History of Gambling in Australia

By mid-'90s the concept of online gambling was quickly catching on and Australia wanted a part of the action. For a while it looked like full steam ahead but then the Australian government threw a monkey wrench into the plans of Australian online casino owners and pretty much stopped them in their tracks. One major online Australian casino remained because it existed before the new legislation, but aside from that, Australians had to do their gambling on land.

With casino games today, you'll have the best of all possible worlds. You can find hundreds of games at the online casino sites. If you desire, you can also play some of these games from a mobile device. What this means is that you'll never be without the games you enjoy. You can play them from a laptop at home or on the go, or you can play them from a mobile device like an iPad, iPod, Android or other mobile. This allows today's casino games players to enjoy the excitement of the casino while at the dentist's office, while at the car repair shop, and everywhere in between. Seize your time and enjoy yourself more with the casino games that offer you flexibility whenever you need it - wherever you happen to be.

Gambling was 'imported' to Australia a few centuries ago with the new settlers and quickly established itself as a popular entertainment and leisure activity among all social groups. At first, the games were influenced by British tastes and but then - by the 19th century - gambling took on European and Asian influences, as well. Inevitably, the U.S. had its say, and modern day casinos are inspired by American land-based gambling houses in Las Vegas and Atlantic City.

The legalization of gambling in Australia has known its ups and downs. At some point, sports betting and land-based casino card games were deemed illegal but now they are allowed and there are many lavish and impressive casinos in Australia that feature blackjack, poker, slot machines (known as pokies in Australia), keno, etc. Sports betting, including betting on horse races, is very popular in Australia and, in fact, this is one type of gambling that is permitted on the Internet. Milestones in the history of online gaming demonstrate that playing online casino games for real money is a growing phenomena which attracts increasing numbers of new players from around the world every year. Online casinos first began to operate in 1994 when the Caribbean nation of Barbuda and Antigua passed a law allowing licenses to be granted to online casinos. The availability of safe online security software ensured the success of early online casinos. Shortly thereafter, in 1996, the Kahnawake Gaming Commission of Canada began to issue licenses to online casinos and poker rooms worldwide. By 1997 there were 200 Internet casinos throughout the world and in 1999 web casino chat rooms opened to allow players to interact freely with each other. The casino gaming pastime continues to grow and develop with a constant flow of new games and new gaming technology being offered to Internet casino players.

Legal Online Gambling is Just a Matter of Time

Horseracing was one of the first forms of organised betting in Australia and by the late 19th century, racetracks could be visited in just about every major town. Nonetheless, there's no stopping progress and, in the last 30 years or so, casino gambling has replaced horse betting and lotteries as the most popular forms of gambling in Australia. New and faster computerised video games, linked progressive jackpots and other innovations to keep consumer interest at a very high level. By the 1990s video slots - pokies as they are called by Australians - had taken over. Land-based pokies/slot machines have become wildly popular and generate millions of dollars of revenues every year.

Casino gaming was once a pursuit of wealthy individuals who had the time and money to travel to a casino, procure accommodations for several days and spend their time at the tables or slots machines playing their favorite casino games. Today the world of casino games is open to everyone. Players from around the globe can click into the online casino and take their pick from hundreds of exhilarating casino games. Travel expenses, lodging costs and all other additional outlays that casino players once needed to budget into their casino experience are a thing of the past. Additionally, there's more money to be earned at the Internet casino because the online casino doesn't have the fixed expenses, including facility upkeep and employee costs, that the on-site casino must maintain. Online gamers will find that their winnings are significantly higher when they play at the online casino.

Online gamblers can take heart when they reflect at the history of gambling in Australia. For most of the 20th century - until the mid-1950s - most gambling games, including pokies, were ruled as illegal, until the government realised they could generate a large amount of revenue if they simply legalised & regulated gambling and took a piece of the action for their coffers. Since then, land-based casino gambling has flourished, though Internet gambling is still not 100% legal, but the powers that be have set the wheels in motion to change that pretty soon.

In Australia, slots and pokies are both the same

The name online pokies is thought to have derived from a variation of the name video poker and online slots games which is basically what pokies are. Pokies is the name that Australians give for online slot machines. Australians love to shorten everything from names of people to places to games and also have a slang sound to everything that they say which is why pokies is a perfect name for the slots games that they love. In Australia pokies are by far the most popular and most widely played of all of the casino games. There are many different types of pokies to choose from which include three reels, five reel and progressive pokies each with different attributes that include special bonus games, gamble features and many other exciting options for each and every player.

Casino online support

Support is very important at any facility and especially when it comes to the online casino. Every player, whether playing for fun or real money needs to know that they have someone to turn to if they have a query or something goes wrong with the downloading or even transactions that they are performing at the online casino. Casino support is available around the clock day and night every day of the year and can be contacted via toll free phone numbers for certain countries together with email addresses and in some cases live chat. The customer service operatives of the casino are fully trained and versed in all of the operations of the casino and will do their best to help in any way and if they cannot help immediately, they will get back to each and every query in the shortest time possible.

Tips for choosing the best online casino games

Amongst the online casino games to choose from there is plenty of choice. Many of the games can be previewed online before players need to commit to them. Players can flag games that look interesting and once they have deposited money through the online banking section of the casino, they can start playing the games for real money. There are three reel slots and five reel slots to choose from which include progressive slots and games with on screen and off screen bonus opportunities, The progressive slots offer random progressive jackpots which can be awarded totally at random after any spin or regular progressive jackpots which are awarded when a certain configuration is achieved with the different symbols in the game. Table games and specialty games are also offered at the online casino.