Friday, February 18, 2011

Spotting Rogue Online Casinos

When people say online casinos are a waste of time and exist just to steal your money, they are usually wrong. With the proper gambling strategy, you can make money at online casinos. But there is one case where those people are true. It is in the case of rogue or fake online casinos.

There are certain online gambling sites that are looking for an easy way to your personal information. The online casino is a front for hacking into your account and stealing your identity. In other cases, the games are rigged so that you lose every time. They use a faulty RNG (random number generator). So how do you avoid this?

Third party organizations like eCOGRA (eCommerce and Online Gaming Regulation and Assurance) and TST (Technical Systems Testing). They test and certify online casinos for safety and security. Look for their seals at the bottom of the casino’s homepage.

Another way to check for legitimacy is to read unbiased reviews at online casino review sites. Some of these sites even have blacklists of online casinos to avoid. You just have to make sure the site is legitimate. Unfortunately, this is an endless cycle when it comes to the Internet. If this review site is ranked high on search results, you can generally trust it.

Trustworthy casinos are operated by the best software providers. The top providers include Microgaming, Vegas Technology, Playtech, Rival Gaming and Wagerlogic. If the online casino uses one of these, this is a step in the right direction. A lot of fake online casinos share their content. That’s because scammers are lazy and spam everywhere as fast as possible to spread everywhere online. A way to check on this is to copy a paragraph from on of the online casino’s page and paste it into an Internet search engine. The search results speak for themselves. Lastly, read the terms and conditions through to the end. There could be unfair wagering requirements hidden. One big sign is the payout procedures. All fair and certified online casinos pay out on a daily or weekly basis, max. If this one pays out monthly, it could be foreshadowing bigger problems.

Friday, February 11, 2011

The Importance of Payout Percentages

Most new gamblers think all there is to joining an online casino is finding the best games, bonuses and tournaments, and make sure it is a respectable, secure site. They usually forget about payout percentages. These are one of the first things to check on when visiting an online casino.

Payout percentages are how often the online casino pays out to its customers. Online gambling sites are legally bounded to provide these percentages. They can be hard to find so look thoroughly or contact customer support if you can’t find them. If they are certified and audited by a third party like eCOGRA (eCommerce and Online Gaming Regulation and Assurance), the percentage will be available.

Payout percentages are calculated by adding the total winnings paid out and dividing it by the total wagers. That number is multiplied by 100 to get the percentage. Let us say an online casino takes in $1 million in wagers and pays out $970,000 of that $1 million. The payout percentage is calculated as follows: 970,000/1,000,000 = 0.97 x 10 = 97%. Therefore, the casino pays out 97%. This is a reasonable amount.

Read up at online casino reviews sites like this one to find out where the best payout percentages are. Just make sure they are up to date. Some of the best online casino payout percentages right now include Online Vegas Casino (95.2%), Millionaire Casino (94.6%) and Rushmore Casino (94.1%). Pretty much any online casino has better payouts than Las Vegas, but if you want to find the best percentages, check around and don’t settle for the flashiest one offered.

Friday, February 4, 2011

The Growth of Mobile Casinos

Forget about online casinos. Mobile casinos are the hottest new thing with online gambling right now. As technology has increased, mobile casinos have become more popular. Mobile casinos allow you to gamble on the go and play your favorite online casino on your wireless device.

Online casinos are taking notice and are now designing games specific to mobile devices. Games like slots, poker, blackjack, craps, roulette, video poker and more are available. They can be played on your smartphone, iPhone, PDA, wireless tablet PC, etc. Granted, you won’t get the same quality of graphics as the online casino counterpart, but mobile casinos are getting better by the day. New features have been added like being able to flick the screen or shake the device to spin the reels of a slot game.

Before playing a mobile casino, make sure you have enough memory on your device to download the casino software. If you need more storage, buy a memory chip or Micro SD card. The mobile casinos are generally free, but data and roaming fees may apply so check with your wireless provider. When you update your device, you may have to update or download the mobile casino again. If your device model doesn’t support the mobile casino you are looking for, one of the cheaper ways to play a mobile casino is a game download service through your provider. This is generally a fee per download or month.

All the same online gambling laws apply to mobile casinos. You are betting with real money and earning real money. If you are playing the mobile counterpart of an online or land-based casino, you may be able to link up your accounts. Similar online casino bonuses are available as well on mobile casinos.