The common element in all online gambling is the creation of an "account" of some sort with one or more online casinos, or virtual gambling establishments. Generally all that is required to establish an account is a username, password, email and some basic personal information. This account is used primarily to track winnings (or loses), keep track of deposits and withdraws and to let the gambling operation know where you can be reached (to send their newsletters, bonus offers and other assorted propaganda).

Accounts can be funded by charging a credit card, a debit card, by making a bank to bank money transfer and increasingly by check. Most typically in the past, players have used "ewallets" such as Neteller or Firepay which are similar in concept to such well known ewallets as Paypal. The big advantage or these financial intermediaries is that players could gambling at multiple casinos, sport books or poker rooms without sharing personal financial information with any of them.

As the legal status of online gambling has become more and more complicated and dubious due the passage of the UIGEA in 2006 in the United States, reputable ewallets servicing U.S. customers have largely left the scene under fear of prosecution (the case of Neteller is illustrative). The use of other banking instruments such as credit and debit cards has also become more limited as banks, exercising due diligence, attempt to block transfers to know gambling establishments.

At present, there is no dominant means of transferring money to online gambling organizations taking much of the convenience out of the equation. The use of checks and money wires seems to have been unfettered by the UIGEA as the federal government, under pressure from banks who deemed such transactions too burdensome to monitor, has agreed to leave such transactions outside of regulations imposed on banks designed to detect and block money transfers to offshore gambling organizations.

Once an "account" is in place (and perhaps some software has been downloaded and installed on your computer if required), it is a rather simple matter to operate an online casino game or poker game. The graphical interfaces can be so elaborate and elegant that users can readily imagine that the online casino is a real swank, luxurious place like you find in Las Vegas.

In reality, of course, online casinos exist on the hard drives of servers perhaps located in the back room of some modest building in a remote corner of a Caribbean island, in an office complex in some Latin American or Eastern European metropolis, in a data center located on a North American Indian reservation, or in one of the many European tax havens.

You can click here to read more about online gambling licenses and jurisdictions.