Online casinos

ONLINE GAMBLING MARKET CURRENT STATE

To generate the millions of dollars. online gambling market is to be expanding rapidly. This is happening due to technological development and because more people open the fabulous world of internet casino gambling as one of the best entertainment. 

The mobile devices use is on the rise, as well, so now, you can gamble on the go, and win money as you’re commuting to the office.

In compliance with the research Size Of The Online Gambling Market In 2017 And 2024 on Statista, if the rates of this industry income compared in 2017 and (hypothetically) in 2024+, the following upsring can be noticed:

So, it’s really evident that the 2017 rates are approximately twofold lower than the expected ones of 2024 (and some successive years).

What’s more, if the share of the online gambling in Europe is considered, it can be depicted in the following manner investigated in the research named Size Of The Online Gambling Market Worldwide From 2012 To 2018:

The rise of the indexes is quite critically big, since within 2012 and 2018 period, the volume of the online gambling market in Europe got two times bigger. If these data are compared to the US information, the information is literally mind-boggling!

Land-Based VS Online Casinos

Land-based casinos develop, too, because their owners invent more and more gambling-related entertainment for the guests. However, the truth is that online platforms become even more popular than the offline gambling houses.

The main reasons are as follows:

• People do not have to travel anywhere to play at an online casino; they do not even have to leave their home
• They do not have to spend additional money on attire, tipping, food and drinks to be purchased specially for going out
• They do not have to socialize with other players if they don’t want to
• Websites are available 24/7
• Websites are available from anywhere, Internet connection is all you need
• Online casinos usually offer more lucrative bonuses
• Game selection is usually richer on websites

So, if you haven’t been to any online casino, perhaps you should give them a try. They offer a lot of things land-based venues simply don’t have.

TYPES OF ONLINE GAMBLING

The recommended by us online casinos offer versatile slot machines games. While there are platforms that specialize in slots, in reality, you get a wide array of different gambling activities and entertainments, increasing your chance of winning.

Online Casinos

A typical online casino is a website that offers, as a rule, slots, card games, roulettes, poker, jackpots, and some specialties like Keno or Scratch cards. If to keep in mind that one online casino can have several hundreds of titles only in slots category, the general picture becomes pretty impressive. 

The best online gambling sites can offer up to 1000 game titles, the number which many land-based houses can only dream of.

Sports Betting

Sports betting includes making bets on sports (like soccer) and on animal racing. Usually these entertainments are available on separate platforms, because they require some different software, and also a very different design of the online casino—for the players’ convenience. So if you are into sports passionately, you can totally find a top online casino to your taste.

Lottery

If talking about online lottery, the best option is playing some Keno on a reliable website. Just this kind of online gambling should be thoroughly checked for safety and fair play. As an alternative, you can try and play your state’s official lottery.

Poker Rooms

Poker rooms can also be offline and online, but online are much better, because you can access them from anywhere, play on any platform, and choose the best conditions. 

It is pretty hard to find a decent offline poker room, but there is no such problem with virtual ones, as you can immediately read reviews and feedback from real players, and understand the truth standing behind all of these processes. Online guides like Zen are super handy in such cases.

ZEN: A UNIQUE ONLINE CASINO GUIDE FOR PLAYERS

Zen is an honest and objective online casino guide for all players, newbies and experts alike, because it provides the most recent information about online gambling, and about the gambling resources, both old and new. 

The main benefit you get with Zen is that you can apply a bunch of filters, quickly find what you need, and get true information about it. Being aware of the real conditions, risks, and benefits will keep you in Zen, and will allow you to win easily.

Why You Need Zen Guide And Why It Is Useful

Having a reliable casino guide is always a good thing, because new casinos online appear all the time. Along with this, the old ones can change their rules, or change owners who change the rules, and even if you are a passionate player, you can’t sit at your laptop all day double-checking every website you are used to playing at. 

You want to enter, gamble, win, and never bother with reading their Terms and Conditions again. Instead, we will do this for you.

The Benefits of Zen Casino Guide

Go check the biggest diversity of the benefits you get with us! They’re so vital for your success, so we’d advise you reading them attentively:

• If you are a newbie, get to read the info on the casinos and games, to make head or tale of anything you will meet in the online gambling world
• In case you need some hints, you can also address us
• You’ll receive comprehensive and assisting feedback
• We cooperate only with the professionals to compose our reviews
• If you are an expert, apply our filters and quickly find what you need, check the updates details, and dive into lucrative playing with our recommended casinos.

Our Mission

Our mission is to give you objective and honest information on every online casino. We don’t tolerate any unreliable online casinos that cheat on their customers. We don’t encourage poorly made online casinos that don’t care about user experience. So if we find something improper or suspicious about a site, we will let you know. 

Besides, we are happy to recommend really well-designed and honest platforms that take care of their customers and visitors, and where you can play safely to win big.

HOW WE TEST ONLINE CASINOS

Before recommending you a site, we check it out with the utmost attention. Below are the aspects we look at to define whether a site is even worthy of your attention.

License

License is the very first thing you should pay attention to after you have found out whether this or that online casino actually accepts players from your country. We check the legal documentation immediately, and there are frequent cases when an online casino does not provide any info at all about what license (if any) they hold. 

If you cannot find data on license, read Terms and Conditions. Usually, if nothing there still, you may just leave the site. We can research more and even nag the Customer Support to dig this information out, but you are not expected to go that far. If the online casino does not inform you on their license right away, why you should even trust them?

Now, there are different licenses out there. Depending on the type of license you can make a rough suggestion on the general reliability of the site. The best licenses are granted by 

• The Alderney Gambling Control Commission;
• Malta;
• UK, and 
• Gibraltar gaming authorities. 

The point is these are granted and not sold. Licenses by other agencies also include testing and all, but they are purchased more or less easier. The most widespread certifications are by Costa Rica, Curaçao, and Isle of Man.

Games Variety

A rich gaming library is what you come for as a player, right? So we look at the variety of gambling activities and the overall quality/accessibility. Best online casino offers 300+ titles, excellent have 500+ items. Variety aspect includes types of gamble, and also the variety of software providers whose items are represented on the site.

Software Providers

There are hundreds of different software providers, but unless you gamble in a local virtual casino that is available only for your country, you will not even know the titles of the majority of them. Instead, you are likely to stumble across the biggest companies, and therefore you should be able to recognize them:

• Novomatic
• Microgaming
• NetEnt
• Playtech
• Realtime Gaming
• NYX Gaming
• Yggdrasil
• Pragmatic Play
• Evolution Gaming
• Betsoft
• Big Time Gaming

If you see at least one of these in the list, you are most likely in a good company. The point is that big and respected developers care about their reputation and will not allow their software on some low quality gaming sites.

Payment Options

Payment options are another crucial aspect that cannot be ignored unless you only want to pay for fun. Payment methods are connected to depositing (meaning you sending money to the online casino to have funds on your account for betting) and withdrawing (meaning you requesting your winnings from account to get them in cash eventually). 

The point with this aspect is similar to the situation with software providers: reputable payment system companies have rough requirements for the platforms that want to collaborate, and if the online casino is fraud or does not meet the requirements, the best payment systems will not be available for it.

It means that if you enter the Banking options page on the site and see “credit and debit cards, bank transfer, and some local system”—this is a very bad sign and you should avoid playing for real money here. It means that the website either doesn’t bother to provide more options to their customers, or is not eligible for collaboration with reliable systems. Even very young websites can be built decently enough to partner with the most reliable payment systems.

The more options is offered the better. here are the most popular banking options you can meet:

• American Express
• ApplePay
• AstroPay
• Discover
• Ethereum
• EuTeller
• Interac
• iPay
• Neteller
• UnionPay
• UPayCard
• VISA
• Western Union and tons of others
   

As you can see, the choice is pretty broad. But check the withdrawal time first. Some irresponsible gambling websites make depositing possible via the fastest methods like credit card or online payment system, while limiting withdrawal to the slowest methods possible, for example Bank wire or Cheque by Courier. 

Avoid those because chances are high you will be waiting for your withdrawal for 2 months which is simply ridiculous.

Bonuses And Wagering Requirements

Bonuses are something that attracts the majority of customers to a particular online casino, because they are created exactly for this purpose. In the best cases, you can get up to 200% match bonus for your deposit, to the sum of up to $1,000. This is super exciting, and we look for websites that offer really generous bonuses.

There are different types of bonuses. No Deposit bonus is the one you get when you create an account with the online casino. You do not need to send any money to them, because you are eligible for the bonus due to the fact of registration.

Welcome bonus, or First Deposit bonus, is the one granted after first depositing. They are usually 100%, 150%, or even 200% match to the sum you deposit. Some casinos grant bonuses for several deposits, like the 1st, the 2nd, the 3rd, and even the 4th one. This is also a good type of promotion.

However, what you have to keep in mind is wagering requirements for each bonus. This means that before you are allowed to withdraw winnings that you got by using bonus money, you have to bet the sum of the bonus a set amount of times. 

For example, the wagering requirements is x30, therefore, you have to bet the sum you got on your bonus account, for 30 times, and only then you can withdraw money you have won by using the bonus sum. Currently, normal wagering requirements are from x35 to x45.

Mobile Compatibility

If the online casino is not compatible with mobile devices now in 2020, this is ridiculous. The use of mobile gadgets is on the rise, and if the site is not specialized in PC gaming, being not mobile compatible meaning not taking care of its visitors. Some go as far as making special mobile apps to increase the usability, while other sites are available only via browser and you have to solve reCAPTCHA to enter. 

Security

Security of your money is provided by proper payment options, but general security of you as a user, and safety of your sensitive data is provided by the SSL encryption protocol, special coding that encodes all incoming and outcoming data on the site. 

Check the URL bar for the small lock at the beginning. If the lock is present, the site is secured with SSL. SSL certificate does not cost much, honestly, and if it is absent on a website that processes payments, you have to be suspicious, because we are.

Usability

Usability is something not everyone is aware of when checking a new site, but it is important when you actually start playing for real money. Top-rated online casinos do not glitch, do not hide information on the 10th internal page you have to dig to through a bunch of guidelines, and do not provide crucial data only to registered players.

Complaints

The presence of complaints as such is not yet an indication of a bad casino, because both people and software can fail, and sometimes third parties like Internet provider can cause a case for complaint. 

However, unresolved complaints (meaning those that were not managed, or ignored by the online casino at all) matter. We look if the online casino resolved complaints properly, and also what types of complaints are the most frequent.

Payout Limits

Payout limits indicate how high are the winnings in different games the online casino offers. Payout limits depend on the size of bets, the software, but also on the casino’s policies. The higher the payout, the better.

Multiple Currencies

The more currencies are available for depositing and withdrawal, the better. Of course, local websites will have less currencies than big international ones, but when big international ones accept only one or two, this is no good.

Multiple Languages

More languages mean that the website takes care of more potential visitors. This also means that the Customer support will be able to cater for the users with more efficiency.

Customer Support

The best case is when the Customer Support is available 24/7 via live chat, has phone numbers for every country from where they accept players, and of course has an official email. 

The worst case is when it is available only for registered players, while others can simply leave a message on the site messenger without knowing where it actually goes (if anywhere). 

We also check how fast the Support answers, and whether it is a live person or a bot.

Restricted Countries

Generally, having lots of restricted countries is not good, especially if the casino is a good one, because it means players from many regions won’t be able to play at a decent platform.

TYPES OF ONLINE CASINOS

There are different types of online casinos out there, so check out what type you would like to visit.

Real Money

These are casinos where Demo Mode for the title is not available, you can only gamble for real money as soon as you register an account with them.

Fast Payout

These are online gambling websites that stick to the fastest payment methods like digital currencies, credit and debit cards, and instant payment systems (Skrill, Neteller, PayPal, etc.).

Anonymous

These casinos accept only digital currencies. As you know, digital currency transactions are transparent, but do not provide public access to the person sending and getting the money. So, you can gamble for real money with digital cash, and yet stay totally anonymous.

No Download

The majority of modern online casinos are no download ones, meaning you do not have to download any software pieces from their website, and get instant access to the gamble via browser.

Mobile Apps

The smartest casinos offer specialized mobile apps available in official online stores, to provide the best user experience for their visitors. Just make sure to check the ratings of the app and feedback from other users.

Live

Live online casinos are focused on Live Dealer Games, which instead of showing you the gaming machine connect you online to a real dealer in a remote facility, and the dealer regulates the game for you. This is only for table gambles, like Blackjack, Baccarat, Roulette, Poker, etc. (meaning there are no Live Dealer Slots or stuff).

VR

These online casinos are pretty rare, and the main specialty is that they give you access to online casino with the use of Virtual Reality technology. You can participate in table games or play slots machines seeing everything as if you were physically in the facility. This is pretty awesome, especially if otherwise you have a boring evening in front of your TV.

Minimum Deposit

Most of casinos require $10 or $15 as a minimum deposit, so if you find a higher number, this is unusual.

Download

These online casinos offer you to download a piece of software (which is not a mobile app, mind yourself!) from their website to enable gaming from your device. We are not excited about such option in 2020, especially because there is always a risk to download a virus attached to the software.

New

New online casinos are always exciting, because they offer huge bonuses to attract the visitors, provide crazy promotions, and often have the most recent and fresh gaming titles. Yet, you have to be careful and check the license and security first.

PARAMETERS MOST OFTEN SEARCHED FOR

The users look for the most attractive platforms, so the parameters they usually search for include:

• Popular: visited by many other gamblers
• Reliable: not cheating on their customers and not sending viruses and spam
• Licensed: obviously having a license
• Safest: having license, proper banking, and SSL in place
• Trusted gambling sites: trusted online casinos by experts and other gamblers across the web
• For Fun: offering gambles in Demo mode for no deposit playing
• Real Money: offering decent conditions to bet real money and win real cash

Yet, we also recommend to check the parameters of banking options, decent software providers, and usability.

WHAT GAMES CAN BE FOUND IN ONLINE CASINO?

There is a pretty set array of gambles you can find at any online casino. Perfect if you have them all, not good if you are limited to three or five types (unless the venue specializes on these exclusively):

• Slots
• Jackpots
• Video Poker
• Blackjack
• Baccarat
• Roulette
• Poker
• Craps
• Scratch Cards
• Sic Bo
• Keno
• Live Dealer

Pick up a casino to gamble on and tap on the games to see if you can play them for fun without registration, to see the mechanics and the design. And keep in mind that jackpots, Live Dealer games, and some card games like poker may not be available via demo mode.

Also, some software providers are limited in their rights of offering their games in certain regions of the world. So jump to Terms and Conditions to see if you will actually be able to play a particular game from your country. If not, don’t be mad, as this is caused by international market regulations and has nothing personal.

DESIRED ONLINE CASINO NOT AVAILABLE IN YOUR AREA?

It is always possible to find a decent, fair, and well-paying online casino that accepts players from your area and delivers winnings to you faithfully. 

If you haven’t  found one, yet, do not try to fool the reputable websites. Even if you manage to enter, they’ll not accept your deposit, and will not allow you to withdraw. It is simply because they do not work with your country’s financial systems. 

The only option for you is to use cryptocurrencies, but again, the casino should be able to accept you as a player in the first place.

Can VPN Be Used To Play Casino Online?

VPN may seem a smart move to access the otherwise restricted casino, but in reality, it won’t help much. You will most likely be disclosed at the stage of registering; even if you will be able to deposit, you will 100% not be allowed to withdraw the funds, and your account will most probably be simply closed. VPN will only help you to reach the desired casino to play for fun.

HOW TO START PLAYING AT ONLINE CASINO?

Many newbies wonder what the first steps are to start playing for real money? Well, these are pretty easy:

• Choose A Platform: choose wisely. Check the crucial aspects, read the reviews, research other players’ feedback and the niche experts’ comments. Make sure it all fits together, and the casino is decent. Have the advantage of casino guides like Zen.
• Sign Up: find the Sign Up or Register Button and provide all the data the site requires. You cannot skip anything because the form won’t allow you further, and you can’t provide fake information unless you actually do not plan to play there. If they require ID and/or any other documents, fake ones will lead to closing of your account.
• Accept the bonus: in some casinos, if you are eligible for Sign Up bonus, you will not receive it automatically (unless the casino says you will), so you have to claim the bonus and accept it. If you are eligible for Deposit bonus, you can claim it on the next stage of depositing.
• Make A Deposit: all of your data have to be verified before you can deposit any money. After the account is accepted, find the Deposit button, choose payment option, indicate the sum, and follow the instructions. Please keep in mind that the payment system itself may take a commission for transaction.
• Win Real Money: read the rules of the gambling activities, develop a strategy, decide what sum you are ready to bet, make bets and win real money!

PICK A FAVOURITE BONUS!

When choosing the bonuses, you may become confused with their variety. Well, before claiming any bonus at all, check the wagering requirements first. If they are higher than x45, that’s a rip-off. Next, see if the bonus is actually that attractive. Maybe you don’t want a First Deposit bonus, but want Friday Free Spins. It is you who decides.

What you can also pay attention to is VIP points that you as a loyal customer can collect and then exchange for free spins or additional perks.

NEW ONLINE CASINOS: PROS AND CONS

New online casinos may seem more exciting than old ones, but to choose the best site for playing, make sure you know all of their pros and cons:

ADVANTAGES OF LEGAL ONLINE GAMBLING SITES

Legal online casino sites offer you all benefits and protection you as a customer can count for. Since you trust them your sensitive data, bank-related information, and send them your real money, they’re supposed to offer you the best gaming experience they can. 

This happens because legit online casinos are tested and certified by neutral third parties like gambling commissions. There are neutral third party controlling agencies for gaming software, for payment systems, and for fair conditions of the casino overall. Legal online gambling sites have these things in order, so have the advantage of them.

GAMBLING LAWS

Different countries have different gambling laws, and you have to be aware of those before visiting even online resources. Some regions like UAE or China ban online gambling totally, and you are not allowed to even visit the online casinos (even if these are foreign online casinos, and even if you are a foreigner, and even if you have a VPN app installed). 

So make sure you are aware of gambling laws, especially if you travel often and like to reach out for a favourite game to kill time in the trip.

Why Do Gambling Sites Ask For My ID Documents?

Your documents are needed to verify your account, to make sure you are a real person and not a group of people trying to scam the casino. Also, they check if you can be accepted as a player, and whether they will be able to send you the winnings later. 

Plus, you may be accepted to the online casino, but some games may not be available to you due to your location, so they have to inform you about this.

RESPONSIBLE GAMBLING

Well, no, there is a general law to rule them all called Responsible Gambling. Wherever you are, you should follow the rules of responsible gambling, for example, 

• Not to bet more than you can spend;
• Not to gamble instead of working or sleeping;
• Not take loans from a bank to bet money at a casino, etc.

PREDICTIONS ABOUT FUTURE OF ONLINE GAMBLING

Most likely the industry of gambling online will carry on to develop quickly, due to development of digital technologies, rise in the use of devices by more and more people, availability of online entertainments, and powerful attraction of best rated online casinos as such. Stay with us to remain updated on the most recent changes on the market.

MAKE A KILLING BY GAMBLING ONLINE

If you are wondering what you can win by online gambling, well, the most recent news in the niche about winnings feature a €13.3 million payout to a player who played Mega Moolah progressive jackpot by Microgaming. 

Microgaming company were excited to pay this win, because their progressive jackpots are famous all over the world, and this jaw dropping win only supports their reputation as one of the best software developers on the market.