All posts by Olivia

New Online Casino

SkyBet’s New Online Casino

If you’ve been searching internet gaming portals for reliable and safe online betting sites, then you will be thrilled to know about the many riches in store. As internet gambling sites grow more comprehensive with choices that include live betting, interactive video slots, and ever-increasing progressive slots, players, now more than ever are regaled with high quality options offered by renowned and secure sites.

Soar high with Sky

Well-established and popular gaming company, SkyBet recently launched Sky Casino in affiliation with Playtech games. Building on previous operations in Sky Bingo, run by gaming software provided by Playtech, SkyBet players now have access to a range of latest and hottest casino games.

Everything from table card games to progressive video slots are now available for quick and easy download on to portable and mobile instruments. Marvel-themed slot games like Iron Man 2, Gladiator, Avengers, Halloween Fortune and many more guarantee entertaining and rewarding times.

In addition, the site also offers player the thrill and excitement of live and interactive table card games. Players can now choose to indulge in classic favourites like Roulette, Baccarat, and Blackjack sessions with live dealers that feature impressive featured chat options and professional standards.

Sky is the limit

Current features on Sky Casino enable players to attempt their chosen game at their convenience. Players registered for instant play are given access to all recent web-based applications and browser software that provides easy and unhindered gaming.

Over and above, players will be given the opportunity to consult with and receive premium advice from a trained and professional team of veteran players. You can now explore the many possibilities to increase winnings, and enjoy the excitement of live table games from the comfort of your own home.

Live table games are a secure way to ensure that your bets aren’t subject to random, computer-generated numbers. Playing online live card games will give you the feeling of being in a real casino.

Phil Ivey Balks at Accusations of Cheating in Atlantic City

World-renowned poker player Phil Ivey has been accused of cheating at baccarat by Borgata Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The casino claims that he used a tactic known as “edge sorting” to cheat the establishment for a total of $9.6 million over the course of four sessions between April and October of 2012. A lawsuit filed in April of 2014 also names Ivey’s female partner who is alleged to have given instructions to the dealer, and the manufacturer of the playing cards used at Borgata, Gemato Inc., which is located in Missouri.

A Similar Claim

This is not the first time that Ivey has been accused of cheating at baccarat. A major casino operator, the Malaysian Genting Group, has also filed a similar suit claiming that he won nearly $12 million with the help of an accomplice by cheating at baccarat. Ivey denies any misconduct and claims that his wins were the product of sheer skill; however, baccarat is a game of luck with very little skill involved. Despite its inherently low house edge, casino proprietors claim that such a win is highly uncharacteristic and unlikely to be the result of fair play.

How It Was Done

The Borgata claims that Ivey and his accomplice instructed the dealer to turn over cards that are considered favorable in baccarat – the six through nine – in a way that would allow the irregular edge of those cards to face a specific direction. Casino playing card manufacturers are held to strict standards in regard to these irregularities which explains why Gemato is also named in the suit. In rebuttal, his attorneys claim that he wanted the house to use an automatic shuffling machine, which is common in these venues, so that the way in which a card was aligned would make no difference.Atlantic City Casino

The Defense’s Response

Ivey’s lawyers have responded to the lawsuit by claiming that he and his female associate were not involved in cheating in any way. They also provided proof that the six-month statute of limitations which applies to such activities had long since expired. Finally, the team of attorneys noted that, under the law, purported violations of casino regulations can only be pursued by regulators of gambling within the state and not by the casino itself.

There is some speculation as to whether these accusations will have any impact on Ivey’s 10th World Series of Poker win that came in late June 2014. With that bracelet, he is now in second place for the most WSOP wins of all time.

Baccarat vs. Blackjack

Baccarat vs. Blackjack

Baccarat overtakes blackjack as leading casino moneymaker.

Increasing Margins

Blackjack has long been the king of table games, and it is the game most associated with casinos. Nevertheless, our perception is not necessarily the reality. It became undeniable at the close of 2012 when baccarat earned a higher share in Las Vegas at 37.9 percent than blackjack at 28.3 percent. That was not eking out a marginal win but rather a drop of the mic that caused the entire industry to take notice. Any remaining doubt was eliminated in 2013 with an even greater margin: 46.8 percent to 24.6 percent.

Baccarat a Powerhouse Online Too

Perhaps this changing of the guard was not a surprise to those being objective about online profits. After all, baccarat has been outperforming blackjack online for at least a decade, maybe two. Many industry insiders wanted to dismiss those numbers as not indicative as a trend in Las Vegas and casino cities around the world. It is becoming increasingly clear, however, that online trends are indicative and often serve as a forecast. It really is no surprise that Las Vegas casinos are adding gaming features and promotional structures favored online at such a fast rate.

Why Did Baccarat Surpass Blackjack?

There is no definitive reason why baccarat has become more popular than blackjack. Baccarat is a very simple game and accessible to the novice, but so is blackjack, perhaps to a slightly lesser degree. The big advantage blackjack has is a smaller house edge. The standard house edge for blackjack is .5. With baccarat, the edge is at least one and can be as high as 2.4. Baccarat is more of a social game, but that does not explain its success online where it is generally played alone.

Best online casinos

Best Online Casinos for High Rollers and VIPs

If you are a casino enthusiast looking for big wins, becoming a high roller at a mobile casino might be the right place to start with. Blackjack, poker and roulette are some of the most popular games for high rollers and VIPs at online casinos.

 

Benefits of playing at high roller casinos

By playing at a real money casino, you stand to gain many benefits like generous bonuses and promotions. As a high stakes player, any online casino will take additional steps to retain you. Offering the finest services and the best prices, some popular casinos for high rollers include:

  • All Jackpots Casino
  • City Club Casino
  • Crown Europe Casino

If you are interested in making high stakes wagers, you need not limit yourself to high roller casinos. In fact, most regular online casinos offer high roller games. Specific software developers and providers also offer high roller casino games including:

 

  • Playtech
  • Microgaming
  • 888
  • Vegas Technology
  • RTG
  • Topgame

 

Types of high roller casino games

To maintain competition, most online casinos offer a wide range of games for high rollers. Another parameter closely monitored by mobile casinos is the maximum betting amount. To encourage players into keeping on playing, most mobile casinos mark a maximum betting range of $250 while other casinos have been known to extend this limit to a maximum of $1,000. The maximum amount of money that can be bet on at a time also depends on the casino software and the game.

Choosing the right high roller casino

If you are unsure of finding casinos with high roller treatment, you can start with some online research. Most casinos that offer high stakes games and VIP treatment to players proudly advertise the offers, making it easy for you to find them. The real trick lies in choosing the right casino with legitimate games and safe transaction of money without compromising on the private information of the players. You can also find casinos offering VIP treatment based on the preferences of celebrities and the rich and the famous. Whether you are gambling for charity or for fun, you are sure to mingle amongst elite gamblers in high roller casinos!

fixed odds betting

Fixed Odds Betting Encourages Gambling?

According to two-thirds of people in Great Britain, it is the fixed odds betting terminals that encourage problem gambling. A Sunday People survey was conducted to reveal that 66 percent believe there are more bookmakers than necessary and another 56 percent say that there needs to be a limit on the maximum that can be gambled at a terminal.
Maximum stakes are currently £100 per spin and that’s leading to people losing a lot of money. The poor boroughs where the fixed odd betting machines (FOBT) are resulted in a loss of £470 million for 2013. In the areas where people could actually afford to play, the loss was only £231 million.

With statistics like this, many believe that the machines were being placed in the poorer areas by bookies for the sole purpose of forming an addiction. The poor areas suffer from a considerable amount of unemployment and therefore people are betting in the hopes of winning so that they can put food on the table.

Due to the amount of gambling that is being done on these FOBTs, it has been called the crack cocaine of the gambling world. Once people get hooked, they cannot walk away, even when they cannot afford to play and take the risk of losing. Once lost, it propels a person to wager again to try and win back what was lost.

The gambling problems are being encouraged by bookies according to many of the people who have been recently polled. The law currently allows for bookies to have a maximum of four of the FOBT machines and that is three more than what any people should be allowed.

More than half of the people who were surveyed believed that bookies placed the machines in poor areas on purpose. Additionally, more than half of the people thought that the spin maximum should be dropped from £100 down to £20.

The Labor Party is backing the Sunday People, who are responsible for pressing the government to put an upper limit of £2 per spin. All of these polls have shown that people have spoken. They don’t want any additional digital casinos. They want control of the ones that are in place.

bookmakers mobile apps

UK Bookmaker Heads To Australia With Mobile App

 

Real-time bets have been available on some sporting events in the United States for years. Bookmakers offer real-time odds and give bettors an opportunity to be better informed and to make wiser decisions.

But now, British bookmaker, Betfred, has set its sights on a new mobile betting service timed to coincide with the 2014 World Cup later this summer in Brazil.

Betfred touts its new app as the hard work of engineers for 18 months. Features of the app include improved navigation, live events and betting highlights to enhance the operation for the user.

While sports bettors will be able to place real-time wagers on matches in this year’s pre-eminent football tournament, Betfred has more ambitious plans. Eventually, bettors will be able to wager on horse racing, specifically for the Spring Racing Carnival in October and November if all goes well.

The full-service web offering should be available as a soft-opening in Australia by mid-June, Betfred’s managing director Luke Brill has said. Brill said it is possible this site will be launches earlier, which will let the company gather feedback from clients.

Because of Australia’s well-regulated gambling industry and because many Aussies have taken a liking to betting on European sports, Brill is confident that the mobile betting option will gain approval. Australians have shown a passion and a taste for online poker, and Betfred hopes to capitalize on satiating Aussies’ online hunger with sports.

Betfred has room to grow and the sky is the limit. With offices in Sydney and Darwin, staffers from the UK will be joining the 15 or so currently in Australia to iron out any issues that might arise.

While gamblers are awaiting anxiously the opportunity for real-time betting, some remain skeptical of Betfred’s sustainability.

One local bookmaker says the market is not big enough to support another player in the Australian gambling market.

Betstar bookmaker and founder Alan Eskander predicts the industry will vie for the next few years for the same dollars, resulting in mergers and the disappearance of various bookmakers.

The highest bookmakers at risk will be the small to midsize ones, similar to Betfred. These bookmakers will be endangered because of a proliferation of regulations and the changing gambling market.

In the meantime, Betfred has bet real-time wagering will be the ticket to growth and profits.

England Gambling

Poorest in England Gamble the Most

 

Reports compiled by major English newspapers have shown that 13 billion pounds was gambled on by the poorest 25% of England’s population. Most of this money was spend on high stakes and high speed gambling machines. This is double the amount that was spent by the richest 75% of the population, which is an alarming statistic.

The 55 poorest boroughs in the UK, which are mostly located in the northern part of the country, have around 3,000 betting shops where this money was spent. 470 million pounds of the 13 billion was lost by gamblers on fixed odds terminals.

In the same 12 months, the richest 115 districts of the country saw around 1,300 bookmakers take 6.5 billion in bets, with 231 million lost by gamblers. This shows the concentrated efforts of bookmakers to target the poorest quarter of England’s population through these gambling machines. They are fully aware of how addictive they can be, and seek to gain as much profit as possible. The industry denies these allegations, but it is difficult for them to argue with cold, hard facts.

There are more and more small betting shops opening, with many of them only having fixed odds betting terminals for customers to use for as long as they want. Recent self policing by betting shops may help matters, but the government is not convinced.

Neil Goulden, the chair of the ABB, says that people have to look at population statistics before coming to these conclusions. While those gambling machines may be targeting the poorest 25% of the population, in numerical terms those are a lot of people. In addition, he claimed that the average betting shop in a rich area generates more money than the average betting shop in a poor area.

Despite those claims, critics are convinced of the betting industry’s malicious targeting of poor communities, and have called on Parliament to take action.

For more on this story, click here.

Horse breeding

Juddmonte Farms’ Superstars Begin Breeding Careers

The breeding of horses is as much a guess as it is a science. One of Europe’s top equine operations, Juddmonte Farms, has thrown caution to the wind with the mating of two of it’s greatest champions. The product of this mating is a beautiful filly. The sire is none other than Frankel, one of Juddmonte’s greatest runners. The dam is the superstar mare Midday. Both of these fine equine specimens were trained by the late, legendary, English trainer Henry Cecil.

Here is a listing of the major accomplishments for Frankel and Midday.

Frankel

  • He was a perfect 14-14 winning each race during his career
  • He earned the highest time-form rating ever given with a 143 for his victory in the 2011 Queen Elizabeth II Stakes
  • He was twice voted European Horse of the Year (2011, 2012)
  • Won almost 3.0 million euros during his career
  • He dominated the Classic 2000 Guineas in 2011 as a 3-year-old
  • He is generally regarded as one of the top 2-3 horse of all-time

Midday

  • She was a three time winner of the prestigious Nassau Stakes (only one to achieve this honor)
  • She captured the 2009 Breeders’ Cup Filly & Mare Turf in the United States
  • She earned almost 2.3 million euros during her career
  • She had a record of 23-9-7-3, all against top level competition

For owner/breeder Khalid Abdullah, this pairing has produced one of the most anticipated foals in recent years. This beautiful filly was foaled on Feb. 5 and weighs in at 132 lbs. This filly comes with the highest of expectations. Her sire was a brilliant miler who won races from five furlongs to 1 1/8 miles and the dam was a true stayer winning at distances up to 1 1/4 miles.

In his first season at stud, Frankel covered 133 mares. The Midday filly is the first one to actually hit the ground. For Midday, this is her first foal. The future plans for Midday call for her to be bred back to Frankel in 2014. The racing world would indeed be blessed if Frankel succeeds at stud the way he did on the racetrack.

A Bigger World for Poker

 

The World Series of Poker is expanding its reach when it comes to considering just what is meant by reaching out to poker players of the globe. This institution has recently partnered with Australia’s Crown Melbourne, resulting in a tournament with all new possibilities that include what is being entitled the World Series of Poker Asia-Pacific. The upcoming event will have all the normal excitement that this institution has featured in the past in addition to ten different Gold Bracelet Events.

Expanding Operations

The Melbourne has hosted this event in the past, and organizers have expressed a considerable amount of excitement about renewing this partnership once again. The executive director of the World Series of Poker characterizes the move as one that represents a whole new beginning for the champions that flock to these events from the international community, and the popularity of poker tournaments has almost surpassed the popularity of online slots (a whopping 38.6% of adults play Pokies in Australia – if you want to, too, visit aussieonlinepokies.com). The change also represents a dramatic expansion for the institution as a whole. Nearly every dimension of their operations is increasing and expanding. Among the changes are an annual rotation in the location of the venue of games, better communication in the organization as a whole across the world, and increased levels of marketing in each region that they touch.

A Main Event For the Masses

The organizers have also made many of the changes in the interest of players themselves. They are hoping to provide more entertainment and potential winnings in exchange for their international dollars, and most online gambling site now accept BitCoin (casinoza.com lists all the online casinos in South Africa who do accept BitCoin) They realize that there are tons of poker tournaments held around the world on a regular basis, making it critical that this institution put on a showcase that is beyond anything else that is being presented on a global scale. Part of meeting this goal is offering big money to the highest number of players possible. They are now offering a guarantee that at least 150 players will qualify for the $10,000 main event. The changes are also allowing organizers more time to present special promotions and arrange unique, satellite coverage. In addition to the Gold Bracelet Events mentioned above, there are also five separate, official events that are drawing the attention of players and fans alike.

Roulette table

Code of Conduct At The Roulette Table

While there may not be written rules, there are a number of things that are simply considered polite at the roulette table. Being a conscientious player will help you have a better time and get along better with the casino staff and your fellow gamblers.

When placing a bet, try not to throw your chips at the table. This can knock other people’s chips out of position, and will result in a very irate gambler if you cause them to lose a bet they would have won. If you try to call a bet, always accept the dealer’s final say graciously.

Keep purses, bags, and wallets off of the table. Not only do these items clutter up the space, they can also make it look like you are cheating.

Always be polite and courteous to the dealer and your fellow gamblers, whether you are winning or losing. Not only is this respectful, it can also keep you from getting removed from the casino, as pit bosses seldom tolerate rude and disruptive behavior.

Remember to tip your dealer, especially if you are winning. You can also place a bet for your dealer. Just state your intentions when you lay the bet down and give your winnings to the house as a tip. Remember that many dealer’s pay comes primarily through tips.

Learn how to win more often.