Online casinos are growing in popularity across the US, thanks to established brands getting the go-ahead from lawmakers and legislators. Most of these companies, such as Caesars and BetMGM have experience running physical casinos, so it’s no surprise they’ve grown to be some of the biggest online casinos in 2024.

What are online casinos?

If you’re new to online gaming, learning how to play at online casinos can be a worry. There’s a lot of pop-ups, where every website claims to have the best welcome offers for online casinos, while another one might promise no deposit bonus codes. It can feel like walking through a minefield, but take a deep breath, we’ll explain it all to you.

What are welcome offers for online casinos?

These are one-time deals that you can claim when you sign-up to a casino. Some of the best welcome offers for sportsbooks will give you free bets or the chance to win money back if your first wager fails, while the biggest casino sign-up offers will give you free spins and a deposit match. This means that if you deposit $10, they’ll give you $10 too, totalling $20 in your account.

Even though no deposit welcome offers at online casinos are rare, they do exist sometimes. If that particular company is feeling generous, they’ll give some free spins for a slot, or sometimes a free bet on a particular event.

Usually, you can only claim one welcome bonus from an online platform, and sometimes they’ll require you to use a specific online casino bonus code, so make sure you read the fine print to make sure you don’t miss out on activating it.

KYC checks

Before you sign up to any of the popular US online casinos, it’s important to understand the Know Your Customer (KYC) checks. They might seem strangely intrusive at first, but they’re very important from a law enforcement perspective.

The laws around online casinos are strict for a reason! They’re there to protect people - but how do KYC checks factor into this? Why do you need to submit your details to be protected?

Well, it stops criminals from using the platforms to commit crimes, such as money laundering and other forms of fraud. If there were no checks in place, then anyone could place wagers and move money around using false details to avoid being traced. In order for casinos to be considered legit, they need systems in place to ensure that no crime in being done on their platform, and this is the main way to ensure that!

Usually, it’s enough to send in a utility bill or ID to the operator so they can verify your identity and figure out who is using their platform. Sometimes the operator might request a bank statement, but this is a much rarer request.

If you refuse to do the KYC checks, the operator should return any money left in your account before they close it.

Depositing

If you’re new, then learning how to deposit at online casinos can seem daunting. You’re filled with dozens of questions, such as whether you can withdraw that money again or if you have to bet with it. Well, you’ll be relieved to know that if you can deposit at an online casino, then you can always withdraw too.

You’ll usually get a prompt to deposit when you sign up to an online casino, but you’ll always be able to deposit more through your bank, wallet or account settings. The one thing to watch out for are the deposit bonuses - sometimes you can get a bonus if you deposit a certain amount or through a certain way, so make sure to check out the promotions page to see if you can get any freebies before you do so.

Withdrawing

While depositing is easy, it can be difficult when it comes to knowing how to withdraw from an online casino. There are a few more rules in place, and if you’re unfortunate, a few more hoops to jump through.

First of all, a casino might ask you to complete KYC checks before you can actually take any money out of the platform. This is for reasons discussed earlier in the KYC checks section.

However, another issue you might come across is deposit promotions. That’s right, the particular deposit promotion you pick might affect whether you can withdraw your money whenever you like.

This is due to playthrough requirements. Sometimes when you activate a particular deposit promotion, you need to play through any winnings a certain amount of times, usually somewhere around the 35x mark. If you withdraw money before this is completed, there can be issues such as the offer being voided. Just make sure you check this out before you try withdrawing any promotional winnings!

It’s also common practise to send the winnings through whatever account the deposit came from. So if you deposit money from a particular bank account, then when you withdraw winnings, it will be sent to the same bank account.

Playing games (UI interface)

If you’ve only played games in a physical casino, then the idea of playing games without the machines or croupiers could seem quite ludicrous! Thankfully, the online casino libraries are filled with games from expert providers, such as Pragmatic Play, NetEnt and Hacksaw Gaming. These guys have thought of everything to make sure your experience is as seamless and frictionless as possible, and each of them will provide simple instructions when you play the games to make sure that you don’t get lost or confused.

When playing slot games online, there will usually be a button to press to spin the reels, as well as a button to auto-spin them so you don’t need to keep pressing it. With roulette, you’ll either click or use the touch-screen on your mobile device to place the bets on the felt.

Native Website vs Apps

When you’re playing at some of the biggest US online casinos, you’ve usually got a choice of where to play. We don’t mean picking which casino property you visit, of course, but which device you play on.

Most legit US online casinos will have a website on PC and a mobile app, but some of them can be accessed through your phone’s mobile browser and it will act like a native website that way. This means that you’ll be able to to play the games with no issues, access your account and manage any funds that you may have.

Through modern technology, you can even access some US casinos on iPad or other tablets, but just make sure that you’re accessing the official version rather than a fake one. You can almost always find a link to download the correct app from the casino’s website.