Casino Folk Pages

You will find plenty of advice on the Internet. You will see a lot of this: “compare data about payout rates”, “find casino that offer a variety of payment options”, etc. I would like to offer another method, that is based on life experience.

A consumer should always go with the known brand, as a rule of thumb. It is a common knowledge that IBM computers are usually more efficient than “clones” assembled in a small computer shop. An original Levi’s brand jeans would usually last longer than a pair of pants made in sweat-shops by illegal immigrants. The same applies to online casinos. There are five known and respected software developers of gambling software and a myriad of smaller companies that try to invade gambling software market by promoting more simple and less professionally designed software. Some of these small companies operate online casinos by themselves, while others knowing that it’s impossible for them to compete on the market, from the point of view of enticing and keeping players try to promote their products to less experienced business people who hope to make big bucks on Internet gambling.

I will not go into detail about how and why such products are marketed, which most likely turns out to be nothing more than a scam, but as a result, there are already more than a thousand online casinos with poor quality design, lack of professionalism in tech support and unreliable payment systems.

Let’s go back to the original gang of five:

1) Playtech Cyprus Ltd. (Playtech)
2) Microgaming
3) Boss Media
4) Odds On Gaming
5) RealTime Gaming (RTG)

The casino software produced by these companies are distinctive in quality, elegant design and a wide variety of games. They have secure and well-tested payment system implementations and high payout rates.

Playtech is among my favorites. It’s a more or less young company founded by enterpreneurs with software engineering and multi-media background in 1999.

During several years, the company was leading in online casino software development word-wide. Today, it employs more than 200 persons.

All the casino software provided by Playtech is operated according to the same rules. Its internal auditing system does not permit the clients to deviate from the rules.

You can always find out if a given online casino is implemented with
Playtech software by spotting the logo on the website:

The most famous online casinos that use Playtech software are:

City Club Casino
Casino Tropez
Bingo 777

The second spot, among all the casino software developers should go to Microgaming, in my opinion. The company established in 1994 does not provide the same quality design as Playtech, however it is distinctive by the simplicity of the interface. After downloading and running their software, players can launch almost any game within two clicks.

All Microgaming casinos have the following logo:

My preferred Microgamming online casino is Roxy Palace Casino.

The Associated Press

GARY, Ind. - Authorities have issued an arrest warrant for a Chicago man who they say left his elderly mother in a wheelchair at a casino entrance for 15 hours while he gambled inside.

A spokeswoman for the Lake County prosecutor�s office in Indiana says Andrew Hawkins has been charged with neglect and faces up to three years in prison if convicted.

Casino workers say earlier this month, Hawkins requested a wheelchair for his 82-year-old mother.

He then allegedly left her at a pavilion that serves as the entrance to a pair of casinos along Lake Michigan.

Casino workers paged Hawkins the next morning when they noticed that the elderly woman was still there. They say he didn�t respond.

You will find plenty of advice on the Internet. You will see a lot of this: “compare data about payout rates”, “find casino that offer a variety of payment options”, etc. I would like to offer another method, that is based on life experience.

A consumer should always go with the known brand, as a rule of thumb. It is a common knowledge that IBM computers are usually more efficient than “clones” assembled in a small computer shop. An original Levi’s brand jeans would usually last longer than a pair of pants made in sweat-shops by illegal immigrants. The same applies to online casinos. There are five known and respected software developers of gambling software and a myriad of smaller companies that try to invade gambling software market by promoting more simple and less professionally designed software. Some of these small companies operate online casinos by themselves, while others knowing that it’s impossible for them to compete on the market, from the point of view of enticing and keeping players try to promote their products to less experienced business people who hope to make big bucks on Internet gambling.

I will not go into detail about how and why such products are marketed, which most likely turns out to be nothing more than a scam, but as a result, there are already more than a thousand online casinos with poor quality design, lack of professionalism in tech support and unreliable payment systems.

Let’s go back to the original gang of five:

1) Playtech Cyprus Ltd. (Playtech)
2) Microgaming
3) Boss Media
4) Odds On Gaming
5) RealTime Gaming (RTG)

The casino software produced by these companies are distinctive in quality, elegant design and a wide variety of games. They have secure and well-tested payment system implementations and high payout rates.

Playtech is among my favorites. It’s a more or less young company founded by enterpreneurs with software engineering and multi-media background in 1999.

During several years, the company was leading in online casino software development word-wide. Today, it employs more than 200 persons.

All the casino software provided by Playtech is operated according to the same rules. Its internal auditing system does not permit the clients to deviate from the rules.

You can always find out if a given online casino is implemented with
Playtech software by spotting the logo on the website:

The most famous online casinos that use Playtech software are:

Online Casino
Casino Tropez
Bingo 777

The second spot, among all the casino software developers should go to Microgaming, in my opinion. The company established in 1994 does not provide the same quality design as Playtech, however it is distinctive by the simplicity of the interface. After downloading and running their software, players can launch almost any game within two clicks.

All Microgaming casinos have the following logo:

My preferred Microgamming online casino is Roxy Palace Casino.

By John Curran, Associated Press

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. � Once, all you needed was money in your pocket. Now one casino-hotel wants you to wear nice pants, too.
Tropicana Casino and Resort announced Monday that it is imposing a dress code for late-night visitors to its new retail and entertainment center.

Effective immediately, anyone who visits The Quarter after 11 p.m. on weekends or holidays may not wear baggy jeans, work boots or work shoes, T-shirts, “inappropriate athletic gear” or other clothing Tropicana considers improper.

“Our guests arrive fashionably dressed, and we want to maintain that level of sophistication,” said Dennis Gomes, president of resort operations for Aztar Corp., Tropicana’s parent company.

The dress code will not apply in the casino itself, or elsewhere in the Tropicana complex. Violators could be asked to leave.

Tropicana spokeswoman Maureen Siman said the policy was adopted over the weekend after suggestions were made by tenants of The Quarter, which includes retail outlets, nightclubs, restaurants, a comedy club and a theater.

The dress code was believed to be the first imposed by a casino since 1978, when the first New Jersey casino required men to wear sport jackets. That requirement quickly fell by the wayside in favor of casual dress.

Heidi F. wrote :

i have been playing casinos online for some time and never seen a casino so unserius as this one i have waited over 14days for a cash out and still nothing. the live help is not much help just saying the same thing have patience. they have phonenumber in the site i called them and thay hang up on me!!! they do give good bonus but if u win i have big playthrue and not willing to give u the winning
DONT GO HERE gl on u gambling

If your favorite online casino is not displaying any verification forms you may want to contact them and find out why. This is an important part in recognizing the legitimacy and fair gaming policy of the online casinos.

(From How Important is the Online Casino Payout Rate? )

In my opinion, the author gives too much significance to the so called “casino payout rate”. Payout rates that you see on Home pages of numerous casinos are almost impossible to verify. Undoubtedly, online casinos have tools to gather such data, but none can tell what exactly are the numbers printed on the first page of online casino, whether it’s an average payout deduced by using the above mentioned tools, or it’s a number that suggested to be put by the online casinos marketing department based on the marketing analysis.

The other thing to check for at the online casinos is that the payout rates are actually verified by a 3rd party auditing house like OPA or eCOGRA.

OK. Let’s ignore the fact that the so called “3rd party” such as OPA (Online Player Association) happen to be affiliates of the casinos that they audit and get commissions from the money wagered and lost by the players.

If someone can prove me otherwise, I will apologize to those “3rd party”, but so far, any programmer who takes a glimpse at the source code of OPA web pages will prove me right.

So, let’s talk about the quality and technical aspects of payout calculations.

How can a 3rd party verify this? First of all, one can analyze thoroughly the internal web pages (internal stats) of an online casino, including financial pages, also one can use specialized software supplied by online casino software provider.

I have significant doubts that any online casino would allow this. This leaves us with a direct method of verification -playing in the casino that is being audited for real. (I must emphasize that a tester must wager real money, as I once wrote in one of my articles, free and real games can drastically differ)

Today, an average online casino offers a variety of 60 and more casino games, each game having different payout rate. In order to obtain a more or less valid result, a tester must play a dozen of games andwager thousands of dollars for each games. Does a “3rd party” company uses such approach? I don’t know.

Not so long ago, I’ve stumbled upon an article about testing on one of the online casinos. Here’s a quote:

The owner of the casino contacted the Online Players Association in May 2002 claiming that their games
are fair. He invited the OPA to test the games. The tester deposited $50 and played Jacks or Better video poker at $1.25 per hand….

So, as you can see, the tester used only $50 dollars to test the games, a statistically insignificant amount in my opinion.

To conclude, I would like to offer a simple advise on how to pick an online casino; Play only in online casinos that use a known and reliable gambling software. You can read in [coming], on how to recognize such online casinos.

Source : casinoratingcenter.com , choose online casino

As an incentive for new players, most online casinos offer a cash sign-up bonus. This approach can really boost your win and you should consider taking advantage of it. But unfortunately the world is more complex than it seems and To avoid disappointment in the future, everyone needs to spend few minutes to read “terms and conditions” before clicking on deposit button and get the promised bonus.

All casinos define conditions that should be satisfied before a player can withdraw the money. Usually, a player must make a certain number of wages before he/she can apply for cash-out. If is somewhat fair to ask a player to make some bets before withdrawing the money, since no one likes to give out money for nothing. Usually, the question becomes, how many times you have to wager that amount. Let’s call this number - “Wager Number” from now on.

Let’s choose casino where the wager number is between 10 and 25. Here are some examples:

Roxy Palace Casino has the best value that we could find so far, which is 9. So if you deposit $100 and get $100 bonus, after that you have to wager on $1800.

“Royal Dice” is very popular high ranked online casino. It offers to you 150% match bonus up to $100. So, if you deposit $100 you get $250 on casino account balance. Sounds good, BUT before you are be able to withdraw your money you will have to wager $6250 because their wager number is 25 (($100 + $150) * 25). It is ok if you are an experienced player, but if you just want to try online gambling this wager number is too high. It means, you will not be able to take money back and leave right at moment when you decide. This casino may not be the right for you.

Here is a paragraph from “Terms and Conditions” of online casino City Club . The outstanding part of these conditions is that you can withdraw any amount at any moment, but if you did not wager enough you are risking to loose your winnings.
“Please note that in the interests of fair gaming, we require you to have wagered a minimum of 20 (twenty) times your deposit and bonus before cashing out any amount higher than your initial deposit amount, up to $4,000 for each deposit plus bonuses made during the Fantastic Fortune Giveaway time. If you make a withdrawal before wagering 10 (ten) times your deposit and bonus, the bonus money and winnings will be removed from your account.”

By Liz Benston ,benston@lasvegassun.com,LAS VEGAS SUN

Harrah’s Entertainment Inc. has suspended the operations of an online gambling site based in the United Kingdom after posting losses of $9.3 million last year.

The move marks the second time a Las Vegas casino giant has tried and failed to tap into the lucrative Internet gambling market.

The site, called Lucky Me, was introduced in November 2003 for British bettors and was suspended in October, the company disclosed Tuesday in its annual report to shareholders.

The site was discontinued because it was losing money, Harrah’s spokesman David Strow said.

Rather than the typical method of gambling for money, the Web site allowed players to access as many games as possible — with new games offered every seven-and-a-half minutes — with a monthly subscription. Gamblers paid from about $17 to $84 per month for access to bingo and other games with cash prizes ranging from $8.50 to $1.7 million.

Lucky Me featured an identification process that prohibited bets from U.S. residents as well as from other countries where Internet gambling is prohibited.

The site was developed in partnership with Revahertz Networks, a Boston-based, privately-held software game developer that founded Gamesville, a games-for-prizes site that was sold to the Internet search engine Lycos in 1999.

Harrah’s in January said it would dissolve a partnership with Gala Group Ltd., a U.K. bingo hall operator, to build casinos in Britain after lawmakers there significantly restricted the number of casinos that can be built under a pending gambling bill. The bill, in its present form, is expected to allow up to eight Las Vegas-style resort casinos.

At the time of the Gala deal, Harrah’s and other U.S. operators were optimistic that more casinos would be legalized. But concerns about problem gambling and a proliferation of neighborhood casinos led to a more restrictive gambling bill than had been anticipated.

Strow said the gambling bill and legislative concerns didn’t factor into the decision to abandon the Web site.

Similarly, MGM Mirage in 2003 shut down a gambling Web site that catered to U.K. and European customers. The site didn’t attract enough bettors because it prohibited bets from U.S. bettors in order to comply with state and federal laws against Internet gambling, MGM Mirage officials said.

Many big gambling Web sites operate in a legal gray area because they accept bets from Americans over the objections of the U.S. Department of Justice. These sites tend to be profitable because the United States, which hasn’t prosecuted online bettors, remains the biggest market for Internet gambling.