Monthly Archives: August 2007

Real Money vs Play Money Poker Strategy

The majority of poker professionals agree that play money poker is only suitable for newbies learning the basics of the game, players, who wish to learn a new poker game and practice their skills and those, who always plays for fun. However, if you are planning to learn real money poker strategy this way, you make a mistake. Play money and real money poker strategies have significant differences, thus neither the atmosphere, nor strategy of play money poker are not applicable in real money games and that’s why:

First of all, play money players are extremely loose! Why not? They have nothing to win, but nothing to lose, they can freely make insane bets and stupid calls, they can rise with the worst hand ever and do things, never done in real money games. Once they run out of chips, they simply get more and waste them in the same way. It’s like video game racing – you aren’t afraid of crashing your car, because your virtual car is free and you can’t injure yourself. Play money poker does the same – you don’t feel compelled to risk and you never learn to avoid it.

If you agree with the above, then you must consider play money tables just in the following cases:

Learn the basic fundamentals of poker, strategy and combinations of hands. Play money poker is very useful for the beginners, who just start playing poker and need to get accustomed to the environment of online poker rooms and feel the game.

If you, say, know to play Texas Holdem, but wish to study some other poker game and need to learn and practice it’s basic rules and specialties. For instance, Texas Holdem, Omaha Holdem and Seven Card Stud have certain differences in winning combinations of hands. Play money poker is very useful in this case.

Learn to evaluate other players at the table. Play money poker can be useful for basic evaluation of your future opponents at real money tables. However, you must always remember that you just learn to evaluate them, because real money players won’t play in the same way.

Play with your friends or kids for fun.

Winning at play money tables is extremely easy – that’s why play money poker is such a great teaser for newbies. They easily win plenty of play money, then rush to real money tables and lose, because they have no idea that there is a great difference between play money and real money poker and this is what I’m trying to warn you about. It is very important that you understand the following instructions. Learn the basics and start playing real money poker. No, you don’t have to waste a lot of money from the very beginning of your career. Play tightly and learn thoroughly – this is a successful conception for newbie that really works. Many poker rooms offer low limit games, where you can learn to play real money poker spending just few bucks a day. Visit Real Money Poker Guide to read more about these poker rooms and get a lot of useful information, bonus codes and helpful manuals for the beginners.

EcoCard Withdrawing its Services

It has become known that EcoCard is going to pull out of the US gaming market. The decision came after the guilty plea entered by the co0founders of Canadian firm NETeller.

It is obvious that payments from online gambling site won’t be accepted, but the EcoCard payment option will be replaced with a new one. All US customers who have accumulated $500 or more in transactions will be offered to move to the new payment method.

It must be noted that EcoCard payment has not been very popular due to its perceived high fees.

Anti-smoking Law in the UK Makes Online Casinos More Attractive

If the new British anti-smoking law in casino and bingo halls across the UK is accepted, land based casinos are going to lose lots of players. Gamblers are expected to go over to the online casinos. William Hill is one of them.

To attract customers, William Hill has launched an advertising campaign in such tabloids ass The Sun, Star, Mirror, News of the World and Daily Record. What William Hill offers is a $20 bonus for players if they deposit the same amount at William Hill’s.

William Hill’s campaign is expected to be a success as many smokers will prefer an alternative of sitting at home and playing with William Hill Casino and William Hill Bingo.

Consequences of Gambling at Home

Where do you prefer to gamble? In the casino experiencing the excitement of gambling or at home enjoying comfort? If you prefer the second type of gambling, you must know that it is dangerous, as it may lead to compulsive gambling or even worse. Sometimes the results are unpredictable. Playing at home you are more likely to lose inhibitions and lots of money. While playing in a casino, no one wants to appear in an embarrassing situation, self respect wins over a strive to try your luck endlessly.

So, why to lose self respect ant lots of money at home? You can take care of it!

How to Get an Online Casino License

With a great variety of online casinos and online gambling sites, it is extremely difficult for a would be gambler to make the right choice. And you can make the right choice if you know if the casino you have chosen is licensed, if you understand the difference between licenses and how a casino gets its license. The process of getting one may seem to be surprising for you. One more thing that may puzzle you is where it happens.

Monte Carlo, Las Vegas, Mississippi are the names that have little to do with online casinos. They serve only as a name for the casino, but the name people really trust.

To get a license, the casino should find the place where legal jurisdiction allows operating. In this respect it is clear that an online casino cannot operate in the USA. The right places for it are the Caribbean, Antigua, Costa Rica, Dominica and Curacao. Besides them, Australia and Canada began to hand out licenses.

With the time, gambling is gaining more and more popularity in lots of countries all over the world. They study pros and cons of “allowing online casinos to operate with their territories”.

There are some more things a would be operator should mind to get a license. He must demonstrate certain qualifications to open an online casino such as a sufficient level of competency, financial ability to operate a casino and manage the payouts. After all that he may get a license.

The cost of the license may vary from $50,000 to 1 million. And during the operation the casino should show the initial requirements are being maintained.

New Study on Gambling

Gambling has always been a man’s domain. Land based casinos were considered to be exclusively for men. No wonder,, there was no place for women.

Now, online casinos have changed everything. Women can play and prove that they are not worse.

Harvard Medical School has recently made study. 40,499 people participated in it. According to the survey “women showed more effective gambling behavior than men”. Besides, they bet 15% more than men. On the one hand, much fewer women are “panic gamblers”. Lots of them are more careful when betting than men. On the other hand, like men, they have all the chances to become compulsive gamblers.

Women are thought to be responsible gamblers who know and can anticipate the final result of their actions. “They hope to win, but expect to lose” and that characterizes them as rather realistic. These are social gamblers.

The APC Getting Bigger

The Asian Poker Classic (APC) that was held in India in March 2007 is said to have been the richest poker tournament that was held in India. The prize pool was 1 million dollar, and 140 players took part in the tournament to compete for it.
Carl Hostrup from Denmark became the crown owner. After beating Willie Tann, Mel Judah and Surinder Sunar, professional players, he took its £320,000 prize.
The tournament was held at the Intercontinental The Grand Resort Goa. The APC has announced that it will be returning to Goa next year, but still it is being decided. The one thing is obvious – next year the tournament will be much more luxurious, with a bigger total pot and professional players.

Macau is in Need

Macau has become widely known thanks to its casinos, but hardly anyone knows how much electricity the southern Chinese territory needs and consumes. In the first five months of 2007 the electricity consumption has jumped 17.6 %. In 2010 it is expected to exceed 4.3 billion kWh.

There’ve been some major power cuts in recent months in Macau. Construction work damaged some of them, and “an outage in May disrupted a prime business area there”.

To make the situation easy, a third electricity cable between Macau and Guangdong province was launched last month. They say it will increase importing capacity to 60 percent. A fourth cable will be launched later this year.

Will Neteller Resolve the Investigation?

Neteller Plc is reported to be doing its best to resolve the investigation by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of NY. It was stated that it would be resolved on or soon after 13 July 2007.

As soon as the investigation is resolved, the company’s plans regarding the distribution of funds to its US customers will come into force. Shares in the company will remain suspended until that moment.

Gord Herman as Executive Chairman and Director of the company is known to have resigned from Neteller Plc, while Dale Johnson, non-executive director, will assume the role of non-executive Chairman.

New Games for SportingBet’s Customers

New partnership between Sportingbet – online sportsbetting, casino and poker group- and SkillGround, skills gaming provider has been recently announced. The result of the partnership is head-to-head cash video games.

Thus, such games as LA Street Racing, Kung Fu: Deadly Arts and Ultimate Tour Golf will be available for visitors to Sportingbet.com. They have been added to the company’s first third party licensed ToCA Race Driver 3 game.

New offer is expected to attract lots of new customers. Original and innovative gaming concepts will help Sportingbet to become one of the leaders of online retail gaming.