Online Casino Gambling

Along with ushering in healthcare reforms and economic stimulus, President Barack Obama may change the face of internet gambling in the United States.  In fact, upon Obama’s president win, a Merrill Lynch representative stated, “We think it could ultimately pave the way for online gaming regulation rather than prohibition.”

UIGEA Violates US-European Union Trade Agreements

The point of contention between America and the European Union is the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 (UIGEA).  UIGEA was originally created in order to prevent any American financial institution from transferring monies into online casinos, with the exception of horse racing and lottery websites.

Currently, the European Commission argues that the United States’ UIGEA legislation is violating EU trade agreements.  While the Bush administration simply ignored working jointly with international organizations, Obama’s approach is much different.  In fact, the Obama administration is currently working to resolve the conflict with the European Commission. A resolution should come forth before the expiration of the “grace period,” or else the issue will be turned over to the World Trade Organization for further investigations.

While Obama has not declared his stance on internet gambling, his desire to work with the European Commission and United Nations to resolve conflicts may signal legalized online gambling.

The Future of Legalized Online Gambling

What does the future hold for legalized online gambling?  Last year, Congressman Barney Frank proposed a bill that would overturn UIGEA, but upon voting, the bill tied at 32-32.  In order to pass through the committee floor, the bill simply needed one more vote.

However, Frank continues to work to overturn UIGEA, and he believes that his bill will pass in 2009 with the help of both a Democratic president and Democrat majority in Congress.  Frank has 48 cosponsors for his act to revoke UIGEA, and if the bill is passed to legalize and regulate online gambling, then the American government stands to gain significant tax revenue – which is sorely needed to begin to replenish the severe budget deficit.

Along with legislative assistance, President Obama’s stance on conciliatory foreign relations may bode well for legalized online gambling in the United States.  Stay tuned for the latest news at Online Casino Spotlight!

Free spins and bonus rounds have become common fixtures in today’s online casino slots games.  The bonus round gives you a certain number of free spins and you receive payouts based on the combinations and results of your spin.   However, your payouts also depend on the original spin that triggered the bonus round in the first place.  The bonus round usually differs greatly from the rounds in the standard game.  For instance, the background is often more vibrant with colorful graphics and upbeat music to enhance the experience.   Best of all, you have a great chance of leaving this round with substantial winnings.

Determining the Bonus Round

There are two variables that define the bonus round: the multiplier, and the number of free spins you get.  In basic variations of online slots, the rules of the game determine the number of free spins that will be provided at what multiplier.  In other games, the amount of free spins all depends on number of scatter symbols that appear on the reels.  With most online slots, the scatter symbol is very key to triggering the bonus round.

Free Spins and Bonus Rounds in Action

In contemporary slots games such as Fat Lady Sings, the multiplier and number of free spins are determined by playing a second game in a separate screen.  For the first one, the number of glass the Fat Lady breaks by singing decides the number of free spins.  On the next screen, the number of broken glasses determines the multiplier that will trigger the bonus round. For this particular slots game, such an approach raises the element of chance and ultimately adds to the thrill of the game.

There also online slots games in which the bonus game displayed on the separate screen is the deciding factor to the number of free spins and multiplier collectively.  A perfect example would be Pedal Power, a popular slots game introduced by online casino software vendor Microgaming.  This game allows you to select from 25 free spins with a 2x multiplier, 10 spins with a 5x multiplier, or 5 spins with a 10x multiplier.  As you can see, this game gives you a lot more free spins to choose form with higher multipliers.  Making a choice is not always easy.  Area 21, a game recently introduced by Crytologic, also uses an approach based on similar properties.

Innovative Spins

Most online casino slots games offer free spins that can be triggered a second time.  This essentially means that a triggering combination that appears during your free spins results in additional spins.  Other games have more innovative ways of dishing out free spins and bonus rounds.  For example, in Sneak A Peek Doctor Doctor, the yellow capsule represents a free spin that randomly appears on the fourth reel.  When it bursts, the capsule gives out an extra number of free spins.

Bonus play varies depending on the game but one thing is for certain, with the current popularity of online slots games, more innovative free spin features are sure to come forth in the very near future.

Online casino games have certainly come a long way over the years, especially from a quality aspect.  Technological advancements in graphics and animation have introduced a much more vibrant atmosphere to the gaming experience.  However, high-quality game play requires the aid of various components, some of which must be installed on your computer in order to get the full effect.  There are many such elements and one of the most important of all is the Adobe Flash Player plugin.  Without this addition, your online gaming experience will be quite dull and may not even happen at all.

How Flash Helps

The Adobe Flash Player offers a number of features that add to the quality and overall efficiency of online casino games.  This utility greatly simplifies the manipulation of 3D graphics and is able to create various textured meshes in the 3D environment.  It also has the ability to manipulate textual data and create appealing topography by automatically restructuring and restyling text.  One of the greatest benefits of this multimedia player is that it reproduces color with superior precision, making it appear as if the images were entirely crafted by the program developer.  Not only does it assist with graphic acceleration, but also supports a variety of audio functions such as sequencing and mixing, thus allowing for the implementation of music in real-time.

Perhaps the best feature the Adobe Flash Player has to offer the online gaming experience is the processing power it lends to a computer to accelerate bitmap manipulation.  This speeds up the calculation of bitmaps, blend modes and video overlays to better support animation, audio and high quality video streams.  The player is also an integral part of instant online gaming software as facilitates the serving of SWF files to the web browser.

Identifying Flash Games

Most of today’s online casino software vendors insert functionality into their platforms that require the use of Adobe Flash to work properly.  Cryptologic, Microgaming and Vegas Technology are just some of the leading providers that require you to install the Flash player on your computer system.  Adobe’s Flash technology helps to power many of the popular online casino games including slots, poker, roulette and several others that utilize animation, audio and video elements.  Without this is application, there is a great chance that you will not be able to play any of your favorite games online due to the inability to provide functionality to the browser.

Don’t Have Flash? Don’t Worry

The Adobe Flash Player is a very useful tool that serves purpose in many other areas outside of online gaming.  For example, you can use it to play non-gambling games, watch video clips or even full length Flash movies.  If you do not have Adobe Flash Player installed on your computer, don’t worry.  Getting a hold of a copy is easy.  You can download this media player for free and have it up and running on your system in no time.  From there, you can then take part in a truly enriched online casino gaming experience.

Any avid online casino gamer will tell you that one of the most disappointing experiences is downloading a game or signing up with a casino that simply doesn’t satisfy your needs.  A perfect example would be choosing a game of blackjack where the dealer wins on ties.  While some players will be fond of such a version because of the advantages, several others might want to steer clear of this variant for all the disadvantages it offers.   Indeed, it can be very frustrating when you take the time to research casinos only to download a gaming platform that just doesn’t work out.  For some, this is enough to deter them from playing at that particular casino or indulging in online play entirely.

The good thing is that many of the reputable online casino software vendors have taken note and acted by trying to deliver more user-friendly products that allow you to preview games before investing your time into them.  These previews typically offer screenshots as well as a brief summary of the games.  By viewing a comprehensive preview, you can learn more about that particular gaming platform and better determine if it meets your expectations.

Below we have provided details on some of the most popular online casino software providers offering previews of their games.

Microgaming

It is no surprise that Microgaming, an industry leading online casino software provider, would be one of the first working to accommodate the growing needs of players.  With casinos powered by Microgaming, you can visit the main lobby and then the games section to choose a specific category and obtain a listing of the selections it contains.  From here, you generally have two options.  You can either view all the listed games in text form, or view them in a matrix-style graphical presentation featuring logos of the available games.  With either option, the preview is basically the same as it is displayed in a box to the right of the screen with the cursor set on the name of the game or logo.  After accessing the preview, you can view a screenshot of the game along with a short list of features or rules.

Vegas Technology

With games powered by Vegas Technology, categories are presented on the main lobby page while individual games can be accessed through the drop-down menus.  After selecting a game, the preview is displayed in a small box in the lower-left corner of the screen.  The information you get with VT games is usually the jackpot ticker and betting limits when applicable.  Other details are provided to you via the screenshot.

Wizard Gaming

Although Wizard Gaming doesn’t offer nearly as many games as Microgaming and Vegas Technology, it does provide you the option to preview before you play.  All of its games can be found in the main lobby and when making your selection, the preview can be viewed in the upper right of the screen.  With Wizard Gaming previews you get a nice screenshot and brief summary of the game. The information it provides is often helpful with details on features, free spins and bonus rounds.  Wizard Gaming has some of the most comprehensive previews of all online casino software providers.

Similar to many other casino games, the wild symbol in slots can serve as a substitute for another symbol to give you a winning combination.  More than any other, slots are games centered around specific themes.  In many cases the wild symbol is usually the theme’s most important symbol and therefore, a key aspect to the overall game.

Wilds and Multipliers

A large majority of the online slots games you encounter have wilds that also act as multipliers.  When this symbol is used to round out a winning combination, the payout for that combination is multiplied.  For example, in the popular online slots game T-Rex, the T-Rex is the wild and this symbol payouts double.  In this same game, five of the Stegosaurus symbols in a payline payouts out a total of 5,000 coins.  If you have four of these symbols along with the T-Rex wild, you are then paid out 10,000 coins.  The multiplier quantum is fixed with most casino slots games.  This means that the wild symbol multiplies payouts based on a fixed amount regardless of the number of wilds used to form the winning combination.  However, you also have slots games in which the multiplier depends on the number of wilds that show up in he winning combination.

Types of Wilds

Some online slots games have wild symbols that are designed to add to the excitement of the game.  These are games that incorporate a number of different wild symbols.  The most common of these symbols is the stacked wild.  When this symbol is displayed, all the symbols in each reel become wilds.  If these symbols show up in reels one or two, big payoffs are often the result as the number of winning combinations gives you a simultaneous hit.

The expanding wild symbol is another type of wild commonly found online casino slots games.  Similar to the example above, this is another case where the entire reel is filled with a wild symbol.  However, these symbols are not displayed individually as is the case with the stacked wild.  Instead, the wild expands to cover the reel as a single symbol, hence the name, expanding wild.

One of the newest type of wilds incorporated into online casino slots is the exploding wild.  With this variant, various other symbols are randomly converted into wilds for only a single given spin.  This wild symbol is an integral part of the Call of Duty 4 slots game, where the conversion is followed by an explosion, thus the name, exploding wild  The T-Rex game has exploding wilds but the conversion works in a different manner.  For example, the T-Rex eats every other dinosaur on the reel and then turns them into wild symbols.

When it comes to online slots games, the wild symbol is your friend.  In many types of slots, they are able to trigger bonus rounds to help you obtain extra credits and additional winnings.  Whether it is a stacked, expanding or exploding type, the wild is one symbol you definitely want to see one your computer screen quite frequently.

Every piece of software that powers online casino games is equipped with a component called the RNG or Random Number Generator.  This is the element that reveals how online gambling is all about chance and uncertainty.  Hence the name, the RNG is essentially a mathematical application with the ability to generate a completely random number.

How it Works

For example, in the game of European roulette, it randomly generates a number between 1 and 37.  Numbers 1 through 36 correspond to those same numbers on the wheel while number 37 corresponds to 0 on the wheel.  If the RNG generates number 21, the casino software would then stop on that number and bets would either be paid out accordingly or forfeited.

For a single deck card game such as poker, the RNG generates a number between 1 and 52, with each individual number corresponding to a single card in the deck.  Therefore, if number 2 corresponds to the 2 of spades, the number is generated and the virtual dealer will accordingly throw out the 2 of spades.  The RNG deals in complex mathematical processes because obviously, once a 2 of spades is dealt out, the same card cannot be distributed again.  Online casino games that involve multiple decks of cards generally are more complicated in their random procedures as well.

The RNG is also busy in the game of craps.  As you know, this game involves the rolling of two dice.  Because of the nature of craps, the RNG must simultaneously generate two numbers, each corresponding with the dice between 1 and 6.  If the RNG generates the numbers of 3 and 3, this is exactly what will be displayed on the two dice.

RNG Testing

In order to be considered as fair, the numbers the RNG generates must have these two crucial elements: unpredictability and unbiased.  As it relates to online gambling, bias describes a certain random number that is generated considerably more than others.  Should this random number be generated in a cycle that consistently repeats, the chance for predictability increases dramatically.  This becomes a problem because savvy players looking to cheat the system might be able to recognize the cycle and figure out the next number in a game of roulette, cards or craps.  Let’s be honest, if you notice the number three showing up on the dice more frequently than others, you would probably take note and modify your approach to increase you chances of winning.  While this could turn out to be a favorable in certain situations, it definitely isn’t good for the integrity of the online gambling industry.

To make sure that the numbers an RNG generates are truly unbiased and unpredictable, online casino gaming platforms are regularly tested by independent testing firms such as Technical Systems Testings and eCOGRA.  Once these trusted bodies are certain that a platform’s RNG meets industry standards, the software is then certified as fair.  Because of their outstanding reputations, you may want to specifically seek out online casinos that have their gaming platforms tested by these reputable organizations.