Take Reach

Choosing An Online Casino
Source : Max Drayman (www.winneronline.com)

You'd think that picking a casino site would be a pretty simple affair: where do I win the most? Or maybe: who's got the highest stakes? These are certainly relevant questions and do keep them in mind when surfing around to make your choice. But there are other things to consider, not all of which may be immediately obviousBiggest Payouts This is pretty difficult to determine because everyone wants to be in the list of "top 10" or whatever. The best thing to do is visit player resource sites, like this one for example, and read reviews.Another helpful source, though by no means fool-proof, is to check out the winner lists at your favourite casino site. All the better sites have these lists. If they're an IGC (Interactive Gaming Council) member then they're supposed to be truthful in their advertising, which gives you a little more confidence in their reported payouts.Look First, Download Later Nobody wants to spend 30-120 minutes downloading software without having some idea of what you're going to get. Better casino sites have a "Preview" section that shows you snapshots of what their games look like, maybe even provide you with a description of how to play. The software you download can get pretty annoying if you don't like its appearance or play action, so look for the "Preview" section and take a few minutes to check it out.How quickly can you receive your winnings? Believe it or not, there are sites that only make their payouts on the last Friday of the month, for example. Or they may require that you send them email expressly requesting your winnings. Or maybe your withdrawal transactions have to be pre-approved and the site advises that that can take up to two weeks. These are examples of actual casino sites! The last Friday of the month?! Are they for real?Support All the better online casinos have a support page at their website. They'll list the ways that you can reach them. Almost everybody offers an email address that you can mail to for assistance. Is that good enough? Not for my money it isn't. I want service numbers I can call, hopefully 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And toll-free too, please and thank you. Better yet, give me two toll free numbers, just in case. Can you assume that your casino provides this? Certainly not! Go look, check the details. Hell, I'd even call the toll free number just to make sure it's not an answering machine that's got so many messages on it that it can't accept yours. Sound outlandish? Not a chance! Been there, seen that. It's your money, so you decide how much this matters.Licensing Etc This is a pretty slippery issue but it boils down to this: online casino regulation is a "voluntary compliance" issue. In other words, the casino plays fair if it wants to play fair. A license in Antigua costs a site $100,000, for example, and then they can say they are "licensed". There is no follow-up required and no compliance issues to obey. If they advertise that they are audited, that's nice, but they don't have to do this.

-

To correctly guess which number will hit after the ball lands in one of the slots. There are many different types of bets in roulette, with different payouts; everything from a straight up bet at 35/1 odds to a bet on black/red at 1/1 odds.

Betting

Before you begin betting at the roulette table, you must purchase special roulette chips which are of different color. If there are 7 people playing at a table, there will be seven different colors of chips. This is so that the dealer knows who bet on what and can keep the payments straight. The dealer will normally give the players 60 seconds to put their bets down, and players can still lay down bets when the ball is moving and not dropped into one of the slots. When a player leaves the table, they can cash in the roulette chips for regular chips.

There are two different types of bets in roulette: inside bets and outside bets. Inside bets are made on the layout, or number grid. For instance, if you wanted to bet on a 4 landing on the next spin of the wheel, you would place an inside bet. An outside bet takes part on the outside of the table, outside of the layout. These types of bets include red/black, high number / low number and even/odd bets.

The numbers on the layout are laid out like this:

0
00
1 4 7 10 13 16 19 22 25 28 31 34
2 5 8 11 14 17 20 23 26 29 32 35
3 6 9 12 15 18 21 24 27 30 33 36


The Inside Bets are:

Straight Up Bet - betting on a single number. For instance, you place a chip on 20 and the ball lands in the 20 slot. Your $10 bet returns $350 in this case.

Split Bet - Betting on two numbers by placing a chip on the line separating two different numbers. For instance, you could place a split bet on 31 and 34. If either number hits, your $10 bet returns $170.

Corner Bet - Betting on 4 numbers by placing a chip at the center of the 4 number block that you wish to bet on. A $10 bet returns $80 if one of the numbers hits.

Street Bet - Betting on a row of 3 numbers, such as 1,2 and 3. A $10 bet in this case returns$110.

Special Line Bet - this bet is made by placing a chip on 00, 0, 1, 2 and 3. A $10 bet returns $60.


Outside Bets:

Dozens - In this bet, you are betting whether the number 1-12, 13-24 or 25-36 will land. For instance, if you place a bet on the 1-12 dozen and 7 lands, your $10 bet would return $20.

Odd or Even - As easy as it sounds. If you believe that an odd number will land, you would place a bet on the Odd zone in the outside part of the table. A $10 bet would return $10, plus your original betting amount back.

Red or Black - You either bet on a red number to land, or a black number. The same payoff as an odd or even bet, even money. So a $10 bet would return you $10.

Column Bet - Similar to a Dozen bet, in that you are betting on one of a group of numbers to land. Refer to the diagram above of the number placement, and you can see that there are three columns of numbers. The payout is the same as a Dozen bet, 2 to 1.

High / Low Number - Another even money bet similar to odd/even or red/black, in this case, low numbers refer to 1-18 (excluding 0 and 00) and high numbers refer to 19-36. If you believe that a low number is going to show up, you would place a $10 bet on the Low. If any number under 19 showed up, you would win $10.

-

So now that you have set your session start amount and you have decided on a betting system, you are ready to start thinking about setting goals and the action you will take when you reach those goals. Determine Your First Goal
Deciding on what your first goal should be for a session is a little like deciding how much you will bet on each spin. The higher your goal is, the higher your risk is, primarily because the higher a goal is the longer it may take to achieve. And once again, the longer you are exposed to the game, the more likely it is that the house will get your money. Therefore, if you have a $100 session start amount and your bet start amount is $5 then setting a goal to double your money is not practical. A goal of 10-30% is achievable, however. Don't worry if this doesn't sound like a lot, we are not done yet. Determine Your First Goal Action
Next you need to decide what you will do when you reach your goal. There are two basic choices. The first is the simplest. You take your money and leave the table! This is the least risky thing to do and will ensure you keep everything you won. Now some of you are probably saying, stop after winning only $30? You must be kidding. Let's go back to our investment analogy. A broker tells you he has a great deal. He only needs your investment for half and hour or so and you will gain 30%. Will you take that or will you tell him your not interested unless you will gain 50-100%. I think you will most likely take the thirty. The second choice you have after reaching a goal is to pocket some of the money and continue to play. After all, if you feel you are on a winning streak, you don't want to stop. By pocketing, we mean take the money out of play for the session. Set it aside and don't touch it again. On your first goal, you should always pocket at least the entire start amount. This protects your initial investment and allows you to use it again at another session. You should also pocket some portion of your winnings as well. Recurring Goals
If you decide you want to continue to play, there are three more decisions you will need to make:

  • What will your next goal be
  • How much will you pocket when you reach the goal
  • How will you adjust your betting system
There are several considerations for setting recurring goals. As we said before, the larger the goal, the greater the risk. Similar to the issues in betting systems, the higher the goals you set the higher the risk in your session. Smaller goals are easily reached but they leave less money in play after the pocket. Here are several approaches:
  • Set new goals by a fixed amount
    When you reach a goal, add a fixed amount to the total bank amount to set the new goal. For instance, you could set a new goal that is $20 greater every time you reach a goal.
  • Set new goals by an increasing amount
    When you reach a goal, add an increasingly larger amount. So, on a first goal, you might add $20. When that goal is reached you might add $40 and then $60 and so on.
As we said before, you also need to consider how much you will bet when you reach a goal. If you are using a flat bet system, you could increase the bet amount by some factor on each goal level. If you are using a progression betting system, you may want to reset the betting back to the start amount. In any case, you will need to coordinate the bet amount with the amount left in play after pocketing. This is the best way to allow for continued game play without risking your hard earned cash.

-










Table Slot | Table Money | Table Would | Their Ball | Their All

© 2006