Las Vegas

Decks

Blackjack can be played with any number of decks. As the number of decks increase, the game becomes better for the house (casino). In the old days, the game was single-deck Blackjack. Eventually, casinos figured out that they could improve their odds by adding one more deck.

Today, single-deck Blackjack in the real world can be hard to find-unless you want to play $25+ per hand. Usually, the lower limit tables (under $25 per hand) are multi-deck games. Most of those use 4,6 or 8 decks.

Don’t be fooled by online casinos. Yes, they may use a single deck, but the deck is shuffled after each hand (unless specified). This isn’t the same as a single-deck game in the real world, because those games aren’t shuffled after each hand. It makes a difference. Real world single deck games are better for you.

That’s not to say that you shouldn’t play Blackjack online. Just be aware of the differences. For instance, since the online casinos shuffle after each hand, counting cards is of no use to you.

Player Positioning

If you’re playing Blackjack by yourself, this section won’t matter. But, if you’re playing with others, it pays to know the order of play.

The order of play starts with the player position to the left of the dealer. This position is known as first base. The order of play continues in a clockwise direction. The last player position to play is to the immediate right of the deal. This position is known as third base and it’s a coveted position to be in.

If you’re walking up to a table and you’re newer to Blackjack, don’t sit in the third base position. If you make a playing mistake, the rest of the table might suffer and they’ll be mad at you. However, if you’re an experienced Blackjack player, the third base position is one that you’ll most likely want.

Some players are superstitious and will only sit in certain spots. In reality, it’s all luck of the draw. The only true constant is that a poor player sitting at third base can wreck a table. For instance, the dealer might have a 6 showing and the poor player hits on 15, gets a face card and busts. The dealer then turns over a face card, gets a 3 and stands on 19-perhaps wiping everyone out.

All bingo lovers know that one of the essentials every player should have is their own bingo set. This bingo set can be used regularly on family vacations, visits with friends or even serve as an exhibition piece.

A typical bingo set will contain bingo cards, markers or chips, a cage with bingo balls, a bingo bag and a master board. But as the needs and demands of players change the contents of these sets change.

There are many types of bingo sets available, for example recreational, professional, home and double bingo sets. In short, there is a set to suit every player.

Before players buy bingo sets, they should decide whether they want to buy a 90 ball or a 75 ball game. The 90 ball game are played mostly in the United Kingdom and the 75 ball game in the United States.

The next step would be to choose between a set with bingo cards and markers, or shutter cards. If players prefer the bingo set with the markers, they will have to replace their cards regularly because players will mark off their numbers on the cards. There are many internet sites that allow players to create their own, randomly generated, cards. The other option is to buy sets with shutter cards or chips. This way all players have to do is simply slide the shutter or the chip over the number to mark it off and cards can be used again.

The two most popular types of bingo sets are sets with wooden balls and sets with plastic balls. Most sets contains a bingo cage in which the balls are placed. The cage is used to mix the balls and to randomly generate the next number for the caller to call.

Bingo sets are definitely not drab and boring. Many themed sets are available. The themes vary from Hello Kitty to Elvis, with pattern-printed cards and suitable markers.

Other popular bingo sets are bridal shower or baby shower bingo sets. Instead of numbers, these sets contain pictures and other baby or bridal items. Popular sets for children are maths, bible, animal and language bingo.

Blackjack before 1962:
Before publication of the classic book “Beat The Dealer” by Edward O. Thorp in 1962 no single player had ever suspected of such a thing as the Basic Strategy. Everyone used one’s own mixture of superstitions concerning the way in which one or the other hand had to play. Plus, some experience gained while playing at home in the kitchen. Excluding a small number of professional card-players who intuitively presupposed that their overbalance would be more if there were more bowers left in a pack, practically none won in blackjack. Naturally, casinos felt quite comfortable under such conditions. Till 1962 blackjack was not very popular, though percentagewise the profit rate was exclusively high.

The next decade: from 1962 till 1972:
After publication of the book by Thorp the situation changed radically. When the book mounted the peak of sales, became a bestseller, and the professor Thorp became an internationally famous personality, casinos were terrified that thus everyone could learn the system of Thorp and would start beating casinos winning huge amounts of money.

The results of this panic are well-known. The majority of casinos cardinally changed the blackjack rules creating even a larger overbalance in comparison with the previous set of rules. These introductions were effective a few weeks only as the majority of casinos’ clients simply refused to play a game with such bad rules. Subordinating to the law of supply and demand casinos had to quickly restore traditional rules for all. After this gamblers started immediately to play again, more than that in considerably larger quantities.

The popularity of Thorp’s book played into the hands of casinos. Blackjack started to attract crowds of people who thought they could “beat a dealer” only after they had read one book.

But the fact remained that casinos’ visitors continued to lose the same amounts of money while playing blackjack as before. Only the number of gamblers increased a hundred times. The majority of those who had read the book simply didn’t understand the way the calculation of tens given in the book worked, and those who got to the bottom didn’t take enough pains so as to master the system of calculation from A to Z. Casinos observed in surprise the incredibly increased profits.

Reedition of the book in 1966 gave a reader a simpler calculation system. Over that period of time a number of books on blackjack were published. The game gathered pace. Casinos were setting more and more tables. Blackjack was becoming the most popular game in casinos having outrun the previous leader craps.

Blackjack of the 70s:
The classic book “Playing Blackjack as a Business” by Lawrence Revere is responsible for further increase in popularity of the game in the 70s to a great extent. Revere published a shortened version of his systems at the beginning of 1969, but by 1972 already thousands of copies of the book were sold out. Revere republished an extended version of the book offering his simple and effective systems of the game which increased blackjack popularity even more.

Also the book “Winning Blackjack” by Stanley Roberts, was in the right place at the right time, in addition the author appeared in a number of radio and TV-shows. Roberts invested a considerable amount of money into advertising of his book making a splash.

Casinos were once again overcome by the fit of paranoia. They started to suspect that the systems developed with the help of research methods could considerably influence their profits. Casinos started to introduce a multi-pack blackjack instead of a one-pack blackjack to struggle against the system game.

At the beginning of the 70s a lot of scientists, mathematicians, university professors and other “intellectuals” started to write books about blackjack. Some of them developed their own cards’ calculation systems. One of the most popular and effective systems – Hi-Opt I, was developed in 1974 with the help of computer programs created by Julian Brown with participation of an anonymous postgraduate of a large Canadian university.

A lot of professional gamblers transferred from the Revere system to the Hi-Opt I system because of the relative simplicity and effectiveness of the latter one. A lot of ordinary gamblers started to use the system together with the basic strategy. These two systems evidently made the biggest impact upon casinos’ profits because of their use by professionals. Roberts’ systems were more often used by amateurs.

Kenneth Uston, teams and Great Horror:
Kenneth Uston noticed sometime at the end of 1976 that he was amazed by the way how effective the simplest systems of Hi-Opt I type could be. In Uston’s book “Big Player” the way how Uston and his companions won together more than a million of dollars playing blackjack is described. Later on his teams transferred from very complicated systems to the simplest of Hi-Opt I type. Uston was thrown out of a few big casinos of Las Vegas, and he filed lawsuit against them for a total amount of 80 million dollars.

With the arrival of Uston the whole new era of blackjack began. Casinos were once again frightened that teams could win huge amounts of money in blackjack. Nearly at once some casinos did away with a one- and two-pack blackjack transferring to 4-, 6- and 8-pack ones. For an average gambler blackjack became too difficult. Plus, casinos started to cut most cards out of play – to two packs. As has been mentioned by Roberts in one of his articles, such practice was at the very least doubtful. By the way, the fact itself of availability of cards which didn’t enter the game caused new kinds of crooked gambling connected with withdrawal and addition of cards.

Casinos up to now change the number of packs and the extent of cutting, and compare levels of profits, thus balancing rules. In any case, rules are extremely difficult for gamblers in the USA, especially beginners.

The nightmare continues:
The funniest thing is that gamblers’ thoughts are not rigid. Uston’s teams were followed by Keith Taft with his pocket computer for blackjack which played better than any profs in the world. The court of Nevada State broke the record of the USA on the quickness of adoption of statute on use of computers in casinos. Up to five years with confiscation in the current situation, though Taft and his advocates were sure of the unconstitutionality of that law.

Forbade the computer? There appeared Tommy Hyland and his most complicated systems of tracking. A new headache for casinos… To worsen the cutting, introduce more packs and make the procedure of riffle even longer. To invent shuffle-machines!

Stanford Wong was the first to outwit these shuffle-machines. The most important thing was to know how they worked. Poor casinos didn’t know what to do. These machines cost rather a lot.

Perhaps new varieties would help? Spanish 21, Super-fan 21, 6:5 blackjack, “Open” blackjack, Blackjack-switch, Pontoon… With every introduction there was one problem: either no one played it at all or profs immediately found the way to beat it. Tournaments? Old Wong created teams especially for tournament struggle. Every new rule was calculated and intensively looked into a week in advance. The development of the Internet caused quick information distribution.

Further on the whole pleiad of gamblers of the contemporary generation came on stage. Wong, Sneider, Anderson, Dogerty, Shlesinger and heaps of people who were occupied with theory and practical aspects of the game. Mathematical models of the game were worked out. Texts on Blackjack were published in scientific reviews.

Finally, up to the present moment a small number of professionals still win in blackjack. And will win in the future. Some profs transfer to more complicated systems which are plentiful (let’s say, Hi-Opt II was published as far back as 1976). New methods and techniques are being developed.

There is no doubt that it will get still more and more difficult to win in blackjack. However, there difficulties only make gambling wits work harder and harder. Right away new game systems are being worked out in many heads and at many computers of the world.

When Not to Bluff

Player’s Expect You to Bluff: You were caught bluffing and now labeled as apoor bluffer. Don’t stick you hand in the cookie jar until you rebuild your reputation as an honest player, then try to bluff later.

Against Too Many Players: The chances are that someone has a made hand and they’ll stick with it.

Against Bad Players: Bad players have no idea what’s going on. They’ll call you regardless, because they aren’t concerned with what you have. They want to improve their own hand, so they’ll call just about anything.

You lost a Series of Hands: Players will expect you to make some crazy moves to make your money back (playing on tilt). They’ll be ready to call you down.

Again, bluffing should be used sparingly. Here are some scenarios where a typical bluff should be taken into consideration:

The RIGHT Time to Bluff

Against Weak or Tight Players: Once you have a general idea of how your opponents play, your biggest targets would be pounding the weak and tight players who tend to fold easily. However, bluffing too early won’t make them budge; they may not believe you have a better hand or maybe holding a strong hand of their own. (Refer to the table image section)

Few Players in the Pot: It’s easier to trick a few individuals (1-3) rather than a small group. Fewer hand out there, the chances of someone making a reasonable hand are slim.

Everyone has checked and you’re last to act: Betting will force a few players out of the pot, but not all (also known as squeezing). It’s pretty common to see someone bluff and bet on the button, so most of the time players will call because they won’t believe you have the better hand. It’s also a good strategy to see where you stand.

You Bet Preflop and Missed: You’re holding an A Q and bet preflop, and the flop comes down K -8 -5 . Other player’s may still think your hand is strong because of your bet preflop. So a bet on the flop would make your opponents thinking you’ve hit nicely on the flop.

Player’s Fear You: If you won a hand through a good play, and see your opponent a bit aggravated or show respect by commenting on your hand, then trick them in the future by running the same play that beat them. They will more likely fold to your bluff if you play it right.

Semi-Bluffing

A semi-bluff is a partial bluff with some truth in that play. With a semi bluff, you can either win by them folding right then, by improving to the best hand, or by catching a scare card and betting out on the following round. You should have general knowledge of calculating odds before attempting a semi-bluff. Here are a few examples of when to semi-bluff.

The online poker industry is a thriving, even booming online industry, with hundreds of thousands of people having already signed up, it seems to have generated a ceaseless momentum. It is through the potential increase in revenues and clientele that the online poker industry is such a thriving market for the associated affiliate program. As with all affiliate programs, the affiliate members earn money as a result of the success of the industry that they represent. Therefore the poker affiliate program is becoming one of the largest and most popular schemes online, which in turn is aiding the progression of the poker rooms and increasing competition in both industries.

Unlike many of the commercial programs, poker sites and affiliate programs offer their affiliates a percentage of a players money generated, rather than a simple small one off payment. From the affiliates point of view this is potentially a hugely lucrative revenue, spread over the entire life span of a player. The average life of a player on an individual poker site is estimated to be as short as 3 or 6 months. Many people will join for a short period to take advantage of the enormous offers, whilst others who enjoy the site are more liable to remain for many months even years. These longer serving players can provide the affiliates with a good regular income for a n extended period, which makes them liable to be far more profitable customers. With percentages ranging from 15 to 35%, these customers can soon add up to a significant revenue even for the smallest of online affiliates.

So through lucrative rewards and an industry of almost unparalleled growth potential and popularity, the poker affiliate marketing program is a competitive and desirable online business opportunity. Whether it is for inexperienced Internet users looking to earn a little bit of cash or for large established sites looking to earn increased revenue to subsidise the site, the affiliate program is open to everybody and remains equally successful throughout. The major success of the poker affiliate scheme can be found through its sheer breadth of representatives and the diverse lucrative nature of the bonuses they offer. With sites encouraged to advertise the poker industry in order to earn an income, the poker industry is profiting from huge capital gains.

For the card player, casino gambling offers blackjack and poker as main attractions. Casinos vary these games depending on the house rules. Some tables have lower stakes but use more decks to keep the game interesting, other gambling houses feature higher stakes games with one or only a couple of card decks in play. Make sure you know the house rules on subjects like table etiquette and gambling limits before you play. Some houses are very particular about when it’s ok to touch cards, and what’s considered a forfeit. For example, many casinos won’t recognize a hand if any card touches the discard pile. Knowing these details will come in handy when you’re ready to gamble.

The roulette wheel is another kind of gambling altogether. This classic game, along with the dice tables, can be confusing for a newcomer. The best thing to do if you are unfamiliar with any game is to watch and ask questions before putting gambling any money. The casino staff is trained to help you and nobody will think you’re foolish for learning the rules before you put down any cash.

Casino gambling may also include video poker, games of skill and electronic dice games. Once you’ve learned the ins and outs of these games, you may find them as exhilarating as the old-fashioned versions of blackjack, craps and poker.

• European Roulette Gold Series
This roulette game is far and away the best of its type on the Internet. Player screens that offer razor sharp visual quality, crystal clear ambient sounds that set the mood, and little details like Bet Timers and easy to use control buttons, come together to give players the authentic roulette table experience. European Roulette Gold Series is the difference between trying to recreate the excitement of the casino, and wondering why you ever bothered going to the casino in the first place.

• Double Joker 100 Play Power Poker
You could argue that multi-play Power Poker is the bread and butter of online casinos in that everybody has to have it. Of course, if that’s the case, then Double Joker 100 Play Power Poker is the strawberry jam, giving players the ability to play up to 100 hands of video poker at a time. Sitting down to play Double Joker 100 is a test of your wits, concentration, and endurance. For the person with the right mix of all three, it could also be one of the most lucrative seats around.

• Avalon Video Slot
Avalon is a 5 reel, 20 Payline video slot that holds many secrets and treasures for those bold enough to find them. With free spins, mystery multipliers, Scatter and two Wild opportunities as well as a Gamble feature where the intrepid can double of quadruple their wins, the possible payout is $105,000. That’s enough to make Avalon Video Slot an epic in its own right.

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.

The California Hotel is one of my favorite downtown casinos. It’s easy to spot and it’s been around for decades. One thing you notice is the friendly and smaller gaming floor. Most of the more recent casinos require an atlas to navigate through. The California Hotel is smaller and easy to find what you want. No worries about getting lost here.

It has some nice restaurants and some shops upstairs. Parking is a bit interesting. There’s valet (recommended) and self-parking. If you park it yourself, there is a parking garage. You can also park on the street in metered spots, but I don’t recommend it. Valet is free-just throw them a tip of a buck or two.

As mentioned, the second floor has some shops. These are little specialty stores-even a place to get yummy ice cream. There’s also a corridor to another casino if you want to take a stroll. Upstairs is my favorite place to grab a quick mean. It’s a Hawaiian place and the teriyaki rice bowls are the best in town-yes, really. This place is almost always packed.

You’ll notice a lot of Asian and Hawaiian people here. The California Hotel usually does a lot of promotion in Hawaii and runs flights back and forth. It’s really the “Hawaiian Hotel” of Las Vegas. They pride themselves on having that aloha spirit and it shows. If you’re interested in staying at the California Hotel, they have about 800 rooms and the prices are very reasonable. It’s within walking distance to all the other downtown casinos too-Plaza, Horseshoe, Golden Nugget, etc. And you’ll be able to catch the Fremont Experience shows.

If you want to take in the Las Vegas Strip, no worries. You can hop in a cab (or drive) and be there within about 10 minutes. Let me recommend a cab. Driving on the Las Vegas Strip isn’t fun at all. If you’re a public transportation enthusiast, there are buses. The CAT bus is the general one and now there’s a double-decker bus called the Deuce. It’s great. If you take a cab, get out somewhat near where you want to be and take a stroll.

Bingo online – the search goes on

Of course online bingo is found on the internet. “Where else”, you may ask! Well, many advertisements are starting to appear on a regular basis in national newspapers, advertising boards and television. With sites like 888 and mansion also appearing as sponsors of sports teams, it seems that site owners are finding new ways of promoting and attracting new players, increasing the advertising audience, but causing a new headache for governments. Many of the advertisements that are being seen (particularly in newspapers) have been in breach of the advice issued by the UK government on gambling advertising. Ahead of the new UK Gambling Legislation (which is to be implemented from 2007) the gambling commission has issued guidance aimed at remote operators.

Online searches still count for around 80% of natural site discovery. Keywords being searched for by players have not really changed from the outset, with the obvious words still being used. Below is a list of the typical words and the amount of times they were used in the past 90 days (figures obtained in July 2006 from Dogpile and Metacrawler).

Bingo – 1654 searches
Online Bingo – 470 searches
Bingo Games – 180 searches
Internet Bingo – 74 searches
Play Bingo – 53 searches
Free Bingo – 50 searches

Site owners are still using these keywords within their site design, with only a few attempting to find niche markets with key phrases such as “Win Big Cash Prizes”. There is an obvious reason for this. Bingo online is what it is. It does what it says on the tin. The difficulty for a player is to try to find newly released sites when there is a cat and mouse game going on between search engines and competitors. The problem is made more difficult for the site owners by the fact that search engines like Google seem to reveal similar results each time the word “bingo” is entered, even though it may be entered within a phrase, and alongside other words such as “games”, “sites” or “play”. This never allows recently released sites to gain exposure and limits the immediate availability of the variation of sites available to the public. The key for a player is to search a little deeper and perhaps use phrases which are not typical to the same results. The more words used in the keyword setup for the site, and then in the users search, the easier it will be to find the site.

Sign-up – your bingo site needs you

First impressions last, so when someone first discovers a new bingo game site the look and feel is most important. Most bingo sites adopt a fun-based graphics approach. This is in keeping with the fact that bingo is a fun game to play. The majority of sites use software provided by development companies such as Parlay or Playtech, and that makes it difficult to adjust the game window design specifically for each site.

The trick is to try to balance the fun approach to graphics with a professional and quality look. This allows players to feel that the design has been well thought out, and that it is being run by a company who knows what they are doing. Even the top sites have made glowing errors in site design, using dodgy colouring, little attempt at professionalism and bad structure of site. Aside from a good logo clearly identifying your brand, it is important to use only a limited set of colours, achieve a balance between text and graphics and change the content on a regular basis. This helps attract new players and also keeps regularly players interested. There is nothing more off-putting than visiting the same site over a period of time to see the same homepage graphics and text as the previous months before. That can lead to players feeling that the site is being neglected.

Software and Playability

Except for the various pattern match games that are commonly used in American, bingo is bingo. There are no differing strategies to work out, and no need to spend hours learning how to play before joining in the fun. This is what makes bingo games easy to adopt by players and easy for operators to run. The software should therefore be easy to use and simple to play, in keeping with the game itself. Of course nice little features like being able to select your auto-dauber icon and perhaps create a character representation of the player all adds to the fun, but the basics should be simple, neat game windows and no annoying bingo callers. The speed of the game can and is often adjusted.

Proprietary game software is easier to manage in terms of graphics, gameplay and features etc; as the site does not have to rely on the development company for updates or changes. However, with software provided by developers (though more rigid in terms of updates and likely to be similar across many sites) you can be sure that the product will have gone through advance tests, and is likely to have been audited and approved by a licensing authority. Parlay, Playtech and Chartwell are to name a few who provide bingo software.

Bonuses strategies

With the numbers of UK bingo sites available, site owners are using various methods in order to attract players to their site. Offering sign-up bonuses, loyalty points and free money are a few ways of attracting new players. But these marketing strategies will mean nothing if the site itself is unattractive, the software is dated and the chat rooms offer no opportunity to enjoy the community spirit that is so important in online bingo.

What keeps you coming back for more?

Of course attracting new players is the single most important factor in establishing a new bingo site and achieving continued growth. However, once the site is launched, loyalty plays a big part in maintaining a healthy bank balance and popularity of the site. Without the loyalty, particularly of VIP players, a site will soon discover the difficulties in operating and maintaining a respectable bingo product, and the numbers of players signing up and the total value of jackpot will soon diminish. Sites can enter into an ever-decreasing circle, a catch 22 situation, without a healthy number of players, no healthy jackpot, without a decent jackpot, no new players and so on.

Of course many of the newly released independent bingo sites can boast a healthy bank balance, as most new bingo sites are bankrolled by wealthy businessmen who want to grab a piece of the bingo pie. However, without an established liquidity of players, most independent sites have to rely on the quality of the brand and a precise and effective marketing strategy if they are to remain as a competitor in the ever increasing online bingo market.

The alternative for a newcomer to the industry to join a network of already established bingo sites. This allows them to enjoy the benefits of player and jackpot liquidity. St Minver’s site, the International Bingo Network, shows a list of white label media brands that have entered the world of online bingo games. This allows names such as Virgin and Yahoo to benefit of established healthy jackpots and players, while achieving the benefits of an already established brand and in-house marketing strategies.

Community plays its part

They must make their site easy to find. Produce nice graphics, with attractive and easy to use software. Implementing loyalty and promotional offers are important. They must do everything to ensure that you find the game fun, provide customer service 24 hours and ensure that their jackpots are at a good level and “winnable”. A site advertising, for example, Ł100,000 in 35 calls gives you little chance of winning, and doesn’t help towards making the site the best.