using a third party payment option, your account may be credited digitally (e.g. NETeller, FirePay, PrePaid ATM, Citadel, etc).

It looks like online casinos are here to stay, even if the US government tries to bans them. Most of the online casinos in existence today are run legally as offshore gambling establishments.