Each online casino player will have their own reasons for playing at a particular casino out of the many online casinos that you will find on the internet. However, there are some reasons that some are much more popular than others.
No matter what a player’s reason is for turning to an online casino to play their favorite casino games, like blackjack and slots, that player will be able to find several great ones to play at.
You should not just choose any online casino at random because you need to know a couple key things before you sign up and deposit money into a new account. Here are some of the more common reasons many players have for playing at an online casino:
Most Important Features of Online Casinos
#1 – How easy is it to get paid when you win money?
If you want to play at an online casino for fun, you don’t have to pay for it. Most online casinos have a fun account that you can use. The number one reason why you want to play at an online casino is because you like to gamble and want to win some money.
Sad to say, there are many online casinos that try to do just about anything to not have to pay players when they win. Either that or they will offer players bonuses that are impractical because you will have to keep playing for weeks to finish. Here is a great site that will teach you about betting at online casinos.
#2 – Why play at an online casino as opposed to going to a casino to gamble?
By all means, go to a casino every once in a while. They are always a thrilling experience. Some people would choose not to go to a casino because you have to make a night of it, if you even live anywhere close to a real casino.
You might also be intimated at the casino because you don’t know how to properly play games like craps and blackjack. And there is always the convenience being able to play the casino games when and where you want to.
Some players turn to the online casinos when they find it financially difficult to make it to the land based ones. Many players don’t live near a land based casino and this means they will need to pay for travel expenses, accommodations, food, and other necessities in order to go to a land based casino.
These players tend to instead turn to the online casinos where the only expenses they need to worry about is the expenses of having their computer hooked to the Internet and their bankroll. Other than that, they won’t have to worry about coming up with any extra cash.
#3 – Which Casino Games do you like to play? Are these games offered at all online casinos?
If you like to play online slots, you will find that just about every online casinos offers players a lot of different slots games. Here is a good list of slots betting sites.
You have to more careful if you like to play other casino games. Most of the good casinos will have all of the most popular casino card games and table games like blackjack and baccarat online.
A lot of these games will not be available for you to play with many of the casino bonuses that these gambling sites offer; you have to always be aware of the casino’s bonus rules before you except a bonus. Most casinos will label the bonus special if you want to be able to get something like a video poker bonus.
#4 – Have you ever played in a online casino tournament?
Many online casinos offer their players tournaments that feature their favorite casino games, especially slots; but their are also other tournaments that you can play in such as roulette, video poker and blackjack tournaments.
These tournaments are fun to play in and don’t cost much money per tournament, so you can have fun, learn and maybe win some money as well.
Other Reasons for Playing at Casinos Online
Other players may have mobility issues which can make it more difficult for them to get around. These players will be able to play all of their favorite casino games right in the comfort of their own home. They won’t need to worry about getting help to get them around in order to play, or how they are going to get to the casino.
There are some players who have a very busy lifestyle and these players can find it very difficult to come up with the time needed to get to a land based casino. However, when they decide to play at an online casino they will be able to play any time they feel like it and for as long or as short of a period of time as they want.
They will also be able to log on for a few minutes after a stressful day at work and just play a little in order to relieve some of those daily stresses.
Other players just like the fact that online casinos have so much to offer. They like being able to choose between so many of them so they know they will experience the best online casino gaming possible.
They know they will have the freedom to play anytime and from anywhere as long as they have Internet. They will be able to choose an online casino that gives them generous bonuses, exciting promotions, a great selection of games, wonderful customer support, and everything else they want.
These players appreciate the easy going and convenient atmosphere of an online casino and know how to get the most out of it.
No matter what a player’s reason is for turning to the online casinos, they will know that they are making a good decision. This is due to the fact that the online casinos have so much to offer players and the players will be more in control of their gaming environment all the way around.
Maybe the lottery has peaked your interest this week after you heard about a $330 Million jackpot that was up for grabs on Tuesday night’s Mega Millions drawing. Now that two people hit their numbers and split the jackpot, the Mega Millions is currently only at $12 Million, the reset amount for the jackpot.
Mega Millions is a huge multi-state lottery, but not the only one around. The Powerball lottery is another one and it currently has the largest jackpot available at $51 Million. They next drawing is on Saturday, January 8 at 11:00PM Eastern Time.
How to Play
The objective of most lotteries is simple. You will pick between 3 and 6 numbers overall. If you are playing a 3 number game, you need to get all three correctly to win. You can also “box” the numbers so you will only win if the numbers are drawn in the correct order. This would be like picking 1 number out of 1000; the odds are worse but the payout is higher.
The object is the same no matter how many numbers you have to guess. There may be prizes for guessing several numbers right, but these are usually only for the larger lotteries. The casual lottery player will not tend to play the daily 3 or 4 digit numbers, but the larger multi-state mega jackpot lotteries.
Mega Millions
With Mega Millions, you need to pick five numbers between 1 and 56. Then you need to pick one number between 1 and 46 for the special sixth “mega ball” drawn. Matching all six numbers correctly will win you the jackpot. Odds for accomplishing this is said to be 1 in 170 million.
Casual lottery players will usually start to play when they see the jackpot reach $100 million or more. The odds become good enough where enough tickets are bought that someone has a good chance statistically to win.
You will also win prizes for getting several of your numbers correct. The Mega Millions pays out $250,000 if you can correctly get all 5 normal numbers correct. You can also get $10,000 if you get 4 normal numbers and the mega ball correct. Other prizes are $150 or less.
Powerball
Playing the Powerball lottery is quite similar to the Mega Millions. You need to choose 5 numbers from 1 through 59 (slightly different) and 1 Powerball number from 1 to 39. The site lists the Grand Prize odds at a little more than 1 in 195 million.
The other prizes you can win starts with a $200,000 prize for getting all 5 of your non-powerball numbers correct (1 in 5 million odds). Then a $10,000 prize for getting 4 numbers and your powerball right. After that, the prizes are $100 or less.
Play Lotto Online
Did you know that you can order tickets for a lot of the largest jackpot lotteries online? And not just lotteries in the United States either but for countries like the UK, Canada, France, German, Australia and so forth.
You don’t have to make a special trip to your local liquor store/gas station/convenience store and stand in line to get tickets. Follow this link to play online lotto.
You can order tickets for any of the following lotteries: Mega Millions, Powerball, UK National Lottery, California Supper Lotto Plus, France Lotto, Powerball Australia, German Lotto, New York Lotto, Mega Sena, Oz Lotto, Florida Lotto, Euromillions and more.
What’s this? A new category! No way! Well it’s true that this site is primarily geared towards casino games and giving you a lesson on how to play them (hence games guide), I still feel that I should be able to talk about other sorts of games that interest me.
You’ve already seen some of my guides to the game of poker, which isn’t really considered a casino game as you aren’t playing against the dealer but against other players. In this case I happen to like sports games and the different kinds of promotions and contests that you can participate in.
This means in the future you shouldn’t be surprised to see my guides on sporting events like the Superbowl, March Madness and so on. These are very popular topics when the time of year comes around and they have a host of games like Superbowl Squares and pick’em contests that people would like to be a participant.
The main problem with these types of contests that I see is that somebody has to do a lot of leg work collecting money and picks and often people aren’t able to find others willing to do this.
The other scenario that I’ve seen is that you don’t know enough people who want to participate in these games and you end up only having 5 people playing. Hurray – I won $25 from my friends!
This is why I’m creating this category. There are places online that you can find people and companies who do all the work. You simply have to pay for your entry and submit whatever picks or decision is necessary. Then you just sit back and root for yourself to do well and maybe you will win some money.
College Football Bowl Season
Which brings me to the topic of discussion for this time of the year. The NCAA college football division 1 bowl games are about to start. The first game is the New Mexico bowl this Saturday, December 18.
Why so early? I don’t like it either, but in the last 5 to 10 years the NCAA has been adding more and more bowl games for the nation to consume. I think that it cheapens the sport when you allow almost any adequate team to make a bowl game.
Time was that you could enter these contests right around Christmas time, because that was right around when the first bowl games started.
You’ll still find a lot of these bowl games pick’em contests are still very popular, but you have to remember to enter these tournaments a week earlier than one might think to.
The two main types of college bowl tournaments that you will find is the Spread contest and the Staight Pick’em contest. The spread contest will involve you pick the spread winner to most or all of the bowl games this season. This year, there are 35 bowl games and the season starts this Saturday and ends a little more than three weeks later on Monday, January 10th – the national championship game which features the Auburn Tigers and Cam Newton vs the high powered offense of LaMichael James and the Oregon Ducks.
These contests can range from having thousands of players with you having little shot of winning anything (these are pretty much just played for fun) and there are smaller office pools where you pay a small fee ($5, $10 or $25 usually) and you have a more legitimate shot of winning a couple hundred to a thousand bucks.
Bowl Games Promotions
You will also find that some of the sportsbooks also offer contests and promotions, such as the three sportsbook bowl game promotions featured at Gamblinglog.
Linesmaker College Football Promotion
In addition to that, let me tell you about a special promotion that I found at a great little sportsbook site called Linesmaker who are holding the College Bowl Bonanza Contest. In this contest, you must pick the winners of all 35 bowl games. If you correctly guess all 35 bowl games, you will win $1 million dollars!
You must register with Linesmaker in order to enter this contest and there are other prizes awarded to 1st, 2nd and 3rd place if no one guess all the bowl games correctly. The winner gets $2,000; 2nd place receives $1,000 and 3rd place will win $500. In order to be eligible for these prizes, you must bet at least $50 a week for each of the three weeks on one or more of the college football bowl games.
Sportsbook.com Pick 13 Teams and Win $100,000
Also Sportsbook.com has a rather neat college bowl promotion that I’d like to share with you. They are offering a prize of $100,000! How do you win this prize? You must correctly pick the Spread for 13 straight bowl games of your choice.
How much will this cost you to participate? Only $25 to enter. I know that your shot of winning 13 straight point spreads is very small, but for only $25 you can get a shot to win $100,000.
Is there any catch to this? Not really, the one thing that I should mention is that if you push on even 1 game, you aren’t eligible to win the $100,000. For that reason, you probably won’t see to many 1/2 points in the spreads. This contest will no longer be available on New Year’s day when there are less than 13 of the 35 bowl games left to be played.
Bowl Game Predictions
It’s only fair that I give you some thoughts on who to pick. Because it’s so easy to tell you that “I pick Boise State to beat Utah” and you don’t need to be told that, I’m going to focus more on who I think will win a game versus the spread.
First is the National Championship game. Right now, I see Auburn as a 3 point favorite going into this game. This is the main reason that I’m going to select the Oregon Ducks to cover the spread. Auburn has made it a habit to fall behind in a lot of games this year, especially a couple of weeks ago against Alabama. If Auburn does this against Oregon, they may beat them but I see this as less than 3 points like the Iron bowl. The only thing that Auburn can do is try to keep the ball all game long to limit Oregon’s offense.
Another game that I see that I would be willing to bet money on is the Hawaii Warriors playing at home in the Hawaii bowl against Tulsa. Hawaii is currently a 10 point favorite. But more so, I would definitely pick the Over of 73 points on this game. The least that Tulsa has scored all year is 21 points and they average in the high 30′s. Hawaii regularly scores more than 40 points a game so this has all the makings of a shootout.
The final game that I am going to give you my prediction on is the Michigan State Spartans covering the spread (currently 10 points) against Alabama. Big Ten teams constantly have a way of surprising SEC teams on New Years Day bowl games and I don’t think that the higher ranked Spartans are going to be any different. I would almost like to pick the Spartans to win outright.
There you have it. That should be enough college football bowl games, promotions and contests for you to digest. The next time you should here about any sporting games and events will be for this upcoming Superbowl. Bye until then.
There is a large range of online bingo rooms available today. As online bingo increases in popularity and accessibility, more and more online bingo rooms are being launched.
There is fierce competition between these sites and they are always finding ways to set themselves apart from their competitors. But, there are some aspects of online bingo rooms that we have come to expect.
One of these aspects is the provision of side games and among these side games, you can find scratch cards games.
Side Games at Online Bingo Rooms
All of the best online bingo rooms offer a range of side games that their customers can take part in. These are an attraction for players for many reasons. They can be enjoyed at the same time as bingo games are going on. If you have set your bingo games to auto-dab, side games are a great way to keep yourself entertained while you wait to win at bingo.
In addition, if you are looking for a bit of variety, but have a focus on bingo, a bingo hall with a great range of side games may be perfect for you.
Some side games that you can expect to find at online bingo rooms include slots games, scratch cards, keno, video poker, arcade games, progressive games and some casino games such as roulette and blackjack.
Side games are generally offered 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They may provide bingo incentives, loyalty points or even cash prizes.
Scratch Cards
If you don’t know what a scratch card is or don’t know how one works online, it is basically like any $1, $2 or $5 lottery scratch ticket that you would buy at any store. The only difference being that this ticket is virtual.
Some scratch cards offered online will have a coin and will let you simulate scratching off the ticket and revealing the prize. There are also some that are more like pull tabs.
You may find that free scratch cards are awarded to players at online bingo rooms for their loyalty. If not, they are still an enjoyable method of entertainment while you wait for a bingo game to finish or simply as a break between bingo games. Scratch cards are quick to play.
They do not take up as much time as a game of blackjack for example and because of that they are an ideal side game at an online bingo room.
Generally, when playing side games at online bingo rooms, you do not want the side game to become the focus of your gambling experience there – side games provide you with your gambling fix or your short distraction without taking too much time away from the bingo games that are available.
Scratch cards, while they are quick and cheap to play, can offer great prizes. They are a fantastic option for a bit of side gambling.
Finding Scratch Cards at Online Bingo Rooms
Many online bingo rooms offer a variety of scratch cards for players to choose from. These offer different themes and players can choose according to their personal preference.
It is simple to play scratch cards at bingo rooms and these can be done at the same time as you are involved in bingo games. Simply go to the side games section in the online bingo room and select the game that you want to play.
Once you have finished you can close the side games and go back to your bingo game.
If you would like to try a similar side game, take a look at these bingo flash games that I wrote about before. You can use the links near the bottom of the post to play either of these games.
Updated 10/31/11 – Take a look at what you can do this Halloween.
Going to be inside on Halloween this year? There are several online casinos that are offering bonuses and other promotions for this Halloween weekend.
Win an iPad
Would you like a chance to win an iPad this Halloween? Sloto’Cash. Five lucky players will win an Apple iPad. All new players who make a first deposit will automatically be entered in the Halloween Draw. The draw will take place on Sunday October 31.
New players can also receive a 200% match bonus worth up to $200 free when you deposit $100.
Slot Tournaments
Want to have a chance to win $15,666 over the weekend? Go to Crazy Slots and register for the Halloween Weekend Madness slot tournament! The tournament starts tonight at 8PM ET and ends at midnight on Halloween night.
The top score gets the grand prize of $15,666 and there is a total of $66,666 guaranteed in prize money! Entry fee is an evil $6.66 and rebuys are the same.
The video slot game that you will have to play is called Monster Money. You will start with a certain number of credits when you start and the object is to have the largest balance at the end of the tournament. This is a bonus slot, so knowing things like how the bonus round is activated is important.
Find out more about this tournament here
Halloween Slot Bonuses
There are several online casinos that are offering bonuses to players who make a deposit from now until Halloween. Here is a look at a few of them:
Slotland is offering a free $10 chip to play their new Halloween themed slot game called Witch’s Brew. Any spin on this game will earn you a ticket for a drawing with 20 winners and prizes up to $500. There is also 20% bonus on all deposits on Saturday and Sunday. See more at ecasinogeek.com
SuperSlots has a Halloween 150% bonus worth up to $300 when you make two separate deposit of $100 on Halloween. SuperSlots is also offering other bonuses throughout the week. Click here for more
English Harbour is also having a Halloween promotion that has already started and goes until Sunday night. You can get a 200% bonus worth a maximum of $500 when you use the coupon code 200S-010 as you are making a deposit in the cashier screen. Find out more at Casino Newsvine
Halloween Bingo Bonuses
For those of you who like online bingo, there are bonuses for you to take advantage of as well this Halloween. Take a look at what Bucky Bingo has to offer. You can get a £10 bonus for every you make over £25 from now until midnight on Sunday 31 October. Find more of this bingo news here.
Also, you should have a look at the Halloween promotions at Golden Hat Bingo. You can have a chance at a total prize pool of £13K when you play the Halloween Special Guaranteed Linx. There are three bingo sessions that start on Halloween at Noon (GBT), 6PM and 10PM. Don’t forget that you can get great bonuses too. Find out more about this halloween bingo promotion
