Around 1995, a perfect storm of factors allowed online casinos to finally get started. Internet access was available in enough homes to create enough of a demand for it, and computer hardware had caught up to the point where there were computers in a high percentage of homes. If you look at what has happened with mobile casinos in the past several years, the same sort of thing has happened. Most people have some kind of smartphone or tablet with Internet access, and the hardware on these devices allows for mobile casino play. Naturally, the majority of that is on mobile slots.

Native Apps for Mobile Slots

One popular platform for mobile slots comes via what's known as a native app. This is an app that has been especially made for a specific type of phone. Each brand of phone has their own app store, whether it's Apple, Android, Windows Mobile, Blackberry or whatever else. If a software company makes a specific mobile platform for a certain operating system, then that's a mobile app, and it can typically be downloaded through that phone's app store or through a link on their website.

There are two main advantages to playing mobile slots with a native app. The first is that the graphics and sound tend to be a bit better since they're saved to your phone and don't have to be sent over the Internet every single time you want to play. The second advantage is that there are no loading times that you have to wait on before you can play the games.

Along these lines, there is also one major disadvantage: A native app only works for a narrow range of phones, and this can leave out a lot of players. This is an issue that software developers have to contend with if they decide to go the route of the native mobile slots app.

Web-Based Mobile Slots

The other major option is to have everything be web-based for mobile slots. The idea here is that you will log onto a website that is especially formatted for easy nativation via mobile, and then you can select the game that you want to play from there. It will be loaded on your phone in either Adobe Flash or HTML5, and then you can play without having to download anything to your phone.

The key advantage here is related to the key disadvantage for native apps: You can play on any type of smartphone or tablet that has an updated Internet browser and a live connection when you're using a web-based platform. You'll also tend to have a wider variety of games to choose from on average.

With that having been said, there are also some disadvantages. You have to contend with loading times for the games, which can be several moments if you're on a connection that's running slow. The graphics and sound are also typically of a lower quality than native apps in an effort to keep the loading times down.

Which is Best For You

The mobile slots platform option that's best for you will depend on what you personally prefer. There is no one-size-fits-all option here that's always best no matter what. If you just want to jump right into the games without having to download anything, then we recommend a mobile casino with a web-based solution. However, if you prefer to keep the quality of the mobile slots you play as high as possible and don't mind downloading something to your mobile device, then going with a native app is probably best.

The bottom line is that you have to pick what you prefer based on the advantages and disadvantages outlined in the above, a process that will help you to maximize how much you enjoy your mobile slots experience.