Casinomeister is an industry watchdog agent that has been making the online casino space safer and fairer for online players. Its annual awards that announce the best and the worst in the online casino industry are eagerly awaited every January. Last week Casinomeister announced its awards for 2011. The announcement pointed out that this is the 11th year of Casinomeister and the awards categories have increased to 40. Some of the more popular awards are highlighted.

The biggest award is the Best Casino Global and this award was won for the ninth year running by 32Red online casino. The reason, as one customer put it, is, “They just never put a foot wrong and when you ask for something they bend over backwards.” That is why 32Red online casino has been given the highest 5 Star rating by Top Casinos. Ever since the UIGEA problem in the USA, Casinomeister has a separate award for the Best Casino US Friendly. The conditions are different and the requirements are different. 3 Dice Casino took over the mantle from Club World online casino in 2010 and has remained on top this year as well.

Online casinos operate in groups and Casinomeister recognizes that the group brand image is important as well. The best global group in 2011 was the 32Red group. The best US friendly group was the Club World group. Several online casinos from this group have been rated highly by Top Casinos and they include Aladdin’s Gold, Club World, High Noon, All Star Slots and Manhattan Slots.

Online casinos are involved in a lot of charity work and Casinomeister awards the Ted Loh Humanitarian award for work in this field. Ted Loh was associated with Casinomeister and worked hard to bring a smile to the faces of those disturbed by natural disasters. In 2011 Japan was hit by a massive earthquake and a tsunami. Golden Palace online casino immediately committed in excess of $100,000 to benefit those in need of assistance and is the recipient of the 2011 Ted Loh award.

Online casino software drives the business and it is a very competitive aspect of the industry. This can be gauged from the fact that during the last three years three different software providers have won the Casinomeister Best Software Supplier award. They are Microgaming, WagerWorks and Cryptologic. In 2011 yet another software supplier, NetEnt, came to the fore and walked away with the award. The citation stated that in 2011 NetEnt has released some amazing cutting edge 3D animated slots. Their free spin bonus rounds include innovative features like Walking Wilds, Shifting Reels and Sticky Wins.

Casinomeister also names the worst in every category in order to warn players what to avoid and in the hope that the worst will take the criticism in a positive manner and try to improve their performances.