Online Games in the US

Updated: 22 December 2022

So, you’re interested in games. Who isn’t? Since the very beginning of the human race, we’ve been trying to come up with new ways to entertain ourselves. Sure, the form of entertainment may have changed quite a lot over the millions of years, but the core idea remained the same.

For the last few decades, we’ve been living life on the internet. Slowly but steadily, everything we love is getting migrated over to the internet. The same goes for games. No matter what game you can think of, there’s an online variant for that.

The focus of our post today is online games. To be more precise, online games you can play at casinos in the US. Throughout the journey, we’re going to figure out the ins and outs of the online games for real money for you.

Top Online Games Casinos in the US

Sure, you may know where to find online games. But do you know which brands of online casinos are the best for your adventures in the US? We doubt it. So, why don’t we list all the amazing online games sites right here for you? Once you’re done with the entire guide, you can come back to this list and reflect on what you’ve learned.

How to Play Online Games in the US?

Now that you have the list of best sites to play online games, what do you think is the next step? Well, if you’re not sure how to approach this problem, don’t worry. After all, we’re here to guide you through the experience, aren’t we?

Choose an Online Casino

The first step is obviously choosing the casino brand that you want to play at. We’ve already provided you with the list of the best casinos for online games. However, it’s the US we’re talking about. So, you can’t just jump into any casino website you like.
Before that, you need to ensure whether the operator is licensed in your state or not. Individual states are responsible for regulating their own gambling market. So, the rules aren’t going to be the same for all.
For starters, pretty much all types of gambling are legal in NJ and PA. So, you can easily play online games for real money or equivalent prizes as long as the operator is licensed. On the contrary, Hawaii and Utah are completely off the radar in terms of regulations.
Open an Account

Once you’ve found your calling in the form of an online casino in the US, it’s time to register yourself as a player. Create the account by complying with all the laws imposed by your state and verify your account with necessary KYC documents.
Deposit Real Money

After your account is ready, it’s time to start playing. But you need to inject funds first. In most states, online casinos can’t offer real money games. Rather, they offer what’s known as gold coins. You need to buy gold coins for real money and then use them for online games.
Go Through the Game Library

The game library is undoubtedly the most exciting part of an online casino’s features. After all, it’s the games that you want to play. So, go to the game page of the casino you’ve chosen and browse through the titles to see which ones grab your attention. From online slots to blackjack, nothing is off-limits!
Play and Win

As you spent gold coins to play the games in the casino, you’re going to earn gold coins in return. Sadly, gold coins don’t have any real money value in the US because real money games are still to be regulated.
However, there’s another type of coin known as sweeps coins. Many casinos offer them through promotions. You can use the sweeps coins to play games and increase the amount. Unlike gold coins, sweeps coins can be redeemed for real money.

Types of Online Games

In general, there are 3 broad categories of online games at casinos. Online slots, table games, and live dealer games.

Online Slots

Slots are the most common offering at online casinos. It has been true since the inception of land-based casinos in the US. Even today, if you walk into any casino in Las Vegas, you’ll notice that the majority of the games are slots.

In terms of online games, you can play the 3-reel classic titles, the 5-reel video titles, or the 6-reel Megaways titles. As time goes by, more and more types of games are popping up across casino sites.

Table Games

The games you play on a table are considered table games. In the US, you can play all types of games such as roulette, blackjack, baccarat, video poker, and poker across the many online casinos. The online games follow the same sweepstakes logic as most of the other games.

Live Games

All of the games we mentioned in the previous section except for the video poker are available in a live format. Live games are simply table games that come with a human dealer. These online games are the closest to the reality you can get.

Other Games

Apart from the games we’ve discussed in the previous section, there are a few different offerings at online casinos in the US. Although they don’t belong to the list of traditional games at casinos, they’re an integral part of the operators in the country.

Let’s take a look at what those games are all about.

State Lotteries

The majority of the states might be against the idea of real money online games but all of them are huge fans of lotteries.

Why? We don’t know why.

But we know that you can find plenty of lotteries at online casinos whether you’re in New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, California, Colorado, and the majority of the other states. The only states that don’t have lotteries are Alabama, Alaska, Nevada, Hawaii, and Utah.

Bingo

Thankfully, the federal law legalized real money bingo online games back in 2011. So, if you find bingo games at an online casino in any of the states, rest assured that you can play the games directly for real money.

Bingo is a very straightforward game. You get your 5×5 Bingo card with 25 numbers. The game draws random numbers from the pool of 90 numbers. As your numbers come up, you cross them off on the bingo card. Your ultimate goal is to cross off all numbers or the “full house” for the ultimate prize.

Keno

Keno and bingo are quite similar in nature. We’ve seen many rookie players mistake one for the other more times than we can count. In Keno, you no longer get a preselected card. Rather, you get to pick your own numbers. Again, the game will draw random numbers. The more you match, the higher you can win.

Scratch Cards

These are somewhat similar to slots. But instead of spinning the reels, the symbols in the games are exposed by scratching. If you match the necessary symbols in the specified formation, you can secure a win.

Pretty much all modern online casinos now offer scratch cards.

Free Online Games in the US – What Are My Options?

Free games. The 2 words when put side by side have a unique charm, don’t they? Free games are exactly what they sound like. They’re online games that you play for free! In the US, there are 2 main types of free games.

The first kind is always free. You find them at social casinos where you can play them for free with fellow gamers. You can’t win anything in real money from them.

The other type of free online game is the demo version of the real money games. Although real money slots are prohibited in most of the states, the gold coins required to play the games cost money.

Without going that route, you can opt for the demo version of the game and play for as long as you want with the dummy funds. Then, if you run out of funds, all you have to do is reload the page. The dummy funds should be replenished immediately!

The purpose of playing free online games is entertainment and sometimes education. They’re educational as in if you try to test out the optimization of a game or a particular casino, the free version can help you determine the quality.

A Few of the Best Free Games

So, you might be wondering what free online games you can play at the online casinos of the US. Worry not, we’ve gathered 3 of the best free play titles just for you.

Gonzo’s Quest

This epic title from NetEnt has been entertaining online games lovers from all over the world. The US persons are not excluded as well. It’s a 5-reel video slot with a very respectable 96.00% RTP.

The theme of the game takes place in the deep jungles of El Dorado where the Spanish explorer Gonzo is looking for treasures. Your job as the companion is to spin the reels and try to gather as much riches as possible. You may also open the doors to the bonus round which comes with a huge influx of rewards!

Divine Fortune

Interestingly, the next entry in our free online games section is another title from NetEnt. This time, it’s Divine Fortune. It’s a straightforward 5×3 video slot with 20 paylines and 96.59% RTP. According to NetEnt, the game is supposed to take you to a mythical era right in the comfort of your home.

The game is packed with exclusive features like Falling Wilds, Wild on Wild, free spins, in-game jackpots, and whatnot. These features sound spectacular considering it’s a medium volatility title.

Reactoonz

Play’n Go has been one of our favorite software providers for as long as we can remember. It’s primarily thanks to its unique approach to video slots. The title in question, Reactoonz, screams the feature we love ten folds over.

It’s not a traditional video slot with paylines. Rather, it features the Clusterpays mechanic. In these games, you need to land a particular symbol in clusters to generate a payout. For Reactoonz, the minimum number of symbols is 5.

Real Money Online Games in the US

You already know about free play online games in the US. That leaves us with the real money games only. Needless to say, you need to spend real money to play these games.

Now, it’s not as straightforward in the US as it is in European countries or even Canada. The regulations vary greatly from state to state. Some states have allowed direct real money online games while others still stick to the social casinos.

In both cases, you first need to deposit into your casino account. If the state allows real money gambling, you can place bets using the currency.

In the case of social casinos, you first need to buy gold coins with the deposit. Then, you can use the gold coins to bet on the games. The minimum and maximum bet values of the game will also be represented in gold coins.

In the process, you may or may not get sweepstakes coins. If you do, you can later redeem them for real money.

These rules apply to pretty much all the online games you can think of including online slots, table games, live dealer games, and even bingo/keno.

Best Real Money Games

As we shared a few of the best free games with you, it would be unfair if we didn’t do the same for real money games. So, here are our top 3 picks for the online games you can play for real money.

Thunderstruck 2

Since the very beginning, Microgaming has never disappointed us with its titles. Thunderstruck 2 is one of many games that has entertained the gamblers for years. It’s a 5-eel video slot with 243 paylines!

It’s one of our picks for the real money online games because the maximum winnings are rated at 6,000x your bet. Considering the max bet value in gold coins, you can win massive amounts from this Norse mythology video slot.

Starburst

As it seems, no list of best online games can go without NetEnt. Starburst is a classic at this point and it’s been entertaining players from all over the world for over 10 years! It’s a simple 5-reel video slot with a sparkling space theme.

The game has 3 reel positions, 10 paylines, and a very respectable 96.09% RTP. In most slots, we see the paylines paying from left to right. But in this case, the 10 paylines in Starburst slot pays both ways! You can rack up a staggering 250x of your stake from this game.

Triple Diamond

The Triple Diamond slot from IGT is a tribute to the golden era of casinos. It’s a 3-reel classic title, very similar to what you can find on the casino floors of Las Vegas. There’s only 1 payline and it goes across the reels in the middle position.

Highest Payout Online Games

Since the inception of online games, players’ goal has been to rack up as much in winnings as possible. And the best way to approach this is goal is to play high payout games.

Now, question is, which games are considered high payout?

To understand it, you first need to understand RTP and house edge. In some of the previous sections where we explained game features, we’ve mentioned RTP quite a few times. It stands for Return to Player and it’s denoted in percentage.

In simple words, it indicates how much of your stakes you can expect to win back from the game. So, a 96% RTP game means you can get up to 96% of your stakes back. However, don’t confuse it with the games’ payout ratio.

It’s because RTP is a theoretical calculation and it doesn’t guarantee a win to the player in any way. Rather, it shows what you can expect from the game in terms of payout over millions of rounds.

Along with RTP comes the concept of house edge. Every single online game at casinos has a house edge. If you think it’s something really hard to understand, think again. House edge refers to the percentage of mathematical advantage the “house” or the casino has on you.

It’s simply the opposite of RTP. So, if you play a 96% RTP game, the house edge for that game is 4%. In many cases, a casino brand specifies a house edge for the website. It’s just the average value based on all the online games in offering.

Now, coming back to the point of highest payout online games, when you play a high RTP game, you automatically increase your chances of winning big. Or, you can think of it as playing low house edge games. Both instances refer to the same thing.

Also, you should take the maximum bet value and maximum win cap into consideration because they will influence your final payout as well.

Some examples of high payout online games would be:

Ugga Bugga by Playtech: 99.10% RTP
Goblin’s Cave by Playtech: 99.32% RTP
Mega Joker Jackpot by NetEnt: 99.00% RTP
Nemo’s Voyage by WMS: 99.00% RTP
Monopoly Big Event by Barcrest: 99.00% RTP

Choosing the Right Software Providers

All of the online games you find across the casinos in the US are supplied by software providers. Just like the casino operators, the providers also need to obtain licenses from the state to operate in the country. As a result, the portfolio of providers in the US is not as flashy as the EU countries.

Then again, the ones you have at your disposal are not to be undermined. It’s a massive collection and if you don’t know what to look for, you can’t unlock the full potential of gaming in the country.

In this section, let us list the characteristics of software providers that you should keep in mind.

License	Reputation	Game Library	Bonus Features	Variety
Needless to say, your goal is always to find licensed software providers and licensed online casinos. If you play at unlicensed brands, you’re looking for potential withdrawal problems from your account as well as legal trouble from your state’s law enforcement.	Reputation precedes the best software providers. If you have experience in the iGaming industry, you may have heard of names like Microgaming, NetEnt, Yggdrasil, Playtech, Play’n Go, etc. These are all reputed providers and they can ensure a spectacular display of online games for you.	As your final goal is to play the games, you must consider the game library of the providers. You need to look for themes and game features that draw you.	Pretty much all modern online games have different bonus features. The statement applies more to online slots when compared to table games or live dealer games. Slot bonus features may include in-game jackpots, free spins, free falls, gamble, and so on.	Last but not least, you should evaluate the variety of the games in the library. If the same provider offers slots, table games, and live games, you should play at least 1 title from each category to find out what its specialty is.

Mobile Online Games

When you’re trying to play online games, it’s very unlikely that you’ll always be in front of the desktop computer. So, the mobile compatibility of the games plays a major role in getting you ready for the day.

It doesn’t matter whether a casino operator is offering the games via a mobile website or a downloadable app. The devices of our time have become advanced enough to handle both. Types.

Top 10 Best Games Before You Start

Before we wrap up our guide on online games, we’d like to let you know about the best titles you can play in the US. We’ve tried to create a balanced list of games including slots and table games.

Thunderstruck 2 (slot)
Book of Dead (slot)
Gonzo’s Quest (slot)
Mega Moolah (progressive jackpot)
Jacks or Better (video poker)
Divine Fortune (slot)
European Roulette (table game)
Dream Cather (live game show)
American Blackjack (table game)
American Roulette (table game)