There are so many online casinos for us to choose from. We have great variety on offer to tempt us with different games, different bonuses, tournaments. Instant Flash play games, full download casinos, live dealer experiences. Basically everything we want is available. When it comes to choosing an online casino what it is that people look for. Often it is the software platform, other times it is the bonus that is offered. Reputation of the brand is another big factor and this is what we are going to look at in a little more detail.

A gaming brand can be categorised in many different ways. Firstly there is the operating brand name, i.e. what the casino is called. For example CASINO KING. This is a great casino that runs on Playtech software. But have you ever heard of the casino name before. Perhaps not. But when you actually look into it you can easily find that Casino King offers all the great Playtech games, it offers a safe a secure system for download and it give good bonuses for regular players. But not many actually know that it is part of a larger brand. Originally Casino King was an independent casino, it then grew with its customer base and teamed up with other online casino, poker and gaming providers and formed a group of well respected providers. The named casinos now available were Casino King, Swiss Casino, Casino Las Vegas. Over the years this increased into poker and more casinos. Names such as Noble Casino and Noble Poker were added to the list.

A little while later this brand were merged and became part of the Party Gaming brand. So now we have a large well respected brand, PARTY GAMING, operating and running several casinos, poker rooms, bingo, sports betting etc. etc. Everybody has heard of Party Poker, a huge player in online poker and casino gambling.. and now you know that Casino King is in fact part of the same "Group" or "Brand".

Earlier this year (March 2011) the huge Party Gaming company, that at the time operated 22 different online casino gambling brands, including Gamebookers, WPT Poker, Party Bingo etc. performed another merger with another huge online gambling brand to form the largest the world has ever seen. Betandwin started in 1997 and was started mainly as an online sports betting brand. Over the years it expanded into the world of online casino games, poker and bingo. The re-branded Bwin was born and quickly became a trusted and respected name. March 2011 saw the merger of BWIN and Party Gaming to form the new Bwin.Party. So, in addition to the existing 22 brands the Bwin name was also added to the list, along with Betoto (a huge Greek online betting company) and Sajoo (a large French brand), along with a popular UK online bingo brand Foxy Bingo.

So as you can see from this story, for those people that do want to know about reliability and determine who they are trusting with their online gambling then it is always good to do a bit of a background check. From Foxy Bingo to WPT Poker, from Casino Swiss to BWIN, from Gamebookers to PartyGammon. All these sites are in fact owned and operated by a single company. And that company is Bwin.Party. The biggest online gaming brand in the world.

There are many other similar stories to this with other groups. For example, a big UK high street brand named William Hill has been operating for many years through it´s network of high street betting shops/bookmakers. In the late 1990´s William Hill ventured into the online world with first sports betting but soon expanded into poker and casino. Over the years they have grown and grown and now William Hill Online own and operate several well known online gaming brands. A couple of years ago Williiam Hill Online struck a deal with one of the biggest online casino/bingo/poker software providers, a large firm called Playtech, to create a large network of online brands. Casinos include Eurogrand, 21 Nova, Prestige and Joyland. There is also Ruby Bingo. Along with the William Hill Casino, Poker, Bingo and Sports this group now offer 10 different brands that many people would not know are all part of the same growing family.

I do hope this little insight into the world of online gaming, casino and poker brands has been of interest. In no way should it stop you utilising the services of the names/brands mentioned, if anything it should make you more comfortable in the knowledge that a little online casino that you have never heard of can actually be safe, secure, have great support and be fit to handle your online casino gaming requirements.

Speak again soon.

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I have been playing online slot machine games for many years now, I`ve been to all the best online casinos and tried all varieties. Firstly there were the classic slots, you know the type, three reels and a single payline across the centre. These soon progressed to multi payline slots where you could grab a winning combination not only across the middle line but also on the top row, bottom row or even diagonally. All the best places have these great online slots.

Soon after this the video slots and multi spin slots machines were born. The world of video slots has now gone absolutely crazy with wild cards, free spins, scatter symbols and crazy bonus games. I love them all. The amount of paylines available can be huge and win you mega bucks but one thing they all have in common is that you have 3 or 5 reels and 3 rows, and a winning payline is set from left to right in a pre-determined pattern.

It appears a new breed of online video slots is about to take the world by storm... the no payline video slot!! What does this mean exactly I hear you ask. Well it means that there are no pre-determined left to right pattern paylines on which the symbols have to fall to enable a win. Strange eh!