Blackjack, online slot machines, casino, poker

Knowing about Online Casino Platform Providers

With brick-and-mortar casinos, you probably weren’t so picky. If you wanted to play poker, you would position yourself at any old poker table with a plain green top. If you wanted to play at the slot machines, you would look for an unoccupied slot machine in your preferred stakes area and then take it. With the internet, on the other hand, it’s a very different case.

The Pluses with Programs

Sure, you’re probably still playing the same games like poker, slots, and blackjack on the internet. However, you’re not just playing the game anymore. You’re playing it on a computer program – a client, a platform, a user-end program or whatever the online casino would like to call it – and that makes all the difference. You see, with computer games, there is almost limitless room for modification and customization. If you try looking up the usual computer games that teens nowadays play, you’ll find hundreds or even thousands of patches, modifiers, and other methods that the players can use to personalize their game. And as online gambling began having a computer program-based, online persona, players at online casinos began craving for that same range of choices.

While there were few developers for online casino platforms before, dozens of them sprung up in recent years to meet the demands of the growing online casino-playing market. Each of these companies, called platform providers because they give the casino the entire basis for their games, is now known for a trademark or a specialty, a certain something that sets them and the platforms that they develop apart from the rest. In fact, many articles and books out there on how to find an online casino list the specifications (and the developer, in particular) of an online casino’s platform to be part of the criteria.

At the time of writing of this article, there are already several platform providers known throughout the world, as evidenced by the number of online casinos that license with them. Three in particular are well-known by the market and often used by online casinos - Playtech, Microgaming, and CryptoLogic. You’ve probably heard about at least one of them before, and you’ll get a more in-depth look at each of them later on in this article.

Playing with Playtech

Playtech Cyprus Ltd., more popularly known on the internet as Playtech, was established in 1999 by Teddy Sagi. Since then, it has become one of the most popular providers for online casino platforms, supporting a wide variety of casino games. Their software is accredited and certified as high quality by bodies like the accredited testing facility and is used by big-name online casinos like Golden Palace, Ritz Club Online, Titan Poker, and Casino Tropez.

Playtech casino is known particularly for making software for online poker rooms. A big chain of online poker rooms, collectively known as iPoker, is powered exclusively by Playtech. Until now, a large part of Playtech’s market presence is due to its specialty in poker software. They are the only platform provider so far to provide live table games where a dealer facilitates the action for players who can then watch it on their computers.

At the time of writing, Playtech employs 300 people across several countries across the world.

Microgaming Mastery

Microgaming is a considerably older company than Playtech, having been established in 1994. This half decade lead has allowed them to lay down a lot of groundwork and to grab an early lead in the online casino provider race. At the time of writing, Microgaming provided the platforms for the games of over 120 casinos and over three dozen poker rooms, with $225 million dollars and counting given away in prizes. Their slot machine software is a market favorite, and their Viper software, with its Autoplay feature, is truly competition to be reckoned with.

Microgaming casino is a favorite choice by best online casino operators because of the powerful controls and financial management systems that they integrate into their platforms. Of course, their extra five years’ worth of market experience helps, too.

Like their closest competitor and neighbor Playtech (both of them are based in the Isle of Man), Microgaming is heavily involved in online poker. A considerable number of their clients are online poker rooms, and they have sponsored major poker tournaments in the past. Like Playtech, Microgaming also powers its own network of online poker rooms.

The Key to CryptoLogic

NASDAQ-listed and Canada-based CryptoLogic is distinctive because it is one of the few online casino platform developers and providers in the world that is based in North America. Despite the stringent new laws against developing the online gambling industry there, CryptoLogic hasn’t had any trouble so far with regards to the use of their programs in online casinos outside the region.

CryptoLogic is a favorite platform choice among players because it offers a moderately-paced game, perfect for when you’re just learning out or starting out on practicing new strategies. The chat is also very convenient to use, and CryptoLogic’s interface for multi-table games is easier to use than others.’ If, on the other hand, you’re a seasoned player who can instinctively pick out the best course of action in a moment, you might not find the pace of CryptoLogic’s games to be quite slow.

CryptoLogic is also well known for their slot machines because of the great graphics that they incorporate and also because some licensees publish actual statistics and probabilities on their respective sites.

Fun on Different Platforms

Generally speaking, all of the three online casino platform providers in this article develop almost identical programs and software for the same games and purposes. The clincher, however, is in the details because that is where each provider’s specialty lies. Although they don’t seem to do things differently at first glance, each provider actually caters to a different crowd and a different niche market. You most probably wouldn’t like one provider’s programs as much as another because of the nitty-gritty factors that they include in their programs, all of which go toward the overall customer experience.

When considering or looking for your next online casino, it’s highly recommended that you pay attention to the platform and the software used. It’s not one of the most looked at factors, but you’ve got to admit that nothing affects the user experience more than the programs that you experience when playing at the online casino.