online casinos and slots

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 slot article »

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 slot article »

The “AZ Online Casinos” website has put together a list of 150 or so of the more reputable online casinos with lists dedicated to software platform and one specifically geared up to US Players. 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 lots of information on cashout times, reverse pending times, ownership, software 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/IGT and some decent Playtech offerings, although only RTG-powered casinos currently allow US players. Accompanying the AZOC resource are some tools for sorting and comparing online casinos and for searching out your favorite online casino games.

June 2008 sees the launch of a brand new Microgaming casino called “Red Flush” offering both download and Flash options, the latter of course making it a suitable Apple Mac casino playable from within any web browser. An additional benefit is that the casino accepts USA players from all but 11 States.

The Microgaming “Viper” platform forms the base for the casino which includes over 350 games. For those not familiar with online casinos using MG software that means you’ll find lots of variations of Blackjack, table Poker games, Roulette and various card games popular in land-based casinos. For slots players there is a huge choice of games…there are more in the download version than in the Flash casino it should be noted, but all the main slots appear in both. 5 Reel bonus slots are the order of the day with many “free spins” slots like Thunderstruck, Hitman, Tombraider 1 and 2 plus Read the rest of this slot article »

Microgaming’s popular but very high variance “Isis” slot has now been transformed into a Flash slot and added to the Flash casino offerings at Intertops, Lucky Nugget, River Belle, All Jackpots and, for UK and European players, the excellent 32Red.

It’s a little slower than the version in the download casino available at the places stated above, but it’s exactly the same game in all other respects. For those players who aren’t familiar with it, be aware that being high variance it is prone to very long bad streaks, but every now and again you can hit mega-big! Once I hit the 5 scatters for 600x Read the rest of this slot article »

Ok…just noticed a Microgaming slot nearly sneak past my radar the other day…Cashapilla. Naff name and another slot with a bit of a cartoon feel to it - can’t say I’m normally a fan of that type of graphic, but it’s slightly better than most to look at. Also, it boasts 100 paylines Now that normally shouts “low variance” at me, and I’m a high-variance type of guy. Give me a risk anyday. 

But I took a look and this slot is not only quite interesting for the points mentioned, but actually quite playable too. In fact at the moment (OK, it won’t last!) Cashapilla is up there as one of my first ports of call. Look…it’ll never be Thunderstruck, but it’s making a nice distraction. It’s a “free spins” slot Read the rest of this slot article »

September 2011 Update: I have set up a new site focusing on online USA casinos which is more current than the ensuing article. US players should always check that online gambling is legal in their State before playing.

—– Original Article: May 2008 —————————————– 

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. 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 top online casinos Read the rest of this slot article »

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. For more information on Cleopatra II and to watch a video of the freespins bonus in action, check out my Cleopatra 2 microsite. Or…

Play Cleopatra II 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 slot article »