The four main parts of an online casino

An online casino exist of four main parts which are fundamental to run an online casino. These are the following:

- Website
- Account
- Cashier
- software

Off course these are all connected with each other so you are able to visit the website, open an account, make a deposit, place bets on the games and withdraw when you win.

Website

The website is the landing page for the player and where all information is showed. You can compare it with the building and entrance of a landbased casino. The entrance is the homepage of the website which welcomes you and shows you all the options you have to continue on the website. All the innerpages of the website are the different rooms and areas in a landbased casino.

The person who is responsible for the website is the webmaster or a technical person who will keep the website up-to-date and publish new promotions or other news.

Account

In most casinos you can play with fun money without opening an account. But if you want to play for real money you need to open an account. So the account page is like the registration desk of a landbased casino where you have to register one time and with the next visits you can enter with a special membership card. The same counts for an online casino. You need to register one time and with next visits you just login your account with your username and password.

So you can easily open an account by clicking on one of the buttons on the homepage and then you will enter on the account page.

From now on all the action you will do will not directly take place on the website. The whole account and cashier page is controlled by the backoffice of the casino and is embed on the website like it belongs to the site. Via an API, which is basically a program that send data from one platform to another platform, all the actions you do are send to a backoffice system to save your data and will send a message or action back to the site for you to follow.

This means that in case there is a problem with the website your data and history will always be saved somewhere else and easy to put back on a (new) site.

Cashier

The cashier is the most important part for the casino owners. There all transactions take place and players can deposit / withdraw their money. So it's the same as the cashier of a landbased casino where you can buy chips and redeem chips for cash money. For slotmachines in a landbased casino you can also get a special card and add money on it and you can use this card to put in slotmachines so you don't have to insert coins all the time and everytime the card is empty you can add money on it at the cashier.

This also counts for an online casino. You make a deposit in the cashier and your balance will be increased with the amount of your deposit, just like the card balance in a landbased casino will be increased with your payment at the cashier.

Now when you want to play a game you need to go to the games page to choose a game. In a landbased casino you put the card in the slot machine and the machine will read the balance from the card and adds it on the machine. In an online casino this will happen automatically when you open a game and there you will also see the balance on the game. While playing your balance will increase by winning or decrease by loosing.

The cashier and account are controlled by the Fraud Manager who checks if a person didn't open more accounts and if there are no suspicious transactions to prevent chargebacks from creditcard companies.

The Financial Manager of the casino will mostly checks the requested withdraws and will process them once they are approved. He will also ask for documents when you make a payout.

Games / Software

Now comes the biggest difference between landbased and online casinos. The games in a landbased casino are actually in the building and controlled by the game software in the casino, although some games are connected with other landbased casinos for example a jackpot slot. But how do the slots at an online casino works?

With an online casino the games are operated and controlled by a third party company in a total different location. The software provider runs the games on their platform and all the casinos who are working with this software provider are basically renting the games from them by paying a percentage of the revenue. The casino is taking the games via an API from the software provider and runs them on the site. So when there is a problem with the gaming provider you still have access to the website, account and cashier but you will not see the game or you get an error message from the gaming provider.

The above is very important to realize that an online casino never controls the games and are always operated by another company. That also means that an online casino can never change things on a game and can change any settings when it wants a certain player to loose or to win. The gaming providers are using a RNG (Random Number Generator) so the results of a spin is decided by the RNG and not by a person. Also all games are checked by independent organisation and need to have a certificate from this organisation that they are checked.

Other parts of a casino operation

Next to the above main parts, a casino has some additional parts which are not fundamental but still very important to deliver a good product and service

support

The support department is a very important part of the casino because when you have a problem or questions you need to be able to get help. In a landbased casino you can walk to a desk or ask one the staff members walking around or the dealers on the table games. In an online casino there are no real dealers to ask questions and even with a live dealer in an online casino you can not ask the dealers questions about your deposit or withdraw.

So for the casino it's important to make a casino as personal as possible by offering options like email, live chat and phone service. The live chat option is the best because you can a direct answer and it doesn't cost you anything while phone calls always cost you money.

Affiliate department

In 80% of the cases a player visits a casino via an affiliate. An affiliate is a partner of a casino who promotes the certain casino via a special link with an unique code. The casino can see that a player is coming from that specific affiliate and the affiliate will receive a commission from the losses of that player.

The affiliate can promote a casino via this special link by putting it on his website, advertising in social media or google adwords and any other way of advertising as long as he can use that link. Without the special link the casino can not see that the player is coming from that specific casino affiliate.

VIP Department

Some online casinos have special people working who take care of highrollers. These are players who deposit a lot of money and need to receive special treatment. They receive more personal attention, special incentives and higher bonuses. Sometimes the VIP Manager take VIP players on a trip like visiting a football match.

These are the main parts of an online casino and hopefully it gave you a better picture how and online casino operates. So the next time it will give your visit to an online casino more pleasure and the feeling that there is actually a whole team of people working in an online casino.