Instant Play Online Slots
Sometimes, the urge to play an online slot machine hits you in the blink of an eye — perhaps even when you’re not at home or near a computer where you’ve installed an online casino program. Luckily, with instant play online slots, you can play your favorite online slot machines any time and anywhere you like. Instant play slots make it easy to access online slots from any computer, regardless of the operating system or other software that may be running on that machine.
What are Instant Play Online Slots?
Instant play online slots are games that are offered directly on the websites of online casinos. In an instant play casino, there’s no requirement to download software in order to gain access to slot machines and other games. Instead, you’ll merely need to point your web browser over to the casino’s website, click on the instant play link, and start playing! Most instant play slots are programmed in Flash or Java, meaning they can run right in your browser.
How to Use Instant Play Online Slots
In order to use an online casino’s instant play games, you’ll first need to make sure your web browser is fully updated. Before you start playing, it’s often a good idea to make sure you have the latest version of your browser’s software; alternately, you can just head right over to the casino and go back and update your browser if the games don’t work for you. Often, the casino’s browser-based interface will instantly detect if you’re missing any critical software.
Once you’re ready to go, head on over to your casino’s website. There, you should see a prominent link to the instant play or “no download” casino. Clicking on this may take you directly to a list of instant play games for you to choose from. In other cases, you may have to sign up for a free account at the casino before you’re allowed to access the instant play games.
After you’ve gained access to the browser-based games, it’s just a matter of clicking on the slot machine of your choice to get started playing. At many online casinos, you may even have the opportunity to try out these games in a free play mode first before risking any real money on the machine.
Advantages and Drawbacks to Using Instant Play Online Slots
Instant play online slots offer several advantages over alternatives such as downloadable casino clients. For instance, you can access instant play casino games even from computers that aren’t your own. While you might feel uncomfortable installing casino software on a machine you don’t own, there’s usually nothing wrong with connecting to the casino through a web browser and playing there.
In fact, the fact that you don’t have to install anything to use an instant play online casino is a major strength of these sites. In addition to being able to keep your computer clean of any casino software if that’s important to you (or someone else using the same computer), this also makes it much easier to play at a casino while using a Mac or Linux operating system. Since most online casino clients are designed and programmed to be used in Windows operating systems, it’s often true that the instant play casino is the only option designed by the casino for use with other computers. While Mac users can use a variety of methods to use Windows programs, and even Linux systems can run Wine to emulate a Windows environment, instant play casinos are a more straightforward method for accessing online slots.
If there’s one downside to using instant play online casinos, it’s the fact that browser-based casinos don’t always feature all of the same games you’ll find in the downloadable versions of the same casino. Granted, this isn’t as large of a problem as it once was; however, it’s still true that installed casino software is more likely to get new games first and receive more frequent updates.
Another minor advantage you’ll receive from some downloadable casino software is the ability to play casino games – at least in free play mode – without internet access. While this is less of an issue every year, it’s something to think about if you’re looking for a way to play free online slots without always having internet access.
Finally, while instant play casinos are extremely convenient as long as you have a computer around, there are still times when you may want to get a little online slots play in when you’re on the go. If you’d like to play on a casino from your iPhone, iPad, or other mobile device, you’ll need to utilize the mobile casino options now being offered by many casino sites.
