Q. Does gambling online involve an age limit?
A. As is the case with brick and mortar regular land based gambling establishments, you are required to be 18 years old or older in order to be allowed to bet real money when playing in an online casino. But if you are under 18, you can still play for fun at a large number of online casinos.

Q. Are there actually fair and honest online casinos where I can play?
A. Serious casinos that operate online need not operate their games crookedly in order to show a profit. There is a sufficient profit that is built-in due to the house edge and errors made by players.
Some casinos actually advertise that the games that they offer are routinely examined for their fairness. Some casinos that are also audited by leading accounting firms such as PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Players need to be aware that just like in any other type of business, there are dishonest gambling establishments that do exist. There is a common complaint and that is that there are online casinos which act very slowly when it comes to paying out winnings or who have a greater than normal tendency to block player accounts by claiming that the player has abused the games or somehow played dishonestly. There have even been some complaints regarding casinos that are said to have not paid out at all. Those who want to play online must first check out the internet casino message board service in order to acquire the most recent information with regard to these issues.

Q. Is gambling online actually legal?
A. There are many countries where it is legal. In the United Kingdom the Isle of Man has been allowed to set up online gambling casinos. Antigua is another country that permits online gambling and it has also issued licenses to several online casinos. There is a Mohawk territory in Canada called Kahnawake, which licenses online casinos. In Cagayan in the Philippines online casinos can also be licensed.

The situation that controls gambling at online casinos in the United States is a bit more complicated. There are several states that have passed legislation against Internet gambling and still others have proposed similar bills. Meanwhile, there continues to be a number of similar initiatives at the Federal level. There is no authoritative legislation as of yet. A lot of of the US attempts are intended to ban internet gaming entirely but are caught up in red tape and continuous political jockeying that constantly characterizes the subject of gambling and casinos whether they are brick and mortar or simply online.

Consequently numerous online casinos in the US no longer recognize wagers from residents of the United States or Canadian. Nevertheless, estimates signify that as many as 90% of all online gamblers live in the US. As far as it is recognized there are no internet casinos with servers placed within US borders.

Q. How should I decide on an online casino?
A. Through the use of careful investigation and by examining suggested sites. There are virtually hundreds of online casinos with new ones being added every day. Only a very few have been operating a long enough period of time to have completely proven themselves to be trustworthy or deserving of special attention.

Q. Is it necessary to first download software in order to play?
A. There are actually casinos that offer both ‘download’ and ‘no-download’ versions of their games. Examples of the games offered are blackjack, roulette and slots. When you download games you get superior quality games with enhanced graphics, sound and animation.
Legitimate casinos will let you play their games for free before you actually place real-money bets. Because of this you are able to try out the casino and select the games that you like best.

Q. Where do I go to buy the chips to get started?
A. To transfer money to the casino that you play at you can use Neteller, FirePay, or Citadel, as well as a check, money order, wire transfer along with a number of other options. In the past the most popular method was to use credit cards, but several of the major cards have now restricted their use while some have even removed this service. The main methods now being used for casino transactions are third-party services such as Neteller and FirePay. There are also cases where financial transactions are being handled by supplier associated electronic cash systems like InterCasino's application of Cryptologic's Ecash system.

Q. How do I receive my winnings?
A. This is usually done using the same technique as was used to transfer your deposits into the casino. This however, may very from casino to casino. If your casinos offers Neteller services, it can credit your withdrawals into that account. It is the same case with the other third-party services. Other popular options are cheques, bank drafts and wires.
There are however, some casinos that will make you wait until you receive a PIN (personal identification number), which is mailed to you by regular mail before allowing you to make a withdrawal.

Some casinos may charge for withdrawals while others may not. Before playing for real money make sure you read the casino’s policies regarding deposits and withdrawals.