If you visited a land-based casino recently, you were faced with the stark reality that the Golden Age of Land Casinos is over.  As I walked through a well-respected casino, I was touched by the lack of enthusiasm that was apparent in all the rooms of the casino.  The craps table, once the most exciting and ebullient game in the casino, was the gathering place for several players who could have rolled the dice in a church.

The poker room was desolate and the games of the Far East were frequented only by those who were ethnically Asian.  The groovy poker games that were so popular a few years ago, three and four card poker among them, had dealers standing in their pits for long durations of time without players.  The Roulette tables had some action, but nothing like in the past.  The same can be said of Blackjack, although it should be noted that there were considerably fewer Blackjack tables in operation than a couple of years ago.

The slots rooms had some buzz.  I noticed that there were very few big wins throughout the casino in the six hours I stayed, but there was one station where the slot machines were relatively busy – the video poker machines.  There is something to be said of the staying power of the video poker games.  People enjoy having control over the outcome of games that they play, and video poker offers that reality to players.

Free online video poker continues to amaze the administrators of online casino sites.  Players like to use free online video poker sites to hone their skills and devise new strategies for play.  Many of the best free online video poker sites offer several variations of poker for their video poker fare.  

Jacks or Better Poker, Deuces Wild Poker and Bonus Poker are generally considered the most popular of the poker variants, and the best free online video poker sites will incorporate at least two of these variants into their online casino parlour menu.  However you look at it, free online video poker is a good play!