Gambling

Hey, welcome to your favorite casino magazine! Today, we’re going to be doing the unthinkable, the unheard of, the unimaginable, the un… I ran out of dramatic adjectives, but basically, I’m going to be responding to fan mail! Not directly responding, mind you, because I’m not sure if I’m allowed to publicly post any private messages I receive (like, the situation is a bit murky legally and ethically as far as I’m concerned), but I will be answering the general question of the letter I got, which was basically “What’s the deal with high rollers?” And I’m going to do that in the most simple, concise way I can… By hosting my very own Q&A session! To make it clear, all of these question outlined below have been made up by me, I just structured the article like that because I figured it might be more interesting to read than a wall of text. Alright, we good? Good! Let’s get down to business!

Q: So, what exactly is a high roller, anyway?

A: To put it very simply, a high roller within the context of a casino is someone who places very large bets on casino games. They tend to play for a whole lot of money, and their playstyles, while very calculated, involve a lot of risk, but an even bigger reward.

Q: Isn’t that basically the exact same thing as being addicted to gambling?

A: Eh, not really? I mean, sure, there’s bound to be plenty of high rollers who are addicted to gambling, but there’s several differences between addicts and high rollers. First and foremost – high rollers may bet gigantic sums of money, but that’s either business money or disposable income to them. At the end of the day, if they lose their entire bank and go broke following a particularly bad night at a local casino, they can still go back home, snuggle with their significant other in their king-sized bed and not have to worry about a thing. An addict, on the other hand, will often sacrifice their own comfort in order to gamble, spending their money for bills, rent and groceries on gambling, which is why many addicts end up on the streets.

Q: Wait, so you’re saying that all high rollers are rich?

A: I mean, I’m not entirely sure if all high rollers are rich… But yeah, it’s a fair assumption that the majority of them have money to burn through. I mean, if you look at a site like http://www.highstakesblackjack.co.uk/ you’re bound to find some absurdly high limits as far as their blackjack tables are concerned. You need a whole lot of dough in order to even remain competitive for longer than a few turns, and that’s assuming you keep winning!

Q: Alright, let me ask what we’re all thinking – are high rollers essentially just spoiled rich brats wasting mommy and daddy’s fortune?

A: Yeah, I can see how this this kind of notion could spread… And with movies like “The Gambler”, how can it not? But let me put it this way – if someone just magically happened upon a large sum of money, and then decided to become a high roller by mindlessly placing huge bets left and right… They’re not going to be a high roller for very long. When it comes to high rolling, you can burn through your money fast if you’re spending more than you’re earning, which is why most high rollers know exactly what they’re doing. I mean, sure, there’s always the dumb noobs who waste a couple of thousand because they don’t know what they’re doing (how do you think online casinos keep a profit), but most of them are pretty intelligent guys and gals.

Q: I have to admit, this all sounds very fascinating. How do I become a high roller?

A: I think you already know the answer to that question, but first and foremost, you need to be rich. Very rich. Unbelievably, undeniably rich, with tons of disposable income. You need to be able to take a serious financial hit and just shrug it off. Second, you need to work hard in order to make sure that you’ll never have to take the aforementioned financial hit. After that, just go and place your bets! Almost all online casinos have high roller tables, so it shouldn’t be too hard to find a place where you belong!

Let’s make one thing perfectly clear before we delve into this article, shall we – “Mega Moolah” is a bad slot. There, I said it. Its graphics are terrible, its premise is boring, it lacks any sort of substantial bonus game… And worst of all, it’s just not fun. I’m sorry, I know a lot of people love this slot, but there’s just not that much there to it! It’s a very safe, very cheap effort that just comes off as lazy, especially when compared to other “Microgaming” slots such as Thunderstruck II, Hellboy and Lord of the Rings. And yet people keep playing the damn thing! It’s by far one of the most popular slots in the world, to the point where even people who only have a tangential familiarity with slots have heard of the name “Mega Moolah”! How come such an objectively terrible slot machine be so highly regarded?!

Well… It’s because “Mega Moolah” has the world’s highest jackpot for a slot machine, and it has for a very long time – to the point where it actually holds the Guiness World Record for it. For those of you who don’t know, there are numerous types of jackpots in online slots – some are static and are always the same no matter when you play (for example, 5000 times your bet). You can play tomorrow, you can play next month or you can play in three years, and that jackpot is always going to be exactly the same so long as you bet the same amount of money. And then there’s the progressive jackpots, which accumulate over time and then reset back to a certain value every time they’re won. So today a slot might net you £500,000, but if somebody wins it tomorrow then the day after tomorrow the jackpot will only be, say, £10,000 until it accumulates back again.

“Mega Moolah” has a progressive jackpot, but not just any progressive jackpot. While most progressives reset to something fairly small and then build their way up from there, this one always, and I do mean always – no matter where in the world you are or in which casino you play – resets to at least a million when won. This leads to people inevitably winning absurd amounts of cash from it, ranging between £1.3m and the aforementioned £15m – lifechanging sums no matter how you look at it. And keep in mind, slots very rarely offer more than a million in general, let alone having that as the minimum amount that you can win! And to top it all off, there have been over 25 people who have won the “Mega Moolah” jackpot since the slot’s inception, and even though that’s a lot less than 0.1% of all the people who have played it, it’s still a lot more winners than most other slots have. So… From a certain point of view, maybe “Mega Moolah” isn’t a terrible slot after all. Maybe, under a certain light, it’s actually the greatest slot of them all.

I was having a pretty interesting discussion with a friend of mine the other day. We’re both gamblers, but he typically prefers playing in physical casinos while I’ve always been more of a fan of online casinos, since I’m pretty shy in real life and wouldn’t feel too comfortable being among so many people – at the very least, I wouldn’t be able to have fun. My friend, on the other hand, is really extroverted, so she often likes to talk up the dealers when she’s playing stuff like blackjack or roulette. She likes the idea that she’s not just dealing with a computer, she’s actually gambling together with other human beings, in the company and presence of a human being. That’s really the main reason why she has avoided online casino for so long, as well as any casino games that don’t have interactions with another human being, such as slots or video poker. For her, casino gaming is a social endeavour, and I completely understand that. So imagine my surprise when she told me that she has signed up for an online casino account!

Yep, at first my reaction was precisely what you might think – “Wait, seriously? But why?” She told me that yes, she’s still not interested in playing most of the games, but has recently discovered live roulette and would not stop playing it! For those of you who don’t know, live roulette is when a real life dealer is playing a real life table somewhere, and his image is being broadcast to gamblers across the globe. Players can place bets, obviously, but they can also interact with the dealer and with each other through the use of instant messaging. While it may seem like a novel concept, it’s actually pretty common – in fact, new ‘live’ casinos keep popping up all the time!

Naturally, my friend was absolutely ecstatic about her new discovery, and it only took a little bit of questioning from my part for me to learn everything I needed to know, and a lot of things that I didn’t. I learned, for example, that most of the tables are just your standard roulette fare, but there are a couple of special ones where dealers speak to you in a different language or talk about a subject, such as sports. She also told me that she learned about live casino in general from this guide on the best live roulette sites, which kind of made me feel a bit useless as her resident online casino expert, but whatever. What mattered was that my friend was happy, and by extension, so was I. Online casino really does have something for everyone, doesn’t it?

If you’ve ever visited a guide about how to get started in online casino, you must have seen the same message over and over again – do not, under any circumstances, participate in an online casino that has not been thoroughly and completely verified by the proper authorities. The absolute best case scenario that can occur when you sign up for a casino that’s not certified (and, in plain terms, is illegal, since it’s against the law to run an online casino without having the proper certificates) is that you’re going to be losing your money. As in, the entire amount that you have invested in the site, regardless of how much you win. Worst case scenario, though… You could end up like these guys.

On February 9th, 2016, a grand total of twenty-three South Koreans were arrested for participating in an illegal online casino, Phnom Penh Post reports. According to the report, the South Koreans had established their casino precisely in the Cambodian capital by using voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) to mask their presence. The perpetrators, among which the people who run the casino and also some of its participants, were all arrested in the Sen Sok district and questioned at the Municipal Court. The men arrived in Cambodia in late 2015 and early 2016, but a few have been frequent visitors of the country in previous years, according to anti-terrorism department director Y Sok Khy. As Khy said, “[t]hey did not ask for permission to use technology to operate online gaming and there are other things that are connected to crimes”, and by Cambodian – and, honestly, pretty much every single – law that makes them criminally responsible.

According to the secretary-general at the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications Ou Borath, the arrested men also used VoIP to steal money, but those claims have yet to be verified. Depending on the results from an ongoing investigation, the men may be charged in Cambodia or in their native South Korea, but it’s more or less certain that they’re going to be held accountable for their actions. This here is a brilliant example of what happens when you participate in shady, illegal casinos. So stay smart, stay safe and for the love of all that is holy verify your casinos before betting! The casinos we recommend here are always legal, and we’re going to be releasing more guides and tips about how to stay protected in the following months.

Have you ever thought about what you’d do if you won a huge sum while playing online casino? How would you spend your money? Would you go on vacation? Would you invest them in a business? Would you put them in the bank? Or would you just go on a crazy shopping spree and buy literally everything you’ve ever wanted? Personally, I’ve always wanted to start a videogame development studio, so that would probably be my answer, but sadly, I’m nowhere near winning that amount just yet. However, a certain lucky NetBet player will soon need to come up with an answer to that question.

Karmaci A., a seasoned gambler from Germany, loves to unwind by playing Live Evolution Roulette every evening. For those of you not familiar with them, Live games (such as Live Roulette and Live Blackjack) involve a real, human dealer playing with the gamblers, his image being broadcast live via webcam as he deal physical cards or spins a real roulette wheel. This is about as close as you can get to playing casino games while staying at home, and naturally, the winnings you can get are just as big as they would be in a real casino. This allowed Karmaci to win a staggering 60.000€ (around Around £43.500) at once.

The casino is no stranger to huge wins. As this NetBet casino review explains, the site offers plenty of opportunities to win huge sums, including, but not limited to, several versions of roulette and blackjack, as well as multiple slots with gigantic jackpots. There’s plenty of success stories of people who made it big while playing one of their games, but despite the frequent big wins NetBet’s marketing manager Alexander Mangaud isn’t worried. “We couldn’t be happier for our player. It is amazing to see what life-changing amounts can be won on NetBet with a stake of just a few pence – day by day”, he said in a statement.

Despite the fact that Karmaci won a life-changing sum which would literally allow him to do whatever he likes, he still hasn’t made a decision about what he would like to do with his money. His indecisiveness is understandable – when faced with a lot of choice, most people opt to choose nothing at all. But then again, it’s not like the money is going somewhere – Karmaci will have plenty of time to make a decision and invest his winnings in whatever he sees fit. And what about you? What would you do if you managed to get a hold of a sum like that while playing online casino? Make sure to let me know through the Contact form at the top of the page!

If you want to play casino games on the go, then having an iOS device is probably the best case scenario. Why? Very simple! Because almost all renowned gambling operators offer downloadable apps in the official store which can be installed on your device in a matter of minutes or even seconds, depending on your Internet provider. Of course, you can also visit the casino website on your iPhone or iPad’s browser, but usually downloaded apps will give you access to more games, while web-apps require a much faster Internet connection and include less gaming titles. And even so, there are cases in which the casino app is not compatible with your device and you will have to settle for playing in your browser.

So, to prevent that from happening, it’s good to check which version of the OS supports the gambling app and check if your device is compatible. And, of course, what’s the use of downloading and installing an app that only offers 10 – 15 games to choose from? I know, right? Just to give you an example, there is a casino app – which I am not going to name, of course, which includes over 300 games. Yeah, you read right – over 300 games. Naturally, they are mostly slots, but still you have 15 table games to choose from, which is not at all bad and the app is only 11.6 MB, so downloading it will not be a problem. This is why you should try to find a lot of detailed information on which online casino is best for your iPhone or iPad. Once you have done that, you can make an informed and certainly better choice than by taking a shot in the dark.