One thing about the internet is that, for the good or the bad, everything that takes place in this vast online entity is that everything is recorded. The data gathered is used to create statistics, and that even applies to online pokie play.

And the good news is that the majority of people who go play pokie is growing all the time. There is still nothing to beat playing online pokies and hundreds of thousands of pokie lovers around the World are logging in every day to their favourite online casino to spin the wheels.

 As the online pokie playing revolution has grown with it a larger choice of games, and more and more promotions.

It’s an open secret that online casinos like pokie players and there are always bonuses to be had for loyal players, and any player depositing regularly should learn never to be afraid to ask for one. Even players who have just won a big prize are entitled to a match bonus on their next deposit.

What has made pokie play so popular more than anything else is the progressive tournament.
As more players get into playing pokie online then the prizes in these tournaments continue to shoot through the roof, with six figure first prizes becoming the norm.  . 

Statistics show that most players who join online casinos do so to play pokies than any other game.

Another fact that makes online casinos great is that they will gladly allow novice players to get a feel for playing pokie online as guest players. That way they get the feel of what it means to be a member of an online casino. The criteria that a new member should be looking for are pleasant graphics, powerful software, excellent customer service and a wide choice of games.

Casino management will allow a player to play as a guest for as long as they want, and practice on all the various pokie games, and even when a player opens a "real money" account, many of them choose to hold on to their guest account. They are then free to log in as a guest member to test a recently launched pokie game, even though the casino will usually provide a decent match deposit bonus promotion to go along with it. However pokie practice makes perfect!  

Another item of information worth having for pokie game lovers which online casinos always provide is which machines provided the highest payout percentage for the previous month. Pokie players who take themselves seriously will need to know that kind of information.

When the question comes up why playing online pokies is better than regular pokies in a casino or pub then there so many reasons why playing online is better that it is almost unfair to provide them.

To begin with playing in a noisy, crowded casino or pub is very few people’s idea of fun, having to cope with noise, crowds, and cigarette smoke and shockingly poor payouts. If there were any statistics available they would probably show that most players use these pokies to do away with their loose change or pass a few minutes.  They rarely have any serious hopes about winning and it really can’t be described as entertainment.

Anyone who has ever been to Las Vegas or has watched a film about this World famous gambling Mecca will surely remember these rows of players with giant paper cups full of coins feverishly spinning the wheels in the hope of winning a reasonable prize, afraid to get up in case the next spin would be a winner. Not only that but there are even people who hover around the slot banks observing players who have been spinning for a long time with no results, As soon as they get up, even to go to the toilet, then these pokie vultures home in and try and pick up the prize that must be coming. If you have never witnessed a case of “prize stealing” you can only imagine the upsets that it causes.
Even worse in some players opinion is when a jackpot prize is won. The bells ring, the sirens blare and the lights flash.  Not everybody likes this kind of attention!

So if you like cigarette smoke, noise, attention and have a very strong bladder then regular pokies must surely be for you. However if you want to play pokies in the comfort and security of your own home then the online version is definitely for you.
Not only do you get to play when you want you , wearing what you want you also enjoy a much better of chance of enjoying yourself and even winning. It’s an audited fact that online pokies pay out so much more than the land version. Better still every penny that you put into a pokie will usually be matched by an up to 100% bonus. 

The next time you got to play some pokie in a land casino, pub or club, try approaching the manager beforehand and tell him that you are about to invest a tenner in the pokie machine and would like him (or her) to give you another one, so that you can have more to play with and increase your chances of winning. You are liable to find yourself out in the street if you do!

These are just a few of the reasons why playing online pokies is so much better than regular pokies.

There is no getting away from human nature. The fact is that people who are given something for nothing are usually suspicious of it.  And as well they might be in a lot of cases.

However as millions of people throughout the World have already discovered the online gaming industry is different. Any online casino that respects them will allow players to join as guest without any obligation or pressure to ever deposit money. 
Known as easy play, being a guest member of an online casino has a lot of advantages. .
The first advantage is that even the most experienced of pokie players need whatever time it takes to learn how to play pokie online.  
There are always a large number of players who consider joining as real money players, yet just want to get to know the games and the software and generally find their way around the casino before making their first deposit and spinning the pokie wheels for cash.

As a guest member, players have a real chance of checking out each and every online casino they join, test the software, try out the customer service department and generally get a feel of how the casino works before depositing money, playing and hopefully winning. Taking the time to learn every online pokie game is also important, as well as homing in on the one they like best, learning all of its in and outs without wagering a single penny. What can be fairer than that?

Only once these novice pokie players have decided that they are ready to move on to the next stage, should they open a cash membership by making their first deposit. Before they make their first deposit, however, new pokie player members should take the time to discover what kind of welcome bonus they online casino they have chosen to give their custom to, is offering. Welcome bonuses can be as high as 200% of the player’s initial deposit sometimes without limit, both of time and money. These bonuses always come with minimum wagering requirements, which should also be checked out. All in all the point of these bonuses is to help new players get the feel of playing for real money at a relatively low cost.

Once a player opens a real money account, it doesn’t mean they have to close their guest player account. In fact, there are many regular real money players who keep their guest account open to practice on a newly launched game.

Being a guest player at a casino has only advantages and no disadvantages, so pokie players have anything to lose by taking up the option.

Everybody knows that there are horses for courses, but not many people know that there are also different types of pokie machines to suit every kind of pokie lover.
There are pokies for players who want to take it easy, pre pay as many spins that they can afford and play away. Now and again they take a look at their play statistics and make a subtle change here and there, and hope that they might even come out with a profit at the end of it.

This type of pokie player is not really playing for entertainment and purely for profit. They are often prepared to lay out £100 to win two, and if they lose the same amount then that’s also fair enough. Many players compare it to playing the hedges on the stock market or on foreign exchanges. They can either win or lose but, one thing is for sure, they won’t have too much fun!

Pokies were invented and developed to provide entertainment and with the online versions that still remains the case. Online pokie play means playing when you want, how you want and as often as you can afford. A sensible pokie player will set aside a fixed sum of money that they are prepared to lose in that sensation. Before they make their first virtual spin, they should have been pushing their favourite online casino’s customer service department to ask for a bonus which should at least double their playing capital as well as the time they have to play.

Pokie players will be able to sit down to an enjoyable afternoon or evening’s entertainment and if they come out with a profit then that’s a bonus.
However there are areas of pokie playing where the thrill factor goes up as well as the odds. To begin with there are an ever-growing number of online pokies that have a combination of five winning numbers, where the prizes are always a lot higher? If a lucky poker player hits a three number winning combination, then they are given the chance of improving their position by holding the winning bet and re-betting to improve it with the remaining two symbols. Other machines allow players to improve payouts by “pressing” a winning combination through increasing the payout odds, which can reach as high as twenty to one. 

While these kinds of side bets can create a lot of excitement for the pokie player, nothing matches the thrill of being involved in a progressive jackpot tournament. One the up side the prizes can be massively high, but on the down side there will be thousands of other players competing for the same prize.

So from fixed pay pokie fans or those who seek the thrills and spills of jackpot hunting, there is something for everyone online. That’s what online pokies are all about!

Although online gaming has been around in many forms for more than ten years now, there are still a tremendous amount of people who can’t get over the fact that they can play pokies anytime they want, and better still in the security and comfort of their own home.

Anyone who has ever spent time in a land casino will tell you that it is not a particularly pleasant place to be. Noisy, crowded and full of cigarette smoke. Pokie players usually don’t like people looking over their shoulders as the person waiting to their play their favourite game, which also happens to be your favourite game, looks on. If you do happen to hit a big win on your favourite pokie game, then the glares get even worse, as that win was supposed to be yours.

Also land casinos love pokie machines as much as their customers do. Although they are not obliged to report pay outs, unofficial figures report show that around 75% of casino profits come from their pokey machines. While online casinos advertise average payouts on their pokies of more than 98%, land casinos are known to pay out much less than that. After all who is going to pay for these expensive carpets, wood paneling and the rest?

That’s probably the main reason why online pokie play has become so popular. Pokie lovers can get to play for as long as they want on their favourite game, without any interference, transport problems or anything else.

You simply click your mouse a couple of times and you are in Las Vegas!

The online casino industry is one of the most dynamic in the World and so they should be with tens of millions of people now playing their favourite games on a regular basis online.  Competition for players is intense, and a lot of money is being spent on developing newer, more powerful and more stimulating pokey software.

One of the biggest online pokie sensations these days is the bonus play pokie. These games have an added feature that when a player hits one of a number of guaranteed win combinations, they can then move into the added feature of triggering what is known as a win multiplier. This means that while they are guaranteed their win, they are also given a chance to multiply the win by placing another bet, with pays outs ranging from break-even, even-money up to as high as twenty to one. 

Exciting though they can be, bonus play pokie is small change when compared to the progressive jackpot. Progressive jackpot tournaments are going on in online casinos all the time, and the payouts can be huge.  They are triggered when the casino, using the power of their software,  link the jackpot to one of their popular games, announcing to the members in advance then the progressive jackpot is going to kick off.  From that moment on, every time a player wages on that pokie a small percentage is set aside towards the progressive jackpot, which is then allowed to mount up. When the online casino management recognises that their prize target has been reached, the next lucky player to hit the winning combination is the big winner.
These are the things that  make online pokie play great!

To a lot of online pokies lovers playing for free might seems a wee bit stupid. That's almost like saying that going to university to get an education is stupid or even high school.


Why pay for your pokies education when you can get it for free! If all these players who had thrown themselves in at the deep end and not joined the favourite online casino and played as a guest member, they would probably be a lot better off than they are today.

People like to play pokies, and for most it's a great form of entertainment any if they win it's a bonus. That the best way to look at it. So when you sit down for a session at the online pokies, you want to know that you can get as much value for your playing money as you can. The best way that you can get that is getting to know the different pokies available, pick the one you like best, and spend as much as you want practicing as a guest player till you are ready to play for real money.

So why should online casinos allow pokie players to play as guests? There are a few reasons.

First of all it gives the players and the casino to get to know each other, the software, the pokie games and their way around the online casino.

Secondly once a player has built up enough experience they usually want to play for real money, although there are a number of people who remain guest pokie players forever.

The casino management will never pressure these guests to make deposits, because they know that there are a lot of people who simply don't have the budget to play, or they may be elderly or sick and playing as a guest helps them to get through the day.

Playing pokies has become by far and away the most popular online pastime. And why shouldn't that be the case. After all playing pokies has always been a lot of fun and provides a lot of entertainment for not a lot of money with always a chance than the next spin of the wheel will win a big jackpot.


Pokies have been around now for more than a hundred years, most people who have been around a few years will no doubt remember the pretty primitive "fruit machines " as they were known sitting around in the corner of their local pub. Over the years the pokie got more and more sophisticated, and today some of the pokies you will find in a land casino are pretty sophisticated ands with potentially high pays outs.


However it was only went they went online did the casino software geniuses get a chance to take the trusted pokie into a whole new stratosphere.
So nowadays the online pokey lover has got it all going for them. Not only do they have an unbelievably wide choice of slot games to choose from, but also they get to play in the comfort and security of their own home when they want, whenever they want and dressed in whatever they feel most comfortable in.


Better still if a player does hit a big win on an online pokie, then only the lucky winner knows about it. Not like if you were playing in the local pub or casino. Ringing bells and sirens cause a lot of attention, which can sometimes be unwelcome.
Anyone who has won a big jackpot in a land casino will tell you how awkward it can be to carry their prize winnings home in ten pence coins.


Any winnings in an online casino are credited straight into the players account and can be withdrawn quietly and discreetly. So when the bells ring and the sirens blare, they are playing just for the lucky winner.


Players who like to play pokies online on a regular basis will tell you that their first goal is for entertainment and winning are a bonus. These players generally set themselves a limit for each pokie session they want to play and when that runs out so do them. However players who are established members at a land casino will have learned to ask for a match bonus before they make a deposit. That means that if they have set aside ten pounds to invest in that session, they contact the customer services department to ask for a " match bonus" That means for every pound they deposit the online casino has to match it, up to 100%.


Match bonuses mean more play time, but like everything there is a catch, but not a major one. Online casinos didn't get so big because they were stupid, and they will always insist that a player who has been given a bonus will play it a certain number of times, usually a minimum of thirty, before they can withdraw the money.


These are just a few of the things you will need to know to make your online pokie playing experience an enjoyable and profitable one. Have a great time!

It is difficult to believe that all of these tens of thousands of ultra powerful and super sophisticated pokies you will find in casinos throughout the World or in the hundreds of online casinos all derived from a simple piece of mechanics that first saw the light of day more than a hundred years ago.


For as long as man can recall people have liked to gamble, but gambling takes a lot of forms, some of which the gambler who didn't want to get too involved and wanted to find an easy way to spend a few pennies and have some enjoyment.


Their salvation was found in a simple pokey machine that was developed in the West Coast of the United States more than one hundred years ago. The man who the World can thank for the pokey went by the name of Chares Fey and he lived and worked in the wild and wonderful city of San Francisco in California. According to history, Fey, who was seemingly more of a gifted mechanical engineer than a gambler, noticed that among San Francisco's large expatriate Chinese population there appeared to be a big market for limited budget gamblers. Fey reckoned that if he could build a simple machine where players can put in a cent and if they might win two or three or even ten they would be happy.


Fey set of for his workshop and began the painstaking task of developing a prototype pokie that he could sell to local casinos or wherever the Chinese congregation like to gather. Obviously the machines had to guarantee a profit for those who bought them and operated them. However even these days Foy reckoned that the philosophy of pokies should be relatively high pay outs meaning low profits yet high turnover for the people who operated them.


The first pokies began to roll off the production line in the early eighteen nineties and the early response was so much greater than anyone could imagine Soon San Francisco was going pokey mad and there were crowds around the machines wherever they were placed. The formula for the early pokies were very simple with a three wheel window and a combination of ten possible symbols for each window. They most popular winning symbol was three cherries for Fey's babies was three cherries which meant that the pokie soon began to be known as a " fruit machine" a name that has stuck with it to this day.


It didn't take too long before the pokie craze swept all across America and Fey's workshop was expanding fast to keep pace with the demand. Eventually in 1910, having become a wealthy man as a result of his invention, Fey sold out to a larger company owned by Herbert Mills.


Mills took the pokie to the next stage, expanding production, developing new machines, although along the same lines as Fey's.


Within a few years pokies began to find their way into Europe and especially the UK where they became immediately popular.


Today the pokie has become as big a part of US and UK culture as Coca Cola and doughnuts. And it's all down to the vision of Charles Fey.

Statistics show that online pokie play is increasing daily the irresistible attraction of pokie is that it is both simple and enjoyable while offering the genuine chance of winning real money cash prizes that can go as high as life changing.

There is a bit of a myth around that there are a number of online casinos around who will do anything to avoid paying out their winners. While this may have been true around ten or fifteen years when online gaming was in its infancy, these days the online gaming industry have adopted a policy of self supervision, and any online casinos suspected of playing less than fair will find themselves reported to the various authorities and may find themselves suspended.



Also, as is the case with May internet "hot potatoes" there are now a number of online pokie player forums that can be easily accessed. These forums are very valuable for the online pokey lover because not only are they totally objective and impartial but they report on all that is good and bad online for the pokie player.



Online pokie rooms whose service is less than it should be or take a long time to make payouts as well as the majority of pokie rooms whose service is as it should be, hand out bonuses and organise progressive promotions also get fair mention.

These forums will also provide expert comments and updated reviews from experienced pokie players of all the recent introduced games, which can be a valuable tool for beginners or the less experienced.


What every player needs to know, and what every online casino is now obliged to advertise is their percentage pay out rate. Most online casinos advertise payout rates of 98% and any casino advertising more or less should be steered clear of. For those who don't understand how these odds are calculated, and are often audited, they don't imply that a player will win 98 bets out of a hundred, rather that the machine will pay out 98% of the bets placed on it during a set period, which can be an hour or a month. Its being there at the right time and not leaving the machine is the trick.


One of the many advantages of being an online pokey player is that it is possible to play a certain game in automatic mode. This means pre-depositing a certain sum of money and setting the machine to stop play if profits or losses go above or below a certain figure. Not many players use this option as it is a bit impersonal, and they prefer to be around when they are winning (or losing)


Something that has taken online pokey players into a whole new area of play is the progressive pokey jackpot. These jackpot promotions are organised either by a very large online casino or a group of small to medium ones linked to the same software,
As soon as the promotion begins, the online casino management set aside a very small part of each player's stake towards a jackpot. This money does not affect in any way normal payouts. As the sum accumulates players are kept informed. What they don't get told is when the target has been reached when the jackpot prize can be won, and which combination will win it. Imagine the excitement when a pokie player sitting at home wins a progressive jackpot with prizes running in the tens of thousands!