The History of Online Casinos
There have been millions of pounds spent on online casinos over the years, and now betting adverts and web gambling are as common as the regular kind – if not more so.
Considering how accepting we are of it, it’s amazing to think that it’s only been widespread for the last decade or so. From warnings of gambling addiction for teens to adverts before soap operas – there’s not many other things that have been so quickly and confidently taken into the public awareness.
The first proper online casino was started by Microgaming back in 1994. While everybody else was reeling from The Shawshank Redemption and Pulp Fiction, playing on their brand new PlayStation or listening to Oasis’s first album, there were people who were playing slots online.
This was before the days of real money gambling, which is a good thing as it pre-dated secure encryption needed to shop, gamble and donate safely online. That would come in 1995.
It wasn’t long after encryption came along that people started demanding a way to win cash online. Intercasino offered the first cash gambling, offering 16 games and the chance to win the Indian National Lottery.
It took only a few short years for business to start booming. From humble beginnings in 1996, the cash casino market soon was booming. More than 700 paid casinos were open by the turn of the millennium, and that was just the beginning.
By 2001 – when the Isle of Man began offering licences to online casinos – there were 8 million people betting on the web. More than $2 billion dollars a year was being spent on the hobby. Over the next five years, a number of big names came onto the scene and customers were more excited than ever to be able to gamble from the safety and comfort of their own homes.
Then – as quickly as they had appeared – online casinos suffered a harsh blow.
New regulations in the US – the biggest territory for online gambling – started to make it hard for casinos. It was made illegal for credit cards and banks to transfer money for gambling purposes online. Five years later, a number of sites were shut down by the US government.
Elsewhere in the world, things seemed to be going well for the pastime. There was nearly 900 paid casinos, and an estimated $22 billion was being spent on everything from bingo to poker.
Like with all areas of gaming, things changed entirely when the mobile market began to open up. Previously the refuge of mini-games like Snake, the Apple iPhone allowed for users to play games not entirely unlike the ones they might play on a console or PC.
This included the inevitable rise of mobile apps designed for casinos. Suddenly people could gamble with a device that fit in the palm of their hand, and it revolutionised play for millions of people.
Today there are still hundreds of casinos – such as Netbet Casino Games – and it’s never been easier to win big. The industry doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, which is good news for gamblers across the world.