If there is one industry that has experienced tremendous growth in recent years, then it has to be the casino industry. Just a few decades ago, when gambling was widely looked down upon (as a 'decadent activity for the 'lost few'') even the biggest cities tended to have just a handful of casinos. These were establishments whose location pretty much anybody with an interest would surely have been expected to know. Fast forward to today, and we find ourselves in a world where gambling has pretty much found mainstream acceptance as a valid recreational activity, leading to what can only be described as a 'casino boom.' This is not to mention anything of online casinos, which are even more than the traditional brick and mortar variety.

In short, we find ourselves in a situation where we have so many casinos that a need for a casino directory becomes imminent, if people are to locate the best casinos in their cities or online. Seeing a business opportunity, publishers (both the traditional 'bookish' variety and the digital online variety) went to press, each coming up with a casino directory; so that we find ourselves in a situation where we have almost as many casinos directories as the casinos themselves! Some of these casino directories adopt the traditional format: simply 'objectively' mentioning a casino name, its location, and its contact (telephone and email, as well as website where available). Some of the casino directory makers, however, in the spirit of 'value addition' make their offerings more detailed, effectively creating what are for all intents and purposes casino reviews.

So we end up with casino directories that not only include the names, locations and contacts of the casinos, but also include short casino reviews (beside each entry), so that the user can find them more valuable. Incidentally most of these casino directories that include some sort of the casino reviews as part of their entries tend to be the online variety, where more often than not, the casino reviews in question are 'user-generated.' The arrangement is such that upon looking up the entries in the casino directory, visiting the casinos in question and getting to see how their offerings are like, the users can 'come back' and write competent casino reviews: in line with the 'web 2.0 citizen journalism' spirit.

This proliferation of casino directories naturally leads to the question as to which are the best of them all. The question as to which the best casino directory is is not a very easy one to answer: unless one has direct interests in one particular directory (which they would promptly endorse as the 'best'). One the whole, though, it would be reasonable to say that the best casino directories are those that offer the most comprehensive (and unbiased) information. Therefore, casino directories published by people without direct interests in the gambling industry tend to be better than those that are directly linked to people in the casino industry. The casino directories linked to players in the gambling industry are typically biased in favor of their sponsors: sometimes to extent of excluding quite important entries. In many people's view, too, online casino directories (which, as explained earlier, typically include some sorts of user generated casino reviews as well) are better offerings than the traditional paper-based variety. This is because in addition to the casino reviews they come with, most are more up to date than the paper-based variety: seeing that it is easier to change information on the Internet than on print, in the face of new developments, like a new casino coming up or an old favorite closing down.