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Vegas Villa and the other Fortune Lounge casinos process payments immediately. If you use Neteller, you will usually receive your payment within 24 hours. |
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IT'S EASY TO PLAY IN ONLINE CASINOS, WITH OR WITHOUT DOWNLOADING THE CASINO SOFTWARE!
When you click on a banner for an online casino, you'll arrive at the casino web
site. This web site is where you can read about the casino’s Terms and Conditions, their current sign-up bonus and loyalty club, their toll-free support numbers and other contact info, and the games they offer.
This is also where you may choose between the “download” or “no-download” versions of the casino software that you actually play on. About half of all online players prefer not to download—either because they don’t want to take the time to download right now, or because they want to try out the casino before they start committing space on their hard drive to it.
Downloaded software is nice because it tends to have better graphics and run faster. The only problem is that, depending on the age of your computer and the browser you are using, you may occasionally (though only rarely these days) run into a problem with the download. If you use Internet Explorer, you should have no problem and if you do, Customer Service at the online casino can help. With less common browsers, like Mozilla Firefox, the download may not work.
If you’re on a 56K modem dial-up connection, it may take 20 to 30 minutes to download a casino’s software. This download time is much shorter on a good DSL or satellite connection, however—usually only a minute or two. After you download the software, it will either open automatically for you to register and play, or you’ll have to click on the new casino icon on your desktop to finish installing it on your hard drive. This takes just a couple more minutes. In the reputable online casinos we recommend on our site, all of this should be pretty automatic and easy to do. Once it’s installed, the software can take up as much as 40MB on your hard drive. This should only be a problem if your computer is pretty ancient.
After downloading and installing the software, you will see a new icon for the casino on your desktop. Double click on that icon to go directly to the casino. Once the software starts, you may be asked whether you want to play for Real Money or for Play Money. Or, hit “Connect,” and you will be prompted to either log in or register a new account. Different online casinos work slightly differently, but all of them are designed to help you get to the games with little effort.
No download casinos require, as you might have expected, no download to register and begin playing. To get an idea what playing no-download software is like, try the games on our Play Online Slots Free, Play Online Casino Table Games Free, or other Play Free pages. You will be playing on actual Microgaming no-download casino software!
Exactly How Do You Get the Free Money?
Casino bonuses are literally free money, and can be very valuable to players. Sometimes they are money you can cash out, and sometimes you can’t cash them out, but even then you can gamble with the bonus money and you can cash out the winnings you make on the bonus.
Don't underestimate the value of any bonus—whether cashable or for wagering only. Having a bonus to play on can double, triple or even quadruple your chance to win big.
But although bonuses are free money, some come with some strings attached. Specifically, if you accept some bonuses, you may be required to give an online casino a specified amount of action on their tables or slots in order to cash out your bonus or winnings. This action is called the wagering requirement.
Also, sometimes certain games are excluded from play on this wagering requirement. Some online casinos don’t allow roulette, craps or baccarat for bonus play, and some prohibit blackjack, video poker, and occasionally other games. Slots—other than video poker—are almost never excluded. So be careful that you don’t play a prohibited game when you’re playing on a bonus, because sometimes this may void the bonus and your winnings on that play.
NO HASSLE FREE MONEY BONUSES
If you want to avoid such restrictions, there are now a large number of online casinos that give no hassle bonuses (sometimes called EZ Bonuses). With these casinos, you may play any game you want, even when you've received a bonus. You may also cash out whenever you want—usually, whenever you feel you've won enough! We recommend online casinos that give no-hassle (or EZ) bonuses very highly! Here is a list of some great ones:
How do you find out the requirements for any particular bonus? By reading the casino’s “Terms and Conditions.”
Be sure to look for Promotional or Bonus Terms & Conditions, as well as the casino’s general Terms & Conditions. A lot of the terms are legal gobbledygook like the “fine print” you get when you buy a microwave, but do make sure you can live with a casino’s bonus Terms and Conditions before you deposit money or accept any bonus money from an online casino. Call support and ask if you're in doubt.
Remember, if you only play at reputable online casinos that give players generous bonuses to play on, you have more of a chance to win, no matter what else you do or don't do. Just take a moment and look, really look, at the valuable bonuses worth many thousands of dollars that you'll find offered on our Best Bonuses page. And all you have to do to get this money to play on is click on a link and follow the instructions to collect.
Is My Money Safe Online?
This is everyone's biggest question when they first start playing online, and it’s probably yours. You may feel like you’re taking a real chance depositing money with an Internet casino. You think: What if you go back the next day and the whole Web site is gone? Or, what if the Web site is there but your money is gone?
On top of that worry, you may be wondering whether the games are even fair. Does anyone ever win?
Well, let us give you some reassurance. There are online casinos that have been in business for ten years or more now, whose books are audited by major New York accounting firms, and that are multi-million-dollar operations whose reputations for honesty are as good as any of the casinos in Las Vegas or Atlantic City.
We have been playing online ourselves for years, and we have been guiding players through online casino gambling for many years too. We have seen players cash out wins of tens of thousands, as well as scores of wins of lesser amounts.
And there are knowledgeable players, professional gamblers, who are playing a lot online. These players record their results and know from their statistics if any online casino software is cheating.
And indeed, some online casinos have tried to rip players off with dishonest software or by not paying winners or through other unethical practices. That's why, before you deposit your money in any online casino, go look at the casinos in our Dishonest Online Casinos list. We share information with other reputable hosts and webmasters and online players, and there’s a good reason why every casino is there too.
At the online casinos we recommend, however, you can feel safe. Gambling is always a risk, but your fate is in the hands of the cards, not crooks. The online casinos we recommend offer games dealt by honest software and run by honest people.
—Ed Hackett
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