Over the course of this article I want to share with you some vital tips for becoming a blackjack master. Even if you don’t plan to play blackjack frequently, adhering to these tips will help you win more often. So let’s get started.

Blackjack is indeed a game of some luck and some skill. Anything in life has a degree of luck to it. But skill definitely factors into how often you win at blackjack. If you understand the game very well and implement proper playing strategy you can win a lot of money at blackjack. And if you don’t, you won’t.

Strategy is very important. Even blackjack players who don’t understand too much, but use proper basic strategy, can go toe to toe with any casino. Blackjack at a very low house advantage compared to other games.

In fact, if you do nothing else, learn basic blackjack strategy and use it. You’ll cut down the house edge, you win more money, and you’ll make fewer mistakes.

While playing blackjack variations can be fine, you want to limit your exposure to them. Usually these variations have higher house advantages and of course you need to play them very differently. Stick to basic blackjack basic strategy and you’ll be all right.

One thing you always want to look for a single deck blackjack and if that’s not available, double deck blackjack. Remember, the fewer the decks the better it is for you. One exception would be various online blackjack games, which use a single deck, but shuffle after every hand. Still, this is much better than playing in a shoe blackjack game.

If you’re playing in the real world, learning how to card count is to your advantage. Card counting and blackjack will help you tip the scales in your favor. However, if you’re playing blackjack online, card counting is of no value.

Perhaps one of the biggest tips I can give you is to keep your emotions in check. You’ll have winning hands and losing hands, winning days and losing days. Unless you can keep your emotions at bay, you’re prone to wild that swings, which is never good.

Of course the most important thing is that you have fun while playing blackjack. It’s a great game and I’ve enjoyed it for years. I hope you win many blackjack that in the future. Good luck at the tables.

This time we’re completing the series by talking about Caribbean Stud Poker strategy and tips. So, let’s dive right into it!

Caribbean Stud Poker Strategy and Tips

I’ve seen a lot of strategy guides for Caribbean Stud Poker and I think it’s just a bit too much. Caribbean Stud Poker is a game where you just have fun. There isn’t much in the way of decisions.

The house advantage in Caribbean Stud Poker is hefty, but there’s not much that can be done about that. What I’d recommend is simply folding if you have nothing. Why stay in when your only show of winning is if the dealer doesn’t qualify? That just doesn’t make sense. Lose your ante and progressive bet and move on. Hit hard when you have good hands.

Don’t listen to stupid strategy guides that tell you not to play the progressive. Why listen to people who have obviously never played Caribbean Stud Poker (or at least not much)? The progressive is just a buck and I’m telling you again, if you have a great hand and the dealer doesn’t qualify, you’ll kill yourself.

This might go without saying, but I feel I must make sure you understand. Don’t bluff. Even though the game is called Caribbean Stud Poker, it’s not like regular poker where players fold. The dealer can’t fold. He or she always plays the hand. So remember my first tip—dump poor hands. If you’ve got nothing, just walk away.

And as I’ve mentioned before, shop around. Most casinos have their own pay structure and progressive for Caribbean Stud Poker. You could be losing hundreds or even thousands by not shopping around. If you’re playing at an online casino, you’re foolish if you don’t shop around. It just takes a few clicks to find the best paying online casino for Caribbean Stud Poker. I’ve looked around online and have seen progressives with $40,000 difference between them. Ouch!

I’ve also looked around online and found some online casinos paying $500 for a four of a kind and others paying $100. You can lose a fortune by not shopping around and that’s not just on the big hands either.

Caribbean Stud Poker is a great game. Hopefully, you’ve learned a little something and you’re ready to give it a shot. It doesn’t matter where you play Caribbean Stud Poker, it’s a fun game. Good luck at the tables!

Double Exposure Blackjack

This is one of those blackjack variations that gets players all excited. In this variation both dealer cards are shown, so you can see why many blackjack players think they are just going to destroy the casino.

There is one major caveat to this blackjack variation. The dealer wins all ties. Now think about that for just a minute. If you’ve been playing blackjack for any period of time you know that this happens fairly frequently. In this variation of blackjack all of those ties are now losers.

My basic strategy for this variation is not to play at all. However, if you’re going to play it, just enjoy yourself. Not surprisingly, there is a strategy to playing double exposure blackjack, but it would take more space than we have for this article.

Spanish 21

Spanish 21 is very popular in some casinos because of all the options it affords players. For instance, a player’s blackjack actually beats a dealer’s blackjack and if that weren’t good enough, your blackjack will still pay 3-2.

Here’s another fun rule variation. You can double down at any time no matter how many cards you have. And if you manage to get 21 and the dealer gets 21, you win. Want to hear something really crazy? If you double down, and don’t like your double down card, you can take back your double down bet. You will just lose your original wager.

There’s also fantastic bonus payouts if you happen to get 21 with five or more cards or if you get 6-7-8 or 7-7-7. And how about this. Get 7-7-7 of the same suit and a dealer up card at seven and you’ll win the jackpot, which can be thousands of dollars.

Another rule Spanish 21 is that the dealer always hits on soft 17.

Spanish 21 is one crazy variation of blackjack. If you haven’t tried it, I’d encourage you to play a few hands and enjoy yourself.

In the next installment of our blackjack tutorial series, I’ll present you with a point-by-point analysis of what it takes to play blackjack like a pro and win consistently. Whether you’re playing online blackjack or in Las Vegas you’ll want to read this.

Since you might not know how the hands in Caribbean Stud Poker rank, I’m going to show you. If you’ve played any poker, like video poker or Texas Hold’em, then you already know, because it works the same way.

Here’s the Caribbean Stud Poker chart for your convenience. I’ve ranked the hands from the worst to the best.

Nothing – You’ve got jack. These are the hands where you want to give up and just lose your ante wager. We’ll talk about this a little more in our last installment when I cover strategy and tips.

One Pair – You have two cards of the same rank, such as two Aces.

Two Pair – You have two cards of one rank and two of another, such as two Aces and two Jacks.

Three of a Kind – You have three cards of the same rank, such as three Aces.

Straight – You have all five cards in sequential order, such as 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. The Ace can be played before the 2 or after the King. You decide.

Flush – You have all five cards in the same suit, such as Clubs.

Full House – You have basically a three of a kind and one pair in the same hand. An example of a full house would be three Jacks and two Aces.

Four of a Kind – You have four cards of the same suit. Since Caribbean Stud Poker is played with a single 52-card deck, this is hard to get. An example hand would be 4 Aces.

Straight Flush – You have all five cards of the same suit and they are all in sequential order and they are not 10, J, Q, K, A. For instance, this hand would be the 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 of Clubs.

Royal Flush – Very had to get of course. If you have the 10, J, Q, K, A of the same suit, such as Clubs, then you have a Royal Flush and the best payday possible in Caribbean Stud Poker. And hopefully you’re playing the progressive, otherwise you just lose a whole lot of cash.

Okay, that wraps up this fourth installment of our Caribbean Stud Poker Overview. For our final installment, I’ll be talking about strategy and tips. It’s going to be a great sendoff. And when you’re done with it, you’ll know everything you need to play and win at Caribbean Stud Poker.

Okay, let’s get this installment of our blackjack series started right. Today, I will be tackling serious myths that surround this fabulous game. Walk into any casino in the world and you’ll likely hear at least one of these blackjack myths. Hopefully, after reading this installment of our blackjack tutorial series you’ll be a much better blackjack player.

Object of Blackjack

Unfortunately, most blackjack players think the object of blackjack is to get as close to 21 as possible. This just isn’t so. Many players fall by the wayside as they foolishly try and press their hands toward that magical number.

No my friend, the true object of the game of blackjack is extremely simple. Beat the dealer. You can beat the dealer with a hand of 12. You can beat the dealer with a hand of 20. All that matters is that you beat the dealer and win money.

Card Counting Works Online

I’ll cut to the chase. Card counting does not work at online casinos. Unless you are going to play in a real-world casino learning and knowing how to count cards in blackjack will do you absolutely no good whatsoever.

Even though an online casino might have single deck blackjack it’s not like the real-world casinos because they shuffle after every hand. Therefore, each hand is completely brand-new. You can’t count cards in an online casino.

You Can’t Beat Blackjack

There are many people running around the world that believe you can’t beat blackjack ever. I’m sorry, but it’s been proven. Yes, you can win at blackjack and be a winner over the long-term with this fabulous game.

The key to beating blackjack is knowing the game inside and out and playing properly. Many people have won a lot of money playing blackjack and there are many people in Las Vegas to do nothing but play blackjack for living. The game of blackjack can be beat and you can be a winner over the long term. Read that again.

In our next installment of this blackjack instructional series, we’ll talk about various blackjack variations. Most of the blackjack variations are fun to play from time to time, but some can be hazardous on your wallet. When playing a blackjack variation you have to adjust your playing style or you’ll just be handing money to the casino hand over fist. Until next time, good luck at the blackjack tables.

Here’s a sample payout—I say sample, because some houses have their own payout scale.

One Pair – even money
Two Pair – pays 2 to 1
Three of a Kind – pays 3 to 1
Straight – pays 4 to 1
Flush – pays 5 to 1
Full House – pays 7 to 1
Four of a King – pays 20 to 1
Straight Flush – pays 50 to 1
Royal Flush – pays 100 to 1 and I’ve seen 200 to 1.

But it gets much, much better. These are just general payouts—remember, the dealer must qualify or you get nothing. If you’re playing the progressive jackpot in Caribbean Stud Poker and get one of these, you get paid no matter what.

Each house has their own payout structure (usually) for the Caribbean Stud Poker progressive, but here’s a general idea of what you’ll be paid:

Flush – expect $50 – $100
Full House – expect $75 – $250
Four of a Kind – expect $100 – $500
Straight Flush – usually pays 10% of the progressive.
Royal Flush – always pays 100% of the progressive.

It definitely pays, as you can see, to shop around. If you’re a Caribbean Stud Poker progressive player, check the jackpot. I’ve seen them as low as $7,000 and on up past $100,000. If you’re going to play the progressive in Caribbean Stud Poker, you might as well get paid really, really well when you hit.

Some books say that betting the progressive is a bad bet, because of the house advantage. I saw screw them. Get your head out of the stats book for two seconds and think about actually playing. Picture this poor scenario. You’ve laid out $25 as your ante. The five cards fly across to you. Wow, it’s a four of a kind! You happily put $50 out there as your raise. Remember, we’re talking 20-1 ($500) or better for this hand. But, oh no! The dealer has failed to qualify (up to 50% of the time) and now you’re handed $25 and a “oh, so sorry” comment. I don’t think so.

And since you did play the progressive, you not only get that $500+, you also get another $100+ from the Caribbean Stud Poker progressive payout. Double shot! That’s why I’d always play the progressive when I play.

That’s all for this installment of our Caribbean Stud Poker overview. When we meet next, I’m going to go over the ranking of hands.

Whether you’re playing in Las Vegas or at an online casino the procedure is pretty much the same. Everyone, including the dealer, receives two cards. It’s at that point that the dealer will check for blackjack if the up card is an ace. But before checking for blackjack the dealer will ask you if you’d like insurance. Should you take insurance?

In my opinion, insurance is a bad bet. Think about that for a minute. If you take insurance, you’re really hoping that the dealer has blackjack. If the dealer does not have a blackjack, you lose half of your bet immediately and the best you can do is win half of your bet. In the worst-case situation, you lose 1.5 times your bet.

There’s only one time when I would take insurance. And no it’s not when you have 20. If the dealer asks for insurance and you have a blackjack, take even money. It’s foolish not to. You have a guaranteed winner in your hand so take it. Other than that, in my own opinion, taking blackjack is simply a bad bet.

Let’s talk about surrender for a moment. Should you ever surrender? There are many conflicting thoughts about using the surrender option when it’s available to you. In my book, I will surrender if the dealer is showing a 10 or face card and I have a really poor hand, like 16. However, if that 16 is comprised of two 8s, I might consider keeping a hand and splitting it.

Generally, surrender can really come back to bite you in the butt. If you’re playing in the real world it pays to know how many big cards and how many little cards are left in the deck or shoe. This will help guide you toward the right decision.

Learning to master or ignore two key options, such as surrendering and insurance, are vital toward you becoming a great blackjack player. Initially, I would simply ignore surrender and never take insurance, but take even money when you have a blackjack. By following this simple strategy you’ll do just fine.

In the next installment of our blackjack series I will be talking about blackjack myths and blackjack misconceptions. Is there a perfect seat to sit in at the table? Does card counting really work? How about online blackjack? I’ll be covering all these things. Until then, good luck at the blackjack tables and may all your bets be winning ones.

Satellite tournaments are your ticket into the big time. Many of the big payday MTTs are $10,000 per seat. The world is full of poker players who can’t afford a seat (or don’t want to pay for one). So, what do you do? Win one! Satellite tournaments are your way into bigger tournaments on the cheap.

There are two ways they work. First, they could be free. Usually the winner of the tournament gets the seat and everyone else gets a good time. The second way is to pay. Some satellites offer “cheap seating.” They’ll usually have a seat into the show as their price and perhaps some other goodies for runner-ups (like re-entry to another satellite tournament).

Let’s talk turkey. I recently saw one MTT that looked enticing. It was $1,000 a seat—not bad. If you didn’t have the $1,000—or just didn’t want to pay it—they had a $100 satellite. Here’s how it works. You pay $100 for your seat. There are 10 players total. The winner gets the $1,000 seat. These types of tournaments are all over the place. You can win seats to the World Series of Poker and tons of tournaments on the World Poker Tour.

Another trend that’s growing is sub-satellites. These cater to the lower-limit poker player. An example, using the one above, would be a sub-satellite tournament with a $10 entry fee and 10 players. The winner would get an entry to the $100 satellite tournament. And that winner would get the $1,000 seat. So, you need to win two mini-tournaments. But, you get a huge savings—$10 instead of $1,000.

Finally, we come to re-buy tournaments. Honestly, I never cared for them. The concept is simple. First, you start playing. If you lose your chips, you can buy back in—up to a certain point. An example would be a $1,000 entry fee tournament with a $100 re-buy. Sometimes you get half your chips, sometimes all of them. Some allow one reload, others unlimited. It’s always to a certain point though.

If you play in a re-buy poker tournament, you’ll need to adjust your strategy a little. Some players become more aggressive and loose.

Either way, poker tournaments are a blast. I enjoy them far more than ring games. Thanks to the Internet, finding a good poker tournament anytime day or night is just a click away. Rookies, start with SnG tournaments, learn tournament poker strategy and start to move up. Who knows, perhaps you’ll be the next winner hugging millions when the last river card is shown.

Card values in blackjack are pretty simple. The first thing you need to know is that unlike poker the suit of the card has absolutely no meaning at all. It doesn’t matter if your cards are clubs, diamonds, hearts, or spades.

The value of a card is the same as its number. For instance, a two is worth two points. There are two differences in blackjack. Face cards are worth 10 points. An Ace can be worth either 1 point or 11 points.

So, let’s look at an example. You are dealt a 6 and an Ace. You would have 17. Whenever you have an ace that is being used as 11 points that number is a soft number. For instance, an Ace and a six would be soft 17. This is important to know because some casinos have the dealer stand on soft 17 and other casinos have the dealer hit on soft 17.

Here’s another note about lingo. A “stiff hand” is when you have a hand that could possibly bust. For instance, if you had a 16 this would be a stiff hand. All it would take is one more card valued at six or greater to bust you. Therefore, hands 12 – 16 are considered stiff hands.

You may have a heard someone say “I’m going to stand pat”. This comes from blackjack. When the hand is valued at 17 – 21, it’s called a pat hand. Therefore, when someone has a hand like this you may hear him say that they’re going to stand pat. Unless someone has a real desire to push the limits these are the hand you stand on. The only exception would be if you had a “soft hand”.

And of course if your hand goes over 21, you have busted and the hand is over for you immediately. Remember, the object in blackjack isn’t to get as close to 21 as possible, it’s to beat the dealer. I’ll probably say this a couple more times in the series because it’s so important to understand.

The next part in our series, we will talk about splitting pairs, insurance, dealer’s play a little bit, and about basic strategy. Now that we’ve laid a decent foundation for playing blackjack, we can start to expand our horizons into playing the actual game and winning at blackjack. Until we meet again, good luck at the blackjack tables.

Should you want to stay in the hand, you now have to make a bet in the Raise (or Bet) area. The amount must be two times your Ante bet. For instance, let’s say you’ve bet $5 in the Ante area, your Raise bet would be $10. You can’t bet more. This is another reason why your Ante bet is important, as it determines you maximum bet for the hand.

Let’s assume that you’ve just put $10 in the Raise area. It’s now time (after all other players do the same) for the dealer to show his or her hand and it’s time for the final evaluation. In order for the dealer to have a “qualifying hand,” he or she must have a hand that is at least Ace-King or better. I’ll go over hand rankings in Caribbean Stud Poker in just a bit.

Here’s the deal. If the dealer’s hand doesn’t qualify, everyone wins the Ante wager. The Raise wager is simply returned. The Ante wager is always paid even money, so a $10 wager is paid $10. The Raise wagers are paid in accordance with the hand ranking. This “qualify” thing is one reason why many pay the progressive, which is paid out regardless of whether or not the dealer qualifies.

If the dealer’s hand qualifies, it’s then evaluated against your hand. If your hand is better, you win. Your ante is paid even money and your raise wager is paid according to the pay scale. For instance, if you had two pair, you would be paid two times your raise bet (so a $10 raise bet wins $20). After the final evaluation, the hand is now over and it’s time for another hand. As you can see, the big moment in Caribbean Stud Poker is deciding whether or not to stay in a hand—just like regular poker.

So we’ve been talking a lot about qualifying. If the dealer doesn’t qualify, which sucks, you get paid just even money on your ante wager. That’s pretty boring. And it’s frustrating when you have a nice hand. But, let’s imagine that the dealer qualified and you won.

Well, that’s going to do it for part two of our Caribbean Stud Poker overview. Next time we’ll pick it up from here, by going over the payouts. There’s some great money to be won in this game.

So you’re sitting there looking at your two cards and deciding what to do. You already know that you can hit, which means take a card, or stand, which means to end your turn. But what if your two cards are the exact same? You could split them. Let’s imagine that you have two Queens. You could split them into two hands. This of course would mean that you would have to make an additional bet that’s equal to your original wager.

Let me just say right now that if you have two Queens do not split them. However, if you were to receive two 8s, for example, you may want to split them. But we’ll talk more about blackjack strategy in a little bit.

When you split a hand you need to make an additional bet, which is equal to your original wager. Splitting is not something that happens too often and some players never split their hands.

During your turn another move you may make is to double down. When you double down you are first making an additional wager that is equal to your original wager and then excepting one final card. A common hand to double down on is 11. You’ve probably heard the saying “always double down on 11″. You can also double down for less. Let’s imagine that you have a $100 bet out there and you want to double down. You could add just $50 more and double down for less. That’s your option.

Another option you have during your turn, which isn’t offered by every casino, is to surrender. A lot of people like surrender, but many casinos don’t offer it. This is why you should check the blackjack rules before playing again. Here’s how surrender works. You get your first two cards and you can surrender and lose half of your bet. An example when one might want to surrender would be when you receive a really bad hand, such as 16, and the dealer is showing a face card. Many blackjack players will surrender in this instance.

And that about does it for this installment of our blackjack series. In our next installment will be talking about card values, hand values, and how it all plays out. Also I’ll make sure to drop a couple more nuggets of wisdom for winning at blackjack. Keep reading and good luck at the blackjack tables.

Okay, let’s get cracking. We’ll start with SnG, which is a sit and go poker tournament. This is where a lot of tournament poker players cut their teeth. I love SnG tournaments and they are wildly popular online. You get tournament play without the marathon.

Basically, a SnG is a tournament with up to 10 players and one table. As I alluded to, SnG tournaments are quick. While a MTT tournament can take eons, a SnG takes about an hour—or one hand if you are unlucky or stupidly aggressive.

In case you don’t know, playing tournament poker is much different that playing in ring games. You need a different mindset and different strategy. Some poker players are great at tournament poker and not good at ring games—and vise versa. So, if you plan on being a tournament poker pro, be careful what you read and do.

The SnG is a perfect training ground for newbie tournament poker players. And you can win a good amount of coin while learning too. Since most SnG tournaments last only about an hour, most players don’t need to worry about focus issues. It’s fairly easy to remain focused during the playing session (MTTs are another matter).

Next, let’s jump into MTTs (multi-table tournaments). You definitely need some good focusing ability for MTTs. If you’re new to tournament poker, don’t start here. Sure, you can, but it’s best to try some SnGs.

A MTT can be as small as two tables and 20 players and as large as thousands of poker players. The World Series of Poker grows every year. A MTT can be a few hour session (smaller MTTs) or it can last for days on end. The benefit of large MTTs is the huge payoffs.

All the big paydays have been MTTs. Millions are handed down like candy. Of course, many MTTs are pricey. The good ones—where you can win millions—tend to run $10,000 or more for entry. But, there are ways to get a seat in these tournaments for free. We’ll be talking about that in our third and final installment of this poker tournament guide.

The main thing to remember is that SnGs are quicker to play and MTTs have the big paydays. Whether you play online poker or in a real-world poker room, there are tons of poker tournaments going on each day. Remember, if you’re new start out with some SnGs and freerolls.

As mentioned before, no limit poker is about control. You have more control over your game—can be good or bad depending on your skill level. So, let’s run a simple hand scenario to see some differences and we’ll look at bluffing too. I think bluffing is much hard (sometimes impossible) in limit games (except high limit games).

The flop has just went down and we can see a Ace of Spades, Ace of Diamonds and 4 of Hearts. You’re on the button and there’s three of you in the hand. Unfortunately, you’re holding nothing important and have a dead hand at the moment (pair of Aces on the board and a Queen high card in your hand).

Since both opponents checked, you’re thinking that they may have low pair at best. You’ve decided to bluff—trying to convince them that you hold an Ace. Let’s see the two options based on limit and no limit action.

Let’s look at limit action. If this were a $1/$2 limit game of Texas Hold’em, you’d make a $1 bet as your bluff. Do you really think this will scare your opponents? Like I said, in lower to even mid limit poker games, it’s hard to bluff at this point in the hand. In our example, the players can just flip a buck into the pot and see the next card. You really can’t make them pay to play.

Alright, time for no limit action. We now have control over the hand and our destiny—one way or the other. You look at the pot and see $7 sitting there. Since this is a $25 no limit game, it’s a decent pot and you’ve decided to take it. In a limit game, you’d bet pennies and they’d call. But this is no limit, so you put out a $3.50 bet, which is half the pot. Now your opponents must really think about it and they must pay to play, which is what you want.

Of course, one of them could have been slow playing and now you’re screwed, but that’s poker. The point is, if you know what you’re doing, no limit poker gives you full control over your game, so you can get paid what you deserve. I play limit too, but I hate not being able to shake opponents at times. It’s called “limit” for a reason. If you’re new to poker in general, I’d recommend either playing $2 no limit tables or looking for some limit poker games to get your feet wet.

The first thing needed when you sit down to play a great game of blackjack is a decision of how much you’re going to bet. In fact, we’ll talk more about betting, betting strategies, and money management deeper in this blackjack series. To play a hand of blackjack you must make a bet.

Once you’ve made a bet it’s now time to play. If you’re playing in the real world or online with multiple players, you need to wait until everyone has placed their bets. Once this happens it’s now time to deal the cards and this is where the anticipation starts.

As I’ve mentioned before, the action starts immediately to the dealers laughed and proceed in a clockwise fashion to the dealer’s right. The dealer will deal one card to everybody and then deal a second card to everybody. One of the dealer’s cards will be placed face up, called the up card. It is this card that you look at and base much of your strategy around.

If you’ve been dealt an Ace and either a face card or a 10, you have blackjack and win automatically. However, if the dealer is showing and an Ace you will get the option of taking even money. We’ll talk a little bit more about this and insurance later. But I just wanted you to know that to get a real blackjack it has to be on the first two cards that were dealt to you.

So it’s your turn and you will have a series of options. First, if you like your first two cards, you can stand. When you stand, you are saying that you want to end your turn. Another option is to hit. Basically, when you hit you get one card. During your turn you are allowed to hit as many times as you want as long as you are still at 21 or under. If you go over 21, its called a bust and you lose your hand instantly.

There are many more actions you can take, such as splitting, doubling down and so forth. In our next installment I will continue the blackjack action by talking about these options.

Played with a single 52-card deck, each game of Caribbean Stud Poker accommodates up to seven players at a time. This is a game that is just fine when flying solo, but I like playing with many people. Online play is very fun and many online casinos offer solo play.

Let’s talk about the table for Caribbean Stud Poker. You’ll notice that there are four spots on the table. You’ll need to know these four spots to play. First, there’s the card area, which is where your cards will be placed each hand. Next is the Ante area, which is where your ante bet goes at the start of each hand. If you’re going to stay in a hand, you’ll be putting money in the Raise area. Sometimes this is called “Bet” on certain layouts, but it’s all the same. Finally, there’s the famous progressive slot. This is where your $1 goes if you want to be entered into the progressive jackpot.

So now that you know about the betting areas, let’s take a look at the action. As I kind of alluded to earlier, your first “action” will be to put some money in the Ante area. Each table has it’s own minimum wager—$5 and $10 minimums are most common. Once you put your ante bet down, you now need to decide if you want to be entered into the progressive jackpot. We’ll talk about this later in more detail. You can’t enter the progressive after the hand starts, so now is the time to do it.

Once you’ve anted up and played or passed on the progressive, it’s time to start the hand of Caribbean Stud Poker. The dealer will give you five cards—hopefully really good ones. The dealer will also get five cards and you’ll be shown one of those. We call this card the “upcard.”

Okay, you’ve got your hand. It’s now time to evaluate it and see how good or bad it is. If you’ve looked at your hand and found it to be poor, you can just fold and quit. You’ll lose your ante bet of course.

In the next part of our Caribbean Stud Poker overview, we’ll pick it up from here. We’ll start with your decision to stay in the hand.

There are many types of poker tournaments and throughout this multi-part poker guide, I’ll go over them in detail. If tournament poker interests you, there are tons of tournaments online and in the real world. And there are plenty of books to read.

In a poker tournament, multiple players compete against each other for a share of the prize pool. Most tournaments have an entry fee to play. The exception to this rule would be “freerolls,” which are free tournaments. These tournaments, as you might imagine, are always packed to the roof.

Freerolls aside, in a regular poker tournament you’ll pay an entry fee. A percentage of this fee goes to the poker room, but most goes to the prize(s). Some poker tournaments have a “scaling” prize that grows with the number of entrants. Also, there are big and small tournaments. A smaller tournament might have a good portion of the entry fees go into the prize pool and then pay scaling prizes, such as 50% for 1st, 25% for 2nd, 15% for third and 10% for 4th.

No matter what type of tournament all players try to get to that special spot called “in the money.” If you get here, you’re getting something back for your time and fun. In the above example, you’d need to place 4th or better to get back your entry fee and win.

Poker tournaments (free or pay) can be broken down into two main groups. First, there’s the MTT (multi-table tournaments). These are the ones you see on TV. Two examples would be a big World Poker Tour tournament and the World Series of Poker. Both of these feature tons of poker players and many poker tables. They last for days.

The second group of poker tournaments are SnG (sit and go), which are extremely popular online. These tournaments tend to be faster, because they are limited to one table and 10 poker players at the maximum. Online SnGs take about an hour. Most of these use the scaling prize pool model.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this introduction. Over the next parts of the guide, I’ll dive deeper into the types and styles of poker tournaments. Here’s to hoping that every flop is a good one. Good luck at the tables.

No limit poker games have a buy-in amount for each table. In other words, you’re not going to show up with $25 and then have someone drop in with $1,000,000 and just “all in” you every hand. So your first step to playing no limit poker is finding a table buy-in that you’re comfortable with and stepping up to the plate. You also want to look at the chip count of other players. If you’re looking at a $25 table and some guy has $500 sitting there, he’s been playing for a bit and he has the ability to be ultra aggressive against your $25 stack.

Like limit poker, no limit has blinds. Keeping with the $25 table example, the big blind would be a quarter and the small blind would be 15 cents. The blinds are low and the action can get high in a second since anyone can bet any amount at any time. The blind might be a quarter, but the next player could raise to $5. A lot of players play no limit poker like it’s limit poker and that’s a big problem.

As I mentioned earlier, no limit poker gives you full control. It gives you the opportunity to get paid on your hands. Of course, it also gives you the opportunity to bet too high and drive suckers out of the hand. And if you like bluffing, no limit poker is where it’s at. Bluffing at all in a limit game can be a bit difficult (especially online). Your bet is capped and it can become a game of “cards” rather than players and emotions.

In part two of this no limit poker playing guide, I’ll play out an example hand to show you the differences between limit and no limit poker. I think you’ll agree that no limit poker is the only game to play. The best, and richest, poker players in the world are no limit poker players. That should tell you something right there. After you read part two of this guide, I’d recommend practicing online at some small limit tables—you can even find $2 tables where you bet pennies!

Let’s set the scene for great blackjack action. As you probably know by now you can play blackjack online or in the real world. Regardless, blackjack is played at a blackjack table that consists of eight spots. First, you have the dealer spot. Next, you have seven player spots. At the point of reference the spot to the dealer’s left is called first base and the spot to the dealer’s right is called third base. You want to remember these.

On the table you’ll see some writing usually something such as “insurance pays to 2-1″ or “blackjack pays 3-2″ or “dealer must draw on saw 17″. What does this all mean? That’s what you’re about to find out.

You’ll notice that a blackjack table is a semi circle and the action progress is from the dealer’s left in a clockwise manner to the dealer’s right. The dealer is always last to go and that’s why the House has an advantage. I want to bring up one thing that I’m sure to say many times during the series. A common myth is that the common goal and blackjack is to get as close to 21 as possible. This isn’t correct at all. When playing blackjack, your goal is to beat the dealer. Read that again. It doesn’t matter if you have 12 or 21, your job is to simply beat the dealer.

If you’re playing in the real world, you’re likely to encounter two different types of blackjack games. The first type is called handheld. This is where the dealer deals you the cards and you can pick them up in your hands. The other type of game we will just call a look at game. In this type of blackjack, the dealer deals the cards but you aren’t allowed to touch them. Instead you just tell the dealer if you want to hit, stay, or whatever. This type of blackjack game is most common in games dealt from the shoe.

What’s a shoe you ask? Blackjack games can be dealt from one deck or from many decks. Games that are dealt with more than two decks are dealt from eight canister holder called a shoe. The shoe will hold four decks of cards. These days you’re most likely to see them in low limit games. Online blackjack tends to use a single deck, but an important note is that the deck is shuffled after every hand. This renders card counting useless.

And that’s part two of our series. Next, we will start breaking down the action of blackjack. We’ll look at what happens when you sit down to play hand. And I’ll be sure to mention at least a couple more great tips to know for winning at blackjack.

The Odds

Rather than bore you with precise mathematics, I’ll give you the “approximate” odds, displayed in hand counts.

Once every two hands you’ll have nothing at all. By the way, this also is true for the dealer, so keep that in mine. Once every two hands you’ll have one pair. Getting two pair happens once every 21 hands and three of a kind once per 47 hands. And now the probability really takes a dip.

Straights come about once per 256 hands and flushes about every 526 hands. Full Houses, which seem absent at times, happen every 694 hands on average. From here we leave three digit land and really crank up the rarity. Four of a kind hands happen about once per 4,167 hands—now you know why it seems like you can’t get them at times. About every 72,202 hands you get a straight flush. Want the royal flush? Be prepared to wait. It happens about once per 649,351 hands—wow.

Next time you’re playing Caribbean Stud Poker, keep these stats in mind. They may help guide your decisions better. That royal flush progressive may look nice, but it’s oh so far away—or is it?

Two Pair or Better, Ante Up

Here’s an easy tip for you. Whenever you have two pair or better, always ante up. As you can see above, the dealer isn’t too likely to beat you. For the most part, hands with nothing and one pair rule the day.

Play the Progressive If You Have Money

If you’re playing $5 hands, giving 20% ($1) to the progressive bank isn’t too smart. However, if you’re playing $10 or more, I say play it.

Sure, you may not hit the royal flush, but that $1 will ensure you get paid on the smaller hands, like flushes, when the dealer doesn’t qualify (happens a lot). Many say never play the progressive, I say try playing Caribbean Stud Poker in real life for a bit then come back and give advice.

Nothing Then Dump

Since you have to double your bet to stay in the hand, I think it’s a wise move to trash all hands that aren’t at least one pair no matter what the dealer is showing. Think about it, by staying in the hand, you’re costing yourself two sets of cards that you could have had by simply folding. No thanks.

I hope you have fun playing Caribbean Stud Poker. It’s a great “party” game and I happen to enjoy it.

As you may know, the Field is the big area filled with the numbers: 2, 3, 4, 9, 10, 11 and 12. The bet pays even money unless you hit a 2 or 12. Most houses pay double for these two numbers and some houses pay triple for the 12. One important fact to know about the Field is that even though most of the numbers are in it, they are at a disadvantage. The Field has a 44.4% chance of being rolled—remember, this is a one-roll wager.

So, the probability of hitting the Field is always 44.4%, but in reality, the running probability changes—just like the odds of flipping heads on a coin X times in a row. You may hit three non-Field rolls in a row or eight, but at some point, you have to throw a Field roll again.

As non-Field numbers are thrown, the probability of someone winning a Field wager goes up. Think about this, the probability of throwing two non-Field numbers in a row is 31%. This means that the Field has a 69% chance of hitting. How about three in a row? That’s down to 17%. And the probability of hitting four non-field numbers in a row is only 9.5%. So, if three were just rolled, you could bet the Field and, in theory, have a 90.5% chance of winning.

This little system is pretty easy to do. It takes a little patience. Basically, you’re watching the rolls of the dice and counting how many non-field rolls haven taken place. When the time is right, you’re placing a wager, and hopefully winning it.

There are two ways to play this system. You could wait for three non-Field rolls to happen and then make a bet. In theory, you’d have a 90.5% chance of winning—not bad. If you want a little more insurance and you have a lot more patience, wait for four non-Field numbers to be rolled and make your bet. You’d have a 95% of winning. Of course, you’ll be sitting around for longer, but it’s all fun.

Next time you’re standing at the Craps table, give this fun little Craps system a try. I use it from time to time myself. It’s a nice break from the norm.

Blackjack, which is also known as 21, attracts players of all types. Did you know that blackjack is the most popular table game in the casino? I think the reason why it’s so popular is because blackjack is a very easy game to play. But it’s a harder game to master.

Unlike simple games, such as slots, whether you win or lose in blackjack depends largely upon the decisions you make. It is this interaction, which is only rivaled by perhaps poker and craps, that captivates blackjack players.

So why do so many gamblers gravitate toward blackjack? I think it has something to do with books, such as “beat the dealer” as it showed that Blackjack was a beatable game. That blackjack book I mentioned was a bestseller and came out in 1962. We soon figured out that by mastering proper strategies and perhaps doing a little card counting we can win over the long run with blackjack.

Even though there are many guides and videos out there for other casino games, such as poker and craps, there’s no other game that as analyzed as much as blackjack. Today, it’s easy to know the ins and outs of this game and to beat it.

The game itself can be play a multitude of ways, from various deck sizes to rule differentiations. You can play blackjack online or in the real world. And you can enjoy this game by yourself or with a full table.

Over the course of the series I will dive into the game of blackjack, its nuances, its strategies, its variations, and most importantly, how you can play better blackjack and win over the long-term. We’ll be starting with the basics, such as table layout payouts and so forth. When this series is complete you’ll have a full picture of the game known as 21 and you’ll be ready to attack the tables at the stake your claim to fortune.

The series is written to be read part by part. I don’t recommend skipping to any particular part as you should read it in order even if you’ve played blackjack before. You just never know what you might miss. Sailing throughout the series I’ll be plugging in various nuggets of wisdom to help you win at blackjack.

Bank Now!

Okay, there’s one thing you need to remember. When possible, you need to bank when playing Pai Gow. By banking, you’ll push some of the odds in your favor. All experienced players know to do this.

Of course, you need a nice bankroll (depending on the game) to bank, but it’s worth it. Sometimes the casino might share your banking duties with you. And if you want to bank a lot, just get on a table with no or few players.

High Hands Can Spell Defeat

As I alluded to earlier, a lot of new Pai Gow players think this game is video poker and they just try to build big hands. But video poker it’s not.

By playing the big hand, such as a full house, can be disastrous. For instance, let’s say you build this hand. For you other hand you’ll simply have a high card. What’s this mean? It means that you’re likely to push and completely screw yourself. A better option would be to do a three of a kind and a pair. You now have a shot at scoring cash.

Crush the Two-Card Hand

Ah, young grasshopper. Here’s where Pai Gow newbies get crushed. And this goes back to our last tip. In Pai Gow, both hands are important. I like to build the best two-card hand possible and go from there.

Of course, you need to weigh the two for the best possible combo. But, don’t neglect this hand. It’s vital and it can keep you in the green.

Help Me Please

Ask with any casino game, don’t be shy about asking for help. If you’re playing online Pai Gow, read the playing instructions and mess around with some free games first. For those playing in the real world, the dealers are there to assist you, so use them. There’s nothing to be ashamed about!

Bankroll Only

Before playing any casino game you should set up a bankroll, which is a set amount of money you’re willing to use. When you do this, you’re less likely to walk away from the casino a big loser. Just remember, should you happen to lose it, walk away.

Another good idea is to put this money away as you win, so you always leave with something should your luck change. I like setting win limits. It’s hard to leave when you’re winning, but I do it.

Know the Game’s Math

Okay, you don’t need to be a math wiz, but you should know some of the math behind Craps. Even experienced pros get caught up in the action and throw math to the wind. At the very minimum, you should know some of the number probabilities. If you’re betting on the hard 10, do you know how many ways you can make a hard 10 (one) and the probability of it being thrown? And the probability of you losing the wager is also good to know.

Look at the Players

Before jumping in a game (for real-world players), look at the players and watch the game for a minute. Do they have lots of chips? Are they happy? Do they seem a little annoyed? Is the game quiet? You can learn a lot from a 2-3 minute survey of the table.

Bet the Center to Lose Your Money

Anything in the center area of the table, the prop bet area, is a sucker’s bet. These are the bets that make the house all its money in Craps. Betting them is fun now and then, but you need to remember that it’s basically a wishing well. Bet often and without knowing it, you’ll lose a lot of money.

Bankroll or Die

You can’t just start gambling out of your wallet. It’s vital that you set up a bankroll, which is a specific amount that you’re willing to lose. It could be $5 or $5 million. All pros use bankrolls to guide their action.

It Goes Both Ways

Many newer Craps players, or superstitious old ones, forget that you can bet with or against the table. In other words, you can always win on any roll of the dice. Don’t be shy about betting against the table (Don’t Pass, Don’t Come, etc).

Sometimes betting against the table can make you a lot of money. Do players look sad? Are they without huge chip stacks? This might be an ideal time to bet against the table and see if you can’t clean up.

And don’t get stuck betting any one way. You can switch up your methods every point. Heck, you can bet with and against the table at the same time if you want. Craps has so many options.

Hit a Triple, Stop at Third

If you’re playing in the real world, and you know the game some, sit at third base (the seat immediately to the right of the dealer). This seat is the last to act before the dealer and it can be crucial some hands. I would sit there if I were you.

Split Those and You Die

It’s got to be said, don’t split 10s or face cards. Oh, it’s so tempting for some players, but don’t do it. You have 20, which is as good as it gets aside from Blackjack. Why on earth would you kill that? Greed, yes. I don’t care if the dealer has a 6 showing, don’t split those cards. Your Blackjack life depends on it.

Count All You Want, It Won’t Help

I’m speaking to the online Blackjack players, perhaps you. Counting in the real world is a good activity, but online it’s all for not. You see, online casinos reshuffle the deck after each hand. So, it doesn’t matter if you count, because all of the cards are in the deck each hand.

I just wanted to share this, because I know of some online Blackjack players who didn’t know online casinos did this. Don’t waste your time counting cards online.

Shoes Are For Your Feet, Not Blackjack

Let’s jump back in the real world for a moment. When venturing out to play Blackjack, make sure you’re playing single or double deck Blackjack. Don’t get in games that use the “shoe,” which means you’re playing with 4 – 8 decks. That’s just stupid.

There’s a reason why all the $1 Blackjack tables use shoes. It’s worse for the player. Most good online casinos use single decks (as seen above, they shuffle after every hand, but at least it’s single deck Blackjack).

Don’t Bet the House. Know Your Limits.

No matter where you play Blackjack (or any other game), you’ve got to set limits for yourself. If you’ve only got $100, don’t start betting $10 hands. Ideally, you want to give yourself a 20 hand cushion—to account for swings in play.

And don’t start playing without limits and with an open wallet. You run the risk of spending way more than you can. Always gamble responsibly and have fun doing it. Set your limits and follow them. You’ll be glad you did.

The only thing left to do is hit the Blackjack tables and win a lot of money. Good luck!

I’ve seen tons of ladder systems. Most use an 8-step progression. Some are “hit and terminate” and others are more free flowing. A “hit and terminate” ladder is one where you keep betting until a win / loss and then reset. The free flowing version just has bettors going up and down a step depending on the action.

Let’s take a look at an example Martingale ladder. We’ll imagine that we’re at the Roulette table and betting on red. We’ll use an 8-step ladder.

Our first bet will be $1. If we win, our next bet is $1 (winning resets the ladder). However, if we lose, we double it up and bet $2. The idea of doubling is that you win back all lost money plus one unit ($1 in this case). If that loses, we bet $4. If that loses, we bet $8. For step five, we bet $16. Should luck turn us away, the next bet is $32. Step 7 is a wager of $64. Finally, the last hope is a wager of $128. To complete this ladder, you’d need a bankroll of $255.

As you can see, the Martingale system is extremely simple in design. It’s not rocket science. You simply bet twice as much as the last time. Your bet is designed to cover all loses and profit one unit. And to do the system, you need a healthy bankroll. For the $1 unit, we needed $255. For $10 units, it would be $2,255.

Any progression system is flawed. You can use it, but don’t expect to beat the casino. The other problem is nerves. Sure, when you’re bet comes up in the first 1-3 steps, everything is great. But could you imagine getting to step 8 where you’re betting 128 times your original wager? In the end, your wagering 255 times what you hope to win.

And that’s the problem with many casino systems. They simply try to use progression to cover up for faulty logic. And it kills gamblers all day long. Playing a mini progression system when you have a good system in place can be fine, just don’t let it get out of control. I prefer playing 1-3 steps max. There’s no reason to go higher and the results can kill you.

While there’s something to be said for playing Poker in the real world, online poker offers many key advantages that may suit you better—I know I love online poker. Let’s take a look at some of the key advantage of online poker.

Availability

In the real world, you have to find a poker room. Once that’s done, you need to find a game that’s going—and hope it’s one you want. If it’s busy, you get to wait in line (hours sometimes). No thanks.

With online poker, you can play anytime day or night and you can find the specific games you want. From pennies to big cash tournaments, it all waits for you.

Limits

Let’s keep on the poker game choice theme. In the real world, the table limits are what they are. You either take them or leave them. With online poker, you can always find exactly what you want. Looking for a $5+$1 SnG tournament? No problem. Want a dollar game? Sure thing.

Poker Variants

So you’re at the poker room and looking for a specific type of poker or game style. Even if you want Texas Hold’em, the room might not have tournaments or ring games. It’s so limiting. Again, online poker comes to the rescue. You can find whatever type of poker you want and the game style to match your mood. It’s just perfect.

Speed

This is a huge one for me. I’ve been in real-world poker games that take forever. Some guy has no outs, but he wants to spend an hour acting like he’s thinking. It’s one thing to spend a few minutes, but it can get out of hand.

Online poker moves very fast. You can play and go. The result is more hands and possibly more money.

Tipping

With online poker, there’s no dealer to tip. This is great. Even if it’s just a buck, that’s $1 you’ve lost. Tipping in the real world is expected and you should tip. But however you slice it, a tip is a loss. I like keeping money in my pocket where it belongs.

You Can Be Everywhere

Perhaps the best advantage online poker offers is the ability to play at multiple poker tables at the same time—with ease. I’ve seen players playing at 8 tables. If you can focus on more than one table at a time, this advantage will allow you to really rack up the winnings in a hurry.

Online poker is better in so many aspects.

Mr. Conservative

Do you have patience? Do you want to make a little cash while having a little fun with a little risk? If so, this is a craps strategy for you. This strategy is very conservative, so if you lack patience, move along as you won’t like it one bit. This isn’t about fast action at all. It’s about low risk and modest gains.

When I’m playing in the real world, this my strategy for scoring tons of free drinks while not losing my butt. The concept of this strategy is simple and it’s easy to implement. When it’s the come out roll, you want to make a wager on the Don’t Pass Line. The minimum wager has to be $5, but I recommend going at least a little higher. Try $5 to start, but you’ll want to move up quickly.

Okay, the wager is down. Here’s the only risk point. We lose on a 7 or 11 and win on a 2 or 3 (12 bar). If a point is thrown (4,5,6,8,9,10), we’re home free. Once the point is thrown, place the point. For instance, you have $30 on the Don’t Pass Line and a 4 is rolled. You’d place the 4 for $30. If the shooter 7’s out, you lose the place bet, but win the Don’t Pass Line bet, so it’s a push. If the shooter hits the number, you lose the Don’t Pass Line bet, but win the place wager ($60), so you’d have $30 in profit.

Field Math

I’ll keep this one short and simple. The field is normally (okay, usually) a crappy bet. However, we can push the odds in our favor.

Simply put, you’re going to count rolls. When there are three non-field rolls in a row, you’ll place a wager on the field. Why? Because the odds of there being a fourth non-field roll in a row is only 9.5%. You have (in theory) a 90.5% probability of winning!

If you want to get really conservative, wait for four non-field rolls in a roll and then play. The odds drop big time. However, waiting for four in a row can take a bit.

This is a fun little strategy that can become an easy way to cash. It’s a little play on math. But don’t go crazy. If you lose the bet, reset the count (counting the one you just lost) and move on.

This first variation is doubling down after you’ve split your cards. It’s always a good idea to ask whether or not you can do this before starting a game. This is a great rule for you, the player. It lowers the house advantage some and it will allow you to really capitalize on premium hands. So, look for this variation as it’s a plus.

Another blackjack game variation is the splitting of aces and how the hand is played. Most casinos will give you only one card on split aces, but some allow you to play them like a regular hand. Again, splitting aces cuts the house advantage slightly. Also check to see how many splits are allowed. For instance, if you split aces and the next card is an ace, can you split again? Combine this with the first variation we talked about and you have the recipe for a big hand.

I give up! Okay, not really. There’s another game variation called surrender. Basically, you can call it quits and get half of your money back (before taking any cards). There are two types of surrender: early and late. In early surrender, the house will let you surrender before the dealer checks for Blackjack. The other is late surrender, which allows you to surrender your hand before taking any cards. Surrender is a great option to have. Many players mess it up, but you want to have the option.

Earlier I talked about Vegas. One section hits on soft 17 and the other stands on any 17. This rule is printed right on the felt, so there’s no need to ask. Basically, by hitting soft 17, the house gets a little bit higher advantage. Therefore, try to play games where the dealer must stand on all 17s.

Finally, lookout for all games that don’t pay 1.5x on Blackjacks. They are starting to creep up. One popular variation is the 6 for 5 rule. A Blackjack on a $5 hand pays $6, not the original $7.50, so you get screwed. Casinos are slowly trying to put these games in. Right now, it seems to be mainly single deck games, but I won’t play them. The increase in house advantage is ridiculous. Stay away, far away.

And there you have it. These are some of the more popular Blackjack variations. As usual, you’ll find all sorts of things out there, like Royal Match. Good luck at the tables!

The End

Each hand of Baccarat has one main goal—to get as close to 9 as possible. Both the Player and the Banker try to hit 9. Each side starts with two cards and can draw one additional card if desired.

The Player acts first and the Banker goes last. Because of this, the Banker has a slight edge as it only draws a third card if certain conditions are met. Face cards and 10s equal 0. All other cards equal their rank, so a 7 of diamonds equals 7 points. The count resets at 10, so if the Player gets a 6 and a 5, the score is 1 (11 – 10 = 1). And if the Player had a 5 and a 5, it would have 0. Basically, you just drop the first digit in two digit counts (10, drop the 1, becomes 0).

Player Rules

While it’s possible to play Baccarat without knowing how the two hands work, it’s good to know—increases the fun. If the Player’s first two cards equal 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5, a third and final card is drawn.

However, if the Player has a 6 or 7, the Player stands. And if the Player’s cards equal 8 or 9, it’s a Natural, so the hand is over. The Player wins unless the Banker has an 8 or 9 and ties the Player.

Banker Rules

The Banker draws a card with a 0, 1, or 2. The Banker draws on a count of 3 if the Player’s count is anything but an 8.

With a count of 4, the Banker will draw as long as the Player’s hand is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or 7. With a count of 5, the Banker draws when the Player’s hand is 4, 5, 6 or 7. And the Banker draws with a six if the Player’s hand is 6 or 7.

The Banker always stands on a 7 and just like with the Player, 8 or 9 on the first two cards in a Natural and the hand is over.

Quick Strategy

The first strategy idea is very simple. You bet only on the Banker. Since the Banker has a slight advantage, you stand a good chance of coming out ahead in the long run.

The other strategy is to look for patters and bet against them in time. So, if you see the Player win 5 times in a row, start betting on the Banker, and vise versa.

Either way you go, Baccarat is a fun game worthy of your casino time.

By the way, video poker machines pay different amounts for different hands. For instance, a Triple Bonus machine doesn’t pay on Jacks or Better.

I’ve got nothing!

This is a hand that’s not even Jacks or Better. It’s sad, but it happens.

Jacks or Better

Simply put, this is a hand with a pair of Jacks, Queens, Kings or Aces.

Two Pair

This is when you have one pair of one thing and one pair of another. For instance, two 6s and two Jacks.

Straight

A straight is five cards in sequential order, like two, three, four, five, and six. The Ace can be played before the two (A – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5) or after the King (10 – Jack – Queen – King – Ace).

Flush

No, you’re hand isn’t getting flushed down the toilet. The flush hand is when all five of your cards are the same suit, like diamonds (wife’s best friend evidently).

Full House

Full boat baby! This hand has a million and one names. A full house is when you have three cards of one thing, such as Kings, and a pair of something else, such as Jacks (K –K –K –J – J).

Four of a Kind

Now we’re talking. I love this hand (and you will too). The four of a kind hand doesn’t come often enough, but it pays well. As you might expect, a four of a kind is when you have four cards of one thing, such as four Jacks. It’s so sweet to see.

Straight Flush

This is a combination of a flush and a straight (as the name implies). First, you need all five cards to be of the same suit, like diamonds. Second, you need them to be in sequential order, like 5 – 6 – 7 – 8 – 9. Remember, the Ace can be used before the 2 or after the King.

Royal Flush

I’ve been lucky enough in life to have received a fair amount of Royal Flush hands. This is the big daddy of payouts. If you’ve got max coins played, you’ll be taking home the jackpot when this hand shows up.

The Royal Flush is a hand that’s all one suit, like diamonds, and these five specific cards: 10 – Jack – Queen – King – Ace.

Texas Hold’em Poker Tips

The one tip I’d like to leave with you today is to always raise top hands pre-flop. Okay, there’s no “always” bets in gambling, but it’s in your best interest (until you’re a very advanced player) to make everyone else pay to see the flop or leave when you have a top hand (AA, KK, AK).

The raise is up to you, but three times the blind is a good idea—if possible.

Roulette Tips

Here’s a great tip for American players. Play Euro Roulette if possible. Most online casinos offer it and it’s to your advantage to do so as the European version only has one zero, unlike the American version with two zeros.

The house advantage is only about half (2.7%) that of the American version. It’s much, much better, so give it a try.

Blackjack Tips

First up, never take insurance. It’s a sucker’s bet. Why would you take insurance? Think about this for a minute. You put up 50% of your bet amount and if you win, you just get to keep wagering. How stupid is that? The best case scenario is you ended up risking 150% to win 50%. That’s just bad play. And if you lose, you’ve now lost an extra 50%. Just say no to insurance.

Second, stay away from “shoe” dealt games when possible. You want single deck Blackjack games and double deck at the max. Anything else swings the odds in the house’s favor too much. There’s plenty of single deck action out there, so go find it.

Craps Tips

Let’s close with Craps—a great game. I’ll give you two great Craps tips. First, don’t bet prop best (all those bets in the center of the layout, like Craps, Hardways, Any Seven, etc). Those are sucker’s bets and that’s how the house cleans up. Just stay way from them.

Second, the Field isn’t a good bet. Sure, it has most of the numbers, but it has less than a 50% probability of being rolled, because the numbers not in the field 5, 6, 7, 8 have the most combinations of being rolled. That’s why the Field wager area is so large. They want to entice you.

No matter what games you’re playing, do so responsibly and have fun. Learn as much as you can about a game before playing it. You’ll have a better chance of winning. Good luck at the tables.

Now, imagine you flipped the coin twice. Would it always be one heads and one tails? Of course not. Roulette has a similar “coin.” The even money bets (Red – Back, Odd – Even, etc) are close to the same. The American Roulette wheel has two zero, which alters the probability a little. And the Euro version has a single zero.

That said, the concept is the same. You may have a series of “heads” come up, but at some point “tails” will come up. And while on each flip the probability (50%) doesn’t change, the running probability does. With each flip of heads, the probability that the next flip will be heads goes down—drastically.

With all of this in mind, we move to the system. We’re going to watch the spins of the Roulette wheel and chart the outcomes. We’re looking for action on the even money bets. For instance, if the last spin was black 17, then we’d have a count of: Black 1, Odd 1, and 1-18 1. If the next spin is black 20, the new count would be: Black 2, Even 1 and 19-36 1. Okay, got the concept?

Here’s the key to all of this. The probability of any even money bet coming up five times in a row is only about 4% on American Roulette and 3.5% on the European version. Therefore, if we watch the game and wait for any even money bet to come up four times and then bet the opposite for the next spin, we have a 96% – 96.5% chance of winning our wager. That’s pretty solid.

You can play this system two ways. First, you can keep it all single bets. So, if you lose, you just reset the count at 1 and make the same bet when the count is back to 4. Another way, perhaps more dangerous, is to use a small progression ladder, such as 1, 2, 4 and 8. If your wager loses, you bet the next step on the ladder for the next spin. Personally, I don’t like ladder systems. There’s too much potential to lose a ton in a hurry.

Either way you go, this can be a fun little system to mess with. Of course, no system is foolproof, so don’t go betting the house.

1. Bluffing

I can’t tell you how many new poker players I’ve played against that just like to bluff for no apparent reason. Perhaps it is because the media has “hollywoodized” poker as just bluffing. Watch most of the movies and TV shows with poker in them and the bluff is there.

If you’re playing online, bluff is a bit tougher to do. At any rate, don’t bluff all the time. Learn when to do it.

2. Stop Playing Every Hand

This is a big one for poker newbies. They always ante up to see the flop. This is fundamentally wrong. You should be working to see less hands. If your starting cards are junk, like a 2 of Clubs and 9 of Hearts, drop the junk and wait.

Once you can get in the habit of seeing less flops, you’ll start to stabilize your playing bankroll.

3. Know When to Fold Em

It’s not just part of a good song, it’s a way of poker life. You’ve got to know when it’s time to dump a hand. For many, it’s hard once their money is in the pot. Let this be their downfall, not yours.

This is why it’s important to know poker math. Learn when it’s a good value to do things and combine this with your ability to dump poor hands and you’ll be golden.

4. Tilt

Emotions can kill even the best poker player. Do your best to keep emotions out of your poker play. Yes, even good emotions can harm your poker bankroll. When a player goes on tilt, he or she is angry and will do stupid things. It’s bankroll suicide.

When you win, be happy, but calm. When you lose, just analyze what you did wrong (if anything), learn and move on. You can’t change the past and you can surely screw the future.

5. Play the Player

Here’s a hard one to learn, which is why pros are pros. Once you hit a certain level, you’ll start playing the player, not the cards. When you do, you’ll be far more dangerous at the poker table.

Learn what makes people tick. You want to become a master observer. When you accomplish this, your bankroll will start to grow by leaps and bounds.

There are a ton of poker tips out there, but these five will get you on the path toward bigger poker bankrolls. Good luck at the tables!

Craps Lingo

If you’re playing craps online, knowing the lingo probably isn’t that important. However, in the real world it’s a good idea to know Craps lingo, so here we go.

Little Joe : This is a 4 rolled as a 1 and 3.

Jimmy Hicks : The number 6.

Craps : 2, 3 or 12.

Yo : Rolling an 11.

C and E : Betting Any Craps and 11.

Snake Eyes : Two 1s.

Boxcars : Two 6s.

Center Field : 9

Craps Info

The casino is a superstitious place. Think it’s not? Walk into any Las Vegas casino, head to the Craps table and stop. Now look around. Can you see the cashier’s cage? Yes you can. Casinos follow certain superstitions to the letter. There’s one plot of land in Vegas where a casino burned down way back in the old days. Is there a casino on that plot now? Nope. It’s prime real estate, but it’s empty.

Here’s another one in the real world. If one die (or both) fly off the table, it means a 7 is coming. That’s why you’ll see many players call off all of their bets on the next roll. Surprisingly, I’ve seen the 7 come out on the next roll more times that I care to remember. Coincidence or law?

Why do they call dice “bones?” Archaeologists have found animal bones (like sheep knuckles) that have been chiseled into dice! The idea of gambling with dice goes way, way back.

Oh, here’s a good one for those playing in the real world. Unless you’re betting against the table, never, ever say the word “Seven.” It’s bad luck. If you do, players will stare you down. They hate it. However, if you want to have real fun (if you consider instigating fun), bet against the table and start chanting “seven, seven, seven” over and over. I’d be willing to bet that at least a few players will leave.

Craps is an intricate and exciting game. There’s so much history and fun tidbits that you could spend a lot of time just learning it all. If you’re newer to Craps, I’d recommend learning a little bit about the game, like layout, game flow and betting odds, before playing. Take it one step at a time and don’t feel like you need to bet everything, because you don’t. In Craps, you could make just one type of wager and ignore everything else and still make a lot of money.

That said, here are some fast Blackjack tactics that can be applied anywhere. Hopefully, you’ll find them useful.

Bankroll

Simply put, you need to budget your gambling money. Don’t just show up with an “open account” and start wagering. Every time you visit the casino, have a set amount in mind that you’ll willing to lose. And keep to it should the unfortunate happen.

Bet Right

If you have a $100 bankroll, don’t go playing $25 hands. In theory, you want to bet about 1/20th of your bankroll (1/40th if being really conservative). This is why setting up a bankroll is important. It’s okay to bet a little higher now and then, but never bet the farm on one hand.

Never Splits 10s / Faces

You have 20, the second best hand in the game. Never split 10s or faces, it’s just stupid. Don’t be greedy. That type of player loses far more than he or she wins. Be happy with your 20 and take it to the bank—even if the dealer has a 6 showing.

Always Split 8s – Not

Most Blackjack books say to always split 8’s. Do it if you want, but if the dealer is showing a 10 and I know there are big cards in the deck, I’m not doing it. Why get screwed twice in one hand?

Here’s a great rule for Blackjack: there are no “always” rules.

Double Down on 11

Ah, the famous rule that even non-Blackjack players know. Of course, most everyone says that you should “always” double down on 11. See the last rule for my theory on that. Yes, you can do it and you’ll do okay, but I’m not a greedy player. If the dealer has a 10 showing, I’d rather just hit and take my regular winnings if I win and lose my regular amount if the hand goes that way.

Take Even Money

Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. If you have Blackjack and the dealer asks for insurance, take the even money payoff and move on. Think about this. You’re risking 100% of a wager (tie) to gain a 50% bonus. It doesn’t make mathematical sense. Just take your bet and move on.

There you have it. These are Blackjack tactics that you can use at any table in the world. Have fun playing Blackjack. I wish you the best of luck. Don’t split those 10s and faces!

For simplicity’s sake, we’ll just call the game Baccarat like everyone else. Actually, this is one game that allows players to play and win without knowing anything. We’ll go over the game quickly in a moment, but let’s just say that as a player, you don’t really have to think much. I love the game, because I can just kick back and let the dealer do all the work. The game has a degree of suspense.

Wagering

Baccarat has three wager points. As a player, you can pick up to two of them per game. The three wager areas are the Player, the Banker and Ties. With each hand you’ll pick either the Banker or the Player. If you think the hand will end in a tie, you can bet that too. Also, you can just bet the Tie if you want, but that’s pretty pointless, since ties are rare.

Both the Player and Banker bets are paid even money. There’s one catch. Wins on the Banker are taxed (vig) 5%, because the Banker has a slight edge. Tie winning wagers are paid 9 to 1.

House Edge – Low

Here’s the best reason for learning Baccarat. The house advantage is very low. In fact, it’s the lowest of any casino game. The lower the better. Unlike some guys, which can have house edges of 14% or higher, the house edge on Banker bets is only 1.06% and 1.24% on Player bets.

However, don’t get excited about the Tie bet. The house edge there is through the roof. Personally, I never bother with this bet. Why give away 14.35% of your money? By the way, some Baccarat games offer a 4% commission on winning Banker’s bets. That’s golden, because it lowers the house edge to just 0.60%. It’s very nice.

Playing the Game

Baccarat is a simple game that’s 100% controlled by a dealer. You don’t interact with the game at all, aside from placing wagers. The game uses multiple decks from a shoe (4+ decks).

At the conclusion of the game, the dealer takes all losing wagers and pays winning ones. All commissions are added. Some places require you to pay as you go, others let you accumulate it for a bit.

In part two we’ll go over the game in more detail, including hand play strategy and more.

Video Poker machines come in all flavors. The traditional version is Jacks or Better. I still play this version, but not as much as I used to. These are your typical 9/6 machines, which means that a full house pays 9 coins and a flush pays 6 coins. They are great payers and one could make a good deal of cash by utilizing optimal strategy on them.

That’s not just me talking. Video poker experts will gladly tell you that the 9/6 video poker machine is the one to start on and to play for the best results. Whether playing for nickels or dollars, the 9/6 is great. I play other versions, like More for Four, because I want big payouts and don’t mind giving up cash on the little stuff. It’s a tradeoff, but it’s fun.

When stepping up to any video poker machine to show it who is boss, you first need to find out what the payback percentage is. Do you know what this means? The payback percentage is the amount of money that’s returned to players each cycle. The cycle is tons of plays over time, so don’t assume this means that you’ll be guaranteed to get X% back during your playing session, which is really short compared to a cycle.

There’s also another version of cycle. Imagine you put $100 into the machine and play $5 hands. After you’ve played 20 hands, that’s one cycle. If the machine pays back 95%, in theory you’d have $95 left.

Just keep in mind that payback percents aren’t per session or per dollars entered. In any case, do yourself a favor and know the payback percent before playing any video poker machine. Obviously, the higher the better. Anything under 96% is pretty terrible. Machines can vary from machine to machine, not section to section, too. If you play online video poker, knowing the payback percentage is pretty easy enough.

Don’t limit yourself to just one style of video poker. There’s an exciting world of video poker out there. Try to at least sample some of it.

Soc-Bo is a table game. The table is square and as per the usual, betting is done with chips. Unless the game you’re at is ancient, the table will actually light up to show the winning dice combinations. The basic purpose of the game is to guess the numbers that will come out on the three dice used to play the game. Simple right?

Okay, there’s a little more than that. You can get paid a multiple of ways, which means the game gets really addictive. The payouts vary from even money (yawn) to 180-1 (now we’re talking). Of course, with higher payouts comes higher house advantages. As with other games, like Craps, there are some bets that are just stupid—but are fun and lovely when you score them.

Like with Roulette, there’s a high and low bet. They are called Small and Big. The Small bet is for dice totals equaling 4 to 10. The Big bet is for dice totals equaling 11 to 18—remember there are three dice.

You can also bet on pairs (two sixes for example). The payout varies, so check the layout or ask the dealer. This is a fun bet. I like it. Typically, you’ll be paid 8-1 for this wager, but I’ve seen 10-1. For a little more excitement, bet on the Triplet. As you might expect, you need all three dice to be the same. Light em up and you’ll be paid a whopping 180 – 1. Yes, your odds of hitting it are lower and the house advantage is high, but it sure is a nice payout.

It’s dice, which means there are plenty of ways to bet them. Another way is the two-number combo, which allows you to wager on any of the combos listed on the layout. For instance, one come is a 5 and 3. This wager pays 5 to 1 when it hits.

Finally, there’s one more bet that I really like. It’s the single number wager. As the name implies, you’re betting on 1-6. You’ve got three shots to win this bet too. First, the number could come up once on any of the dice and that pays even money. Second, the number could come up twice (pays 2-1). Lastly, it could come up thrice (pays 3-1).

Either way you slice it, Sic-Bo is a fun, addictive dice game. If you’re a Craps enthusiast, check out Sic-Bo.

Here’s the bottom line on money management. The purpose is to help you control the flow of money in the casino. It’s like a financial plan of sorts. Casinos are fun, but it’s extremely easy to get very “loose” with your money in them. Money management, if used and followed, can help you never lose more than you want and ensure that you walk away a winner.

First up is the task of not losing more than you want. It’s fairly easy to implement, but harder to follow. Basically, you want to set a spending amount before entering a casino or logging on. For instance, let’s say you’re willing to lose $100. That would be your spending limit. When you’ve lost $100 you’d leave the casino no matter what’s happening. Part of this step is also realizing that the odds of you winning millions are small.

So, we now have a “bankroll” of $100 and we’re ready to have some fun at the casino. By establishing this bankroll, you know how to play. For instance, if you’re a Blackjack player with a bankroll of $100, you wouldn’t start playing $25 hands. Perhaps $5 hands are more appropriate.

And this is part of the second task of money management—wagering. After establishing a bankroll, you need to establish a general wager amount. For instance, in Blackjack, you want to divide your bankroll by 20, which is 20 hands of play. For poker, you might divide by 40. And for Craps, you might divide by 50—so a $100 bankroll means you should play at the $1 Craps table.

Another benefit of watching your money is winning more. As you’re playing, pay attention to your current bankroll. For instance, if you’re playing Blackjack and your bankroll is now $200, you might change those $5 hands into $10 hands. It’s a ladder system. Likewise, if your bankroll declines to $40, you might play $1 Blackjack to try and get it up again.

You see, money management doesn’t need to be extremely technical. You don’t need amazing math skills either. By following these simple steps, you’ll get more out of your casino experience. The last step is to set a win amount and leave when you hit that amount—unless you’re willing to just play your bankroll out.

Without getting to technical with game play, you can play a 6-spot Keno ticket and get paid 1,500 – 1 for hitting all of your numbers. So, a $1 wager pays $1,500. That’s pretty sweet. I’ve seen people hit huge amounts of money in Keno and I’ve won myself.

Quick history lesson. Keno isn’t some original game concocted in the dark basements of Las Vegas testing labs. The Chinese brought it to America when they helped work on the railroad. It was the 1800s and Chinese railroad workers were spreading this fun, lucky game to Americans. It caught on and here we are today.

So, Keno is the lotto miniaturized. Rather than having a 190,000,000 to 1 shot of winning, like the lotto, you have better odds in Keno. It’s the same concept. You pick numbers and wait for them to come up. Keno has 80 numbers, numbered 1-80. Each game, 20 of these numbers are drawn each game. As a player, you can pick 1-15 numbers—some casinos offer 20-number tickets too. When a number you selected is drawn, it’s called a “hit.” Unlike the lotto, you don’t need to hit all of your numbers to win. For instance, hitting 3 out of 6 pays. The more you hit, the more cash you win (obviously).

Keno can be played online and in regular casinos. In the real world, there’s “live” keno and video keno. Live keno is conducted in a lounge with people. Usually the computer calls out the numbers and games are run every few minutes. In video keno, you play at your own pace. Live keno offers more options (way tickets, etc), but video keno is just as fun and profitable. So, try some online keno if you want.

Here’s a big tip to new Keno players. Payout amounts are not standardized. For instance, if you play Blackjack and win a hand (not Blackjack), it’s going to pay even money ($5 wins $5). With Keno, the house determines the payout. I’ve seen $1 6-spots pay $1,000 – $3,000. Make sure you shop around if playing online. Decide what you’re most likely to play and look for the best payouts for that type of ticket.

Keno is a blast and winning can yield a large cash windfall for a small wager.

I like online Craps too. Sure, it’s missing that ambiance element in the real world casino, but the game is just as exciting. Those dice turn and your heart stops and you wait for the number to be revealed. If you’re a Craps neophyte, online Craps is excellent. You can go at your own pace. Try this in the real world. You may get eaten up. It’s go, go, go at the Craps table.

Craps is just amazing. In fact, once you really know the game inside and out, you might not want to play anything else. There are so many bets, so much action. It’s really unrivaled in the casino. I mean, let’s stop and think here. What other game offers as much? If you play Blackjack, you kick back, get a couple cards and decide to hit or stand when it’s your turn. How about slots? You simply put money in and spin the wheels. Not much option there.

No my friend, Craps offers more options and exciting possibilities than any other casino game on Earth. Craps is for the gambler looking for tons of profit potential. And don’t be scared of Craps either. Just because it has lots of options doesn’t mean you need to do them all. Start out small, make a constant bet or two and learn slowly. Once you get the hang of it, the game will appear to move “slow” anyway. It only seems lightning fast to first timers.

I always recommend newcomers stick to the basic Craps bet, the passline. It’s simple, profitable and gets you into the excitement of the table. Once you’ve mastered this, start by placing numbers and progress from there.

One word of advice. Anything in the center of the layout (Any Craps, Hardways, etc) are bad bets. This is where the House makes its money. And that big area on the layout with all those pretty numbers on it (The Field) is just as bad, but fun from time to time. Stay away from the center bets and The Field and you’ll be just fine.

Don’t take my word for it. Head out to the Craps table right now and experience the “Rolls Royce” of casino games.

Who the heck wants to travel—spending hours in an airport and lots of money on hotels and food—when you can simply surf around the Internet and log on to any online casino in minutes. The time of day or night doesn’t matter. Going to bed? Why not play a few hands of Blackjack on the way and win some cold hard cash to help you sleep better?

One great feature is the payout. Nothing is worse than being in a casino and being paid tens of thousands of dollars and having to walk outside. I know, I’ve done it. Talk about looking over your shoulder and running for a vehicle. At an online casino, you can win millions and conveniently deposit it into your financial account. Vegas casinos really need to step up and offer this option. Oh yeah, if you win a good deal of money, like at Video Poker, you have to sign tax forms in Vegas. And if you’re foreign, they’ll take up to 40% of your winnings on the spot! No thanks.

Online casinos save you money and embarrassment. Tips make the world go round in real world casinos. Everyone, from the dealers to the waiters, have their hands out for your money. If you don’t tip, and well, you lose face and feel like a loser. Forget that. With online casinos you never tip one penny of your own money, which means more cash in your pocket!

I’m a big tipper, but part of me hates doing it unless the person is really worth it. The problem is that the whole culture has their hand out for just doing their job. You can’t escape it. Cashing in $1,000 in chips at the cashier’s cage? You better leave something. Get some good hands in Blackjack? You better leave something. And so on. It’s crushing to your wallet if you spend a good amount of time in the casino and if you win nicely.

Lastly, brick and mortar casinos hold you hostage on the tables. You’re very limited. You can only play whatever they have open and at the limits they want. I once walked into a casino to play Craps casually and they had all $25 tables. With online casinos, you can play any limit you want. It’s the absolute best.

Thanks to online gambling, the gambler (you) is finally in control and you can have a great gaming experience.

It’s not wise to play the game without knowing how it works, so let’s go over hand rankings. If you’ve played poker of any kind, you probably know this already. It’s fairly simple. Here is the Caribbean Stud Poker hand-ranking list. I’m starting with the lowest hands first.

High Card: This is the hand you have when you can’t make any hand. Your highest card is your hand.

One Pair: Having two cards of the same rank, such as two Kings.

Two Pair: When you have two cards of one rank and two more cards of an additional ranks, such as two Kings and two Queens.

Three of a Kind: When you have three cards of the same rank, such as three Jacks.

Straight: When you have five cards all in sequential orders, such as 6, 7, 8 ,9 and 10. As a note, the Ace can be used before the 2 or after the King.

Flush: All five of your cards are the same suit, such as five clubs.

Full House: You have three cards of one rank and two cards of another rank, such as three Jacks and two Aces.

Four of a Kind: Four of your cards are the same rank, such as four 7s.

Straight Flush: This is the same as the straight except all five cards are the same suit, such as hearts.

Royal Flush: This is the granddaddy of the them all. It’s a straight flush that has the cards 10, Jack, Queen, King and Ace. Think the progressive is a waste of $1? Imagine you have this hand and the dealer doesn’t qualify. You’d be paid even money on your ante bet only.

Let’s close with a little strategy talk. Strategy is all over the place in this game. Since the dealer doesn’t qualify a good amount of time, I have two strategy ideas to present with you.

First, if you’re playing $10 or higher hands, bet the progressive. At $10 antes, the progressive is a 10% add-on, so it’s not too much. And you’ll be glad when you have a decent hand and the dealer doesn’t qualify.
Second, stay in hands when you have a hand. If all you have is a high card, you have to pray the dealer doesn’t qualify. I don’t think it’s worth risking 2x your ante for a shot in the dark.

Either way, Caribbean Stud Poker is a great game to play. I hope you’ll give it a try.

As you know from our previous segment, the dealer must qualify for you to be paid on your raise wagers. Antes are always paid even money. Here’s a handy listing of what raise wagers are paid when the dealer’s hand rank is an Ace-King or better.

One Pair: paid even money. Ex: $10 is paid $10.
Two Pair: paid 2x your raise. Ex: $10 is paid $20.
Three of a Kind: paid 3x your raise. Ex: $10 is paid $30.
Straight: paid 4x your raise. Ex: $10 is paid $40.
Flush: paid 5x your raise. Ex: $10 is paid $50.
Full House: paid 7x your raise. Ex: $10 is paid $70.
Four of a Kind: paid 20x your raise. Ex: $10 is paid $200.
Straight Flush: paid 50x your raise. Ex: $10 is paid $500.
Royal Flush: paid 100x your raise. Ex: $10 is paid $1,000.

Here’s an important note. These payouts are not globally applied. Each casino may have different payouts. For instance, I once saw an online casino that paid 200x on the Royal Flush and 6x on a Full House. Shop around. That’s vital for the progressives.

The real money in Caribbean Stud Poker is won via the progressives. These payouts vary from casino to casino, so shop around to find the best deal. Some will pay less on a Royal Flush, but a lot more on a Four of a Kind. Also keep in mind that these payouts are always made regardless of the dealer’s hand. It’s $1 per hand to get locked into the progressives.

Here’s an example setup for a Caribbean Stud Poker progressive:

Flush: Payout of $50 – $100.
Full House: Payout of $75 – $250.
Four of a Kind: Payout of $100 – $500 (see, shop around).
Straight Flush: 10% of the current progressive jackpot amount. Ex: progressive is $50,000 so the payout would be $5,000.
Royal Flush: The big boy. It pays the whole progressive.

If you read any decent book on casino gambling, it will probably tell you that the progressive is a bad wager. But, they obviously haven’t been sitting at a Caribbean Stud Table and received a Four of a Kind only to see the dealer not qualify. To me, it’s a small price to pay for insurance.

In our last part of this series, we’ll talk about hand rankings and perhaps look at some strategy for winning.

Today, I’ll continue on this great journey of ours. We all should strive to be smart gamblers. The last 4 smart gambling tips will fly at you fast, so get ready. And remember, these are just primers to get you started. If you’re super serious, you could go deeper. For instance, you could read an entire book’s worth of information on bankroll alone. Here are smart gambling tips 3 – 7:

3. Know thy game

Don’t play any casino game seriously unless you know it really well. It’s one thing to spend a few bucks while learning or just having fun, but it’s another to play it over and over without knowing the fine details of odds, strategy, etc.

4. Know more than one game

It’s fine to “specialize” in one game, but you should know two games or more well. There will be times when it’s smart to walk away from a game. Maybe your head just isn’t working well at that time or the game is too hot the wrong way.

5. Slots are for fun

Show me one player that’s played slots a ton and has won a lot and I’ll show you either someone that happened to get lucky by hitting a very large jackpot or a liar. Slots are for fun, not profit. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying them in doses, but don’t make this your main game.

6. A tip is a loss

This is for the guys and gals playing in the real world. It’s a common courtesy for players to tip good dealers or the cocktail waitress. This is fine, but it’s money lost, so you need to treat it as such. If you’re playing $1 Blackjack and you’re up $10 when the cocktail waitress comes around think for a minute. If you tip $1, you’ve just lost 10% of your profits. I’m not saying don’t tip, but you need to keep it relative. And all money out is money lost-good cause or not.

7. Love what you do

It doesn’t matter if Baccarat (House Bet) is the best bet in the house if the game bores you to tears. You’ve got to love what you’re doing. If not, you’ll get mentally lazy and that’s when money is lost for sure. Stick with your passions. And there you go. That’s 7 solid tips to becoming a smart gambler.

First, placing a wager on the Ante spot is mandatory. Don’t place it and you can’t play. Most tables have a $5 or $10 minimum wager, so this would be the lowest you could go on your ante. You basically have up to three decisions to make each hand and deciding to play by placing the ante is the first one.

Once you’ve anted up, it’s time to make your second playing decision of the hand. Do you want to play the progressive? If so, you need to place $1 into the progressive slot. By doing so, you’re qualified for all the progressive payouts should your hand qualify.

After that’s settled, the cards are dealt. Once you’ve analyzed your hand, the last decision that you’ll make on each hand is whether to fold and call it a day or to stay in and play. If you want to fold, you lose your ante and progressive and the hand is over. Should you stay, you must place a Raise wager. This wager is always double your ante. For instance, let’s say you anted with $10, your raise would be $20. It’s never more or less.

Let’s back up for a minute. After you ante and decide on the progressive, the dealer will deal you five cards. And these are your only cards of the hand (unlike draw poker). The dealer also gets five cards. Your goal is to beat the dealer’s hand. If you think you can beat the dealer’s hand, that’s when you raise and stay in. The dealer’s hand will reveal one card to you.

So let’s imagine that you’ve stayed in the hand. It’s time to evaluate all hands to see who wins. The dealer must have an Ace-King hand or better to qualify. If not, all bettors win their Ante bet only and all raises are simply returned. However, all progressives are paid. We’ll talk about hand rankings and payouts in the next segment of this series.

The downside about qualifying is felt when you have a good hand, like a four of a kind. If the dealer doesn’t qualify and you have a four of a kind, you’d be paid even money on your ante wager, say $10, and that’s it. By the way, antes are always paid even money. The raises are paid based on the hand ranking only if the dealer qualifies.

And that leads us into our next segment, hand payouts and progressive payouts.

Today I’ll share with you 7 tips designed to get you thinking in the right frame of mind. All smart gamblers know these tips and soon you will too. Perhaps you already know some of them. Just remember, knowing and practicing are two different things.

1. Know the house edge.

That’s right. As a smart player, you must know the house edge for the games you play. Not knowing the house edge is just plain dumb. And it’s easy enough to find out. And this goes for all the wagers within the game too. For instance, the house edge on a Pass Line wager in Craps is much lower than the house edge on a Any Craps wager in Craps. Know them. Live them.

2. Setup and use a bankroll.

Never, ever go into a casino (or login online) without setting up a bankroll for your playing session. You should set a lose and win limit. And keep them realistic. For instance, you might set your bankroll at $200. This means if you lose $200, you’re done. I like setting my win limit to 200%, so it would be $400 in this case. Not having a bankroll, and sticking to it, kills most of the gamblers out there. Don’t let it be you.

3. There is no house money.

All day long in any Las Vegas casino you’ll hear something like, “I’m playing with the house’s money” Not true. This is a stupid psychological weapon launched onto gamblers. Once you win, it’s your money. Read that again. You are never, ever playing with the house’s money. People think this and their mind uses it as a reason to care less about the money in their possession. This is dumb.

This line of thinking also keeps people from walking away-until they are back to “even” or worse. Smart gamblers always respect the money in their possession. It’s theirs and not property of the house. So there are the first three tips to becoming a smart gambler. In our next article, we go over more smart gambling tips.

These tips are nice and all, but they don’t mount up to a hill of beans unless you rigorously practice them. And you can be guaranteed that you’ll be tested. In a casino, it’s very easy to break these rules-in good times and bad.

Caribbean Stud Poker is popular because it’s so darn easy to learn and it’s fun. The game is played with a regular 52-card deck on a blackjack-style table. Each table holds up to 7 players. And of course, you can play at online casinos. Some online casinos have multi-player Caribbean Stud Poker. Even if you’re playing by yourself, it’s still a fun game.

When you look at a Caribbean Stud Poker table you’ll notice five main areas of interest to the game. The closest to your seat is the card area where you’ll receive your cards each hand. The dealer also has a card area. These are the two main focal points during a hand.

Following that up are the three betting areas in Caribbean Stud Poker. First, there’s the Ante spot. This is where you place your first bet for each hand. It’s required to play. The second betting spot is the progressive slot. If you slip $1 into the progressive slot before each hand, you’ll be qualified to win one of the progressive jackpots should you receive the proper hand. More on this later. And the last betting spot is the Raise wager spot. This is a required bet to stay in the hand after you’ve received your cards. We’ll discuss all of this in more detail shortly.

Seeing the betting options should put your mind at ease about this game. It’s not complicated. You bet, get your cards, bet a fixed amount to stay in, and win or lose. It’s very simple. Heck, even a child could pick up Caribbean Stud Poker to a degree and play. Perhaps the “biggest” item to learn is the hand ranking. But, if you already play poker or video poker, you know this. And if not, it’s fairly easy-especially online where they have help menus.

In the next part of our Caribbean Stud Poker series we’ll talk about the action of a hand from start to finish. Later in the series, we’ll talk about payouts, hand ranking, and progressives, which vary from casino to casino. Some call Caribbean Stud Poker a “carnival” game, because the house advantage is high. Still, it’s a great game to break up the monotony and there’s nothing wrong with enjoying yourself every now and then.

Money management becomes far more important (more so than it already is). As with anything in the world of Blackjack, there are loads of Blackjack tournament strategies. And once you’ve participated in a few, you’ll most likely develop your own Blackjack tournament strategies.

Blackjack strategies for tournament play are so diverse. I really don’t think there’s a right and wrong way to do things-as far as “all the time” strategy is concerned. Of course, if you win, it’s the “right” way and if you lose, it’s not.

For instance, let’s say you’re an all or nothing kind of player. The strategy you end up using for Blackjack tournaments will be large bets and highly aggressive play. This can work for or against you. On one hand, you can be out quickly. On the other, if you get a nice run of cards, you’ll be the chip king soon enough. It’s much better than being a player that always bets the minimum. Those players can hit huge runs of cards and still be just a little ahead.

In fact, if there’s one strategy I know doesn’t work too well, it’s the “hoarder.” This player will almost always bet the minimum and hope everyone else runs out of chips. This type of player rarely, very rarely wins anything. I’m not saying to be ultra loose, but if you play this tight, you’re just begging to lose. And who wants to do that? Plus, it’s not that much fun.

Overall, the best strategies for Blackjack tournaments have one thing in common. They all feature mixed play. You don’t want to be ultra conservative or mega loose all the time. Mix it up. For instance, you may play somewhat conservative until you feel a run of cards and then you’ll crank it up.

Whatever you do, don’t consistently bet more after a loss. We call this “chasing a win.” It usually leads to a quick exit. My personal favorite strategy is to bet just above the minimum initially and then increase my bet after each win. I don’t double up though. I always pull a little back into the bank. With this method, I’m setting myself up to win big if I get a good run of cards and I’m set up to last a bit if I don’t.

This article will assume you don’t know anything about the game. The goal is to get you up and playing within minutes from now.

Pontoon is generally played with two decks of cards and those decks are shuffled after every hand. To start playing, you must put a wager down.

Once all bets are in, the hand begins with each player and the dealer receiving two cards. The cards are worth their face value. For instance, the two of clubs is worth two. All face cards are worth 10 and the Ace can be one or 11-your choice.

The goal is technically to beat the dealer. However, the usual goal listed in books is to get as close to 21 without going over. So, keep that in mind when you start to play.

When it’s your turn, you have various options. First, if you like your hand as is, just stand, which means to end your turn for the hand.

Should your hand need some work, you can take a hit, which means to take one card. If your hand is 21 or less, you can then hit again or stand. If your hand goes over 21, you bust and you lose. This is why the dealer goes last. It gives the casino an edge.

If you have 5 cards and have 21 or less, you’ll win unless the dealer does the same thing. It’s important to note that the dealer wins all ties.

When you stand with 4 or fewer cards, your hand count must beat the dealer’s hand count. The dealer will hit on soft 17, which means a 17 that was created using an Ace.

I can’t stress this enough. The dealer wins all ties. Think about this when you’re playing. Should the dealer have 21 or less with five cards, you lose-period.

Another option you have it splitting. If your first two cards are the same, such as 7,7 or Q,Q, you can split them and make two separate hands-adding another wager of equal value to your original bet.

Your last option when it’s your turn is doubling. You’ve probably heard “double down” a billion times. Well, in Pontoon, you can double down. When you double down, you increase your wager and draw another card. In Pontoon, you can hit after doubling too.

The payouts are pretty simple. If you win with a two-card 21, which is called a Pontoon, you get paid 2-1. So, a $10 wager earns $20. Another way to earn a 2-1 payout is by having a five-card hand and being at 21 or under.

All other winning hands pay even money. And there you have it. Pontoon the easy way.

I think the game exploded, because it’s a snap to learn and it’s a fun social game. Playing it alone is fun too, but there’s nothing quite like a full and rowdy table of Caribbean Stud Poker players.

Okay, let’s jump into the game and go over some of the rules. If you don’t know how to play and you want to start at the beginning, we’ve got another article on this site that does this.

First, you need to Ante up. Let’s imagine that you’ve just put $5 down. After you get your cards, you need to evaluate them and decide if you want to stay in the hand. Here’s the big decision of the game. If you want to quit, you fold. If not, you need to double your Ante and push this amount to the Bet area. So, in our example, we had a $5 Ante. The Bet would be $10 and we’d end up with $15 on the table.

How you win money

You’re playing against the dealer only. If the dealer has a hand rank of Ace-King or better, it’s game on. If not, your Ante bet is paid even money and your Bet wager is pushed back to you.

If the dealer qualifies, and you beat the dealer’s hand, your Ante is paid even money, but your Bet wager is paid according to your hand rank. Here’s the pay chart:

One Pair or nothing: even money
Two Pair: 2:1
Three of a Kind: 3:1
Straight: 4:1
Flush: 5:1
Full House: 7:1
Four of a Kind: 20:1
Straight Flush: 50:1
Royal Flush: 100:1

Remember, the “odds” are paid to your Bet wager only. If you played the $1 progressive, you’ll receive even money for a Flush or better.

And don’t forget that the dealer must qualify or your beautiful hand gets paid nothing but the even money on the Ante wager. That’s why I love to play the progressive always.

Example Hand

Okay, let’s run through a quick example. First, you place a $10 wager on the table and $1 in the progressive-it’s always just a buck. You get your cards and you have a flush. Obviously, you want to stay in this hand, so you place the $20 Bet wager to stay in.

Let me point out that your Bet wager is always 2x the Ante. You can’t bet more or less ever.

The dealer turns the hand over and has two pair-you win. Your Ante wager is paid $10 and your Bet wager is paid $100 (5:1), for a total of $110 won on the hand. But wait! You played the progressive, so you’ll be paid that bonus too.

The progressive bonus varies and we’ll talk about it in another article.

It’s pretty well known that Blackjack is a game that gives players a real advantage to win money. To win over the long run, you need to develop an optimal strategy. Counting cards will help you, if done right. Here’s the basic premise. Small cards help the dealer, big cards help you. When we count cards, we want to know if the deck contains more small cards or more big cards (or about even).

Since card counting is part of an optimal strategy, let’s go over a couple quick tips first.

When you have an 11, it’s generally a good idea to double down. Unless the dealer is showing a 10, then it’s your call. Next, never split anything above an 8. Ideally, you won’t split anything but Aces and 8’s. Think about it. There’s no reason to split 10’s as you have 20. Splitting 4’s just gives you two potentially very poor losing hands.

Counting

Card counting isn’t that hard. All you’re doing is assigning a number to each card you see. When you see a card, you’ll either subtract 2, subtract 1, add 2, add 1 or do nothing. Card counting strategies vary somewhat, but they all use a running count. You start at 0 when the deck or shoe is new and go from there.

Here’s an example of one card counting strategy for Blackjack:

1. Subtract 2 from the running count if the card is a 9, 10 or face.
2. Subtract 1 if the card shown is a 7 or 8.
3. Add 2 if you see a 2, 3, or 4.
4. Add 1 if you see a 5 or 6.

As mentioned, the more bigger cards that remain, the more likely you are to win and the more likely you are to score a Blackjack. Small cards can be the death of a player. So, when the count is high, you bet more. When it’s low, you reduce your bet.

In more advanced versions, you get a little more mathematical by figuring out what percentage of the deck or shoe is left and figuring that number into the count. While it does give you a more accurate picture, it’s too hard for novices, so ignore it for now.

One last note. When you count cards, you must count all cards on the table, not just your own. Good luck counting and may all your hands be winning ones.

The odds are, you know how to play the game and don’t even know it. Do you know how to play Blackjack? If so, you’ll pick up Pontoon in seconds, because they are pretty much the same there. There are some slight differences.

In Pontoon, like Blackjack, the object is to come as close to 21 as possible without going over. Of course, the real object is to beat the dealer-even if that means standing on a lower hand like 13.

The game is played with two decks of cards and those two decks are re-shuffled after every hand. Now, be careful here. A casino can do whatever they want usually, so they might reshuffle after every two hands or something different.

All players and the dealer receive two initial cards. With each hand, you must decide if you want to take another card or stand with what you have. Since I’m assuming you have some Blackjack knowledge, I’m not going to go into intricate details with these moves. I’ll do that in another article.

If your cards equal 22 or more, you lose. Once all the players have played, the dealer takes his or her turn. Like Blackjack, the dealer will hit on soft 17-some casinos may be different and have the dealer hit a soft 17, but not likely.

Here’s a huge kicker in this game; the dealer wins all pushes (ties). This is a great reason for the house to have dealers stand on 17. The dealer also wins if he or she has five or more cards that total under 21.

As the player, you can win if you get five or more cards and haven’t busted-unless the dealer gets five or more cards and has under 21 too.

The card values are the same as Blackjack. A 7 of clubs is worth 7 points. An Ace can be used as 1 or 11. Face cards are worth ten.

Here’s another interesting-and profitable-difference. When your first two cards equal 21, it’s called a “Pontoon” and not a “Blackjack.” In Blackjack, this pays 1.5 to 1, but in Pontoon, you get paid 2-1. That’s a nice increase in your pay.

And just when you thought that was as good as it gets, here’s another big payout difference. If you win by having five or fewer cards that total 21 or less, you get paid 2-1 as well. So, there’s two ways to score a 2-1 payment in Pontoon.

If you like Blackjack, give Pontoon a crack. You might like it.

In fact, many losing poker players could turn around their fortunes just by playing their first two cards better. Poker is full of all sorts of things you need to learn, but learning how to play your starting hand is perhaps the most important. Unless you’re on the blinds, you get a free look at your possibility for the hand.

Your first two cards and the action before you determines if it’s time to jump in or bail out. Over the rest of this article, I’ll present some random hands to help you better understand what types of starting hands are good to play and when. If you’re new to game, there’s one word I want you to learn-tight. Your play should be very tight.

Starting Hand: AA or KK

This is a great hand to get. You’re already a leg up on the other players most of the time. Generally, you want to hit the pot strong. More experienced players will sometimes “bait” opponents into the pot, but new players should always raise or re-raise with this hand.

Starting Hand: AK – Big Slick

Suited or not, this is another good hand to get into the action with. As with the AA or KK, don’t limp into the pot unless you know what you’re doing. Come strong or don’t come at all. Raise or re-raise with this hand.

Starting Hand: Ace and any other non-face.

It never fails. A new poker player sees an Ace is his or her hand and immediately jumps into the hand. Wrong. Just because you have an Ace doesn’t mean your hand is worth a hill of beans-unless you’re playing head-to-head poker.

As with any hand, there are times when any two cards could work. New players should be very cautious with Ace hands. If the other card is low and non-suited, it’s best to dump the hand.

The mistake new poker players make is anteing up to see the flop. Doesn’t seem like much, but this act will cost you a lot of money and in the end, you’ll be a loser for it. The margin between profiting and losing in poker is razor thin. Don’t pay to see flops unless you have a good hand.

Remember, smart play starts from the moment you sit down (virtually or in real life) at the poker table. Use every chip, every move wisely.

Before playing any game of Blackjack (or any casino game) it’s important to know the rules and the payouts. Nothing could be worse than having a huge bet out there and being told that you can’t do something, like split Aces and hit. That’s the pits. Know the game before you play. Ask if you must. Online Blackjack is easier, because all the rules are usually just a click away. And the rules are vital if you plan on playing some sort of system. Not all systems are universal.

One variation of Blackjack is European Blackjack. It’s played with two decks. Unlike some places on the Las Vegas Strip (unless they offer this variation), the dealer must stand on a soft 17. Oh, and here’s a big difference. You can only double down on 9 and 11. That’s right. So, if you have an Ace and an 8 with the dealer showing a 6, you can’t double.

For most people, this limitation is no big deal. But, it can be tough to swallow for the more aggressive player. Another aggressive player killer is the fact that you can’t double down after a split no matter what. In this version of Blackjack, the house has a 0.39% advantage.

Moving on, we come to Atlantic City Blackjack. This version of Blackjack is always played with eight decks via a shoe. As with Euro Blackjack, the dealer must stand on soft 17. And that’s how Downtown Las Vegas plays it too. Splitting is allowed, but only up to three hands. And you can double on the first two cards after splitting too.

Another interesting option is late surrender, which is allowed in the Atlantic City version. The house advantage is slightly lower at 0.35%.

And that brings us to Double Exposure Blackjack, which is a crowd favorite-at least at first. You can see both dealer cards. Easy win right? Not so fast. The dealer wins all ties. Yep, no pushes, you just lose. It’s the price to pay for knowing what the dealer has.

Another feature that I don’t personally like is Blackjack payouts only paying even money. There’s no bonus at all, which kind of ruins the game for me. The game is played with a shoe that holds 8 decks and the dealer hits on soft 17.

Even though the dealer shows both cards, the house advantage nearly doubles the previous two versions we talked about. It’s 0.69%.

In Las Vegas, War was a side game. If a casino had it, the game was given one table spot in the pit. Thankfully, online casinos aren’t limited to floor space and that’s why most online casinos have War.

Okay, I’m not going to assume you know how to play, so I’ll start at the beginning.

War is played against the dealer. If you’re playing it online, it will just be you at the table. In real life, there could be other players, but everyone is playing against the dealer.

War is played with one deck of cards and the deck is shuffled after every hand. Your goal is to beat the dealer. It’s a simple game. You get one card and the dealer gets one card. You want your card to be higher than the dealer’s card.

In War, the cards rank like this: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, Jack, Queen, King and Ace.

Okay, it’s called War and war is what we want. If your card matches (in rank) the card the dealer gets, you’ve got a potential war. I say potential, because you can fold if you feel nervous.

I don’t recommend folding. Why? Well, if you’re not going to war, why play the game. Honestly, the fold option makes no sense. It’s just there to take advantage of the suckers. I mean think about it. The deck is fresh. Two cards are out. You and the dealer have the same cards. Why on earth would you fold?

Instead, your move is to double your wager (required to stay in the hand) and see what happens. It’s just like the classic game. Three cards are placed face down on each hand and a fourth card is placed face up. If your fourth card is higher than the dealer’s fourth card, you win. If not, you lose. It’s as simple as that.

There’s no thinking in this game. It’s a fun game to kick back to. You place your wager, get a card and win, lose or go to war. The payout is always even money no matter how you win.

Actually, war can be a blessing. It’s the only way you can increase your original wager.

Example Hand:

You place a $5 bet. The dealer gets a 7 and you get a 7. You decide to stay in and go to war, so you place an additional $5 wager-$10 total now. You and the dealer get three down cards and a fourth up card. The dealer shows a 6 and you show a 10. You win and are promptly paid $10.

The game has dropped in popularity over the past decade and it’s rarely seen. If you want a game where you can just guess and don’t have to think, this is a good game for you. It’s so darn easy to learn.

The game starts with you making a wager-big surprise right. Actually, there is a little bit of thinking involved, because you’ll get to increase that wager. Okay, so you have the wager on the table. Next, the dealer deals two cards face up in the center of the table.

It’s important to note that an Ace is always the high card. So the pecking order goes: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, J, Q, K, and A.

Once the two cards are dealt, the dealer will announce the “spread.” The hand is over if there’s no spread.

Let’s say that the first card is a 5 and the second card is a Jack, the spread is five-there are five cards (6, 7, 8, 9, 10) between the two cards. At this time, you can either leave your wager as is or increase it. You can add a new amount that’s up to the value of your original wager. So, if you bet $10 initially, you’re added wager can be up to $10.

The bigger the spread, the lower the potential payout. Here’s a listing of the payoffs.

1 card spread: 5:1
2 card spread: 4:1
3 card spread: 2:1
4 card spread or higher: 1:1

Once you decide whether to place an additional wager or leave your bet as is, a third card is dealt. If it falls between the first two cards, you win-pay is as shown above.

For instance, let’s imagine that the first two cards are a 3 and a 6. You would have a two card spread (4,5). The payout would be 4:1. If that third card is a 4 or 5, you win. If not, you lose.

That’s all there is to Red Dog. It’s an incredibly simple game to learn and play. It’s really the classic “guessing game.”

Red Dog can be played with 1-8 decks. And here’s something different. You actually want more decks-unlike Blackjack where less is better. The house edge in Red Dog is about 3.2% with one deck and drops to about 2.8% with eight decks.

According to the dictionary, poker was derived from the French word poque in the early 1800s. And in those days, poque wasn’t even poker. According to sources, community card poker games, such as Texas Hold’em, didn’t come into existence until the 1920s.

Ah the 1920s-girls, gangsters and music. Back then poker was played in super-secret locations where finely dressed gangsters would guard the games. And they weren’t the only ones armed. It was commonplace for players to pack the heat too. Bandits and rival gangs would sometimes raid good poker games and make off with the loot. Playing poker was really hazardous to your health.

The world of Poker dramatically changed in the 1970s and it’s this point in time that most closely resembles today’s poker world. It provided the foundation for everything we have today. The famous Word Series of Poker came along and setup the poker world for today’s numerous big-money poker tournaments, such as those offered by the World Poker Tour and countless venues around the world.

And that leads us to Poker on TV, which is even being embraced by mainstream media outlets such as NBC and ESPN. But what was the key moment in time that made this possible? Surely watching people play poker is boring right? We can all thank the hole card cam. This little invention changed the game. Poker was now fun and viable for TV and we haven’t looked back since.

In fact, you could say that this one invention changed it all. Today, Poker is booming. Players all over the world are playing on TV-most started on the Internet. It’s all thanks to poker being popularized-making stars of the average poker player. And that’s all thanks to the hole card cam, which made all of this possible.

Poker’s history is so rich and filled with fun twists and turns that it would be impossible to deal with it all in a single article. Hopefully this article has wetted your appetite.

If you want to learn more about poker’s history, start with the legendary names, such as Doyle Brunson, David Sklansky, Mike Caro, Binion and then move on to more recent stars, such as Gus Hanson and Daniel Negreanu.

The hand ranking is also similar to blackjack and is as follows: The highest hand is pontoon which is comprised of an ace and any 10-point card making the total 21.

Next highest is a five-card trick. This is a hand of five cards that has not busted, in other words that does not add up to more than 21. The total value of the cards does not matter as long as the hand has not busted.

Finally any non-busted hand of 21 or less. Hands are ranked based on the total point value with the highest value winning.

Each round starts with the dealer dealing each player two cards face up and two cards face down for the dealer. This is different to blackjack in which one of the dealer’s cards is face up.

The dealer then checks his own cards for a pontoon without revealing them to the players. If the dealer has pontoon then he announces his winning hand to the other players and collects all wagers. This will also end the round and the next round starts.

If the dealer does not have pontoon then play proceeds with each player either ‘hitting’ to take more cards or ’standing’. A player may stand on any value greater than or equal to 15 or on a five-card hand.

A player can double up on two to four cards but doubling is only allowed once per hand. This applies after splitting as well. Doubling is the practice of doubling a players wager and then receiving just one more card per hand.

Splitting is permitted for cards of equal rank. If a player scores 21 with a two-card combination after splitting aces it is counted as pontoon. In some casinos after splitting aces, an ace and a ten is considered 21 points but not pontoon. Also some games play a rule that split aces get only one card each. Both these variations benefit the house. If the player busts by going over 21 then he loses his wager.

Once all players have finished playing their hands the dealer reveals his cards and can then draw cards to try and beat the other players. The dealer must continue drawing cards until he passes 17, gets a five-card hand, or has a soft 17 (17 made up of an ace with a six). Some casinos play a rule that the dealer must stand on a soft 17 which reduces the house edge.

Winning hands pay out 2 to 1 and the dealer wins any tied hands. In some casinos only two decks are used instead of eight. This favors the house because the more decks there are the more chances there are of making a five-card trick.

Each round in Let It Ride starts with players placing three bets of equal size. Players are then dealt three cards each and an additional two community cards that are dealt face down. Having checked their cards players are now given the option of either withdrawing one of their initial bets or “letting it ride”. The dealer then turns over one of the two community cards and again players can choose to withdraw one the initial bets or let it ride. The choice to withdraw a bet at this stage is independent of what the player did in the previous round. The dealer then reveals the last community card and each player’s hand is compared to a pay-out table.

Pay-out tables vary from region to region but most US casinos follow the same basic table. However, be warned many tables have a maximum pay-out. You should always check this and not place bets that total more than the maximum pay-out divided by about 3000. Betting above this limit will not pay out the maximum if you hit a royal flush and that means you are effectively increasing the house odds.

The following is a basic strategy guide to Let It Ride based on the standard pay-out table found in most US casinos. After receiving your initial three cards you should only let it ride if you have:

Any paying hand (tens or better, three of a kind). Any three cards required to make up a royal flush. Three straight cards of the same suit with the exception of 2-3-4 and ace-2-3. Three cards of a straight flush, including a ten or higher, and spread out over a group of four consecutive numbers. For instance 7-8-10, or 9-J-Q. Three of a straight flush, including at least two high cards, and spread out over a group of five consecutive numbers. For instance, 8-9-J-Q, or 9-10-Q-K.

After the first of the community cards is turned you should only “let it ride” if you have:

Any hand that is on the pay-out table (pair of tens or better, two pair, three of a kind). Any four cards towards a royal flush. Any four cards towards a straight flush. Any four cards towards a flush. Any four consecutive cards of straight and at least one high card. Any four consecutive cards of a straight with no high cards. Four out of the five cards required for a straight when all four are high cards.

Some casinos also offer a side a bet of $1 that gives you an additional pay-out for some bets. This bet usually offers some of the worst odds out there and should not be taken.

In some ways, online casinos have brought back the old days of true gambling. You get a pure gambling environment. There are no side shows and other nonsense. If you don’t like the payouts, you leave. It’s that simple. Online casinos know this and that’s why they work constantly to offer the best gaming around. I bet if Las Vegas went to a pure gaming atmosphere, it would disappear, because online casinos have better payouts and action-no travel time too.

It’s true that all different types of Blackjack can be found in the world, but who the heck wants to spend valuable money and time getting to it all? Not I. Online casinos offer the perfect solution. Any type of Blackjack you want is at your fingertips.

So, how can we profit from online Blackjack? Aside from the obvious answer, winning, there are a couple primers to profiting. First, we need to understand how the game actually works. Early in this article I alluded to the fact that you can find single-deck Blackjack online. But, I didn’t talk about how it works, which is a major item of information to know.

Unlike real-world Blackjack where hands are dealt until most of the deck or shoe is gone, online casinos shuffle the deck after every single hand. This is to prevent players from counting cards. It’s a slight handicap for the players, because the hands are extremely random and there’s no way to “work into” better hands, such as getting all the smaller stuff out and loading up for possible Blackjacks.

Another thing you must do is abandon silly strategies. And one of those is card counting. Sorry, card counting helps in the real world only. If you try to count cards with online Blackjack, you’ll just be screwing yourself. It doesn’t work (again, reshuffling kills it). So, don’t waste your valuable time trying to learn how to count cards and what card counting system is best. It’s not needed.

Since the hands are more than extremely random, don’t utilize any progression system. You could easily lose 20 hands in a row and you could easily win 20 hands in a row. It’s that random (thanks to the reshuffling after every hand).

Learn the game, learn how it works online and play smarter to win more often.

In Caribbean Stud Poker the player can make a side bet of $1 that pays out for hands of a flush or better. Payoff tables vary but always feature a progressive jackpot that pays the whole jackpot for a royal flush and 10% for a straight flush. If two players had a royal flush in the same hand the player closest to the dealer’s right wins the jackpot and the second wins whatever the jackpot is dropped to. In most casinos, the second jackpot is $10,000. This is done because the order of play is from the dealer’s right to left. If two players score a straight flush, the player to the dealer’s right gets 10% of the jackpot and the other player gets 10% of what is left over.

While it may seem like a good investment to lay down one dollar in the chance of winning over ten thousand the chances are stacked very high that you will never see your dollar again.

Players are then dealt five cards each, as is the dealer. All cards are dealt face down with the exception of one of the dealer’s cards that is dealt face up. After checking their cards players must decide to raise or fold as usual for poker games. Players that fold forfeit their cards and all wager placed on the game. To raise a player must wager twice the game ante.

The dealer turns over his remaining cards and compares them with the players. Card ranks are the same as regular poker with the additional condition of the dealer ‘qualifying’. This is where the Caribbean poker comes into it’s own.

The dealer must be showing an at least an ace and a king or higher to qualify. If the dealer does not qualify the player wins even money on his ante wager and the raise is pushed. On the other hand if the dealer qualifies he beats the player and both the ante and the raise go to the house. If however the dealer qualifies but still loses to the player, then the ante pays even money and the raise pays according to the house pay table. Pay tables can vary to be sure to check it before you play.

If the player and dealer tie then both the ante and raise are pushed. The progressive side bet is paid out based on the value of the players hand. The pay out tables for the progressive bet can also vary.

Caribbean Stud strategy is complicated and only the most skilled players can apply one. As a general rule though you should always raise if you have a pair or higher and always fold if you have less than required qualifying hand for the dealer.

Part One: Cards

First, everyone, including the dealer, receives two cards. These two cards make up your hand’s count. All cards are worth their face value, so a nine of clubs is worth nine points. Face cards are worth 10 points and an Ace is worth one or 11-you choose.

Part Two: Basic Goal

The dealer is always the last to act, so it’s your job to determine what the dealer has and act accordingly. You can go up to 21 in your hand. If your hand ends up being 22 or more, you have busted and you lose. While some books might incorrectly state that the goal of Blackjack is to get as close to 21 as possible, the goal is really to beat the dealer.

Part Three: Action Time

When it’s your turn, you’ll have a few actions you can perform. If you like the count of your hand, you can stand. Stand simply means that you pass and your turn is now over. If you’d like another card, you can hit. When you hit, one card is dealt to you. You can keep hitting until you are satisfied. However, if your hand reaches 22 or more, your turn is ended and you lose.

If you have two identical cards, such as two eights, you can split them into two hands. You’d then play two separate hands. But note, when you split hands, you must double your wager. Splitting can lead to greater profit or greater ruin. Act accordingly. Never split 10s or face cards.

Another action is doubling down. When you double down, you double your wager and take one final card-that’s it. Most people like to double down when they have 11. Some casinos will let you double for less too. So, if you had a $100 original wager, you could double down for say $50.

Part Four: Blackjack

Should your first two cards equal 21, you have a Blackjack. Remember, an Ace can be one or 11, so a Blackjack has one Ace and one 10 or face card. Also, a Blackjack pays 1.5x, so if you had a $100 wager on the table and received a Blackjack, you’d be paid $150.

Part Five: Wagers

This is real simple. Aside from a Blackjack, all wagers are paid even money, so a $100 wager is paid $100. Good luck and have fun playing Blackjack.

Your poker hand is the best of the following that you can make up with 5 cards that you have available to you:

High Card: When your cards don’t make up any of the other combinations you are left with a High Card: The highest card in your hand.

One Pair: 2 of the same number or picture. When more than one player has a pair of the same, the winner is determined by who has the next highest card.

Two Pair: 2 x pair. Again when more than one player has the same two pairs it is the remaining card in the hand that decides the winner.

Three of a kind: 3 of the same number and 2 cards that are not related. When more than one player has a 3 of a kind, the hand with the highest value of the 3 cards wins.

Straight: five cards in sequence but not of the same suit. The highest run wins, e.g. 3,4,5,6,7, looses to 5,6,7,8,9.

Flush: All the same suit but not in sequence, e.g. all clubs. Should two players have a flush, the highest card in the hand determines the winner; if this is the same for both, the next highest card is looked to, and so on.

Full House: one pair plus three of a kind. If two players have full houses the highest 3 of a kind determines the winner. Should both have the same 3 of a kind, as is possible in a wilds game, the one with the highest pair wins.

Straight Flush: All the same suit, all in sequence. The highest card of the sequence determines the winner.

Royal Flush: Not really a hand as it is simply the highest straight flush possible; 10, J, Q, K, A all of the same suit.

Five of a Kind: Many tables do not accept five of a kind, but for those that do; this is 5 cards of the same value, with a wild card as the 5th.

The term “Spanish” came from the fact that many Spanish card games used a 48-card, rather than a 52-card, deck. As such, Spanish 21 has 48 cards. The missing four cards are the 10s. Yes, removing the 10s in the deck give the house a much bigger advantage, but the casino has attempted to appease you by making some rule changes.

For instance, in Blackjack, if you hit your way to 21 and the dealer does the same, it’s just a push and a pile of disappointment. Not in Spanish 21. If you hit your way to 21, you win even if the dealer does the same.

Another bonus players like is the 5, 6 and 7 card 21, which pay a bonus. Hit your way to 21 and you can score some serious cash. A five-card 21 pays 3 to 2. A six-card 21 pays 2 to 1 and the big seven-card 21 pays 3 to 1.

In addition to these bonuses, you can also score more cash by winning with certain hands. One such hand is having a 6, 7 and 8 of mixed suits. This hand pays 3 to 2. Get that combination in the same suit and a winning hand is paid 2 to 1-and 3 to 1 if it’s all in spades.

The other big bonus hand is the 7s hand. Get three 7s and you’ll receive a nice 3 to 2 payout. Spanish 21 is dealt from the shoe with multiple decks, so it’s possible to get three 7s of the same suit. And if you do, you’ll be paid 2 to 1 on a winning hand and 3 to 1 if it’s in spades.

And that leaves the super bonus. When the dealer’s upcard is a 7, the super bonus is in play. If you get three sevens of the same suit when this happens, you’ve just unlocked the super bonus. At most casinos, the super bonus starts at $1,000 and goes up to $5,000. That’s some bonus.

Oh, and if you’re playing at a real world table with other players, they get a small taste too. This “envy” bonus is fairly small-usually $25-$50-but it goes to all the other players and it can make you a real friend of the table.

Spanish 21 is one of those games to play if you’re bored with traditional Blackjack or if you just want some extra fun.

You’re Not Due

No, I’m not talking about pregnancy. I’m talking about this dumb feeling many gamblers get that they are somehow due to win. It happens a lot with video poker and slot players. They think the machine knows they’ve been there for X hours and lost Y dollars. It doesn’t. Remember, you’re never due to win. Never gamble like you are.

Play the Field

Just like with women, all online casinos are different to some degree. You wouldn’t marry the first woman that gave you the time of day would you? Don’t answer that. Likewise, you should check out a few different casinos-at least taste them. By playing the field, you’ll find out just what is the best online casino for you.

It’s All About the Progressives

If you play online slots, video poker, keno or Caribbean Stud Poker, pay attention. These games, and some others, have progressive jackpots and not all progressive jackpots were created equal-some not even close. Progressive jackpots can vary wildly from online casino to online casino. And that’s why it’s vital that you do your research. Let’s say you love Caribbean Stud Poker. Well, it’s possible that a progressive payout is $90,000 at one online casino and $25,000 at another. See any difference? It’s nuts.

Show Me the Money

Bonus money baby, that’s what I’m talking about. I’ve seen hundreds of online casinos and most of them give out bonus cash in one form or another. But the Devil is in the details. Some want you to flip your account 75 million times to get it and others just have reasonable expectations. And all of them offer different bonuses. I’ve see some that will give you up to $50 and others that will give you up to $1,000.

Never, ever play at an online casino unless you get a decent bonus. I’ve spotted some that try to skimp in this area. Walk away. There is too much free money out there to be had. I’d also look for online casinos that offer reload bonuses and other goodies. There it is. Four super hot tips for online gamblers. Play smart, win more. Have fun out there.

Unfortunately, the topic of creating and managing a bankroll can quickly become a complicated one. I’ve broken this article about money management down to two main segments-session money management and seasonal money management. I’ll go over some light information on each to give you a real head’s up. Let’s get into money management.

Managing your money by the session

This is the most popular method and best for those not betting on sports-Blackjack, Craps, Roulette, Poker, etc. Session management can get so detailed; you’ll need a PhD to follow it all. But, we’re not going that deep.

Basically, it’s like this. Before you go to play in the casino, you set limits. How much are you willing to lose? And you have to stick to it. So, let’s say Charlie is about to walk into the Win Here casino to play some Craps. He might set a loss limit of $100. His bankroll is now $100.

Ah, but wait. Charlie also needs to see a win cap. Yep, you’ve got to cap your wins and leave before it all goes bye-bye. Keep this realistic. For instance, if you set the win cap at $200, you’d leave when your bankroll equals $200, which would be a $100 gain-or a 100% increase. Anything more than 200% is highly unrealistic.

Most people fail at both ends of session management, but the win cap kills almost everyone. They are winning, so why love? Yes, why leave? Why not stay until you’ve lost it all back?

Managing your money by the season

No, I’m not referring to spring, summer, fall and winter. I’m talking about sports seasons-or anything else that lasts more than one session. Actually, a gambling marathon would apply too.

It works the same as session management, except that you’re setting a loss and win cap for the entire season-and thus, the amount is larger. In fact, you might not even have the money in your possession.

Let’s try an example. Charlie is a hard-working guy. He lives paycheck to paycheck, but loves betting football. He decides that he can afford to lose about $100 a week for the entire season. Figuring in playoffs and the Super Bowl, he sets a seasonal bankroll of $2,300.

He doesn’t have $2,300 right now, but he has the initial $100 to get going. So each week he now knows that he has $100 to spend. Additionally, he set a win cap at $3,500. If his bankroll ever hits $3,500, he’s out. Be smart with your money. You’ll have more fun and you could take more home in the process.

This is brought in order to introduce an idea in poker that is so simple, so straight forward that I feel a little foolish to be writing about it. However, it has come to my attention recently that people will look for complicated theories regarding poker tactics, they will devour books and skim through websites without an understanding of the fundamental basis of poker betting, without which nothing makes much sense, and with which one frankly doesn’t need much else.

Poker betting tactics can be whittled down to the answers of three very basic questions:

· What does my opponent have?
· What does my opponent think I have?
· What does my opponent think I think he has?

You will answer these questions based on the cards on view, as well as an assessment of your opponents betting. However you must bear in mind that your opponent may be manipulating his betting in order to fool you regarding what he has. It is precisely to throw your opponent off course that slow-play, fast-play, and bluffing are used; you must learn how to use these tools to your advantage. For example a large bet on the flop even when you have nothing may indicate to your opponent that you have something; this may effect a later discussion whether to stay in or not.

The psychology of poker should not be under rated and it should not be relegated to second place after mathematical ability. Betting is a law unto itself, and a players approach to betting is reflective always of what he has, and what he thinks you have. Therefore, don’t give anything away, don’t allow your opponent to read anything about your hand from the cards he can see, assess the possible hands that your opponent has, and form your betting and indeed bluffing tactics around this information. You will find that these three questions will open up tactical betting to you, and enable you to enter into psychological playing which at the end of the day is what enables a good player to become a great player.

Today, I will share three such Blackjack fundamentals with you. Put on your thinking caps and commit these to memory. If you already know them, you’re ahead of the game.

Blackjack Fundamental One: Don’t Always Double Down on Eleven

What? You can’t be serious. I know, I know. We’ve all heard the catchphrase “Always double down on eleven.” But, there are situations where doubling down on eleven makes no sense.

Let’s say you have eleven and the dealer is showing a face card. Why would you double down? Think about this for a moment. You’re risking twice the money for a possible 4 out of 13 chance to win.

In each suit, there are 13 cards (A – 10, J, Q, K). Let’s imagine that the dealer has a 20. Only three cards in each suit can produce a win. One card will produce a tie and nine cards a loss.

The odds are not in your favor.

Blackjack Fundamental Two: Dealer Shows Six, Let it Fly

For me there’s one time when I get ultra-aggressive on the Blackjack table and that’s when the dealer is showing a six. There are so many possibilities for the dealer to bust.

This is the time when I like to double down on hands totaling seven to eleven or anything soft, such as a soft 18.

And I always stand on any hard hands that total twelve or above.

Blackjack Fundamental Three: Don’t Chase Wins

Streaks come and go. Steer clear of any playing strategy or system that increases the betting amount after a loss. It’s counterproductive.

Instead, you want to increase your wagers after a win-if at all.

Far too often I see players betting some losing progression system that has them losing more and more each hand. Personally, I stay away from any preset betting strategy and just bet up or down as the hands fly.

You just never know when a hot or cold streak is coming. If you’re an astute Blackjack player, you can probably gauge how a deck is going and what’s likely left. And that’s how you want to determine your bet size and not some preset up and down scheme.

Start with these three fundamentals and you’ll be on your way to playing better Blackjack.

War is a game of getting the higher card. If the player gets a higher card than the dealer, they win. There’s not too much to it. The game really gets exciting when both the dealer and the player get the same value of card, that’s when the battle starts. If both the dealer and the player both get the same value card the dealer will deal each of them three cards face down and one card face up. The person that has the higher card at this point wins. The player has the choice to not got to war, of course, and can fold if they get the same value of the card as the dealer before the battle begins.

While the game of War doesn’t enjoy the immense popularity that the game of Poker it does it is still an enjoyable game to pass the time. In fact, it might be one of the best choices for beginners because it gives a beginner the opportunity to learn the values of the cards before they get involved in more sophisticated games like Poker and Blackjack. Because War uses Poker cards this is a great place for people that aren’t sure of what the cards mean what to learn before they walk uneducated into a Poker room where the stakes will inevitably be much higher. War uses the same fifty two card deck of Poker cards that many of the other table games use. Because of this it is very easy for most people to transition to a game of War even if they have never played before.

While Poker and Blackjack remain the standard fare for most online casinos it is great that there are those online casinos that offer players more choices than just the same run of the mill games that everyone else does. For me variety is what life is all about and by offering several alternatives to the standard games, games that I love I might add, it makes the day a little better. Everyone gets a little tired of the same old thing from time to time and War is a breath of fresh air.

Action – The action is the total amount of money that’s wagered. It’s also a term that can be used to signify that an amount of money is in play.

Ante – This is a poker term that means the amount of money one needs to pony up to get into the action. You’ll see it in regular poker, Caribbean Stud and other games.

Bankroll – Your bankroll is the amount of money you have to gamble with. It could be an amount of money for the night, a week, a sports season or whatever.

Betting Right or Wrong – At the Craps table, you are betting right when you’re betting with the dice-a pass line wager. And you’re betting wrong when you’re going against the dice.

Biased Wheel – A Roulette wheel that seems to be favoring one part of itself-ball seems to land in one section a bit more often than other sections.

Burn Card – This is the first card of a new deck that’s discarded before play begins.

Cage – It’s the cashier’s cage. This is where you cash in your chips, cash checks and so forth.

Face card – The Jacks, Queens and Kings of a deck of cards.

Field Bet – In Craps, a field bet is a one-roll wager that wins if the combination of the dice is a 2, 3, 4, 9, 10, 11, or 12.

Greens – Green casino chips valued at $25 each. Dealers, etc will typically talk about chips by their color-greens, blacks, reds, etc.

Hole card – In Blackjack, this is the dealer’s card that’s face down on the felt.

House Advantage – This is the difference between the actual (or real) odds and the payout. The house maintains an advantage in all games, but some are way more than others. For instance, the Pass Line wager in Craps has a much smaller house edge than playing Roulette and thus that wager in Craps is better for players over the long run.

Random Number Generator – Also called the RNG, it’s a little computer program that constantly picks random numbers. These numbers then generate an outcome-like in a slot machine. When you go to play the slot machine, a number is spit out randomly. This determines if you win or lose. And there you have it. Some interesting gambling terms that you should know.

I want to tell you a quick story about a lazy gambler who lost $1,000 in less than three seconds.

The event took place at a Craps table. The lazy gambler in question walked up to the Craps table and watched for all of five seconds. Rather than getting some chips and getting involved with the game, he decided that he had better things to do-like walk out of the casino $1,000 lighter.

So the guy grabs his $1,000 out of his pocket and throws it down on the Field. Why? The Field is a sucker’s one-roll wager and it only pays even money unless a two or twelve is rolled. Makes no sense.

Three seconds later the shooter lets the dice fly from his hands. Clunk, clunk, clunk the dice rattled around. The first die landed squarely on the four. The other die spun for a few seconds. It must have seemed like an eternity. You just knew what was coming. Sure enough, the second die finally sat squarely on the table-a three.

“Seven out, line away,” the Craps dealer proclaimed. And just like that, the $1,000 was happily swept off the field and stuffed into the money slot. Dejected, the man slumped over and walked away. Too bad, he probably could have gotten a free drink or buffet for that kind of loss.

What’s the point here? Thinking, that’s the point. Why would you take all of your gambling money for the day, week, whatever and casually throw it down on a one-roll sucker’s bet that doesn’t pay much?

He could have put the $1,000 on the Pass Line the next come out and had a much better chance of winning and it’s potentially multiple rolls instead of just one.

Stupid moves like this are what will separate you from your money in the blink of the eye. It’s a battlefield out there. Guard your money and be smart about it. It might take a lot of effort to build up a bankroll, but one boneheaded move can wipe it all out in a New York minute.

Don’t be foolish. Learn the game and don’t get greedy.

For starters lets look at the most popular online casino games. There’s Poker, Blackjack, Craps, and Roulette that seem to be among the most popular. These are of course the very definition of classic casino games so there must be a logical reason why they’ve enjoyed so much exposure over the hundreds of years that they’ve been in existence.

What I’ve been able to figure, thus far, is that people are looking for the most bang for their buck, duh. They are looking for relatively simple, simple as in easy to learn, and they are looking for a good return on their money. Of course the excitement factor is also a huge consideration when looking for a good game to pass the time. There are more complicated, non-traditional casino games that are available for the player wanting to try something different, or who just doesn’t like the more traditional fare. But any player can tell logging into any run of the mill online casino that most of their resources are allocated to the ones that most people are drawn to.

Poker, for example, has been around for a very long time and its appeal is easy to understand. Once a player understands the basic rules they can cash in on a world with almost literally a never ending amount of possibilities. This simplicity, coupled with its potentially large payouts, contributes to its mass appeal. This same reasoning, at least in my mind, holds true for all of the classic games including Blackjack and Roulette. Any game that is easy to understand and offers a chance for players to win large sums of money is a winning combination. Just look at the way that people flock to the old fashioned three reel slot machines. There is absolutely no skill involved in these games, so it isn’t for the challenge, but there is the possibility of substantial winnings. It is for these reasons that there will always be a large fan base of these games.

I’m not trying to say in the least, actually to the contrary, that games like Poker and Blackjack are so very simple that anyone can play and win. What I am saying is that Poker and Blackjack appear deceptively simple and offer a large enough incentive for people to jump right in and try their luck.

While there are as many reasons that people play their favorite games as there are people that play them we are all attracted for one reason or another to the classics, and hopefully that always stays the same.

Three of a kind is a hand that is often misplayed by inexperienced players. The idea is to make the most of you two-card hand while still winning the five-card hand. This all depends on the three of a kind that you have. If you have three aces split off a pair for the two-card hand and keep the third for you five-card. You now have a very strong two-hand and an ace in the five-card is always useful too. If you have three kings the also two-card a pair of kings unless you also have a single ace, a queen, or a 10-Jack combination as well. If you have three queens or less then always five-card your three of a kind.

A straight of course should always be kept together because it is such a strong hand to play. If you have a lucky six-card straight then two-card the highest card in the straight to strengthen your two hand. Likewise, keep a flush together and if you draw a six or seven card flush (I wish) then two-card the highest cards of the flush without ruining the five-card flush that remains.

A dilemma arises if you draw a straight and a pair where one of the pair cards is required for the straight. Now what? Contrary to what you might think you should split a straight that runs from 10-ace if the pair you can make is 10s or higher. However, the trick is to five-card the pair and put your two highest other cards for your two hand. If however you have any other lowers straight then keep the straight in the five hand and play the next best cards for your two hand.

As mentioned above you almost never want to break up a flush to make a pair because the flush is such a strong hand. There is however a justifiable cause for breaking up a flush under the right circumstances. If you can form a pair of 9s or better and an ace-jack combination or better by breaking up the flush then do it. Keep the pair for the five hand and two-card the high combination. This gives you stronger hands overall instead of concentrating all of you strength into just the five hand (by playing the flush there).

Choose a low minimum bet table: 5% of your bankroll is around the max that you want to be betting per hand, so playing at a table with a minimum that exceeds that percentage is asking for trouble. The danger is that with a high minimum table you run the risk of loosing your bankroll before without opportunities to regain lost revenue.

Never split 10s: it may be tempting to play the two hands, but 20 isn’t far off from 21, so be happy with what you have!

5s Never, 8s Always: a pair of 5s should never be split but a pair of 8s should be split in all circumstances except for when the dealer is showing a 10.

Always split Aces: getting a blackjack is, as they say, the name of the game, so splitting aces gives you two chances to do just that.

Stick on 17; no matter what your gut says, just stick with what you have. Bear in mind that the dealer has to stick on 17, plus if you think even for a second about the number of cards in the deck and how much they add up to you will soon realize that the chances of getting a 4 or less are much lower than the chances of getting a 5 or more – just don’t do it!

The fewer decks in use the better the odds are for the player; the biggest leap in the house advantage is between one and two decks, but it does rise, all be it less steeply, with every deck added. Therefore, in a choice between a single deck and multi deck game, always go for the single deck; in a choice between a 6 deck game and an 8 deck game, always go for the 6 deck.

Rules vary from table to table, so the more player-friendly rules a table plays by the better it is for you. Specific rules to look out for are, the surrender rule; double down after splitting pairs; multiple pair splitting; and ace re-splits.

Remember that you’re only opponent is the dealer, so don’t look at anyone else’s hand, it’s not your business and it will distract you from your game.

The rest of the advice I received was basic common sense and money management; don’t bet anything you’re not prepared to loose, set limits, don’t gamble when drunk, you know the type. Anyway, I hope these tips will be as useful to you as they were to me.

Gambling Tip One: Bankroll

Before going out to gambling you must set limits for yourself. By simply telling yourself how much you can afford to lose and how much you’d like to win, you’ll be ahead of most gamblers. For instance, you might have $100 to lose and you might be willing to stop when you have won $200.

Gambling Tip Two: No Big Six Wheel

The Big Six Wheel is a carnival game that will just suck your money out of your hands. You’ll know this game when you see it. It’s like a standing wheel from the Wheel of Fortune TV show. If you look at the wheel, you’ll see that most of the spaces return even money. Therefore, if you wager on anything else, you’re getting a really bad deal. And there are just enough non-even money spaces to screw you when you wager on the even money spot. You lose either way you play this game. I don’t know if it’s offered online, but if it is, run away.

Gambling Tip Three: Keno is Dinner

Keno was designed to be played while you eat dinner in the casino. Since you can’t gambling while eating, Keno comes to the rescue. However, playing it any other time is somewhat foolish. It’s okay to play for pure fun-if you really love the game. But playing it thinking that you’ll win some big payoff isn’t too wise. Keno is like the lotto expect with much worse payoffs. Many Keno players play while eating or they put in tickets when playing other games, such as poker.

Gambling Tip Four: No Strategy is Foolproof

There is no gambling strategy-other than not playing-that works 100% of the time. Read that again. There are some interesting and fun strategies that can help you have more fun and possible win a little more. In the end, they all fail-yes, all. But don’t take my word for it, go out and play one system for 24 hours at any casino and see how you do. And there’s nothing new under the sun. All the systems being sold as new are just repackages of old systems or they are actually based off of original gambling systems.

Have fun, play smart.

Each of the seven players places a bet and are then dealt seven cards each. In addition to the 52 cards in the pack there is a joker that can be used either as an ace or to complete a straight or a flush. Players must form the cards into two hands, a five card hand and a two card hand. The hands themselves are almost exactly the same as those in poker. One player acts as banker although often the default is the dealer. Incidentally, seven hands are always dealt out even if there are less players at the table.

The object of the game is to beat both the banker’s five card hand and two card hand. If you only beat one of the banker’s hands then it is a tie, called a copy, and the banker wins the hand. In many online casino’s the casino is always the banker, but you should check this and always try to be banker if possible because of course it means you can win any copy hands.

The real strategy in Pai Gow is knowing how best to arrange your cards so that you have the strongest hand. Putting cards into your five card hand is known as ‘five-carding’ and likewise, putting cards into your two card hand is called ‘two-carding’.

You do not always want to put all of your strongest cards into either your five-hand or your two-hand if it means weakening the other hand too much. Most of the time it should be apparent what is the best way to arrange your cards but there are some common mistakes made.

The most frequent mistakes occur when players have two pairs. The best way to divide up or unite your pairs depends on the cards that you have. You will usually want to split the pairs by two-carding the lower pair if you have a paid of aces or your lower pair is made up of cards worth 10 or more.

There are however exceptions to this rule and here are some of the more notable circumstances when you want to play your pairs together in the five-hand:If your high pair is 3s to 6s and you have an ace, kind, or queen, then five-card your pairs play the high single card in your two-hand.

If your pairs are 6s to 9s and you have an ace or a king then you should also five-card your pairs.Finally, if your high pair is 10s to queens and you have an ace then you should also five-card your pairs and two card your ace.In all other circumstances you should five-card you high pair and play the low pair in your two-hand.

You drew a pair and split and now you’ve drawn another card that completes a pair again! Should you split? Yes, why not? If it was a good idea to split in the first place then do it again.

Some casinos let you double-down after a split. You should apply the usual doubling-down strategies if you can especially if after a split you take a hit that brings one of your hands to 11. This is a very strong hand to be on and well worth the chance of doubling down on. If you can do it, then play it!

Surrendering is a course of action that can pull you out of trouble if you know when to use it. Surrendering means you turn in your cards before you have taken a hit and when the dealer doesn’t have blackjack. You will lose half you bet by doing this but it is better to lose half a bet than all of it. So when to surrender? If you have a weak hand that will most likely bust and the dealer is showing a strong upcard.

The classic weak hands are 14-16 as these have the greatest chance of taking you over 21 if you take a hit.If you have 16 you surrender if the dealer’s upcard is 6 to Ace. The dealer is likely to finish on 19-21 and you will lose your bet anyway or bust if you take a hit.When holding 15 you should surrender only if the dealer is showing an upcard with a value of 10. However, if the upcard is an ace then play the hand. Look at it like this. The dealer is showing an ace but hasn’t declared Blackjack which the dealer must do, then it means he/she doesn’t have a ten-card with the ace. You have a good chance of beating a dealer’s ace when it is paired with something other than a 10. Finally, if you have 14 then keep going and play the hand. Although there is a chance you might bust there are plenty of cards that will take you up to 21 rather than over it so try your luck.

One last bit of advice concerning buying insurance against a dealer’s blackjack. When the dealer is showing an ace upcard he/she must ask the players if they want to buy insurance against Blackjack. This costs half your original bet and pays off 2:1. The dealer then checks for Blackjack which beats all other hands. Generally, unless you suspect that there are a very lot of ten-value cards remaining in the pack insurance is not worth the bet.

Okay, let’s put aside the silly things we all do and get down to brass tacks. This article is about how slot machines actually work. By understanding some basics, we can dispel common myths and nonsense and have much more fun-heck, we may even hit a mega jackpot.

Rip apart the slot machine and you’ll find the “money component” known as the RNG, which stands for Random Number Generator. The job of this little baby is to basically sit back sipping on Margaritas while cranking out numbers nonstop. Every millisecond a new number is generated. That’s some hard work.

When you pull the lucky handle or smack the money button to play, the number that was generated by the RNG that millisecond is passed and this becomes your outcome. That number tells the system what to do. At the precise moment you did one of those actions, your fate for that spin was sealed. Now, the slot machine simply needs to play it out for you-and that’s where the suspense and fun comes in.

Right next to the RNG is the memory chip that logs how much you’ve won or lost-no, no, I’m just kidding. If you look for this memory chip, you’d be hunting until the cows come home. There’s no memory chip. That’s right folks. The slot machine doesn’t know if you just walked up and put in a $1.25 or if you’ve been there on an eight-day bender. It only operates one spin at a time and from spin to spin.

The “honestly” in the game comes from mathematics. Casinos don’t need to know if it’s “your’ time to win or if you’ve won too much. The mathematics guarantee an outcome. Slot cycles can go on for eons, so never, ever think you’re all set to win. It’s just not so. Technically, a slot machine could hit three mega jackpots in a row or go without one for days, weeks, months or years depending on play and such.

The cycle is actually hundreds of thousands of spins. I don’t know about you, but I’m not playing on machine that much at once just to make sure I get my bars lined up. Slot machines are fun to play-especially the new ones-but just remember that they are random machines.

We’re not robots, we can’t produce results the same every time, according to the same timing pattern no matter if we have a royal flush or a pair of twos; however, what we can do is try to be a little aware of how quickly we bet, how fast our opponent is acting, and from that be able to portray the image that we want as well as read the hands of those who aren’t aware of the importance of this.

Now of course it’s not foolproof, and if your opponent is a weathered player he may be aware of the importance of betting speeds and over compensate the other way to throw you off your tracks, which is why general rules are good but no substitute for intuition or the reading of body language. None-the-less I think that there are general rules that can be identified even if they are not always to be followed.

If someone is very quick to check it may be sign of weakness; if he has something why wouldn’t he be betting on it, a quick jump to safe ground indicates a whole lot of nothing. A quick bet could also indicate the same; making up for lack of cards by over confidence. An instant call on the other hand, indicates strength and in an interim betting round this is important to remember. A quick call means that the player has no question about staying in the game, but doesn’t raise possibly because he doesn’t want to scare off the other players and thereby diminish what will ultimately be his pot. A pause before betting, in my opinion is usually indicative of strength, not necessarily a royal flush, but certainly good cards; the reason I think this is because it indicates honesty rather than a bluff.

These are just my observations, and for all I know it may be more a reflection of my poker buddies than indicative of what all poker players do. However, the point is, even if you don’t follow my general rules, start paying attention to how quickly people jump in, and try to fit together the pieces of the puzzle in order that you can understand what that timing means. For example a quick bet on the flop followed by a slow call on the turn, followed by a fold, will tell you that that person’s quick bet means nothing; useful information for the next time he jumps in with guns blazing.

Try it; start paying attention to timing and I promise you’ll be shocked at how much information you can pick up.

Today, I’ll show you one attack plan. It’s a progressive (or ladder) system that changes your wager just about every hand. This is not a plan that increases your wager when you lose, because that’s the wrong way to do things. Rather, we’ll increase the wager with each winning hand.

You need to decide on the numbers and how many progressions to use. I’ll give you a guide to start from. Let’s imagine that you have $100 to play with. You should play $2-$5 hands normally. So, we’ll base our start at $5.

The plan is simple. When you lose, your next hand is $5. You never increase your wager after a losing hand. Instead, you start over again. When you win, you’ll be increasing your hand as follows:

5 – 10 – 20 – 40 – 80

I’ve set up five levels. If you win five hands in a row, rather than having $25, you’ll end up with $160 or more-blackjacks. However, if you were to lose say five in a row, you’ve only lost $25.

If you’re a very conservative player, step it down to 3 or 4 levels. Even at 3 levels, you can still pocket $40 instead of $15.

As to double downs, that’s a call you’ll have to make based on your bankroll. Let’s imagine that you’ve won your first four hands. You have $80 on the table and receive an 11. If you double down, it’s a bad move. Why? Adding $80 would mean your entire bankroll is on this one hand. Lose it and you go home. Not smart.

However, let’s say it’s later in the game and your bankroll is now $500 or so. Adding the $80, which is profits at this point, might be a good gamble. It’s a moment-by-moment decision.

No matter how you play it, never risk most or all of your bankroll on any single hand. Also, should you get up by 2-3 times your original bankroll, put that original amount back in your pocket and make sure you leave the casino with it.

Blackjack, and gambling, can be fun, but strategy ensures that you maximize your chances to win and come home with cash.

You pulled the arm and the machine took your money-thus the “one-armed bandit” label was coined. They were very primitive. Personally, I think slot machines have taken a step back. Let me explain.

For eons, the big lure of slot machines was their humongous house advantage-ouch-but their payout method. That’s right. We all love when we hit a slot machine in the paying stomach and it spits out coins nonstop. Listen to the beautiful melody as those coins shoot down the barrel and into the metallic tray below. The whole world could hear when you won-and everyone loved it.

Today, it’s so darn technical that our music and experience has been taken away. Now instead of signaling to the whole world that you’ve just scored, the slot machine calmly and silently prints out a redemption ticket. Clean, yes. Fun, no.

But let’s look more at the fun side of evolution. In the old days, you’d throw in a coin or two, the wheels would spin and some money would pop out if you were lucky. Many got tired of this mundane play and let the slot world. Ah, but that’s all gone now.

Slot machines are now mini video game systems. They have bonuses, side games, moving parts and more. My favorite has to be the Wheel of Fortune. I also loved Reel Em In, which was the first slot machine of its kind.

Walk into any casino (or go online) and gone are the simple 777 slot machine (mostly). Now you’ll find branded video games. They got slot machines for CSI, Adam’s Family, Wheel of Fortune, Deal or No Deal, James Bond, Playboy and anything else you can dream up. In fact, there’s a convention annually that pitches new brands and ideas to casino executives. I even saw some Elvis slot machines-hey, it’s Vegas.

Virtual slot machines are the way of the future. I won’t be surprised to see full-blown video games at some juncture. We’re almost there now.

Since 2003, which is when WMS introduced the CPU-NXT with film-quality animation and high-resolution graphics, slot machines have evolved into next-generation gaming platforms. The future is bright for slot machines and slot machine players.

I would suggest that there are two main ways of being able to gain the information that one would have once gotten through a visual clocking of your opponent’s face. The first is more traditional, and is to do with reading betting tactics and habits; the second is more to do with using the tools at your disposal, particularly the chat facility of a casino site.

Not everyone uses chat, however if you do find yourself at a table where chat is supported you may be able to use it to your advantage. If for example you come across a player who complains regularly, who feels he’s constantly drawing bad hands, this might be some-one who is easy to bluff; after all, if he thinks his cards are rubbish, it shouldn’t take much to convince him that yours are good. Equally, a few sly comments on your behalf may indicate to your opponents that you have a weak hand; an impression that could be very easily twisted to your advantage. Don’t forget though that this is all manipulation, and if you don’t want to be caught out you must not become predictable.

Reading your opponent’s bets is not so far from traditional poker instinct; it simply got promoted to primary importance with the eradication of other means of reading your opponents; this eradication has also made bet reading more difficult because suddenly your assessment of a bet is based on itself and its timing alone, rather than any body language that may once have accompanied it. However, here’s some possible tells to watch out for. If someone instantly calls your bet they probably have a weak hand, but are trying to show you they have a strong hand; a pause before a check may indicate that they want you to think they have a strong hand and therefore you won’t bet. A pause before a bet may be indicative of a strong hand, and the pause is either genuine or a ploy to make you think it’s weak and so will stay in. A bet on the flop almost certainly indicates a strong hand, and may be used in order to pretend a bluff, or as a genuine means of increasing the pot.

With the exception of using chat and reading the bets there is little that one can do to duplicate the advantage that comes with a game involving human interaction. Having said that, if you play on a site with a private room facility, or indeed if you see the same player time and time again at a table you may be able to learn something about individual’s playing methods.

For a start, never split a pair of face cards or a pair of tens! With these cards you have a very strong hand of 20 and there is no point in ruining it by splitting. By contrast, always split a pair of aces. A single ace with another card is a much stronger hand than two aces and by splitting your chances of finishing with a high hand or even 21 are very good.

A pair of 9s are best split if the dealer is showing a weak card of 2 to 6. If the dealer is showing an 8 you should also. Likewise, if the dealer is showing a 9 you should split because if the dealer has gets 19 it will beat your current hand of 18. If the dealer is showing a 7 then you should stand. Always split 8s even if the dealer is showing an ace. Your hand now stands at 16, which is very likely loser. You are better off taking a chance and splitting.

A pair of 7s should be split if the dealer’s upcard is 7 or less. A hand of 14 is a weak hand but by splitting there is a good chance you will convert that into a pair of 17s. If the dealer is showing an 8 there is a good stay with what you’ve got and be prepared to lose the hand. You are better off just losing the one hand against an 18 than losing two hands of 17 against a dealer’s 18. Split a pair of 6s if the dealer is showing a 6 or less. It is risky to split 6s because you might end up with two hands of 16 so only do it if the dealer is showing a weak hand of below 6 that may lead to the dealer busting.

Never ever split a pair of fives. Your hand is now a very strong ten. Keep the fives and take a hit. Do not split fours either unless the dealer is showing a 5 or 6. If you split a pair of 4s you are likely to hit a difficult 14. 5 or 6 for the dealer however is likely to give the dealer a difficult 15 or 16 so it is worth your while splitting.

You should split 2s or 3s if the dealer is showing a weak upcard of below 7.
By knowing when to split and when to take a hit with what you’ve got you can add decisive strategy to your Blackjack play.

Today, I still see people playing the older slot machines, but the slot crowd has definitely grown since video slot machines came on the scene. And online slots are as hot as ever and exploding. There have been some amazing payouts in online slots-none to me unfortunately.

Video slots are here now and are the future. I remember the first video slot machine I played, which happened to be the first out there. It was called Reel-Em-In and it was a blast. I think I played for 10 hours on one once. When it debuted, this video slot was very popular. Right away it started showing up on various casino floors and it took hold quickly. Today, they actually have conferences for video slots. Themes galore is the order of the day.

Many regular casinos devote a lot of floor space to these machines, which are basically video games. Most online casinos have tons of them with every theme and option imaginable. You could play for months on end and still never play all of the video slots out there-it’s fun to try though.

One popular slot machine, still, is the Wheel of Fortune. When that came out, I played it all the time. Whenever the machine would yell out “Wheel of Fortune” I’d get excited. That bonus wheel is addicting. In Las Vegas, I saw one that was huge. It had seats all around it and whenever someone’s machine yelled out the popular catchphrase, everyone stopped clapped and watched the wheel. It was amazing. A friend of mine scored big on Wheel of Fortune-and I’ve won many times.

Remember, these machines are all based off of a random number generator. It’s all random, so don’t ever, ever think you’re “due to win,” because you’re not. The machine doesn’t know how much you’ve played, how much it’s paid out, nothing. It’s all math. You could spin it, hit millions, spin it again, hit millions again or you could put in $3,000 and not hit a darn thing.

Always play slot machines responsibly and always have fun. I don’t think it’s just me, but I tend to play progressives. If I hit, I want it to be so big that I’ve got some serious shopping to do once I’m paid. Slot machines are a blast and video slot machines are where it’s at. If you haven’t tried them, give it a shot. I’m sure you’ll enjoy them.

These types of bets are according to the wheel and not the range of numbers it contains. For example if you bet on 1st 12 on the table you are betting on numbers 1-12, even though those numbers don’t appear on the wheel in that order. A Called Bet enables you to bet according to the sequence in which the numbers are set on the wheel itself.

Called Bets are used on single-zero tables only and are particularly popular in UK and Europe: There are a number of different types, but the 3 main Called Bets are Voisins du Zero, Tiers du Cylindre, Orphelin.

Voisin du Zero: This ‘Neighbors or Zero’ bet, refers to the top section of the wheel if 0 is at the top. The range is from 22-25 inclusive and so the full bet covers 22, 18, 29, 7, 28, 12, 35, 3, 26, 0, 32, 15, 19, 4, 21, 2, 25. All of these numbers can be covered by placing chips in the following 9 position on the table; 2 on the 0,2,3 Street; 1 chip over the 5 and 7; 1 over the 12 and 15; 1 over the 18 and 21; 1 over the 19 and 22; 2 on the corner of 25, 26, 28 and 29, and one over the 32 and 35. So in total there are 2 chips on streets, 5 on splits and 2 on a corner.

Tier du Cylindre: This section is the one directly opposite the 0 but including less numbers; the Tier runs from the 27 to the 33 inclusive, which comes out as 12 numbers. These may all be bet on by placing chips in the following 6 splits; 1 chip on the 5 and 8, 1 on the 10 and 11, 1 on the13 and 16, 1 on the 23 and 24, 1 on the 27 and 30, and finally 1 on the 33 and 36.

Orphelin: The Orphans bet refers to the numbers left over on the sides of the wheel not included in the Tier or the Voisins. These add up to 8 numbers; 17, 34, and 6 from the right side, and 1, 20, 14, 31, and 9. All of these numbers can be covered by 5 positions; a straight up bet on 1, and then split bets on 6 and 9, 14 and 17, 17 and 20, and 31 and 34.

It sounds far more complicated than it is; once you’re aware of the concept you will notice it in action more frequently, and see the value of its logic.

Frankly, there is no excuse for this to happen; so here it is, it sounds simple I know but here’s the cheat-sheet; print it, learn it, keep it with your chips. As much as people may frown on the need for an explanation of poker hands, I frown on the loosing of a pot due to inexperience. Remember that your hand consists of the best of the following that appear in it:

High Card: The highest card in your hand; this is rarely worth betting on.

Pair: Two cards of the same number or picture, e.g. two 2s or two jacks. When more than one player has the same pair the winner is decided by who has the next highest card. This high card decider is called a kicker.

Two Pair: Two sets of two cards of the same number or picture, for example two kings and two 4’s.

Three of a kind: Three cards of the same number or picture. There will never be a need for a kicker because a draw is impossible as there are only 4 of each rank in a deck.

Straight: Five cards that follow each other not of the same suite. For example 2 of spades, 3 of hearts, 4 of spades, 5 of diamonds, 6 of diamonds.

Flush: This is 5 cards of the same suit irrelevant of order, for example 2,7,4,jack and 8 of clubs.

Full House: Three of a kind, and a pair combined. So, for example, 6 of spades, 6 of clubs, 6 of diamonds, 3 of diamonds, and 3 of spades.

Four of a Kind: Four cards of the same number or picture, e.g. king of spades, king of diamonds, king of clubs and king of hearts.

Straight Flush: A sequence of 5 consecutive numbers from the same suit, e.g. 4,5,6,7,8 all of clubs.

Royal Flush: From the 10 through to the ace all of one suit. At most tables this is the highest hand possible.

5 of a Kind: Most tables don’t accept 5 of a kind, but in a game where wilds are used it is technically possible to have 5 of a kind – 4 of a kind plus the wild.

There they are, now I beg of you, please, go learn, absorb, internalize, be at one with the poker rankings!

A soft-hand is an ace and any other card below the value of ten. This hand gets its name because the ace can be either one or eleven as necessary. The big advantage to a soft hand is that you can take hits with less risk of busing. But that doesn’t mean you can be carefree about how you play your hand. Take a look at the dealers’ showing card and play your cards as follows:

If you have an ace with an 8 or higher then hold your hand and don’t take a hit. By playing the ace as 11 you have 19, which is a hand you should always stand on.

If you have an ace with 7 take a hit if the dealer’s showing card is 9 or better.

If you have an ace with six or less then you should always take a bit. Even though this means you are taking a risky hit on 17 you can always bail yourself out if you bust by using the ace as a 1.

Doubling down is another situation you need to master if you want to win at Blackjack. Doubling down allows you to double you initial bet in certain circumstances. If played correctly you can offset the house advantage and that is an opportunity not to be missed! Bear in mind though that casinos have different rules as to when you can double down.

You should double down according to following rules:

If your have card values of 9 to 11 then double down. Statistically you have great chance to win because there are so many cards with a value of 10 to draw.
However, if you have a 9 then only double down if the dealer is showing a weak card of 3 to 6. This is because the dealer as likely to bust if he/she is showing any other card.
When holding a soft hand you should double down only when you can exploit a weak dealer card. The way to play an soft hand for doubling down is as follows;

If you have an ace with 8-9, just stand. This is a strong hand so don’t double down.
If you have an ace with 6.-7 then double down and take a hit if the dealer is showing a weak 3-6, and especially 4.-6.
If you have an ace with 4.-5 only double down if the dealer is holding a weak 4.-6.
If you have an ace with 2-3 then only double down if the dealer is showing a 5-6.

By knowing how to play these strategies you can take advantage of favorable hands when they come you way.

What follows are three slot myths that are not true in the slightest. Pull up your chair and get busting.

Slot Myth One: Cold Change Makes No Difference

Las Vegas is full of fun slot myths. One that has withstood the test of time is that if you put your change in the freezer first and then use it, your slot machine will get tricked into paying better.

Yes, people actually freeze their quarters. And no, it does not work. The slot machine has no temperature checker doohickey, so your coin’s temperature will not affect your outcome in the slightest.

While making for some interesting chatter, this myth is busted wide open. It’s false.

Slot Myth Two: Bang it Like an Ape, Win More Money

Did you know that if you beat your slot machine a little while playing that it will pay out more money? If so, you’re beating up a poor machine for no reason.

Your slot machine has no feelings and the components are secure, so beating it does nothing. In fact, you may get a bruise or worse, thrown out of the casino.

You could hit your machine all day long, but your result will be exactly the same. It might feel better though. Consider this slot myth busted wide open.

Slot Myth Three: Pay Me. You Know I’ve Been Losing for Hours on End

So you’re sitting at your trusty slot machine losing your butt for hours and waiting for a big payoff. Why? Because the machine knows you’ve put in $800 over the past three hours and it’s about to hit big, really big.

Nope. Your slot machine was born without a memory of sorts. It doesn’t know that you have lost $800 in three hours or that you aren’t the same person that has been playing it since it was created.

Slot machines work on mathematical computations and random events. If asked, it couldn’t tell you how much money you’ve won or lost. In fact, it’s just as likely to dish out two jackpots back-to-back as take money from you for what seems like ages.

This myth is busted wide open. Your slot machine is a goldfish. It doesn’t remember personal data.

Low risk bets are there for a reason. They are considered low risk for the player as there is a good chance of hitting. But there is certainly not an even chance of winning. Consider the roulette wheel for a moment. If you bet on any even money bet and the zero hits, you lose. End of story. If you’re on an American table, there’s the double zero to contend with. This means double the trouble. Now, a come bet on the craps table will win initially with a 7 or 11, but will lose if any of three numbers (2, 3, or 12) are rolled. Again, this is not quite as fair as it initially seemed. In all these examples, the casino still has the edge.

Yes the edge is minimal but it is still there. These bets are also considered low risk for the casino. The reason is that any winning bets will not require a large payout. Therefore, players can continue to hit and the casino will be safe financially. The casino will still win more hands than the players on average, and will come out on top. A common term within the gambling world is “the grind effect”. This refers to the way in which casino eventually grind down player bankrolls through a series of misplaced low risk bets.

Though this may sound exaggerated, it in fact makes sense. These bets do not provide enough winnings to cover any losses made. And you will lose eventually; the small casino edge is still stacked against you. If you play only low risk bets then this will eventually sap your bankroll unless you hit an extremely lucky streak. This is fine if your aim when playing is to stay at the tables for as long a time as possible. The low risk bets are good for that purpose. But if you want to make money then they will not enable this. The only way to make money is to accompany the low risk bet with something more risky, but which will reap better rewards.

The World Series of Poker is an example of a large, long tournament. With SNG tournaments you’re not running a marathon. You may play for a few minutes to an hour. It’s not a drain on the brain either.

I like it because it’s like playing a tournament. As mentioned, almost all SNG poker games will be done in under one hour. And the take-home pay is really nice too. Your typical SNG poker game consists of just one poker table, full of players-unlike a major tournament that may have thousands of players.

The process of playing is very simple. Players buy in (more on this in a minute), sit down and start playing. Once the SNG game starts, no new players can jump in and there are no re-buys or anything like that. Most of the buy-in money is put in the pot. The poker room will take a very small cut for running the game-it’s pretty minor.

Pay amount and spots depend on the poker room, but usually it’s the top three players that get paid-top player gets most of it. Usually, the third place player takes home enough to cover the SNG fee plus a couple bucks.

Another thing that’s great about SNGs besides the low time commitment, is the fee to play. SNG games are all over the map. No matter what your poker budget is, you’re going to find plenty of SNGs to enjoy. Smaller players can play for just $6 ($5 fee + $1 to the poker room). Sure, you’re not going to win hundreds in one SNG, but you can improve your skills, have fun and profit.

Remember, each SNG is played full, so that’s 10 players per SNG. If you’re playing a $5+$1 SNG, there will be $50 in prize money. One common cash payout is: $25 for 1st place, $15 for 2nd place and $10 for 3rd place. So, just come in third place and you’re doubling your money-almost.

If you’re finding typical games a little boring, give SNG poker games a try. They are a great way to learn how to play tournament poker, which has its own strategy. Start small and work your way up. You may find that tournament poker is the only poker for you.

Standing – Choose a blackjack table where the dealer has to stand on a soft 17 rather than a soft 18. This is because the house edge is lower than when a dealer hits on a soft 17 by 0.02%. OK, it’s not much but its better to shave the house edge as much as possible as this can only help your finances in the long run.

Splitting – This is a great move in blackjack but only if used wisely. The main mistake that is made is splitting a decent hand into two separate losing hands, and for an additional cost! A simple to get you started; never split 10’s and 5’s, including all pairs of picture cards. You will only lose in the long run as you will either have to stand on a low total or are bound to go bust.

Busting – Believe it or not one of the worst tactics you can use is to never go bust. This is something which has been fooling new and experienced blackjack players alike for an eternity, and will continue to do so despite the obvious lack of logic that it is based on. If you never go bust you will continually stick on low hands which have no chance of beating the dealer. The dealer has to stand on soft 17, and you stand on 15 to prevent going bust. How is that ever going to make the game profitable for you?

Card counting – Basically, unless you are a fantastic mathematician or have a photographic memory, don’t even try. It’s more complicated than you think, and takes a lot of hard work. And if you thought it would reap immediate rewards; you’re wrong. The most important thing to note is that if you were thinking of trying card counting when playing online; think again. The Random Number Generator is exactly as it says; random. It can’t be beat in this way.

Doubling down – Do not avoid doubling down as it is very useful and is the best way to make more money more quickly. New players are often afraid of this move due to the additional wager and the uncertainty. Of course, it will only work if understood properly. Watch out for casinos that only let you double down on certain totals as these will be the hands with the better chance of the casino winning. If you know you have a good chance of winning; do not avoid the opportunity.

Bet One – this is an option which is only found on slot machine online. It shows that the player only wants to wager a single credit for a spin.

Bonus Feature – this gives the player the chance to win more money through a bonus game. It is usually activated by a special combination which will be clearly displayed on the machine.

Carousel – this is the name given to a group of slot machines.

Cashout Button – the magic button which asks for your winnings; in online casinos it will send the amount to your bankroll.

Coin Size – this is an important part of playing the slot machine. If you bet too much you will lose lots of money quickly. The coin size is the amount wagered per spin.

Credit amount – this shows the player how many reel spins they still have left.

Credit Button – this button will transform your winnings into credits; how very convenient!

Five Reel Slots – online slots with five reels of symbols on which to get a winning combination.

Jackpot – the biggest possible payout for each slot machine.

Maximum Bet – press Bet Max to bet the largest amount possible on a single spin.

Minimum Bet – press Bet One to bet the minimum amount on a single spin.

Multi-line Slot – a common slot which has several payout lines.

Progressive Jackpot – a special bonus amount that increases as players bet into the pot. The amount shown is the amount won when the necessary combination is hit. Players must bet the maximum number of coins to secure the full jackpot amount.

Progressive Slots -slot machines that share a progressive jackpot.

Pay Line – the winning combinations on any line on the reel of the slot machine.

Payout Percentage – details the amount of money paid out to players of that machine, written in percentage format.

Pay Table – this shows the information about winning combinations and how much they pay.

Random Number Generator – the cheat proof software used by online casinos to generate their results on all casino games, including slots.

Reels – the spinning wheels on the machine that displays symbols which make up the winning or losing combinations.

Seed – the predetermined starting amount of any progressive slot jackpot. Once the jackpot amount has been won, the amount returns to the seed.

Symbols – the pictures seen on the slot reels.

Wild – a symbol that is used to substitute any other symbol that will make the best possible combination.

Probably the most used strategy is called Martingale. This strategy goes on the basis that loosing streaks don’t last long and as long as it does you double your bet. The Martingale can be used only on red/black or odd/even. So, if you bet $10 on red and loose, you should next bet $20. If you loose again; put down $40 on red. Sooner or later the ball will fall on red, and because you’ve double always, you will recoup whatever you my have lost previously, plus the amount of your starting bet – do the math, it does work. A supped up version of the Martingale is the Grand Martingale. The Grand Martingale follows the same basis except that instead of just doubling, you double and add the amount of your original bet; $10 first bet, $30 second, $70 third etc. The idea of adding the original bet is that it simply increases your profit when you win. Another strategy that people may be familiar with is the Cancellation theory. This method determines the amount you bet with in order to cover any losses. You write 10×1 on a piece of paper. You add together the 2 digits from the left to determine the amount you bet so the first will be 2 chips. If you win you strike them off, if you loose you add that sum to the end and you add the digit on the left to the digit on the right to determine the amount you bet next, this continues until you strike them all off which should mean that you’ve won!

I have seen people winning using these strategies. One must be careful of the maximum bet of the table; if you reach the maximum bet when using the Martingale; if the table limit is reached and you haven’t won the whole theory falls apart. Also, the cancellation method can take a very long time to reap results. Personally, I think that whilst these methods can, and often do work, they beg the question “where’s the fun?????” Seriously, roulette is one of the most fun games at the casino, what’s the point in throwing away the excitement and sense of chance for the nearly guaranteed systematic winning of 10 or 20 dollars!

The best bet, I think is not to follow strategies but rather simple guidelines; know your limits, know your odds, don’t bet on the 5 line (it’s less likely to win than any of the other rows), but most importantly have fun – hope to win but don’t gamble your pension on it; in short, don’t take it too seriously, and enjoy!

It started some time ago with then thousands of people logging in to try their hand at this game. It soon became an addiction. Since then, many have ventured out into real world poker rooms and tournaments. Many online poker players today are “practicing” for the big-time. And many poker pros play online.

That said, there are two big differences between online poker and your brick and mortar poker room-and no, it’s not just the cigar smoke and sometimes annoying wait to get into a game. The two main differences are time and tells-the two T’s. Today, I’ll break them down for you.

Time

Online poker is a lightning fast game compared to real world poker. When you watch poker on TV, they actually do a major editing job to make it look more up to speed.

When you play online poker, you’re acting within 20-30 seconds. You either act before your timer goes down or you’re done. There isn’t much think time.

Now, play in the real world and it’s a drastic change. The game moves at a snail’s pace. For some this is good. You can sit there and think about what to do.

However, the slower game means less hands per hour, which in turn can mean lower profit per hour. If you’re a mechanical online poker player that just cranks out the profit per hand, real world play might not be good for you.

Tells

Countless articles and books have been written that deal with tells at the poker table. In fact, talk to any poker pro and he or she will talk about playing the player not the cards.

Good or bad, you can’t do this with online poker. Tells virtually don’t exist. Sure, you can pick up some playing habits if you play with someone long enough, but it’s difficult. There’s no way to study your opponent.

For some, this is a good thing. Your opponents can’t see you doing cartwheels, because you’ve just scored a full house on the river or picked up trips on the flop. But, true pros do their best work when they are sitting across from other players in the real world.

It’s my opinion that bluffing in online play is darn near stupid. The only way to bluff is to bet more or less and pray that your opponent(s) care. It just doesn’t have the same weight as the real world.

For starters, there is money and excitement; what else could anyone want? Online gambling is quickly becoming the chosen method of online gaming across the globe. The strength that online gambling is showing is quickly surpassing mainstream gambling halls and casinos. The reason for this quick expansion is obvious. It is much more accessible for the average gamer to log on to their favorite online gambling site and play from the comfort of their homes as opposed to having to travel to a place where gambling is held.

Of course, as with everything there is a ceiling that eventually must be reached. There will be a point when the industry will reach a critical mass and will be unable to sustain the growth that it’s experiencing right now. At what point that ceiling will be reached is anyone’s guess and with new players coming on board everyday, coupled with more and more casinos springing up, they are pushing that ceiling further and further away. But there will be a time that that ceiling is inevitably reached. And that is a good thing.

Once the ceiling on the growth of the online casino world has been reached and there is no more growth of players or casinos the time will be ripe for more sophisticated games and gaming systems to be produced. Now try to follow me here. Once there is no more upward growth there will inevitably be outward growth.

Right now there are casinos cashing in on the ever increasing customer base by simply throwing together a mediocre gaming program and setting up shop. Once the industry has reached critical mass these mediocre online casino operations will be put out of business by better models that are more sophisticated and therefore able to attract players away from lesser sophisticated online casinos. Therefore, it is in the best interest of all online casino gamblers to hope that the industry stops swelling. The only people that won’t benefit from this is the lesser casino operators using lesser operating systems. Survival of the fittest is constantly at play in many systems and the online casino industry is no different.

With more and more online casino gamblers coming on board there is no way that the industry as a whole won’t continue to be able to take advantage of all that the future holds.

First off, contrary to popular belief card counting does not involve trying to remember every card that is played. Not only is this extremely difficult it is unnecessary. Rather, card counter try to gather statistics on the values of the cards played so that they can assess the values of the cards that remain. There are various methods and approaches used in card counting but here is a quick review one of the simplest.

This system was developed by mathematician Edward Thorpe and works by assigning values to cards as they are played. The values are based on dividing the pack into high cards, low cards, and neutral cards.The values assigned are as follows:

2,3,4,5,6, = +1

7,8,9, = 0

10,J,Q,K,A = -1

As cards are played during each round you must keep a running count of the total of the cards played according to the above values. For instance if a hand played involved a 10, J, 3, 4, A, then the running count would be -1 (-1-1+1+1-1= -1). You must count all of the cards that are played, including those played to other players and the dealer’s cards. You must also pay attention to how many cards have been played.

As you continue to keep track of the cards you also factor in the number of card decks being used in the game. As the game progresses can use the running count to tell you what value of cards you can expect in the cards still remaining to be played. To make this all important calculation you should divide the running count by the number of half decks remaining to be played. This final number called the ‘true count’.

The more positive the true card count is the more low value cards (2,3,4,5,6) have been played until now and the more high value cards remain in the decks to be played. This situation favors the player because the more high cards there are the more likely you are to draw blackjack or a draw a high hand to start with. Also there is a greater chance the dealer will bust if he/she draws on card while holding 12-16.

By contrast, a negative card count indicates that most high value cards (10,J,Q,K,A) where played already and you should play cautiously. A neutral card count is favorable to neither the dealer nor the player.

So is card counting legal? As long as you aren’t using any mechanical devices or computers to help you, then yes, it is and there is nothing to stop you giving it a try. However, trying to keep track of the cards while playing is a lot harder than it looks, so don’t think you can make a million that easily!

Frozen Assets can be played in one of five denominations. The machine will take nickels, quarters, fifty cents, dollars and five dollars. I was a little sad to see pennies weren’t an option. I like playing pennies when I want to unwind or test out a new casino game.

So, you have your typical three reels here. The idea is to build a snowman. He looks like Frosty the snowman. Every time you get a snowflake on the payline-with max coins played-you’ll fill up your snowman with snow a little more.

As you get snowflakes and build your personal snowman, your snowflake meter will increase. It’s located just below the snowman on the paytable display. Once your snowman is built and your snowflake meter is at or above 200, you win the snowman bonus.

However, Frozen Assets isn’t all positive. The reels also contain sun icons. When you receive a sun icon-again playing max credits-you’ll lose one point from the number above the snowman. You still will get a credit to your snowman bonus meter, so it’s not a complete loss.

In case you’re wondering, the snowman bonus starts off at 500. You’ll build up that nice bonus pot from there. Once you win it, the snowman bonus defaults back to 500.

Frozen Assets also has a wild symbol. It’s the penguin. The penguin icon can count as any symbol on the payline except for the snowflake and sun icons.

As you might expect, to win the big payday on Frozen Assets, you need to score three 7’s on the payline.

Playing this game is easy. It’s not an advanced slot machine. It’s just above your normal slot machine, because of the added bonus game involved. If you don’t want an advanced video slot machine, but don’t want the traditional one-armed bandit, Frozen Assets will fit the bill.

Like I said, the game is easy to play. After selecting your denomination, you select the number of credits to play. Frozen Assets has one payline that’s straight across the center of the screen. That’s another reason why I graded this game just above the traditional slot machine. There aren’t 30+ paylines involved.

Remember to always play max coins. If you don’t, why are you playing? You can’t unlock the special snowman game or the big jackpot if you play anything less than max coins. And unlike some other slot machines, this one only takes three credits to max out.

First of all, I was quite surprised to learn that roulette is very much the baby of the casino games: Unlike poker and blackjack which have existed in one form or another for many centuries, the roulette wheel has only been frequenting the casino halls and parlors of the world since the 17th century, and it was really only the Europeans that played it until it made its’ way to America in the 19th century.

The legends surrounding the creation of the roulette wheel are numerous and really quite exciting. The wheel itself was apparently created by the French mathematician Blaise Pascal. The legend goes that Pascal was experimenting in the creation of a perpetual motion device; he spent much time trying out different theories and inventions, but finally had to give up his quest. However, what he had created in the process was the roulette wheel. Whether Pascal understood the potential of his invention is unclear. We do know however that this occurred in or about the year 1657, and by the late 1700’s the roulette wheel was a regular in the gambling rooms of Paris.

The roulette wheel did not receive it’s distinguished red and black alternate markings until the end of the eighteenth century and until the 1840’s the roulette wheel had all of the numbers that it now has, but no ‘0′ position; this was not added until 1842. The double ‘00′ position found on modern American Roulette wheels was not added at all to the European versions and therefore only appeared once the game had traversed the Atlantic.

Quite how the game got so popular is a subject of debate, however it is agreed that it’s popularization had a lot to do with a particular French family by the name of Blanc. The Blanc brothers, Francois and Louis were there ones who originally added the ‘0′ position making the odds better for the casino and therefore more attractive to the casino owners to feature it in their gaming rooms. It was also the Blancs that opened the first casinos in Monte Carlo where roulette flourished. Possibly because of the Monte Carlo connection roulette has been known as the ‘Kings Game’, and the success of Roulette in Monte Carlo is rumored to be due to Francois Blanc selling his soul to the devil in exchange for the secrets of roulette – the evidence for this pact is on the wheel itself; if you add together all of the numbers you will come up with the sum 666!

Caribbean Stud Poker Tip One – Staying In

This one is pretty easy. If you are dealt two pairs or better, add to your wager and stay in the hand. The premise is simple. The dealer will only have a hand better than two pair once per 47 hands in theory. The probability of you winning is on your side.

I’d also expand this and say that with one pair you should strongly consider staying in the hand. The probability of getting two pair is 1:21 and if you win you’re being paid 1:1, so the value is in your favor. The dealer will fail to qualify very often and that’s what you want when you have one pair.

Caribbean Stud Poker Tip Two – Play that progressive

Some call it a sucker’s bet, but let’s be honest. Why are you playing this game? To have fun and win money!

If you get a straight, flush, full house, straight flush or royal flush and the dealer doesn’t quality-again, it happens a lot-you get paid nothing. I don’t know about you, but if I’m dealt a four of a kind and the dealer doesn’t qualify, I’ll look pretty stupid for not betting that $1.

And if you’re a money management and fiscal conservative, go play Craps or nothing at all.

Caribbean Stud Poker Tip Three – Nothing equals fold

Again, a super simple tip to live by. If you have nothing in your hand, fold. Why? Well, think about it. The only way you win is if the dealer doesn’t qualify and that might happen say 30% of the time. If that were the case, you’d have a 70% chance to lose and you’ll only be paid even money on your Ante wager. Your Bet wager gets nothing, but it can lose if you stay in.

Think about it again if you think I’m wrong. You’re wagering two times the amount to win half. For instance, you’re wagering $10 with nothing to win a maximum of $5 and you have a high probability of losing on top of all that. It’s a really stupid move.

Caribbean Stud Poker Tip Four – Play it cool

Caribbean Stud Poker is a great game, but it’s not the best game in the house. Have a blast, but never press up your bets thinking that you’re “due” to win.

Take it easy, have fun, remember these tips and win some money.

But in a casino? The answer is unequivocally yes. With today’s online casinos offering chat in many of their games people can get together and play their favorite games just as the inventors of the games intended. I can assure you that the people that developed Blackjack years and years ago never envisioned a time when their game would be played on a screen with little digital cards flipping up and down, or maybe they did, who knows? What they did know was that people were supposed to gather, and chat, and above all have a good time.

The ability for players to chat with each other in a real time environment while playing cards opens up a myriad of possibilities to the casual and professional online gambler. Sometimes just the possibility of the chat makes the game of cards a secondary interest in the room. Some people are obviously more social than others and some may simply enjoy the type of chat that they are able to experience in an online casino better than the type of chat that they might become involved in in a more traditional type of chat room.

Today’s online casinos now offer the option for players to use avatars. If you aren’t familiar with avatars they are simply a small picture, or image, that says a little something about the player’s personality. Some of the times these avatars are little cartoon like characters that the players customize themselves. Other times casinos allow players to use their own images further enabling the player to customize their image exactly and calculating what they want to say to the rest of the world.

While there are many options available to the tech savvy player that wants a little “face” time with the other players when they are playing, many people don’t know how to get started chatting in a casino environment. Unfortunately there are many casinos, including some of the premier casinos, that don’t offer chat room capability with their games. Either they haven’t seen the benefit and increased customer base that is capable with chat rooms, or the technology just isn’t as pervasive as I think that it is. I’m not sure which it is. What I am sure of is that chat is big enough that in the future only a handful of online casinos won’t have online chat capability for at least a portion of their games. And after that a whole new world will open up for everybody.

Imagine how shocked I was then when I recently read a blackjack tutorial that talked about positive mental attitude. Unlike my dad’s version of ‘think positively’ which equated to ‘chin up dear, it’ll be alright on the night’, the definition of positive mental attitude in blackjack applies to the serious card counting or strategy following player, and is compulsory for his success.

For the serious blackjack contender, the player must maintain a ‘positive mental attitude’ irrelevant of how he is doing on the tables. It is very important, or so this tutorial claimed, to maintain an entirely unemotional approach whilst playing at a casino. Apparently, if emotions are bought to the table you will get frustrated, excited, lose concentration, lose will power, or be affected by one of numerous other consequences that will ultimately result in your downfall and destitution. I think that this might be a little serious, but it does stand to reason that if you are affected by your results, whether good or bad, you can no longer play in the calculated mathematical manner in which you must to obtain an overall winning balance. In other words, for the table player, a positive mental attitude is advantageous because it is precisely this that will stop him from giving up when he’s down, or going on a spending binge when he’s up.

The man giving the tutorial claims that he actually looses 35% of the time, but because he is a card counter he is able to exact a 14% advantage over the casino meaning that he does in fact make money on each hand he plays; and it is from this that he takes solace during his 35% of the time loosing streak!

No practical advice was given in this tutorial on how to reach this Zen like state of indifference regarding an activity that you are choosing to partake in. Concentration is obviously important, as is steadfast determination; it might be an idea to start on smaller tables and free play games in order to develop the ability not to care or get involved emotionally in the activities of the table or indeed your funds.

Frankly, I’m not sure that I don’t prefer my dad’s version of positive thinking; this blackjack version seems more lobotomized mental attitude than positive mental attitude, but I guess if you’re in for the win and not for the fun, it’s a good general philosophy to adopt.

The pleasure in playing slots comes from the tranquility of being in full control without dealing with other players, dealers, or waiting around for the next round to begin. Add to that the prospect of making high winnings and it is easy to understand why slots are still so popular. Using video technology modern slots can have several ‘reels’ on the screen and jackpots can be won by making lines that go in diagonals or are even just if a certain number of the same symbol shows up anywhere on the screen after the spin.

Although there isn’t much that you can do to change your odds once you spin the reels there are a few tricks you can pull to better your winning chances before you hit the ’spin’ button.

The first detail to be aware of is that not all slot machines have the same return percentage. This is the percentage of money that is returned of the cash that is put in. Return percentages can run from as low as 87% to as high as 98% so of course you should try for the higher return percentages.

The second most important rule to abide by is to always play the maximum bet. Most slots allow you to choose how many credits you want to play with each spin. Almost always the pay-out on a maximum bet will be proportionately higher than if you play less credits. If you are going to win then you want to make the most of it!

Modern communications have enabled an interesting new addition to the world of slot machines are progressive machines. These are slots that share a common jackpot that can be between all the machines in the casino or even between different casinos. The longer the machines are played without anyone winning the higher the jackpot climbs. The jackpot on these machines can be astronomical running into millions of dollars but will only be available if you play a maximum bet. Another good reason to hit the ‘max’ button every time.

Finally to make sure you don’t walk away disappointed you should always carefully bankroll your cash every time you play. Any winnings you make along the way you should put aside and not put back in the machine. That way even if you don’t come out ahead at the end of your session you may at least have something to show for you efforts.

This game does have some player interaction, unlike a game like Baccarat, so you can affect the final outcome that is your bankroll. The big decision in Caribbean Stud Poker is deciding to stay in or fold. Remember, you’re playing against the dealer only. The other players don’t factor in at all-aside from taking cards.

Let’s talk odds

What are your chances of receiving a bum hand? How about a flush? By knowing the following odds, you might be able to make your choices better.

The biggest thing to remember is that one out of every two hands will have nothing at all. This goes for both you and the dealer. And this is why I love playing the progressive. I’m telling you right now, nothing is worse than getting a four of a kind, having the dealer not qualify and watching your big payday go up in flames.

On average, you’ll get one pair every two hands. And that’s where the favorable odds end. You’ll see two pair about once every 21 hands and three of a kind once every 47 hands.

The odds really start to jump now. A straight will show up once per 256 hands, a flush once per 526 hands and a full house every 694 hands.

The big three hands show up infrequently. You’ll see a four of a kind once per 4,167 hands and a straight flush about every 72,202 hands. Think that’s high? There’s one hand left-the Royal Flush. The big daddy of all hands. Don’t hold your breath. The Royal Flush comes once per 649,351 hands on average.

So, if a four of a kind only comes every 4,167, why play the progressive? In Caribbean Stud Poker, the progressive is paid for a flush-once per 526 hands-and a full house-once per 694 hands.

The progressive is paid out no matter what the dealer has. And according to our odds, the dealer will fail to qualify very often. I know many pros say the progressive is a sucker’s bet, but given these odds, not using it is like playing Russian Roulette. You’re just waiting to get screwed.

In part two, I’ll give you three or four great playing tips for Caribbean Stud Poker. By the time you’re done, you’ll be a pro. Money can be made at this game. But, if nothing else, knowing the odds and the tips I’ll show you, will add fun to your playing time.

There are several ways to get the good, up to the minute information that a person is going to need to be successful in their chosen online gambling format. One of the most basic ways to get the right information is to sign up for an industry newsletter. Also, some of the premier online gambling sites have their own newsletter that comes like clockwork to your email giving you all of the information that you could possibly want. This is a great option for a player that doesn’t jump around too much from site to site. By getting a newsletter that is exclusive to the site that you are most familiar with and use the most you can increase your gaming understanding tremendously and learn the ins and outs of your favorite site.

Online gambling site newsletters are also great to keep you up on promotions and upcoming deals. If you’re the type of player that just wants to log on and don’t really care what’s going on a newsletter may not be for you. However, if you’re the kind of player that has to be the best that they can possibly be a newsletter is an essential weapon in your arsenal to attack the money fortresses of the online gaming sites.

As with everything in life nobody should assume that they are getting the whole story by using only one source of information. A smart player will get information from newsletters, but they will also pay attention to the industry news from other sources. A quick search on upcoming topics that are affecting the online gaming industry in a reputable search engine is another great way to glean some information from the net. Also, just because you may not like the game of draw Poker, for example, it shouldn’t mean that you don’t pay attention to it. Trends that start in one area of the gaming community often times filter to other areas and affect other games. By being able to see these trends developing in another game you can shift your game play in your chosen game to take advantage of the change before other players without as much personal drive can.

Any sources of information that a player can find to add to the fun and bottom line of their online gambling experience should never be discounted. A good place to start is by opting in for the next online gambling newsletter.

Session – This term is used most when talking about money management. A session is a period of time spent gambling.

Shill – These guys are casino employees. To facilitate action, a shill will go up to a table-usually an empty one-and play. The idea is that if you’re walking around and see action, you’ll play. Shills are more likely to be used at a Craps table, because not many people like being the only player in Craps.

Soft Hand – This is any hand where an Ace is being used as an 11.

Stand – When you’re happy with your hand, you can stand, which ends your turn.

Surrender – Some casinos allow you to surrender. When you surrender, you throw in your hand and get half your wager back. A common surrender situation is when you have a hard 16 and the dealer has a face card showing.

Third Base – It’s the opposite of first base. Third base is the last seat to get cards. If the table is full, it will be the seat immediately to the dealer’s right hand.

Toke – Also called a tip. Dealers work for tips, so they love players who tip them. One common way to tip in Blackjack is to place a bet for the dealer. You do this by placing your tip bet above your wager on the layout. Let the dealer know it’s for him/her, so they can make sure the placement is right. This is a good way to get the dealer to root for you.

True Count – It’s another card counting term. When there are multiple decks, you take the running count and divide it by the number of decks being used. This gives you a more accurate picture.

Up Card – The dealer gets two cards in Blackjack to start with. The Up Card is the card that you can see. The bottom one you can’t see is called a hole card.

Unit – A measurement of betting. For instance, a unit could be $5, $10, $1 or whatever.

Vig – This is the money that goes to the house. A popular vig in sports betting, for example, is 10%.

Whale – This is the big-time player-the high roller. Casinos-and dealers-love to see a whale coming. It usually means there’s a chance for a nice payday.

And there you have it. We’ve come to the end of our Blackjack terms series. Do you feel like a Blackjack terms expert now? We’ve covered a lot of ground in this series.

Good luck at the tables!

This is what I’ve personally learned trying to use this strategy, you absolutely have to have enough money on the table ready to go to cover the losses that you will incur until your color comes up. If you do not have enough money ready to go the first streak of bad luck will wipe you out.

The key to using this type of strategy is to place a bet on the color of your choice. If the ball lands on your color, lucky day and the bet stays the same. Now if the ball lands on the opposite color you must double your bet. The idea behind this is that the odds of the ball landing on the opposite color diminishes every time that it does thereby making the odds of the ball landing on your color better and better. After a few times of the ball landing on the opposite color, and assuming that you’ve doubled your bet every time, when you win you’ll be one up your original bet.

Now this is the trick and this is where I lost it. You absolutely have to have enough money on the table, ready to go, to double your bet each and every time that you lose. Now to be honest, I have never tried this technique in a traditional casino and I’m not even sure that they would allow this type of betting strategy to be used. I suppose it depends on where you are playing. I have used this strategy on online casino sites and it works.

The only problem is if you get involved in a lesser site with a type of random number generator that doesn’t exactly duplicate real world scenarios. If they are not absolutely right on the money then the odds and probabilities are almost worthless. This means that a player can have almost an endless streak of the ball landing on the opposite color without winning their money back. If this is the case then even the largest bankroll won’t be able to save you.

At any rate, there are numerous methods on the Internet to help you with your chosen game. Some are based in logic and solid mathematical principles, and some are not. The main pitfall that an online casino player must look out for is simply that many online casinos do not accurately depict actual game play to the point of not allowing any particular mathematical stratagem to work like it’s supposed to.

Super Diamond Mine is a 5-reel slot machine and you can play six different denominations. The slot machine can be customized for penny, nickel, quarter, fifty-cent, dollar and five dollar action. So, it basically spans the gamut. Play for pennies and fun or crank it up at $5 per pay-line and go for the big payday.

As you might expect, this is a game with a diamond mining theme. Super Diamond Mine has a side game where you accumulate mine entrances. When a diamond symbol appears on the reel-any spot-they cascade in a certain direction. Each diamond shown adds to the dynamite meter.

When the dynamite meter hits 99, it’s fun time. A little gnome character will ignite the dynamite and the screen will explode. This starts the Diamond Mine bonus round. And here’s where thinking and luck come into the winning equation.

You have to pick which one of your mines you think holds the highest bonus. This bonus round even has a talking goat that provides commentary. Here’s an important notice about Super Diamond Mine. If you change the denomination, your dynamite meter gets reset. It’s important that you remember this.

Why does the game do this? Well, in the bonus round, the money earned is based on your last spin. If the game didn’t do this, people would play pennies to get towards 99 and then switch to the $5 game. So, keep this in mind when you play this fun slot machine.

As I always say, you need to play max coins to hit the jackpot. And if you’re not playing for the jackpot, you’re not playing at all. Super Diamond Mine has a maximum of 45 coins, so that’s 45 cents per spin on the penny game.

Super Diamond Mine’s 45 coins are spread among nine pay-lines, 5 coins per line. Hitting the Bet Max button will play 45 coins provided you have that many credits left.

If you’re in the mood for a 5-reel slot machine with a fun side game and some great graphics, check out Super Diamond Mine. While this game doesn’t have the crazy pay structure that some other video slot machines have, I’d spend a couple minutes to familiarize yourself with the pay structure.

Now, get out there and have some five-reel fun with Super Diamond Mine!

Five Aces

Unlike traditional poker-based games where the Royal Flush is king, in Pai Gow, the five aces hand is trump. Getting five aces is tough and there’s only one way to do it. You need to get all four aces in the deck and the joker.

Royal Flush

To get a royal flush, you must have the 10, Jack, Queen, King and Ace of one suit-like Clubs. The Joker can be used in place of the Ace.

Straight Flush

The straight flush consists of five cards in sequential order that are all of the same suit. Here’s an important note. In Pai Gow, the A-5 straight flush is the highest ranking straight and the King-high straight flush is the second highest.

Four of a Kind

To get a four of a kind, you need four cards of the same rank, such as four Jacks. Remember, the Joker can be used as an Ace.

Full House

When you have three cards of one rank and two cards of another rank-like three Jacks and two Queens-you have a full house. Should both you and the Banker have a full house, the player with the highest-ranking three set of cards wins. The pair won’t matter.

Flush

Five cards that are all of the same suit and not in sequential order is a flush hand. The Joker can be used as an Ace of any suit, so if you have the Joker, you just need four cards of the same suit.

Straight

When you have five cards in sequential order and they are of more than one suit, you have a straight. If they were all the same suit, you’d have a straight flush. The Ace can be used at the front, such as A 2 3 4 5, or the end, such as 10 J Q K A.

Three of a Kind

Simply put, three cards of the same rank is a three of a kind hand-like AAA.

Two Pair

You have this hand when you have two cards of one rank and two cards of another rank, such as: JJ KK.

One Pair

Having two cards of the same rank is having one pair-like 44.

High Card

Finally, if you have absolutely nothing above, you have a high card hand. This is the worst hand in Pai Gow.

When you’re setting your 2nd highest hand, which consists of just two cards, you’ll have either a high card hand or one pair. Needless to say, when you have one pair as your 2nd highest hand, you have a great shot at winning that hand.

And there you have it. You’re now ready to take on the Pai Gow playing world. In our final article on playing Pai Gow, we’ll go over a couple of quick strategy tips.

As you might have guessed by now it is absolutely essential for Real Time Gaming to use the most high quality random number generator that they possibly can. They must do this to get as close to absolute randomness as technologically possible. There is quite a bit of technical details that effect absolute randomness and it is helpful for a player to understand some of the basics on how randomness is intentionally generated so that they can more fully understand how the game is played.

There are two basic types of random number generators that are typically used. The most common random number generator is based on a mathematical formula and is typically the easiest to produce. Obviously, the quality of the random number generator is based on how well the mathematical algorithm is written and implemented.

Another common random number generation method is the use of atmospheric noise, much like the white noise that you might hear on a radio with no station. This is obviously more difficult to re-create on the gambling format, however, the application is still a viable one.

There are then primarily two major concerns that a gambling website, like Real Time Gaming, must look at prior to choosing a random number generator that is high quality enough for their demanding players; you and me. The first item that must be considered has been discussed before, to be able to re-create randomness as closely as possible as to mimic the toss of a deck of real cards, or the flip of a coin. There are many high quality random number generators that are mathematically written that are able to do very well. In fact it would take the keenest observations to tell if there was a subtle aberration in the algorithm that might skew the results.

Another very important consideration that Real Time Gaming must take into account before selecting a random number generator is that of security. Any program that can be written can be cracked and therefore can be skewed in favor of a player without the best of intentions. Real Time Gaming understands this and has opened their random number generators to third party testing to alleviate our security concerns.

Las Vegas Strip Rules – Las Vegas is split into two main gambling regions-Downtown and the Strip. The Strip has different Blackjack rules than Downtown. A major rule to check on before you play is whether the dealer must hit or stand on a soft 17.

Money Management – It’s no secret. Losing players rarely have any money management skills. Money management goes beyond just knowing how much money you have to play with. It involves knowing how much to bet and when. There are many money management systems out there.

Money Plays – A command barked out by a dealer when a player puts actual cash in the betting area.

Natural – When you’re dealt a Blackjack.

Paint – Want to see paint? If so, you’re asking for a face card. It’s called this, because face cards are graphical in nature.

Pat Hand – No, it’s not the hand of someone named Pat. When you have a pat hand, you want to stay. An example of a pat hand is a hard 17. A hard hand is one in which there isn’t an Ace counting for 11 points.

Point Count – If you’re counting cards, you always know what the count of a deck is.

Push – This is another name for a tie. When you have a bet that pushes, you don’t win or lose. Your money is returned. If you’re playing a double face up game, it’s possible that there aren’t any pushes, because the dealer wins all ties.

Resplit – When you get two cards of the same rank, like two 7’s, you can split them. If your first card on a split is also the same rank, you can resplit then hand. Some casinos only allow one split and others may allow up to four. Check with the casino to be certain. While you always want to split Aces, some casinos don’t allow you to play split Aces like a regular hand. Instead, they’ll just give you one card per hand.

Running Count – It’s the same thing as a Point Count. At any given hand, a card counter knows the count of the deck and bets accordingly. If the count is favorable to the casino, the bet is reduced. If the count is favorable to players, the bet is increased.

That does it for this installment of Blackjack terms. We’ve got one installment in our series left. We’ll go over terms, such as Shill, Shoe, Third Base, Toke, Vig and Whale.

Like all casino games Roulette is a game of chance. The particular site I was on happened to be kind enough to break down the statistical probabilities of each bounce of the ball. There was even a method to use these odds to my favor and the logic behind the thinking appeared to be sound. And it still does to a degree.

The idea was that the player must choose a color of either red or black and stick with that color for the remainder of the game. The chance that the ball would land on black or red on each spin of the wheel is always fifty-percent. If a player were to choose a number and a color, however, the odds are much more complicated. But for this particular system of logic the player must keep it simple.

Now for the interesting part. Each time that the ball lands on a color the next spin remains a fifty-percent chance for that particular spin, but the probability of it landing on the specific color again diminishes. Sound confusing? The chance of the ball landing on black, for example, diminishes each time the ball lands on black but remains the same fifty-percent chance for that particular spin. Spins have to be looked at by number of times that the particular color pops up, but can’t be ruled out to come up again because the probability for the individual spin is the same.

How does a player use this to their advantage? If a player can remain dedicated to one color, red or black, and bet on the color no matter how many times the opposite color pops up they can end up winning in the long run. The trick is being able to bankroll the amount of money needed to stay in the game until your color comes up.

Roulette is one of the most beautiful games of chance that has ever been devised. Even the novice can pick a number out of the divine ether and become a winner. And skill has very little to do with where the little ball will land. However, the only edge that a player can use in this game, that I have found so far, is that of playing the probabilities. Learning how to bet one these probabilities and using them to your advantage is in itself a very lengthy discussion and will be covered in Part II.

When I come to the Internet to play it is usually in search of a good game where I can plan my next best strategy and challenge myself while challenging the game. At other times though I just need a quick fix, a hit of adrenaline and gambling excitement. In my time of need I look towards Video Slots. Video Slots are much the same as they have always been. There isn’t much skill involved, at least that I can ascertain, but I have learned that persistence is rewarded and the more diligent a player is in playing the more the payoffs usually are.

With a never ending amount of new Video Slot games popping up there is little opportunity to get bored. You can pick from the normal, run of the mill, slots with the rolling cherries, bananas, and apples or you can pick from a version with lines upon lines of flashing numbers and symbols with payouts so intricate that a mathematical engineer would be impressed.

Video Slots are also very easy to learn and can be hours and hours of fun. I’m sure that you’ve seen people sitting in the casinos at all hours of the day and night pulling the handle on the “one-armed bandit,” or seen a friend sitting in front of their computer methodically clicking their mouse and watching the little reels on the screen flutter past.

Now I don’t think that I’ve reached this level of commitment to the Video Slot games but I can certainly see the attraction. The only downfall to Video Slot games online is the multitude of unscrupulous Video Slot operators, the operators of online casinos that their only goal is to fleece you and me out of our money as fast as they can. Just like traditional slot machines, Video Slots are subject to the programs that run them. If the program is suspect, and does not run fairly, then there will be no chance of winning anything and you will be found lacking all of your bankroll in a short amount of time. I have played on these sites and I can tell you from my personal experiences, as you can imagine, this is no fun.

A fair site with a good random number generator is the only way to enjoy this game at all. If the site lacks this move on, it is a lost cause. For a quick gambling fix there are few games more fun and easier than Video Slots.

Did you know that the roulette wheel was invented by the French inventor Blaise Pascal. Pascal was actually trying to create a perpetual movement machine, but ended up with the roulette wheel – not a bad rap.

The double 00 position found on American Roulette Wheels were added only when roulette found its way to the United States of America. Previous to this the wheel only had the single 0 position, but the American casino owners didn’t feel that the house had enough of an edge with this and so added the extra position.

The chap that added the original one 0 position was named Francois Blanc; he was also responsible for setting up the first casino in Monte Carlo. It was rumored that in order to learn the secrets of roulette Mr. Blanc actually made a pact with the devil. The evidence lies in the wheel itself: If you add all the numbers of the board together you come to the sum of the devil, 666.

Row 5 is the worst row to bet on; statistically speaking row 5 is the least likely row to win.

One of the most impressive recent wins was by an English man called Ashley Revel who sold everything he owned in 2004 and went to a Las Vegas Casino. He put down the sum of all of his possessions, $135, 300, on a double or nothing bet. He bet on red, and red came in – he left with double his money!

Also in 2004, a group of 3 were accused of winning over 1,000,000 GBP by illegal measures in a London casino. The casino charged the group with using mobile phone and laser technology in order to predict the falling of the ball. The case was taken to court and the casino lost – the group kept all of their winnings.

Einstein apparently commented that “you can’t beat a roulette table unless you steal from it”.

Roulette has played a part in many a flick, the most famous of which being James Bond’s ‘Diamonds are Forever’, and of course Casablanca where we found our hero, Rick, fixing the wheel for a destitute client to win big and be able to escape to America.

Hope this comes in handy!

In Pai Gow, the Ace can be used at the front or end of the deck. For instance, it could be used as Ace, two, three or Queen, King, Ace. The Joker can be used as an Ace or to complete a straight, flush or straight flush.

Once you have your seven cards, I find it’s best for beginners to sort their cards from highest to lowest or lowest to highest. If you’re playing Pai Gow online, this might already be done for you. Remember, we’re going to be creating two hands from these seven cards-the highest hand, which is five cards and the 2nd highest hand, which are the remaining two cards.

When you make your hands, the highest hand must actually be the highest hand. For instance, let’s say your hand is: J J 3 4 5 Q Q.

You couldn’t make your 2nd highest hand be QQ, because the highest hand would be JJ 3 4 5 and it wouldn’t actually be the highest hand.

Let’s keep that example going. Part of the strategy in Pai Gow is figuring out how best to set your hands. In our example, we could do something like JJ QQ 3 and 4 5 or something like JJ 3 4 5 and QQ. So, we’d either have two pair and nothing or one pair in each hand. Remember, if you can win at least one of the hands, you keep your cash.

Once you have decided how to set your hand, you place each of the two hands on their appropriate space on the table. Online Pai Gow players will have this done for them.

I can’t reiterate this enough: don’t take setting your hand too lightly. It’s a strategic game. Ideally, you want your second highest hand to be as high as possible, so you can at least force a push.

If your second highest hand won’t have a pair, put the two highest ranking cards in there-out of what’s left. Let’s say your hand is: J J A Q 4 8 3.

For the above hand, we’d want to keep the pair of Jacks in the highest hand. That leaves us with the Ace, Queen, 4, 8 and 3. It would be best to take the Ace and Queen and put those two cards in the second highest hand.

Now that we have a basic understanding with setting hands, it’s time to go over hand rankings. We’ll do that in the next article.

Even Money – When the dealer has a potential Blackjack-and you were dealt a Blackjack-you can ask for even money. If you take even money, your Blackjack is paid 1:1 instead of 1.5:1. So, a $15 wager is paid $15. If you don’t take even money and the dealer has Blackjack, you just push.

Expectation – I won’t get too technical with this one. Basically, it means the amount of money you can expect to win or lose over a period of time.

Face Cards – Real simple here. Face cards are the Jack, Queen and King. They are all worth 10 point in Blackjack. There’s no real difference in these cards unless you’re playing a side game like Royal Match.

First Base – This is the seat that gets the cards first. The dealer deals clockwise, so first base is the first seat on the dealer’s left.

Flat Betting – When you flat bet, you’re just betting the same amount on every hand. This really isn’t idea. Unless you’re just playing for a little fun and free drinks, you want to alter your bets some now and then.

Heads Up – This happens usually in online play. It’s when you’re the only one at the table. You’re playing with the dealer only. In real casinos, some players like this and they’ll move around looking for empty tables. When someone else sits down, they get up and find another empty table. You’ll see some big-time players request an empty table. If they are playing enough, the casino will rope off a table for them.

High Roller – We just talked about one in our Heads Up description. A high roller is someone who bets a lot. The real high rollers will walk into a casino with millions to wager if they so choose. They are also called whales.

Hit – Take a hit to get another card for your hand. It’s also called a draw.

Hole Card – This is the magical card that the dealer gets that you can’t see-unless you’re playing a double face up game of Blackjack.

Hot Deck – It’s just the opposite of a cold deck. A hot deck is in your favor and hopefully you’re betting big.

House Edge – We talked about this in our Edge description. All casino games have a house edge. The casino always has the advantage over you. Some games are better than others. For instance, Blackjack has a much lower house edge than Roulette.

Insurance – Many call insurance a sucker’s bet. When the dealer shows an Ace, you can take insurance. It costs half your wager and if you take it, you want the dealer to have a Blackjack. If not, you lose your insurance bet and now if you win, you only win a profit of 50%, which isn’t fun.

See you next time when we go into the fourth part of our Blackjack terms series.

Since there are four deuces in the deck, the minimum payout is on three of a kind hands. Jacks or better don’t apply here. The strategy for playing deuces wild are different than traditional video poker as you can see. One major difference is that there are two royal flushes. The first one is the traditional one and it pays the best. The second one uses one or more deuces to complete it and that pays not too much. Why? Well, since there are four deuces, getting a royal flush with one of them is a snap. You’ll get 100 or more easy before getting a “real” royal flush.

The payback on deuces wild machines tend to be very good. 98%+ with optimal play is a reality. As always, check the payback percent of any deuces wild machine before playing. The payback percent varies from machine to machine even in the same casino. It’s not uncommon for a 100% payback machine to be positioned right next to a 94% payback machine. And it varies in the online casino world as well.

Deuces wild machines function the same way as all video poker machines. You can play one or more coins per hand. And as always, you want to max out your coins. If you don’t, you’ll lose a fortune when you hit the big hand. Once the cards are dealt, hold what you want by hitting the hold button and then hit the deal button for your new cards. After this, the hand is complete and you’re paid if warranted. Pretty simple stuff and you already know this if you’ve played any video poker before.

Deuces wild, just like any “wild” video poker game, has more payout points than traditional video poker. The three extra payout points are: royal flush with a deuce, five of a kind, and four deuces. Payout on the five of a kind is usually about 75 coins for a 5-coin bet. It varies, so check your machine.

The four deuces is the big hand, just under a real royal flush. The payout varies by machine, but you’re usually looking at 200 coins per coin bet on this hand, which is just under the 250 coins paid for a real royal. Some machines offer progressive payouts too. I’ve even seen machines paying 500 coins per coin bet too.

In the end, I recommend trying out all types of video poker to find your love. Deuces wild is a great place to start.

Tip One: Deposit Methods

Any reputable online gambling destination will accept deposits in a wide variety of ways. Stay away from any online gambling site that only wants cash, check or wire. The best casinos will gladly accept deposits from credit cards and third party services (like NETeller and FirePay). I highly recommend that you use a third party service for all your deposits. By doing so, you will limit the places that have your financial information. It’s better that an online casino just has your third party info than your checking account or credit card data.

There are other third party services out there, but these two are very well known and secure. You won’t find one solid online casino that doesn’t accept deposits from at least one of these sources.

Tip Two: Deposit Amounts

A major tip off of a bad casino is the amount of money required for a deposit. Great online casinos will take minimal deposits (some as low as $5). However, criminals can’t afford to take people $5 at a time, because word will get out before they can really score. Therefore, they tend to require larger deposits-perhaps $100 minimums or more. Don’t think that just because a casino takes $5 deposits that they are legitimate. You must do your research.

Tip Three: Reputation

This step can take a little longer, because you are searching for comments about the online casino. Head over to your favorite search engine and type in their name to see what comes up. What you are looking for are comments from people about the casino. Many of these comments will be on message forums. Here’s a quick hint. Try some searches where you add the words scam, rip off, arrested, complaint, illegal, or pay after the casino’s name. For instance, a search in your favorite search engine might be “casino name scam.”

Gambling online is very convenient and fun. Like any other industry on the Internet, gambling has its share of crooks. That should not stop you from enjoying yourself. Do your research and follow these tips. You can greatly eliminate your chances of being ripped off by utilizing the steps in these tips. I have yet to find an instance where the solid practices in these tips has failed to yield positive results. Now get out there and win some money!

No, Bank on It doesn’t have 293 reels and 216 bonus games. It’s a solid 3-reel game and the pay table is easy to understand. As with any great slot machine, you can play multiple denominations and there’s a bonus. Bank on It has five denominations-nickel, quarter, fifty cents, dollar and five dollar.

Do you hate seeing all blanks on the pay line? Not any more! In Bank on It, when you get three blanks on the pay-line, the coins you played are put into a bank. It’s called the “Piggy Bank.” The game puts 150 coins into the piggy bank to start out and the bank keeps increasing every time you get three blanks on the pay-line.

To break the piggy bank you need to get three little piggies. Bank on It has a wild symbol too and that can count as a piggy. The bank is a nice addition and a welcomed side game.

As with any slot machine, you’ll need to play max coins to hit the jackpot. Bank on It takes three coins to max it out. Once you’re maxed, start praying for the three red 7’s, because that’s the magical combination that will unlock the big payday.

Game Play

Playing Bank on It is incredibly easy. It’s not filled with tons of frills. After picking your denomination, you pick the number of coins to play. I never advocate playing anything less than the maximum. If you’re not going to max the machine out, why play? The goal is to hit the jackpot and you can’t do that on any slot machine without going all out.

I like Bank on It, because it’s your typical 3-coin max. You won’t need to put in 15-20 coins or more like other slot machines.

After putting in your coins, just hit the button to spin those wheels. The pay table is easy to understand and it’s right on the machine. You won’t need sub-screens to figure out how to win. There’s one pay-line, just like the good ole’ days.

Once the wheels come to a stop, you’ve won or lost. There aren’t any side games to Bank on It other than the piggy bank feature.

Bottom Line

If you want a simple slot machine, this is it. The machine has three reels, three coins max, one pay-line and one side game. It’s very simple, but it’s fun to play.

The most common strategy used in roulette is known as the Martingale. This strategy is based on the theory that loosing streaks don’t last long, therefore if you continue to bet on the same one of two chance options (e.g. black or red/odds or evens), it won’t be long until you win. Now, the way that you actually make money on this is by doubling your bet each time each time you don’t win. Confused? Don’t be! If I bet $5 on red and it comes up black, then I’ve lost $5, however the next spin I bet $10 on red – oops came up black again, now I’ve lost a total of $15. Never mind, I stick with the Martingale theory, I double my bet on the same choice and so I put down $20 on red. Hallelujah, it’s red! I win $40. Does it work out? Yes, I bet $5 + $10 + $20 = $35; I made a $5 profit. Make sense?

Once you’ve grappled with the Martingale, the next strategy for you to deal with to is the Uber Martingale, actually more commonly known as the Grand Martingale. This strategy works in much the same way as the regular Martingale, except that with the Grand Martingale you double your bet and you add one of your original bet. So, after the first loss of $5 you double it to $10, but you also add one, i.e. another $5, so your second bet is $15. If that one doesn’t come in for you, you double the $15 and add one, i.e. $5 to make your third bet $35, and so on. This increases your profit margin when you do win.

The truth is that I have seen people win big with these strategies; they’re highly logical and do work. However, I’ve also seen people loose big on them because they didn’t plan properly; a table with a low limit can cause problems when playing the Martingale strategies because it increases the chance of reaching the limit before you win. So, if you’re going to play this strategy, play at a high limit table, and always start your bets low.

This isn’t the only roulette strategy used, but it is the most common. Personally, I find all strategies to be a little dull, except for mine that is – favorite numbers, birthdays and following the gut; frankly you can’t beat it.

All players in Pai Gow are betting against the bank. This isn’t to be confused with the dealer, because in Pai Gow, the bank could be a player. When it’s a player’s turn to be the bank, that player can accept or decline. Should the player decline, the house will always accept in place of the player.

To beat the Banker, both of your hands must beat the Banker’s hands. Any “copies,” which is a fancy name for hand ties, goes to the Banker. Some players work to just win one of the two hands, because that’s a push and no money exchanges hands.

An example of a “copy” would be your 2nd highest hand and the bank’s 2nd highest hand consisting of a Jack-Queen. The bank wins all copies.

Depending on the casino, the option to be the banker could rotate clockwise or counter-clockwise. If the table is full, you’ll get the opportunity to be the banker once per seven hands, because the dealer is included in that rotation. The casino earns a 5% commission from all winning hands.

The option to be the banker goes position to position. If the current offering position is vacant, the house gets to be the bank.

In order for you to be the bank, you’ll need enough money to cover all the bets on the table. If you really want to bank, but can’t afford it, the casino may offer to co-bank with you. Ask your dealer if this is an option. However, be advised that when you co-bank, you must set your hand in accordance with house rules.

Also, when you bank, the dealer will bet too. Don’t worry; the dealer isn’t going to dump all the chips of the casino on the table. The dealer’s bet will be equal to your last wager. If the amount is more than you’d like to bank against, see if the house will reduce it to the table minimum. It is possible.

Keep in mind that depending on the software, these little nuances can be lost when playing Pai Gow online. Also, banking may have less significance, because you don’t have any other players at the table.

Once the hand-when you are the banker-is over, the losers are taken and the winners paid. The house takes a 5% vig out of your net winnings. For instance, let’s say you paid out $200, but took in $500; your net winnings would be $300. The 5% vig that you’ll pay would be $15.

Being the banker is something you want to do as often as possible. In the long run, it’s the moneymaker. Again, another reason why you want other people at the table if you’re going to play Pai Gow online.

In the next part of our series, we’ll talk about setting your hand in Pai Gow.

Once the right casino is chosen, and one of the determining factors might very well be, a good initial bonus should be had. If an online casino does not offer a solid initial offering it might be an indication of the quality of service that the online casino provides. This is far from being set in stone and the fact that a casino offers a mediocre sign up bonus might simply indicate that their resources are elsewhere.

One of the best ways that a player can earn money on their gambling is through the use of an online casino’s rakeback program, if they happen to offer one. Rakeback programs are often times misunderstood, or not heard of altogether. Some players think of a rakeback as type of an investment program. A rakeback program allows a player to receive a percentage of the money back that they have wagered. This allows players to continue to finance their bankroll with funds that have already been wagered. This is something that is only found in the online casino environment and should always be taken advantage of. A player might see a 3% rakeback, for example, in one casino and choose to disregard this casino in favor of a casino that offers a $250 sign up bonus. The novice player might see that the sign up bonus is better but the more experienced online gambler will realize that the 3% rakeback will pay off many times over that of the sign up bonus. Rakeback programs were designed to encourage and reward customer loyalty.

While sign up bonuses are a great way to get started they should never be the determining factor in the search for the next great online casino. By searching for casinos that offer a good sign up bonus, and offer continuing bonuses and rakeback programs that reward loyalty, an online casino gambler will be able enjoy their chosen game without the worry of wasting money.

Comps – This is the main reason for playing for many people. A Comp is basically anything you get for free from the casino. It could be food, rooms, cash, travel, drinks and so forth. Here’s a tip. Most casinos comp players based on the data from a player’s card. Whenever you walk into a new casino, ask about their player’s card and get one-they are free.

Cut Card – When you cut the deck in Blackjack-at real live tables-you use a cut card. This card is the same size as a regular card in the deck and it’s usually red. It’s also plastic. Slide that baby in the right place and let’s win some hands!

Discards – These are the cards that have already been played. In a real live game, you’ll see the discards off to the side of the table.

Double Deck – A Blackjack game typically uses 1-8 decks of cards. A Double Deck game of Blackjack uses two decks of cards. In a real live game, this game is hand shuffled and dealt from hand. Shoe games start with four or more decks.

Double Down – You’re so money! Even non-gamblers know this phrase. When you double down, you double up your original bet and take one final card. You can double down on your first two cards only. While online casinos typically make you double your bet on a double down, live casinos will allow you to “double for less,” which means you can put any additional amount down-up to the amount of your original wager.

Double Exposure – This is a variant of Blackjack. You’ll find that there are various Blackjack rules that a casino may or may not use-like surrendering. In this variant, both dealer cards are dealt face up. Sounds like easy money right? Not so fast. These games also have additional rules-usually something like dealer wins all ties. You may like this type of game though, so check it out. Make sure you ask about the rules differences before playing.

Draw – Most everyone says, “hit,” but draw is the same thing. When you draw a card, you’re not getting out a pencil and sketch paper to make an art masterpiece; you’re taking one additional card for you hand.

Edge – Do you have an edge? The edge just means who has the best ability to make money over the long haul. As a gambler, you take steps to reduce the house’s edge and increase your chances of winning. A Blackjack example of this would be card counting. Another example would be playing only certain types of Blackjack games, such as single deck.

We’ll pick up our Blackjack series next time with “Even Money.”

Myth One: It’s luckier to pull the handle.

Many slot players believe that it’s luckier to pull the handle than to hit the play button (or vise versa). It actually doesn’t matter which one you use. The computer process is still the same. The moment the handle is pulled, or the button is pressed, the RNG spits out a combination. In fact, the only difference is time. Since the RNG is constantly cycling through combinations, the one you get will be different if you pull the handle. Why? Time. It takes a little longer to reach for the handle. Since you would not have hit the button at the same moment in time as you would by pulling the handle, the combinations are different. It’s not better or worse either way.

Myth Two: My Machine is going to stay hot

Many slot players will play a machine, because it’s hot. A slot machine doesn’t stay hot and might not “heat” up for much of anything. A slot machine has a lot more losing spins than winning ones. These spins are all jumbled into play. It’s possible that a machine has consecutive winning pays or pays more often than it doesn’t for a little bit, but it won’t last. Also, when the machine does cool, it may not have another good streak for hours or days.

Myth Three: My machine is almost hitting. It’s going to win!

When a slot machine is coming up with winning symbols just off of the pay line, it doesn’t mean it’s going to hit. That’s just another combination in the slot machine’s bank. The slot machine doesn’t know that it just almost hit or that it hasn’t hit in ages. It simply spits on combinations. Don’t be fooled by this common and wrong line of thinking. It just might sucker you into losing a lot of your hard earned money. Some time ago, it was thought that programmers did this intentionally to bait players to keep playing. That turned out not to be true. Even if it were, the smart player would know it meant nothing and would have left if the machine were cold. Remember, almost winning is not actually winning.

There you have it. We just busted three popular slot player myths. Don’t be fooled the next time you go enjoy the slot machines. Play with your thinking cap on. Good luck.

Firstly the dos…

I draw/deposit the amount of money I’m prepared to play with, and loose at the beginning of the night and that’s all I have. In my mind for that night, I have that amount of money only; my ATM card, credit card, check book, pay check, car keys etc simply do not exist, once I’m out, I’m out; this is especially important for internet roulette!

I love winning; the best end to the night is having played a lot, drunk a little and come out with a couple of dollars still in my pocket. It’s my staunch policy, that if I win and I’ve already been there a while, I leave. If I win at the beginning of the night, I put 30% of my win away and that’s not for playing with; it means that at the end of the night I nearly always have a little something to be extra happy about.

I follow my gut….and yes sometimes I’ll ask the cute girl next to me to place a bet for me, but never for too much money – keep it cute, keep it simple.

Especially for online casinos, and this one is a must, I always check that the casino is licensed, regulated, audited and reputable.

I tend to only bet 10% of my whole bankroll on one bet, and normally I bet less than this. This means that even without any wins, and even if I make my ‘max’ bet every spin, I’m in for at least 10 spins.

This is what I don’t do…

I don’t ever take more into the casino than I’m prepared to loose.

I never expect to make next months rent at the casino.

I don’t tolerate loud mouths or anyone with attitude; if there’s a stressed out guy at my table he’s going to stress me out – bad karma, time to leave!

I never ever put all my money on one spin no matter how good a feeling I’ve got about it.

I never following betting strategies – way too calculated, and not nearly enough fun.

I never go home, or log off in a bad mood.

That’s it, those are my basic rules for keeping roulette fun; trust me, follow them and you will begin to have the best nights ever! Enjoy.

Quick Recap

Pai Gow is played with your typical 52-card deck and one joker card. You’ll receive seven cards and you’ll divide them into two hands. Your job is to beat the bank’s hand and as a player, you’ll have the chance to be the bank-unless the casino doesn’t offer that option.

Getting Started

The invention and growth of online casinos has really helped the low-limit Pai Gow players. It used to be that you’d have a tough time finding a Pai Gow game lower than $10 and even $10 Pai Gow games were hard.

Today, you can just jump online and find $5 Pai Gow games all over the Internet.

After you make your wager-and other player’s do the same-the dealer shuffles up the deck and deals out seven cards per hand spot. It’s important to note that the entire deck is used for each hand-unlike Blackjack where you just keep playing through the deck until it’s gone.

After this is complete, the hands at the spots where there are no players are taken. Yes, the dealer deals to empty spots. This is part of the game play. So, unlike Blackjack where players coming and going can affect hands, it doesn’t matter in Pai Gow.

We’ll talk about the bank later, but now that the hands are dealt and the bank is decided, it’s time to examine your hand. You’re going to break up your seven cards into two hands. The first hand will consist of one five-card hand, which is your best hand. Then the remaining two cards will make up your “2nd Highest” hand.

Now, before you rush out and player, there’s one important item you need to know. Your five-card hand MUST be the highest-ranking hand or you forfeit your money. For instance, you couldn’t put two Aces are your two-card hand and then have a pair of 2s as your five-card hand.

The strategy comes in decided how far to go. For instance, do you go with two pair as your highest hand and nothing as your 2nd highest hand or do you break them up? We’ll go over Pai Gow strategy in other articles.

Time To Win

Once all the hands are set, meaning they’ve all been split into the highest and 2nd highest hands, it’s time for the dealer to play. The dealer (not always the bank) will turn over the hand and set it according to casino rules.

To win, both of your hands need to beat both of the Banker’s hands. If you win one and lose one, it’s a push. Should one of your hands be exactly like one of the Banker’s hands, it’s called a “copy” and the Banker wins the hand.

In part two, we’ll continue with more on the Banker.

Due to this some what naïve attitude coupled with the confusion regarding the many many many different types of bonuses, it turns out that I’ve been a bit of an idiot. It seems that I have made enough bad decisions for the entire online gaming community with regard to mis-understanding the values of bonuses, and I’ve decided to share my insights with the world in the hope that my mistakes won’t be repeated.

I really went wrong when I got sucked into one off sign-up bonuses. This is how it would go; I’d say, “oh look they’re giving me $100 for free, I’ll go there”. What I didn’t do was look to see what the terms and conditions were of those sign up bonuses; I also didn’t look to see what the ongoing bonuses and promotions were. So, I am now registered with several sites, all of which, have my payment details, have credit of mine in them, however it is credit that I can not withdraw due to something to do with wagering requirements; plus I’ve since given these sites more money even though they only gave me a one off bonuses, just because I was registered with them, so now on my second and third deposit it’s all a one way street – I give they receive.

The error of my ways has now been pointed out to me; staggered promotions are better. A staggered promotion will be a deposit match bonus but instead of matching just one deposit, it will match the first 3, 4 or sometimes even 5, either with a 100% match or a smaller percentage. The advantage of this type of bonus over the one off sign-up bonus is that it commands sustained interest in the site, but it also allows you, or rather me, to spread out my ‘free play’ and really make the most of it. A further advantage of the staggered bonus is that it is usually left for the player to decide when to take advantage, meaning that the player does not have to take the bonus at a particular time but rather he will get the bonus whenever he chooses to make his second deposit, or third deposit etc. This enables for more control of one’s own bankroll taking the bonus credit into account.

I’ve discovered that the big sign up one off promotions are good, but the glitz of the bonus tarnishes quickly and what is left is usually not that impressive.

I really hope this information is useful.

Rule One: Big 6 and Big 8

Never, I mean never, bet on the Big 6 or Big 8. These sucker bets only pay even money. Every time you win, you actually lose. Let’s imagine that you have a $12 bet on the Big 6 and a six is rolled. You’d win $12. However, had you placed the six instead, you’d be receiving $14. So now you’re losing $2 on every single “win.” Don’t ever bet on the Big 6 or Big 8. They are there to steal from lazy bettors.

Rule Two: Always Take Pass Line Odds

When you make a wager on the Pass Line, you should always take odds behind. If you’re not going to do so, why bet on the Pass Line to begin with? It’s just foolish. Don’t misinterpret this rule to mean you must max out your odds. All I’m saying is that you must take some odds-even single odds. The Pass Line is Craps is one of the better bets in the casino. Take it.

Rule Three: Hop Bets are a No No

If you don’t know what a hop bet is, good, don’t learn. If you do, don’t bet them. A hop bet is basically a lotto ticket with a poor payoff. There are much better things to do with your money on the Craps table. If you must throw your money away, look for a cute cocktail waitress or stack it up on the Pass Line. At least you stand a fighting chance of getting back something for your money.

Rule Four: Understand What Systems Are

There is no system for Craps out there that will win all the time. None. A Craps system is just a strategy for playing. Use them if you want, but don’t get suckered into thinking you’ll be unbeatable. Think about it. If the system was solid, we’d either all be retired or the casinos would be gone by now.

Rule Five: Never Bet Too Much

Let’s close this article out with a simple piece of advice. Gaming is entertainment. Don’t ever bet more than you can afford to lose-at the Craps table or anywhere. Betting more than you can afford to lose leads to bad decisions and mayhem.

Stick to these rules and you’ll be on your way to better Craps play.

It turns out that there are a bunch of card counting strategies, and the method that I had assumed was the norm doesn’t figure in any one of them. Rather, each card in the deck will be allocated a value and you must keep a tally in your head of the sum of all the values of all the cards that have been dealt.

This system of adding up the values is the basis of card counting, and this ongoing tally is known as ‘the running count’. Different systems will assign different values to different cards. For example, the hi/low system will allocate 2 through 6 with the value of +1; 7 – 9, 0; and 10 – A, -1. In this case a deal sequence of A, 6, 3, 4, will result in a running count of +2 because those numbers correspond to -1 +1 + 1 +1 = 2. This mathematical sequence will continue uninterrupted throughout the game.

The final but crucial stage of card counting is understanding what the count means in terms of the cards left and subsequently in terms of the bets you should be making. Basically, the higher the count is the more large value cards are left in the deck. The more large value cards there are left in the deck, the higher the chances are of the dealer pulling one when he has to hit due to a low first deal; this means that a high count means that you should bet, a low count means you shouldn’t. In terms of the bottom end of the spectrum the general rule of thumb is to not increase a bet unless your count hits 1.5 minimum.

However, the running count is dependant on a number of variables other than the cards seen, not least of all how many cards are left in the shoe; for example a running count of 5 means something very different with 3 deals left of the game than it would 3 deals into the game. In order to get the most accurate count you divide the running count by the number of decks left, in which case a running count of 5 with 2 decks left will mean a true count of 2.5; it is this true count that should determine your actions.

Past this it all gets a little complicated to be honest, however I read enough to convince me that card counting is a skill that requires a steely concentration, absolute application, tones of practice, and a quick alert mind; card counting is no where close to cheating, it is simply using all the resources available to you to beat the house.

A Cheva: This comes from the French, reflecting the origins of the game, and means a ’split bet’.

Action: This refers to the specific amount of money bet during a particular time period.

American Wheel: The reason that there is a differentiation between an American Wheel and a European Wheel is that the American wheel features the 00 position, whereas the European wheel does not.

Backtrack: The outer part of the wheel which the ball spins around that doesn’t move.

Bankroll: This is the whole amount of money that a player has to play with.

Bet on the Layout: This refers to a bet laid on the numbered part of the table; this is the same as an ‘inside bet’.

Carr’: Again, this comes from the French and means a corner bet.

Cheval: a split bet

Colonne: More French, this time referring to the betting on a column.

Croupier: The guy who runs the table.

En Prison: This is a rule that is only implemented in some casinos. It relates to even money bets, e.g. red/black, odd/even; if you make an even money bet and the wheel comes down on 0 or 00, if the En Prison rule is being implemented you may either retrieve half of your bet or you may leave it for the next spin. Should you leave it and the following spin falls on 0 or 00 it is lost. If the En Prison rule is not being used, the original bet is simply lost.

French Wheel: Same as a European wheel; differs from the American wheel because it doesn’t feature the 00 pocket.

Even Money: This is a way of referring to a 1:1 bet.

Inside Bet: This refers to any bet made on the ‘inside’ part of the table, in other words, single number bets, split bets, street bets, and corner bets.

La Partage: Exactly like the En Prison rule except that the option is only to retrieve half of the value for the bet; you may not leave it for the next spin.

Outside Bet: This refers to any bet made on the ‘outside’ part of the table, e.g. red or black, odd or even, high or low; it also includes dozen bets and column bets.

These are really just the basics of Roulette vocabulary, I hope that they provide a useful starting point, and once these have become familiar to you, you will be able to learn the more complicated concepts of roulette. Good Luck.

I.R.I.S. 3000 is a 50-cent progressive slot machine, so it might be out of the budget of some. To start playing, you must choose five doors to open-two will be closed. It’s not that complicated. Right under each door is a button that opens and closes it.

Here’s an interesting item. If you don’t trust your own luck, you can let the machine randomly choose for you. As with all slot machines, it’s important to play max coins. If you play just two coins, only one laser beam is activated. When you play three coins, both laser beams are activated.

Once the play button is pressed, the laser beam(s) scan back and forth and randomly stops on one of the 7 doors. When the laser stops on a closed door, that door will open and the Reel activates. The open doors are the possible hits on the pay line.

You can play Bet Max to increase your payout chances. When all 7 of the doors are open, a multiplier wheel spins around. You’ll have a chance to win up to 10x with it.

To win the progressive jackpot, you need to get all 7 doors open, hit 10x on the multiplier wheel and get 5 Radiation Hazards. But remember, you must bet three credits, which is the max, to be eligible for the jackpot.

The payout for I.R.I.S. 3000 is listed on the slot machine itself. On the top are the Radiation Hazards, which are the yellow radiation symbols. Don’t confuse these with the green radiation symbols, which-aside from color-only look slightly different. The green ones are the second best pay on I.R.I.S. 3000. If you get five green radiation symbols and have max coins bet, you’ll win 750 coins, which is $375. One coin only pays 225 coins, which is $112.50.

If you are looking for a fun progressive slot machine to play, I’d check out I.R.I.S. 3000. You can find it online and the progressive is definitely nice. Except to see the I.R.I.S. 3000 progressive jackpot around $100,000 to $250,000 at good casinos. Some online casinos start the progressive much smaller-somewhere around $30,000 to $50,000.

Know why? I’m a social person. I like to socialize. When I play online bingo, there are plenty of people to talk to. Online poker – same thing. Even backgammon sites will let you chat with other players, but when you’re playing the slots, there’s no one to talk to.

Lately though, a few of my friends have been telling me about some online casinos that let you play table games with a live dealer and multiple players. So I decided to check it out. I set a time with a friend, and we got a private table for my induction into this novelty. And there I was, at a real table, playing Caribbean Poker with my buddy. Guess what? It was great!

I didn’t even win, but I had a great time. I think these new live-dealer games are totally amazing. I just really enjoy the interaction, not to mention getting to root for my friends while I play.

It’s great to be able to play blackjack, roulette, and craps with my buddies, and I’m already having a much better time with all those table games than I ever could have imagined, but there’s still no motivation for me to play slots or video poker or keno. I suppose it would be easy to make Keno a multiplayer game, but that leaves video poker and slots as a separate issue.

So I’m wondering, what will come next? I mean is there room for multiplayer slots? How would it work? Could we compete against other slots players? Could we have chat screens working when we’re at the slots? Would it be fun to chat with other players when we’re playing slots or would everyone be too focused on their own slot machine?

For me, though, the new trend of live dealers and multiplayer games has opened up a whole new arena of play. I used to enjoy some of the table games at live casinos, and I’m much better at blackjack than I ever was at Texas holdem, so it’s already done wonders for my budget!

I actually wonder what makes people interested in single-player games. I mean, it must be really lonely and pretty boring just clicking at a screen without talking to anyone or rooting for your friends. Why would anyone want to play that way? Am I shortsighted? I wonder, am I different from most gamblers or is this a trend that works for pretty much everyone? I hope it’s the latter, because I really hope to see more and more online casinos open up chats and multiplayer games in the future!

A great Craps game will be full of shouting, high fives, and unbridled enthusiasm. But, it’s not all roses. There are some action spots on the Craps layout that are sucker bets. Sure, they can be fun to play now and then, but make a habit of it and you’ll lose a serious chunk of your bankroll over time.

Today, I’ll quickly dish out three Craps bets that you want to either stay away from completely or play in rare instances.

Big 6 and Big 8

These two wagers are to be avoided at all costs 100% of the time. Never, and I mean never, play these bets.

The Big 6 and Big 8 only pay even money-read that again. So, if you put $6 on the Big 6 and/or Big 8 and win, you’re paid $6. I call this the lazy man’s bet. Had you simply placed the 6 or 8 instead, you’d be paid $7 for a $6 bet.

By betting the Big 6 or Big 8, you’re losing 16.6% of your money each time you win! That’s a sucker’s bet for sure.

Boxcars

In the center of the Craps layout, there’s the 12 bet-aka boxcars, midnight, etc-and it pays 30 for 1. Sounds great right?

Here’s the problem. First, it’s a one-roll bet. You either win or lose on the next roll. Second, it pays 30 for 1, but there’s only one way in 36 combinations to roll a 12. You’re losing 16% on your action before anything happens.

In other words, if you made the wager 36 times-assuming perfect math play-you’d have $31 in your pocket. You would have lost $5. That’s each and every cycle.

I never make this bet, but it’s okay once in a blue moon if you just want to spice things up. Just realize that there’s a serious house advantage with this wager.

Aces

Just like with the 12, you can also make a one-roll wager on the Aces (2). It pays 30 for one as well and it’s the same deal-a bad wager.