Information empowers. And, its power rings true in every aspect of life. As we ride what Alvin Toffler calls the Third Wave, the power of information has been unleashed like never before.

Living, Learning, and Playing. The order may possibly change in terms of priorities, but these three are essentially the maximum impact areas of information revolution. The age of the Internet has single-handedly changed the rules of almost every kind of activity within human realm.

At the end of the day, people love to play. It comes as no surprise to find that gaming has been one of the most popular activities on the Web right from the word go.

Here, it is pertinent to take a look at the way online casinos have evolved and are now emerging as one of the high growth areas of the Internet before we get on to the specifics of issue at hand.

At the risk of sounding repetitive, if one were to capture the development of online casinos in one sentence, nothing could express it better than the assertion put forward by Victor Hugo: Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.

From the first step to the present, the journey so far has been an eventful one. The domain, essentially egged on by the proliferation of Internet that lead to removal of the existing barriers in terms of laws, regulations, and geographical boundaries, has had its pitfalls.

Though gaming had been a part of the Internet since the opening of 90s, officially, the first online casino opened in 1996. This was made possible by a law passed by Antigua and Barbados in 1994, enabling them to issue gambling licenses. This development is significant because till date a large number of online casinos are using this route to acquire licenses.

The two intervening years since the passing of licensing law to placing of the first bet online are most eventful in terms of shaping up this domain. This period saw a whole lot of activity in terms of developing a better understanding of the concept by the regulators and the general users and coming up of dedicated software providers. Since the very beginning, given its nature, and its status at that point in time, online casinos have been prime targets of network crime. This crucial issue was largely resolved by emergence of Internet security firms solely catering to the unique issues faced by this segment.

And, then there were all the legal challenges. The online casino industry has crossed numerous legal barriers in its race to the present. Though some of the challenges still persist, the worst is clearly a part of the past and the industry as a concept has now taken deep roots with hundreds of virtual or online casinos.

Rising above the past issues, the industry, however, may soon be facing a new hurdle entirely of its own making, if steps are not taken to nip the issue right away. The problem of plenty-- a direct outcome of the proliferation of online casinos has lead to customer service and reliability issues. How does one sift the wheat from the chaff? Or more directly, how do we draw the line between a good online casino and a bad one? Though it is not limited just to casinos online, the fact remains that this one issue has the potential of marring the reputation of the entire domain, and can end up achieving what most laws and regulations have failed to do so far.

However, it is heartening to see that the solution to this key problem lies within. This worry area can be effectively tackled only by individual customer experience combined with guidance and insight from the existing users who have had some experience (the most effective regulatory mechanism so far for the Internet users). Information obtained from primary and secondary sources remains at the core of this effort to empower users to arrive at a definite conclusion about any casino. Here are a few tips for new users that could help you have really great time online:

Experiment with multiple casinos in the beginning:

As a new user, you should have the patience to log on to different online casinos and try and rate each one on the following parameters:

1. Time taken to download a game.

2. The number and the kind of games offered.

3. Services offered.

4. Incentives such as free bonus .

5. Quality of services.

6. Payment method.

7. Software used for games and security.

Some of the crucial parameters for rating each one of the casinos:

1. Going with experience: The established online casinos such as casinos rated high at the Website firstclass-casinos are generally a better bet compared to the new ones.

2. Getting connected : Look out for a live, toll free help line number. Talk to the casino staff using the number and try to judge the quality of help.

3. Placing multiple casinos side by side : It is better to log on to a portal such as firstclass-casinos, providing access to multiple casinos, than to log on to the Website of a single casino. Apart from providing their own ratings, these portals enable you to compare multiple casinos faster and under a similar environment.

You can narrow down your choice to three to four sites after the initial work, and then proceed to look into greater details or even identify different sites for playing different games. This exercise appears time consuming, but then fruits of patience have always been sweet. Moreover, if you are a serious online player, you really don't have too much of a choice, do you!