Question: When was the first online casino, also known as virtual casinos, started allowing for online gambling?
Context: Prospect Hall Casino is a UK online gambling business with online casino games for mobile and web.  The business is licensed and regulated by the United Kingdom Gambling Commission and the Alderney Gambling Control Commission. Betfair is an online gambling company which operates the world's largest online betting exchange.  It also offers a Sportsbook (fixed odds betting), online casino, online poker and online bingo.  The company's headquarters are located in Hammersmith in West London, United Kingdom and Clonskeagh, Dublin.  Since 9 March 2011, Betfair has operated its betting exchange under a Gibraltar licence. bet-at-home. com AG is a leading European online gambling and sports betting company that was founded in 1999 by Jochen Dickinger and Franz Ömer.  bet-at-home. com transformed into a joint stock corporation in May 2004, in December of the same year was listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange.  bet-at-home. com has offices located in Germany, Austria, Malta and Gibraltar.  Through their Maltese companies, the company has been issued licenses for sports betting, casino and poker.  Additionally since 2011 bet-at-home. com has held the license to offer sports betting and casino issued by the Italian gaming authority AAMS.  In 2012 the Ministry of the Interior for Schleswig Holstein issued the company a licence for providing and marketing sports betting and casino.  Furthermore, the gaming provider received a licence in 2014 from the Gambling Commission in order to operate and market online sports betting and online casino games in Great Britain.  Since August 2015, bet-at-home. com has had a sports betting licence in Ireland.  Since 2009, bet-at-home. com AG is a member of the "BetClic Everest S.A.S. Group", which is one of the leading French companies in the industry of online gaming and sports betting. Microgaming Software Systems Ltd is a privately held Isle of Man based software development company which claims to have released the first genuine online casino in 1994.  The company is one of the leading software providers to the online gambling industry.  Online casino operators such as the Carmen Media Group, Fortune Lounge Group, 32Red, and the Palace Group are among those who use Microgaming's software. Mansion (Gibraltar) Limited is an online gambling company that operates online casino and poker websites.  The company was founded in 2003 and has its headquarters in Gibraltar. Kindred Group (formerly Unibet Group Plc) is an online gambling operator which consists of 13 brands, among them Unibet, Maria Casino, Stan James, 32Red, iGame and that operates with online gambling and offers products such as online casino, online poker, online bingo, sports betting, soft games, scratch cards and live betting.  The headquarters of the company is located in Malta and is owned by Nordic OMX listed public company Kindred Group Plc.  In 2012, the company’s turnover was GBP 197.2 million. Online casinos, also known as virtual casinos or Internet casinos, are online versions of traditional ("brick and mortar") casinos. Online casinos enable gamblers to play and wager on casino games through the Internet.  It is a prolific form of online gambling. BetCRIS (Costa Rica International Sports) is a company founded in 1985 that offers online gambling services, including sports betting, online casino games, online bingo and mobile gambling. Online gambling (or Internet gambling) includes poker, casinos and sports betting.  The first online casino was in 1994.  Many countries restrict or ban online gambling, but it is legal in some provinces in Canada, most countries of the European Union and several nations in the Caribbean. Casinos Austria, formed in 1967 and based in Austria, is a gaming corporation that owns and operates casinos around the globe.  It is one of the largest casino operators in the world.  Casinos Austria together with its partners operate in about 40 land-based casinos in 16 countries, 8 shipboard casinos, 15 slot parlors, a range of lottery products in Argentina, and one online gambling platform.  Together the CAI (Casinos Austria International) Group’s gaming entertainment operations feature over 750 gaming tables and 7,600 gambling machines.
Answer: 1994