Hundreds of casinos all over the World Wide Web offer online blackjack tournaments with all types of incentives to entice players to begin regular tournament play. Whether you're looking to sharpen your skill set or log practice time to prepare for a visit to your favorite land-based casino, you want to be certain the online gaming establishment you've chosen is running a legitimate set of games with a standard house advantage. It only takes a couple of keystrokes or some crooked software for an online casino to slide the house edge to a more favorable position for them. So how do you ensure that the online blackjack tournament you're playing is largely representative of the table game you'll find at your local brick and mortar casino?

Well, the first thing to understand is that online casinos can be very profitable offering legitimate gaming. It’s certainly in the best interest of the most reputable online casinos to offer a safe atmosphere where players can trust that they are not being cheated. These casinos will make more money over the long haul attracting regular players that they will manipulating the games to cheat their customers. Some of the smaller casinos unfortunately haven't learned this lesson. There are casinos all over the web that run crooked games, refuse to pay players, or use loopholes in their terms and conditions keep your money. In order to avoid these pitfalls, due diligence on the part of each player is required. It’s my hope that as the larger more reputable casinos increase their market share by offering fair online blackjack tournament play that these crooked casinos will eventually fold or be bought out, but until then, consider the following points to assist you in choosing an online casino.

1. Reputation: Stick to the larger online casinos with the best reputations. This is a given. Although the cashable bonuses at many of the larger casinos are drying up, it’s in your best interest as a player to resist the temptations of the incentives offered by some of the smaller online casinos. Every site claims to offer fair games and quick payouts, but the reason the larger casinos stay in business is because they treat their players well, they run fair games, and they actually pay their players promptly. Many online casinos used to offer cashable bonuses, matching the dollar value of a player's initial deposit. The idea here was that instead of offering their players free meals, drinks, and rooms like their land-based counterparts, online casinos would offer what they had on hand, cash. A shrewd blackjack player could satisfy the terms and conditions of the cashable bonus and with the 0.5% house advantage, cash out the majority of the bonus money. These days the cashable bonuses are drying up due to bonus abusers who typically cashed out and never played again (hee hee). Smaller casinos will offer all types of creative incentives to begin play because they have to. But play at your own risk becasue the deck might actually be stacked against you at some of these sites. Sticking with the more reputable casinos is generally a better play.
   
   
2. Software: Play in Casinos using one of the Big Four software providers. This is a good rule of thumb for those that are new to online casino play. The legitimacy of online gaming is controlled by the software the games are built upon which directly influences each game’s odds. The big four (Boss Media, Cryptologic, MicroGaming, and Playtech) are the most reputable of the online casino software providers and their track record for providing legitimate casino gaming is impeccable. Many casinos will use proprietary software, but you're really playing at you own risk in a situation like that. It's generally a good idea to stick to the Big Four or one of the more reputable software providers when looking for a new casino to play in.
   
   
3. Customer Support: When researching a casino, I like to take a look at how they handle their customer support. Any reputable casino will offer toll-free support by telephone so you can talk to a live individual on the other line, should any issues arise with online play. If an online casino only offers e-mail support, they can't be very large and therefore are not worth the risk.

Following these guidelines should get you started on choosing the right casino to play in. As long as you're going to invest your money and time in online gaming, you want to be sure that your experience is a positive one playing legitimate games with the appropriate odds. Playing at the larger casinos with great track records that use industry standard software will ensure that you’ve not being cheated. If you're interested in recommendations for the best places to play, feel free to click on any of the ads featured on this site or check out my list of Best Online Blackjack Tournaments.  I only affiliate myself with casinos that I've had a good experience with and I'm constantly looking for new places to play in.