The majority of the online casinos offer two options to allow you play their games, download or instant play. With the download option you'll either need to download the software or request it to be sent to you on disc from the casino. It can take about 15/20 mins to download all of the software depending on your connection speed, so the disc can come in handy if your connections a bit on the slow side!

In order to download the software from the online casinos, you'll need to go to the individual casino and look for the 'download' button (usually on the home page) and click on it. You'll then be asked where you want to save the files, choose where you're going to save them and click 'ok'. If you choose to save this to your desktop, it's probably the best so you can access it easily in the future. Choose the save option and the files will be downloaded to your computer.

You then need to install the files which is straightforward enough and each casino provides a set of instructions on how to do this (don't forget to read them beforehand though!). Once it's installed you'll just need to register, log on and you can start playing.

The download option provides the same level of security as instant play but with faster access to a wider range of games. As you'll already have the software on your computer it's much easier to play the new games that are constantly being added to various sites. A lot of games have never been developed for the instant play so the download option is the only choice you may have to play some of your favourites.