First, while it’s easy to see if a computer is contacting a website from inside the state or out of it, verifying that there is no signal relay is quite difficult. This means that it’s hard to check if the online gamblers are really New Hampshire state residents. It’s true that they need a physical address in order to register, but even that is possible to fake. It’s not quite as easy to fake walking into a shop and buying a ticket. Second, since the lottery is approved for credit card payments, credit cards will not deny the transactions. Third, cash transactions are possible. Fourth players will be limited to making deposits at times of day when lottery stations are open. Fifth, players will need to leave their house and go to another location in order to make a deposit. These last two will help keep some problem gamblers from making deposits in order to chase losses without interference from state government.

While the plan has been given the go-ahead, and the lottery operator is all ready to go, there was some criticism as to the lack of information flow from the lottery personnel to lawmakers, so there will be a one month delay. New Hampshire lottery executive director Charlie McIntyre said that “The Lottery is going to use the down time to educate state leaders about the new interactive game and its place in our portfolio of products.”

Governor John Lynch wanted the lottery to bring revenues up to $100 million each year, a sharp rise from the $63 million that New Hampshire has seen so far. Online casinos seem to be a good method for getting at least some of that rise in revenue. Unlike online poker sites, which depend upon very high volumes of traffic to keep play interesting on a social and competition level as well as to fill up tournaments, casino games are played directly against the house, so a smaller player base will not make players choose offshore casinos if there is an easier, legal option available.

All online casinos make you jump through some hoops to cash out. They have to make you jump through these hoops, because otherwise, hackers would just break into people’s accounts, cash out, and have checks sent to PO boxes for them to pick up around the world. Since your winnings can only arrive at your physical address or your personal bank account, hacking into an online casino is a lot less profitable, therefore much less likely to happen.

The goal of the system is to make sure that the person who makes the deposit is the same person who gets the withdrawal. The main things they look for are simple. They want to make sure that every account has the same name on it. They will only mail a check to a physical address, no PO boxes. They need you to prove that someone with the name on the original cash lives at that address. They will only transfer cash to an e-wallet if that e-wallet was the means of deposit, and obviously, only to the same account.

You’ll generally need to send in proof of ID – that’s a copy of your driver’s license if you have one. If you don’t, you can use a passport, a non-driver ID, or if your country has a national ID, that will do. Your name, photo, and signature must be clearly visible on the copy.

They’ll want a photocopy of the front and back of the credit card used to open the account. Before you mail that in, leave the first 4 numbers on the front, black out the next 8, and leave the last 4. On the back, black out the first 4, and leave the last 3, called the CVV or the card code.

For proof of address, they’ll want a copy of a utility bill with your name on it, dated within the last three months. Your whole name and address must appear on the bill. Don’t bother blanking out anything on this bill. Nobody cares how much water or electricity you use. It’s best to avoid using a phone bill if it is itemized by phone call. If you must use one of these, you should black out any numbers dialed.

Once all of your paperwork has been mailed or faxed in, it may take a few days to process your payment. Be patient, but if you don’t get notification that your payment has cleared, be sure to remind customer service. Most of all, enjoy your win!

The secrets of no-deposit bonuses are pretty basic. First, the playthrough on them is high enough that unless you hit a jackpot, you’re likely to go bust long before you get near the playthrough requirement. Second, if you do hit that jackpot, you can only cash out a small amount, say $50 of it. Third, you’ll still have to make a deposit and play a little before you can cash out that $50.

When it comes to deposit bonuses, be sure to read the terms carefully and warily. First, you’ll have a playthrough requirement. That will usually be twenty to forty times the value of the deposit plus the bonus. Be careful, though. If you play the wrong game, it could be two hundred to four hundred times the value, and if you play the wrong game on some sites, your bonus and all of your winnings can be taken away for violating the terms and conditions of the bonus. If you play blackjack, craps, baccarat, or roulette, you might be better off forgoing the bonus altogether or asking the customer support staff if there’s a special bonus for your game.

If you’re a slots player, though, the bonus will give you extra hours of play, and extra shots at the jackpot, so it’s a pretty sweet deal. Even then, though, check the terms and conditions. A lot of sites say that the bonus is only for play. That means that they remove the value of the bonus from your winnings when you go to cash out.

It’s not all bad though. Let’s say you deposit $100, get a $200 bonus, and at the end of your playthrough, you have $500. You go to cash out, they give you $300, which is a net win of $200. This is the point at which you hope that you’ve chosen a good casino. An honest online casinoo will give you the internet equivalent of a handshake and tell you to come back soon. A dishonest one will dispute your withdrawal and call you a bonus abuser.

It’s a lot to consider, but it’s important to be aware of the ups and downs of online casino bonuses.

In general, casinos use a reliable random number generator (RNG) which is tested by an independent auditor. There have been virtually no reports of problems with RNGs at online casinos, although some players complain about unlikely combinations. Simply put, every unlikely combination will occur at some point even with a good RNG.

Casinos don’t make their money by cheating players. They make money because the games have a house edge. A completely honest casino that plays by the rules and has good odds can still be a very profitable business, so there are plenty of online casinos that are completely straight with you. Even so, they may seem to make offers that are too good to be true. Every casino has a deposit bonus that promises you hundreds of dollars for free. First, the money is never just given away, it is always contingent upon a deposit. Second, the betting requirements are always so high that it is statistically highly likely that you will end up with less than you originally deposited by the time you have met the requirements.

While most casinos do not steal and do use a reliable random number generator, there are some things to watch out for. For example, if you’re playing regular blackjack, you should make sure that blackjack pays out 3:2 instead of 1:1, because some online blackjack games use odds that make the house edge bigger. You should choose European roulette over American roulette, because the American version has two house numbers while the European has only one. You should also check the payout schedules of video poker games before you play to make sure they’re as good as they should be.

The majority of online casinos are honest, and they’ll let you play a fun game and have a good time, but the internet allows anyone to put up a site anywhere, so be sure to only go to well-established, safe online casinos when you want to make a deposit and play for real.

Pai Gow

Red Dog
Red Dog is sometimes called Acey-Deucey or In Between. Some casinos call it Red Dog Poker, but it bears absolutely no resemblance to poker. A player makes a wager and the dealer places two cards on the table. If the first two cards are consecutive, for example three four or jack queen, then the round is a push, and the bet is returned. If the two cards are the same, a third card is dealt. If it, too, is the same, the player receives eleven times the value of their bet. If the first two cards are more than one apart, a spread is declared. For example, if the first two cards are ace and three, then the spread is one number large. If the third card is in the spread, the player wins. Otherwise, the player loses their bet.

If you’ve ever played live blackjack at a casino, you’ll discover that some things aren’t so much fun. For example, the game moves very quicklly. Everyone is in a big rush to get through the hand, and if you hold up the hand, people will be annoyed. Another thing that can be distressing is the table limits. Since a live dealer needs to attend to each player and you are taking up a space at a table, the minimum for live blackjack can be quite high.

If you’re playing online blackjack at an online casino, no one is waiting for you to take your turn. While online casinos may have a time limit on each hand, you will certainly have enough time to think through every decision before you make it. If you have a chart on hand, you’ll have enough time to consult it. At a live casino, a dealer will generally automatically make the move suggested by basic strategy, which is helpful, but can make it feel like you’re not an active player. At online casinos, there is no live dealer, so you can often play for very low limits. Some online casinos allow you to play blackjack for stakes of less than a dollar. You’ll never find stakes like that in Las Vegas.

Most online casinos have more than one variant of blackjack. You can shop around for your favorite in the play for fun version of the casino or for very low stakes before you start playing. If you’re playing in a live casino, you can’t just try out a couple of rounds of blackjack switch for free, and if you watch other players too closely, they may get annoyed.

The main downside to playing online blackjack versus playing live blackjack is clear. You miss the social interaction. If you like to play blackjack as a way to blow off steam and hang out with like-minded people, online blackjack doesn’t fit the bill. If you want to learn, though, online blackjack is the way to go.

Over the past several years, financial institutions in the United States have begun to close off deposit options for online casinos and poker rooms. Visa and MasterCard now block all transactions that they can positively identify as belonging to online gaming companies. Some online gaming companies are able to bypass the system by coding the transactions as different business types, but Visa and MasterCard are catching on.

In the online casino world, e-wallets are a very popular deposit option. One of the first and best known e-wallets is PayPal, which does extensive work with customers in the United States. In order to maintain their legal status in the United States, PayPal banned transactions involving online casinos as soon as they became controversial. Since then, others like Neteller and Click2Pay have followed suit. These days, it is almost impossible to find an e-wallet which will allow a player from the United States to make a deposit to an online casino site

Casino players should be aware that with the UIGEA, they are not in legal danger of going to jail if they are caught playing online. Prosecutors are only going after those who process payments and operate online casino sites, not players. On the other hand, US prosecutors have seized funds from payment processors and from online poker sites. Thus far, the sites have paid players their money despite any financial difficulties the site owners incurred.

Among online poker players, there is a lot of optimism that the UIGEA won’t last long. There are bills being put forward by Representatives McDermott and Barney Frank to legalize, regulate, and tax online gaming. Moreover, players know that bans have thus far been unsuccessful. Even in China, where all online casino and poker sites are blocked by the internet providers, there are many online poker and casino players. Law enforcement in China is overall quite successful, so their failure in this field is quite telling. Online Gambling is here to stay.

Dress Code – ADVANTAGE: Online Casino – Going to a real casino is often a big event for many people.  They get dressed up to the nines acting often trying to mimic their favorite Hollywood stars like James Bond.  Though you can still walk into most casinos in pretty much anything (within reason), one of the things a lot of people prefer about online casinos is the fact that you can play in your pajamas (or in your birthday suit if you so chose) from the comfort of your own home.

Gaming Experience – ADVANTAGE: Live Casino – As much as online casinos do their best to mimic the live experience, nothing tops actually throwing the dice in a game of craps, or seeing your cards dealt right in front of you.  Online casinos are getting better at this by adding things like live dealer casinos, but the reality is live casinos will always provide a much better playing experience than any online casino ever will.

Travel Time – ADVANTAGE: Online Casino – One of the main reasons for the popularity of online casinos is you no longer have to leave your house to get to one.  Many people live quite far from a physical casino which means by playing online they could cut down on hours of travel time, gas expenses and much more.

Social Aspects – ADVANTAGE: Live Casino – Most humans are social beings and enjoy interacting with one another.  This is one of the biggest problems that online casinos have failed to solve.  One of my favorite things about going to a physical casino is the camaraderie amongst the players.  At any craps table you will see players cheering one another on as at most table games.  In fact the only game in live casinos that isn’t very social is slots.

Odds – ADVANTAGE: Draw – With the growing competition between online casinos the odds continue to get better and better.  For example, Betfair Casino offers a zero house edge section of their casino called the zero lounge where games have practically no house edge.  The reason for this category being declared a draw is because the difference in the speed of play.  With online casinos you can play easily 20x more hands or pulls on a slot machine than you could ever do in a live casino.  Since odds are impacted over the time you are playing even though the games have a better win percentage, they are probably coming closer to breaking even in odds with their live version because of the increased play volumes.

Security – ADVANTAGE: Live Casino – The main reason that we have given the advantage to live casinos for security is because in most places if there is an issue you can take this to your local law enforcement.  The reality with online casinos is if anything did ever go wrong it would be much more difficult to get the problem resolved as you might be dealing with a company that operates in a different country from yourself.  For the most part if you stick with well known online casinos like the ones listed on our site you have nothing to worry about, but there are some casinos with very shady operations that might not be there when you go to get your money out.  The key here with online casinos is to do a lot of research before trusting your hard earned dollars on their site.  Don’t just take one casino over another because it has a bigger bonus or prettier logo.  When choosing an online casino pick one that is publicly traded or government regulated as these casinos are 100% secure.

Bonuses / Comps – ADVANTAGE: Online Casinos – One of the greatest things about playing at casinos in somewhere like Las Vegas is the free drinks and comps that you can earn for playing.  Unfortunately this isn’t the norm for most live casinos and even those free drinks or comps you are typically paying for anyway.  The reason online casinos dominate this category is this is often one of the things that separates them from their competitors.  With so much competition it often comes down to the casinos offering the best bonuses, or with the greatest comp programs.  Since most live casinos don’t typically have much local competition they can set forth whatever comps they want which often require a substantial amount of play before you earn anything.  With online casinos often you will get comps instantly just for making a deposit on their site in the way of an instant bonus which is something Bodog Casino does quite well.

As you can see from above, depending on what you look for when playing at a casino there are many key differences between the two.  To determine which is best for you pick the things that are most important to you and see which type of casino does them best.

Many online casinos have started to add a live dealer component to their software.  Basically this means they have set up a tables for various casino games in some building (typically in Eastern Europe or Asia) with attractive dealers.  There are cameras all over the tables and you can see the cards being dealt to you as the dealer deals them (just like in a live casino).  The cards are then converted into an online readable format also so you can see clearly which card is which. You control your actions with your mouse and the dealer then plays out the hand.  If you win, the money is added to your online account or if you lose the money is deducted from your balance.  For example, Ladbrokes currently offers a live dealers section for their casino which can be seen here:

As you can see above, the technology involved is really cool and this is probably the hottest trend in online casinos right now.  If you want to try out the ladbrokes casino simply click the image above.

Zero House Edge

This trend was pioneered by Betfair to make themselves stand out from many of the other online casinos.  In the Betfair casino they have a section called the Zero Lounge where the house edge is less than 1%.  They currently offer 4 games in the Zero Lounge which are: Zero Roulette, Zero Jacks or Better, Zero Blackjack and Zero Baccarat.  The only real downside of playing these games is they can not be used towards clearing bonuses or earning comp points.  I have personally played in the Zero Lounge and went on a run where I turned about $300 into over $40,000.  This is not meant to encourage you as you can go on some really bad runs and at times I was betting ridiculous amounts so I definitely attribute this win to luck over it being that there was a reduced house edge.  Regardless, I think this is a really cool idea for Betfair and I know if I am going to play anywhere online I would rather play somewhere that I have better odds of winning.  If you are interested in checking out the Zero Lounge, go to Betfair and download the casino software (you can play for free to try it out).

Mobile Casinos

The other big trend for online casinos in 2010 is mobile gaming.  Now that so many people have phones with solid internet connections and huge screens like the iPhone, many online casinos have started to put a lot more focus in their mobile gaming software.  This software allows you to access your favorite online casino while on the go with your cell phone.  Several casinos offer this technology right now, one of them being Ladbrokes (I know I already mentioned them earlier in this article, but they are right up there with the big trends! ).  Ladbrokes offers a mobile client which is easy to use for people that want to play on their phone for either play money or real money.  Even if you don’t want to gamble, this is definitely a cool app for your phone.  Here is a screen shot of the mobile gaming software:

Anyway, that is all for now.  I will try to put together a future post about things we might see in the future for online gaming after I do a bit more research or if you know any cool things post them in the comments below. It can only get better and better from here!

Caesars, which is part of Harrahs Entertainment Inc. appears to be getting ready to launch an online casino. For years people in the online industry have been discussing what would happen if Vegas (meaning the casinos operating there) decided to get into the online market. I think this is a good thing, because this will help weed out a lot of the shady online casinos that are operating today. Why would a player want to go play at “Joe’s Sketchy Online Casino” (operating out of god knows where), when they can play at something like “Caesars Casino Online” (who everyone knows is a brand that can be trusted).

The casino is currently being promoted by Uffiliates, which is the casino affiliate program owned by 888.com.  I am still trying to figure out all the details but here are the two posibilities that I see so far:
1) 888.com purchased the rights to use the name Caesars for an online casino and will be giving loyalties to Harrah’s for any profits made by the casino.
2) Harrah’s contracted 888.com to provide the software and marketing for their online casino under the Caesars brand.

Either way you look at it though, Harrah’s is knowingly getting involved in the online casino industry.  The good thing with 888.com handling this, is they can use their current casino to make some of the biggest promotions and casino bonuses on the net, to obliterate a lot of the competition.

As you can see, Vegas has finally shown some interest with getting into the online casino market.  If you are interested in checking out the new Caesars Casino Online, there is a site currently up here.  Unfortunately the page redirects after about 3 seconds, but this should be fixed shortly.  I managed to get a screenshot of the homepage:

We will continue to watch this story closely as it develops and once we can get some more information from our contacts at 888.com.