A quick guide to online casino bonuses

When online casinos first came into the scene they had to think on a marketing idea that would attract more players. Online gambling was new and many players were unsure if they should deposit funds in what seemed like an unknown entity. The marketing ploy that most online casinos chose and is still being aggressively used today is the cash bonus. Nothing charms a future client more than free cash, and online casino bonuses are just that. The most popular form of a bonus is the sign up or welcome bonus. The size of the bonus differs between the different casinos but it usually revolves between 100%-400% of the initial deposit. There is usually some kind of limit to the bonus so you can’t just deposit 100,000$ and hope to triple it up. Naturally, as more and more casinos started offering cash bonuses a different kind of client emerged. A client whose sole interest was in the bonus itself and his goal was to cash out the bonus as soon as possible and than simply leave. This led up to the online casinos toughening their wagering requirements before allowing a withdrawal of the bonus. The wagering requirement is a total amount you have the bet in order to be able to withdraw the bonus. The actual number varies from casino to casino but a typical number could be between 10x – 20x the amount of the bonus, so if you deposit 500$ and receive 500$ as a cash bonus your total betting must be above 5000$ to cash out the bonus. This may seem like a big amount but remember that if you are playing a game like blackjack using 5$ bets, you will win many hands (as well as losing) so the requirements can usually be cleared in matter of several hours. Some casinos have blocked several games from qualifying as a method to clear bonuses. This usually includes the bets games that casino offers like a very liberal version of blackjack (for example a very small house edge single deck game) or some forms of video poker. Online poker sites also offer sign up bonuses. The method to clear those bonuses is a little easier since you have to play a certain number of raked hands. Online poker bonuses are easy to clear even if you are a mediocre player and most online poker sites of periodical reload bonuses which allow poker players to enjoy other bonuses than the regular welcome bonus. Bonuses are an attractive way to build up your bankroll if you are just starting out in the world of online gambling. Just remember to read the casino’s terms of agreement or consult your favorite online casino portal in order to be sure what the wagering requirements are so you will have a better idea what you are up against.

Playing 5 card games

There are many types of poker games available for online and offline play. This article will focus on the most common 5 card poker games which are 5 card draw and 5 card stud poker. For the beginning poker player, a basic knowledge of poker rules and terms is required to develop into a seasoned gamer. Poker, in general, is a card game of skill and luck in which players obtain the best hand of cards to win. Most poker games require a hand to be made up of either seven or five cards. A good hand can be made up of either all cards of the same suit, all cards in order sequentially, or multiple sets of cards with the same rank. A "hand" in poker is the cards that each player is dealt. A suit is one of these four: spade, club, diamond, or heart. "Rank" is the number of the card and can be: 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, Jack, Queen, King, or Ace. 5 Card draw poker can be played by as few as three and as many as seven players. It is widely popular because of the speed and competitive nature of the game. Five cards are dealt to players, face down. Players can select 1-3 cards to exchange per bet or players can keep the cards they are initially dealt. This continues in a second round and so on until a player "folds," or gives up. Players may show their cards and the player with the best hand wins. 5 Card stud poker is different in that, initially, players are dealt one card face up and one card face down. The player with the lowest ranking face card must begin the betting. Subsequent cards are dealt face up until the player with the player with the highest ranking face card beginning the bet. The player with the best hand wins. 5 Card Low/5 Card High. Most poker games can be played "low" or "high." This refers to the ranking of the cards in each player's hand. In 5 card low, aces usually count as the number "1." The best hand a player can get is the lowest in rank: 5, 4, 3, 2, ace. Playing 5 card high requires a player to obtain subsequent high cards to win with the highest ranking set being: Ace, King, Queen, Jack, 10. Because 5 card games of poker make it more difficult to get a good hand (since fewer cards make up each hand), a good tip is to attempt to collect suits or sets rather than straight hands unless specifically playing low or high.

Badugi poker its a change

There are a lot of card games to play, and I mean a lot, just like solitaire, poker has an ever growing number of variations, after a while some players can get bored of playing Texas Holdem and fancy a change. There are loads of games like Omaha, 5 card, razz and stud games to pick from. You could play all day infact just learning the new games, with the amount of free sites that are offering games today it's all made to easy. Perhaps one of the many variations of poker have taken your interest and that's why you want a change, why you are reading this article? Well Badugi is certainly a change from your normal game. Poker, a game using playing cards which has previously attracted the interest of world through tournaments has many variations to pick from. Badugi is one of the newest variants to be found in a couple of casino sites and the game is slowly growing as people are taking interest. The game is thought to have originated somewhere in Asia where it is still widely played today. The game is only going to grow as more people gain internet access and find the enjoyment in multi player online games. The game is completely different to Texas Holdem so you can forget all those pairs and flushes as they just won't help you, for starters it is a four card game and secondly it is whats known as a "low ball" game where the object is to collect the lowest cards. Another important difference between this and the more common poker games is that pairs and flushes etc don't count, in fact the best hand, which is also called a badugi, would be an Ace, Two, Three and Four of all different suits. Sometimes this has been called rainbow hands due to each card been different suits. Because the cards are different suits badugi hands are sometimes called rainbows. Badugi is also a draw game where players can swap cards with cards from the deck. The drawing of the cards is done in between the rounds of betting. Once the players agree to start the game play involves rounds of betting with draws separating them, players don't have to draw new cards - this is optional, players still try to out bluff each other by betting more than they the hand is worth, this is part of the excitement and all games have newbies and sharks so play for a while and practice makes perfect. As with any card game you read about the best way to actually learn for yourself is to play the game and experience it first hand for yourself. You may have to wait for a game because it's not very popular yet but it is a change and you might enjoy playing a new card game. There is only a few sites with the game but I'm sure you can find a one and practice for free. The important part is remember, no pairs, different suits and low cards, you can always read the tutorials provided on the site your playing at. As with any card game you read about the best way to actually learn badugi for yourself is to play the game and experience it first hand for yourself. You may have to wait for a game because it's not very popular yet but it is a change and you might enjoy playing a new card game. The important part is remember, no pairs, different suits and low cards, you can always read the tutorials provided on the site your playing at.

How to play sic bo

Sic Bo originated in ancient China and means literally “dice pair”, although the game is actually played with three dice! The game is played throughout Southeast Asia, Korea, China and increasingly in Western casinos. Sic Bo is an easy game to play, the object being to bet on the outcome of a role of the three dice, to include combinations of any two or three of the dice, single numbers, two of a kind or three of a kind. The game is played on a table that illustrates the 50 permissible bets in pictorial form and with their associated payout. Sic Bo payouts range from 180:1 for a specific triple, to 1:1 for betting on the value of just one dice. The dice are usually tumbled in a basket by the dealer, who will enter the results on to the table, and then light up the winning combinations. The dealer pays out the lucky winners and removes the unsuccessful bets. The first and most straight forward betting option in Sic Bo is to bet on any one number of the numbers 1 to 6 on a dice, and if that number comes up on any one of the three dice rolled, then the bet is paid out at evens, if two number come up then the payout is 2:1 and if all three dice feature the chosen number the payout is 3:1. A player can also select a pair of numbers for example 2 and 4 to come up on any two of the dice, and if successful the payout is 5:1. A bet can be placed on the total of the three dice from 4 to 17 inclusive. The odds vary for this bet depending upon the total bet. “Small bets” refer to a wager that the total of the three dice will be between 4 and 10 (although this does not payout for triple 1, 2 or 3), whilst “Big bets” require the total of the three dice to be between 11 and 17 (excluding triple 4 and 5); both these latter popular bets pay out 1:1. A specific triple requires all three of the dice to show the selected triple e. g. 3 x 3, and this pays out the maximum of 180:1. A variant of this, at the lower payout of 30:1, is the any triple bet that pays out for any of the six possible triples. A specific double bet pays out 10:1 if any two dice match the number that has been wagered.

Casino games and mathematics. part two

Thorp managed to find out that owners of gambling houses gave their officials rather strict directions with regard to the strategies which they should stick to in the game with visitors. Control over fulfillment of these directions had its initial aim to prevent from a frame-up of a croupier with the rest of the gamblers, a chance of which could not be excluded. Assigned for a croupier strict rules determining his game strategy really substantially reduced a probability of such a frame-up, but on the other hand, allowed an "advanced" gambler to rather adequately reveal the essence of this strategy and effectively oppose it. For unlike a croupier a gambler needn't show the first of the received cards, as well as isn't enchained by any strict rules as regards his strategy, that is why flexibly changing his behavior he can confuse a croupier. For example, Thorp found out that practically in all gambling houses of Nevada State croupiers were strictly ordered to keep away from a widow in case the amount of points in his cards exceeded or was equal to 17, and a player, from our mathematician's point of view did not have to miss an opportunity to make use of the knowledge of even some aspects of a croupier's strategy for achievement of his aims. Thus, those advantages which had an official of a gambling house from the start (as we already know, he is not obliged to open his cards at the end of the game), can be compensated to a certain degree for the knowledge of a player about the strategic "tunnel vision" of a croupier. Besides, as has been mentioned, Thorp, while building his strategy presumed that cards were not often shuffled, in particular, if after finishing of a regular game there were still cards left in a pack, a croupier did not collect the thrown-away by the gamblers cards but dealt them anew (and the next game was played), and only after complete exhaustion of a pack, an official of a gambling house collected all the cards, thoroughly shuffled them and a new "cycle" began. Naturally, if a gambler had a good memory he could change his strategy depending on the knowledge of the cards which had gone out of the game, and what cards could still be counted upon. It is important to remember that a croupier himself who was to strictly follow the directions of the casino's owners practically without changing his strategy! Thorp set himself a task to formulate the rules which would allow him to calculate probabilities of taking out one or another card out of an incomplete pack. Knowing these probabilities a gambler could already with reasonable assurance draw cards from the widow without being too much afraid of "a pip out", and besides, on the basis of the knowledge of some aspects of a croupier's strategy to make suppositions about those cards which he had, and other gamblers as well. Naturally, as a gambler was to make a decision with regard to a widow very quickly, the sought rules for calculation of probabilities were to be rather simple for a gambler to be able to use them "in mind" with the help of neither a calculator, nor a pen and paper (even if we suppose that a gambler will be given a chance to do calculation on paper, it will certainly arise suspicion). Edward Thorp managed to solve this mathematical problem having created rather simple algorithms for calculation of probabilities of taking out of one or another card from a pack, and using them to build a strategy of the game of twenty-one which would not be very complicated, allowing a gambler to considerably increase his chances of winning! As the Hungarian mathematician A. Reni states after a few days of presenting his report on the obtained results at the meeting of the American Maths Society in 1960 in Washington "Thorp received from a businessman a letter with a check for 1 thousand dollars intended for checking of a winning strategy in practice. Thorp accepted the check and having learnt the formulated by him rules left for Nevada to try his discovery. The trial went well: less than after two hours Thorp won 17 thousand dollars. Needless to say, the owner of a gambling house didn't share Thorp and his companion's delight with regard to a successful comeout of the trial and the next day did his best to prevent Thorp from joining in the game. Later on Thorp tried to penetrate into other gambling houses, but the news of him had already spread far and wide, so that the doors of all the gambling houses appeared to be closed for him. Several times having adjusted a fake beard or having got a make up of a Chinese, Thorp managed to get to the gaming-table, but in any disguise his constant gain invariably gave him away. Thorp had to refuse from further checking of the strategy developed by him". Though "additional checks" were "necessary" only to enrich the pockets of the talented mathematician. One could hardly doubt that E. Thorp managed to create a real winning strategy! However, since he could no longer benefit from his discovery himself, he decided to render "welfare assistance" to his colleagues having published in 1961 a small article in an American academic journal (Thorp E. O. "A favourable strategy for twenty-one", Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci., 47, 110-112, (1961)). And despite the small size of the article and, consequently, an extremely condensed form of persentment, made it comprehensible for rather a narrow group of professionals, one can be sure that a number of American scientists and their friends certainly "improved" their material situation (owners of gambling houses were unlikely to read scientific magazines at that time).