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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 ;-)

An alternative source is the USA Casinos list at the excellent AZOC research website.

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

Dedicated slots tournaments web portal, Slot Tournaments .net has created a free toolbar for monitoring online freeroll slot tournaments from casinos running the Microgaming tournaments plugin. It’s a neat little tool that (currently) works in Internet Explorer.

Installation is simple - just download a zip file, run the executable therein and it add a small toolbar to IE which shows the next tournament due and the time it starts. It also features a “countdown” which tells you when there is 20 minutes to go, then changes colour when there is 10 minutes to go. This is Read the rest of this entry »

Well time change I guess and in the past couple of years playing I’ve seen a load more choice in the slots I get to lose my money on online…so I thought it was time I updated my “favourite slots” list! All things are obviously different to everyone so I’ll stop short of saying these are the best online slots - you may disagree. Although I am always right so there ;)

For background purposes, I live in the UK and grew up with pub fruities - this is way before the smoking ban came in but I can’t blame that on switching to online…I put that down to the fact that online you get circa 95% payback! When I went online I was unfamiliar with the Vegas style slots, but it didn’t take long to realise these are so much more Read the rest of this entry »

MAC users have been woefully under-supported down the years, but the winds of change are blowing. When it comes to online casinos, Apple Macs have always been ignored…and guess what…they still are when it comes to “download casinos”, but thankfully a raft of decent, reputable online casinos now have online offerings using Flash which Apple Mac users can enjoy.

Below are some of the better online casinos for you Apple Mac fans. When you get to the site, hit the “instant play” option to launch the casino and quick-register an account. If you are thinking about taking a casino “bonus” Read the rest of this entry »

Frequent any of the player forums out there and you’ll often see debate over which online casino slots are the best. There are four primary sofwtare providers powering most of the “reputable” online casinos, notably RTG (Realtime Gaming), Microgaming, Playtech and Cryptologic. However, with the latter two not accepting US players, the big battle comes down to RTG and Microgaming. So who has the best slots?

Options & Selection

RTG have two sets of slots: The “Real Series” and their standard 3-reel or 5-reel video slots. As with all providers they add new ones from time to time, but nowhere near as frequently as Microgaming who usually release 2 a month. You could argue that this is overkill and many are simply clones of existing slots, and you’d be right, but every now and again, a gem pops up Read the rest of this entry »

A common complaint on online gambling forums questions the fairness of online slots and more often than not, the poster has just gone through a bad session at an online casino or a land-based one and is just ever so slightly pissed off. The thing is though, if you are playing one of the reputable online casinos, the chances are that the slot is perfectly fair, perfectly random and the you have just become victim to one of the common mistakes that slots players make.

This article deals with the most common mistakes slots players make. One or two might seem obvious, one or two less so, but knowing where you are going wrong is 90% of the battle. Read the rest of this entry »

The online casino industry has been around since 1996 and has had plenty of time to start sorting itself out. Until October 2006, it was doing a pretty good job with many of the “rogue operators” confined to small corners of the web, and those that did manage to get noticed were up against some seriously good competition.

Unfortunately, in October 2006, in their infinite wisdom, the US decided to pass through the “Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act” (UIGEA). While stopping short of making online gambling illegal, it aimed at restricting banks and financial institutions from authorising payments to online gambling companies. The effect of this was that many of the top operators pulled out of the US to avoid being arrested or deemed to break a law that is at best, grey.

This left the USA open to abuse from the less ethical outfits Read the rest of this entry »

For new players, knowing which slots to play and which online casinos to play them at can be a daunting prospect - or at least, a time consuming one. So to make things simple, this article points you in the direction of a handful of the most reputable online casinos and the most popular slots to get started on. Of course it will depend on what type of slots you like, but these slots here are entertaining and aside from giving you a good idea of what’s available are among the most popular - in fact probably ARE the most popular - slots online today.

Legal Situation

All the online casinos mentioned on onlinecasinosslots.com accept US players as well as players from around the globe, however you should check the legal situation in your country or State before playing, as online gambling isn’t legal everywhere.

Introduction

Before I start, I’d like to make it clear to any online casino newbies that most online casinos use software provided by one of 5 or 6 high-profile casino software companies: Microgaming, Realtime Gaming Read the rest of this entry »