Articles

A number of slot game manufacturers have made their games available as “free play” versions now although a few, like Wagerworks, even restrict access to their free slots from countries like the USA, Canada, France and Germany to name a handful (minus the thimb!). It’s due to the grey online gambling laws in those countries if you are wondering. And the vast majority of online casinos will of course ask you to register before you can even play slots for fun.

However, there are a few websites that put these slot games up and if you know where to look, you can spin away for the hell of it. For example, in the USA, Realtime Gaming and Rival powered casinos are the only options left and RTG have a load of good 5 reel “free spins” bonus slots that can be played (without the need to register) on sites like Free Slots For Fun. Some of the games take a few seconds to load, but you get a $5000 starting balance and they are a great way to get a feel for the games in the real casinos. Read the rest of this entry »

By now, most US slot players who are familiar with the IGT slot Cleopatra will know that a) it is available online and b) US players are blocked from playing it for real money. But not everyone will know that there is a copycat slot called “Cleopatra’s Gold” available at Club USA casino, Slots Oasis, iNetBet, Rushmore, Cherry Red and Bodog that, while not identical, is very similar.

Like IGT’s Cleopatra, Cleo’s Gold has 20 paylines and a bonus round which is triggered by 3 or more scatter symbols in view which awards 15 free spins all wins trebled. It also has Read the rest of this entry »

Now I’ve played a lot of slots, trust me. Everyone from Playtech, RTG and Wagerworks, through Microgaming, OddsOn (Vegas Tech), Cryptologic and Chartwell. And up until now Chartwell slots were by far and away the most appalling slots I ever played to the extent where I wouldn’t have a Chartwell casino anywhere near my PC.

But guess what? I just found a contender for their (un)coveted crown and unbelievably, these slots seem to be everywhere! Correction - “this slot” would be more appropriate because from what I can see Orbis basically produce one slot and give it some different graphics (which generally aren’t too bad at all). Which probably means it’s cheap to produce, thus cheap to licence, ah…which probably explains why so many online casinos have it. Hey ho. Anyway it’s true, you should never judge a book by it’s cover… Read the rest of this entry »

I recently learned that Sky Vegas casino accepts Canadian players, although quite how easy depositing will be bearing in mind the current banking climate on that side of the pond I can’t vouch for. But a Canadian player I know said she’d managed to sign up no problem, and a call to the casino backed up the fact that they do accept players from Canada (but not the USA).

Now, why is this unusual? Well, basically Sky Vegas has recently started taking onboard more of the IGT slots from subsiduary Wagerworks. Up until now, players there were limited to Cleopatra and players from Canada only had the option of playing Cleopatra at Paddy Power, and even then only via their “Games” product rather than the casino. As of today they have added Cleopatra II, Davinci Diamonds, Triple Fortune Dragon and Wolf Run, all popular Read the rest of this entry »

A mate of mine was playing at the Microgaming casino Roxy Palace (No USA players, although many US residents can play the same games at Lucky Nugget or Fortune Room) on Tombraider. He’d been on a good run already getting up to $9,000 from a $650 deposit, when he decided to bet big. So he set the spin to the max bet $37.50, and let it ride. Almost immediately he got the “holy grail” - 5 Wilds on line 10. What’s more, in the same session he got 5 scatters for $6,000 - and here’s the screenshot to prove it.

Personally, I’m not a great fan of the Tombraider slot - it’s OK, but I prefer Thunderstruck myself. But you can’t argue with this one. The slot rewards 10 free spins (wins are trebled) when 3 or more scatters appear in view, and here is a pick ‘em style bonus game built in too.

Thought I’d share a little story with you - couldn’t quite believe my eyes but the proof is in the screenshot below. So there I am, sitting at my PC when up pops a message to tell me I have $45 in “comp” points sitting in my account at Jackpot City - an online casino that, if I’m honest, I  haven’t played at much in the two years since I opened it. See, I have these accounts sitting around as my job is to review online casinos so I open one up, deposit, withdraw, test the various functions, games, yada, yada, yada. Then I tend to wander off and do the next.

Not to say I’m not a bit partial to some slots play it must be said, but that’s my “bag”. So yeah, anyway, there I am, still waiting for the casino win that will change my life after 4 years…and let’s face it, it’s a 1-in-a-million shot. Until now, my biggest success was at Intercasino, where I had $50-odd dollars sitting there and decided to play one of their low-denomination jackpot slots (Triple Olives). Boring as hell, but not when the 3 olives dropped in for just short of $17k! That was my “moment” and I’ll never forget it. But now I’ve eclipsed it.

Back to today - that $45 - so I think “what the hell”, let’s do 4 spins at $10 on the “Loaded” slot at Jackpot City. It’s a cool low-medium variance slot where the free spins bonus happens reasonably regularly .Sure enough, up it pops on spin 1 and a nice $600 win to boot! Good start. Play on! I moved over to my all-time favourite slot, “Thunderstruck”, start spinning at $11.25 - hey, easy come, easy go right? And whaddya know Read the rest of this entry »

Thought I’d add a word on this as it’s often overlooked. If you didn’t already know, all of the reputable online casinos operate a “player protection” policy. What this means is that you can request or set limits on how much you deposit, either by the week or month, and in some instances to deeper levels.

For example, if you play a casino using Microgaming software, you can email support and ask them to limit your deposits by day, week or month. They will ask you the limit and a security question and set it manually. You will not usually be able to change it “up” for a minimum of 7 days.

At Wagerworks (Flash) casinos - IGT owned - every casino has Read the rest of this entry »

The “Online Casinos USA” website has just released a list of 100 or so of the more reputable online casinos categorised into US State listings. I know this because I bloody well spent 3 tedious days putting the spreadsheet together for the website! So I can tell you first-hand that the database contains information such as the software used, a link to each casino and a record of each US State and whether players are accepted or not.

The full list contains most Microgaming casinos, a handful of the safe RTG casinos (it’s a well known fact that many RTG casinos are less than reliable operators) along with Wagerworks and a smattering of Playtech offerings, although the latter two do not currently allow US players at all. The database is divided into pages with State groupings on each page and only includes casinos with decent reputations that are safe to play. It’s a work of art ;-)

Goto The Casinos By State pages…

OK I’ll try and keep this as brief as possible as there is a lot to cover. For those who get bored of reading quickly, scan down for a resumeé of those online casinos who offer the best solution for US residents or view a list of online casinos listed by US State.

But first a bit of background. In October 2006, the US passed the UIGEA, an Act designed not to ban online gambling, but to make it difficult for North American residents to deposit and withdraw. It has had limited success in achieving it’s goals…the banks are not big fans because of the fact they are now responsible for checking every transaction. In a nutshell, the law turned out to do exactly the opposite of what its protractors claimed- to “protect family values“. Clearly designed to capture the votes from the moral crusaders for a presidential campaign that floundered, it’s unfortunately backfired. I’ll explain:

What the law did manage to do was to remove many of the best online casinos Read the rest of this entry »

Important - US players please note that IGT have implemented code to prevent players from playing their games in free play mode.  The only game available to US residents in free mode is now Cleopatra I.

Players from some other countries (UK included) can play Cleopatra II for real at, Blue Square, Paddy Power, Sky Vegas or Virgin.

IGT’s Cleopatra II slot has now been launched at various Wagerworks casinos (no surprise there as Wagerworks is part-owned by IGT)! The unfortunate anomaly is that while IGT slots are well known to US players, the laws in the USA are such that Wagerworks do not accept players from the US, so playing all these fun slots isn’t an option.

A free play version of Cleopatra II (along with the original Cleopatra slot, Wolf Run and Gems) has been launched on the Online Casinos Vegas website which specialises in providing free play versions of popular Las Vegas slot games. The game is an exact replica of the Vegas slot - high variance but with a great bonus round.

Play Cleopatra II free at the following casinos