I've always loved casinos - although I'm not a great fan of games of chance I always find myself playing roulette there.   But can  real online roulette match the experience of a real casino?    It actually can but in a slightly different way - also many people find visiting a casino quite intimidating initially whereas if you play online roulette you can learn the rules at your own pace.

Everyone who loves to gamble knows that buzz you get when your horse wins, your number comes up or you draw a great hand.   You can all these experiences when you play at any of the huge number of online casinos.  Obviously you won't get quite the same atmosphere as playing in the Bellagio or Las Vegas Hilton but some of the online casinos are extremely fun.

First of all - I'll just make a point that all you gamblers will already know about but if you just fancy playing a bit of real online roulette and have never thought about the rules it could save you a lot of money.   There are two types of roulette wheels you can play at - an American and a European wheel - there are cosmetic differences and the numbers are dispersed differently but the most important point is that the American wheel has two zeros.

This means that the house edge - the advantage the casino has over the player is more than double on an American wheel.   Now if you're at a local casino and they only have one type of wheel you don't have much choice if you want to play.  But if you're playing online roulette for real you do have a choice - don't play on an American wheel - your chances of winning are much less. Anyway here's what I look for in choosing an online casino to play roulette at.

I want a big trusted company or casino who I can trust for a fair game - not some dodgy little firm running crooked roulette software I like to hear the spin of the wheel - there are some truly horrible online casinos which plays awful piped muzak in the background I want to try out all the free games before I play for cash If a free game pays out too much - I leave - rigging any sort of game does not inspire confidence

Actually my very favourite online casino doesn't actually use a software based roulette wheel at all.  It's as near as you can get to real online roulette - you play at a table in an Irish Casino in Dublin.   It's a real roulette wheel, a human croupier and you can see real punters placing their bets on the same spin.   It's quite a bit slower than normal online roulette because you have to wait for other punters or all the normal delays you have - but it's a great experience and I enjoy it a lot.