Friday, February 12, 2010

Online Craps Tournaments

Online craps tournaments offer an easy way to try a tournament without having to plan a trip. Before gambling online or entering an online craps tournament you will need to understand the game well enough to make smart decisions and be comfortable playing with other people. After you have learned the basics of the game then you can try entering an online craps tournament. The advantages of an online tournament over a live tournament are that you do not need to travel, can easily control overall spending and you can be more relaxed.

When looking for an online craps tournament, make sure that you understand the rules and payouts of each individual tournament. They do vary from casino to casino and from tournament to tournament. Check how many rounds there will be. This is usually controlled by a count of rolls of the dice or by a time limit. Find out how many players will get paid and how much they will get paid. This will help you decide how to play if you get close to the end. Decide ahead of time what your goals for the tournament are and do not get carried away with the excitement of the tournament.

Online craps software has become more sophisticated than the early versions. Some of the more advanced online casino software, like microgaming, can determine what style player you are and automatically ask you if you would like to place bets that fit your style. It is also easy to click an option and switch betting types.

The online casino software is easy to use. In many cases it is actually easier than playing at a land based casino. Your chips are counted for you and displayed on screen and you are given a list of betting options. It may sound like small things, but craps is a fast paced game in a casino and it often becomes confusing. The casino is actually trying to confuse you. Have you ever noticed that there are no clocks or windows in a casino?

Before you start playing in craps tournaments you will want learn the basic strategies. There are many websites devoted to craps where you can learn the odds of each bet as well as more sophisticated strategies. Once these strategies and the basic rules of the game have been mastered it is time to practice technique. The idea behind all of this homework in preparation for tournament play is to have you as well prepared as possible. Slot tournaments rely mostly on luck and the same people do not consistently win. Craps tournaments rely on skill and strategy. The same players regularly win.

You need to have a full and complete understanding of craps or the odds will be against you. There are both simple and complicated bets in craps. Until you have gained more experience you should probably stick with the less complicated strategies. Field bets and other long shots may not hit as often as the come line, but you will not need to hit them as often to end up ahead.

Online tournaments are rarely timed so you will be able to take your time. When playing in an online casino, the tournament will definitely be timed so pay attention to the rules.


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Thursday, February 4, 2010

Online Slots

Slot machines or fruit machines, as they are known in England, have been around for over one hundred years. This is because of the excitement that they bring to the player. With each individual pull or game, there is a chance of hitting the life changing jackpot. The first slot machine was the liberty bell which was invented by Charles fey a German immigrant who worked as a mechanic in San Francisco in 1899. All slot machines both at land based and online casinos have descended in some way from the original liberty bell machine.

The Liberty Bell slot machine had three spinning reels. Diamond, spade, and heart symbols were painted around each reel, plus the image of a cracked Liberty Bell. A spin resulting in three Liberty Bells in a row gave the biggest payoff, a grand total of fifty cents or ten nickels. Calculating odds in those days was easy. 3 reels with 10 potential stops give the following odds: 10 X 10 X 10 = 1000 combinations. Only 1 of those combinations yielded the big jackpot.

In 1902, Slot machines were banned in many states. Charles Fey then had to get creative. He changed the symbols on his machines and started offering candy, drinks, and gum as prizes. The owners of the machines that were already out redecorated the wheels with pictures of the gum and fruit instead of the card suits. Cherries have remained a constant on slot machines even today, and the sticks of gum eventually changed into the bars that you still see on a lot of common slot machines.

Slot machines were not really popular until the 1970’s in casinos. The older machines were limiting, because the biggest reels had only 25 different stops, which gave 15,624 to 1 chance of hitting a jackpot. The jackpot had to pay out less than that in order for the casinos to make enough profit for the slot machines to warrant that kind of floor space.

Then the pinball machine company Bally, invented a new slot machine that had both electronic AND mechanical parts. The newer machines also allowed for bigger bets and larger hoppers which could hold larger payouts. This made slot machines more profitable.

The random number generator became popular in the 1980’s and everything changed. The random number generator is basically a mini computer that simulates the sinning reels from a computer program. This changed the entire face of casinos. The reels could be much larger than the actual reels, since they were powered by a computer program instead of a mechanism. The spin arms became unnecessary, because the spin button activated the random number generator program and the machines paid out a preset percentage.

The new technology has made it possible for the machine manufactures to produce virtually a unlimited number of attractive and entertaining slot machine games. Slot machines now take up over 80% of many casinos’ floor space. It’s eye candy of the highest order, and gamblers gobble it up as if it were popcorn.

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Valentine’s Day Week-Long $75,000 Free Slot Tournament

It’s time to fall in love all over again. Go Casino has been putting on impressive Slot Tournaments and will not disappoint this February with over $425,000 in Guaranteed Prizes.

On February 12th at 8PM (ET), Go Casino will be celebrating Valentine’s Day with a week-long $75,000 Guaranteed FREE ENTRY Slot Tournament featuring the game Cupid’s Arrow. 1st Place takes home $15,000 and there are prizes all the way to 1000th Place. The Tournament ends on Friday, February 19th, 2010.

As the title says, it is a freeroll (a Tournament that is free to enter). All you need to do is set up a real money account to play (no deposit necessary). It’s the best way test out the incredible Tournament action without risking any money.

You will have a starting balance of $100 when the Tournament begins. Your goal is to try to get this balance as high as you can. You will see your ranking on the bottom left of the game screen.

You can win real money without having to pay a penny, but if you find yourself with a balance below $20 in the Tournament, you have the option to re-load for only $14.14, which will get you $300 to play with.


Other February Tournament highlights include:

February 2: Groundhog Day $15,000 Guaranteed
February 5 & 19: $50,000 Guaranteed Weekend Madness
February 26: Spring Into March $75,000 Guaranteed Weekend Madness

Click Here to download the software and get into the games.

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