Software Guide

Casinos are licensed and regulated by offshore gambling jurisdictions like the Isle of Man or Gibraltar. However, software developers themselves must obtain licenses to operate in the market. That means their games are overseen by the same bodies as the casino sites themselves.

In Australia, the Interactive Gambling Act of 2001 doesn't prohibit licensed offshore operators from offering games to Aussies, but at least you know that by playing at offshore sites you're guaranteed of a safe game.

Part of securing and maintaining a licence is ensuring that your software is regularly audited. Games and casinos are regularly audited by independent bodies like TST and eCOGRA who ensure a fair game.

Any game involving chance, be it a pokie, roulette or craps, is governed by an RNG, or Random Number Generator.

These programs ensure a totally fair game and will be tested several times a year by auditors.

The 'randomness' of these RNGs only goes so far and in effect online games have a rough payout percentage over time. In fact, most casinos (and a lot of online pokies) will publish RTPs in their games. These 'Return to Player' percentages show how much is returned to players over the long-term.

While land-based pokie machine RTPs are usually found in the 80-85 percent region, many online RTPs run in the 90s. Obviously, as a canny player it's up to you to hunt out the casinos with the best payout percentages and the pokies with the highest RTPs.

The beauty of online casinos is that you can enjoy land-based casino-style gambling in the comfort of your own home.

The first Live Casinos, or Live Dealer Casinos, sprung up in Ireland in the mid-2000s and feature a human croupier operating a real-life roulette wheel or dealing real blackjack cards. Live Casinos are great for players who don't want to rely on a programmed RNG to govern the play and there's always a 'human' element in the drop of the ball or spin of the wheel.

You make bets in the same way on a virtual table on-screen, but you watch the action via a webcam stream. Players can even chat to the dealer via the chatbox and they will reply in real time. Winning bets are paid out by the computer in the normal way.

With blackjack, the dealer uses special cards that have chips or barcodes on them. Hardware reads the cards being dealt out and relays them to the casino page. Again, winnings are paid out by the computer in the usual way.

There are thousands of online pokies available to play for real money today. And with dozens of developers, the style, gameplay and payouts of each slot can vary dramatically.

Such is the variety at today's online casinos, you're likely to find 'Classic' Vegas-style 3-reel pokies sitting alongside newer 5-reel video pokies and the latest 3D immersive titles.

If you're playing on an instant-play site via your web browser, most times you'll be playing either Flash or Java games. These are specially designed to load up in your browser without the need to download cumbersome clients to the desktop first.

Similarly, the new mobile pokies operate in HTML5 and are designed to work well on a smartphone or tablet.

Whether you're looking for the best 5-reel pokies, the sweetest Live Dealer action, or slick HD blackjack tables, you'll find casinos with the best developers in the business features on Casino.com.au.