The Online Casino Gambling Blog

So you’re off on the vacation you’ve been planning for ages now, you’ve got the time off from work and are finally in a place where financially you can afford a vacation and not have to eat ramen for two months after to make up for it. The question is - where are you going?

Well if you’re a gambling enthusiast who loves the sand, the sea, and beautifully warm weather then you’re obviously headed to the St James Club in Antigua. It’s a gorgeous 100 acre resort/casino on an isolated peninsula of the island which might leave you feeling like you’re at the end of the world. And what more can you ask for in your vacation from the real world than soft white caribbean sand underfoot, a tropical rum punch in your hand and the roulette wheel of a good casino spinning before you on those golden lit days.

The St James Club has blackjack tables, poker, stud poker and of course over fifty of everyone’s favorite - slot machines! The decadence of the resort is what makes it feel like a Casino Royale and will definitely make you feel like you’re in a James Bond film and Bond himself is liable to bust through the doors or roar past you in a motorboat chase at any moment.

Of course, if you can’t get away to Antigua quite just yet there are tons of online casinos, some of which have an island theme that are waiting for you to indulge the fantasy there. Who knows you might hit it big and be able to finance your vacation playing at one of them.

With the wide spread of online gambling casinos and poker recently the Municipal Court of Denmark has overturned the Justice Ministry’s ruling that made poker tournaments tournaments illegal in Denmark . The Municipal Court ruled that upon further considering that poker tournaments do in fact fall within the parameters of Danish gambling legislations. This ruling has propelled Danish Poker lovers into a frenzy of glee, as their favourite game can now be played openly, in public places. Expert poker players can finally find the challenge of playing against others of their degree of skill.

The Danish court ruled that illegal gambling consists of games which provide monetary or commercial gain to the organizers at the expense of the players which poker, as a game of skill rather than chance does not fall under as long as there isn’t an overhead charge to the players to enter the tournaments.

Danish newspapers report there are upwards of five hundred thousand Danish citizens who play poker daily.

If you subscribe to the philosophy bigger is better, then 90-ball virtual bingo is the game for you! It’s got 15 balls more than regular bingo and mostly the same rules. Obviously the first player to complete a BINGO on his or her card takes the prize. If you’ve never played Bingo at an online casino well here’s your excuse to check it out! In 90 ball Bingo the tickets you purchase at your online Bingo website (PartyBingo.com by the way is an excellent one if you’re looking) are different from regular Bingo in that they come with nine columns and three rows, each row will have five squares that contain numbers, all the others are blank.

Bingo is the easiest game to learn how to play so it’s perfect for beginners or social gamblers who like chatting with people while playing as the online Bingo chat rooms allow you to make friends around the world! Such are the advantages of playing at an online casino! A vast improvement from the same old faces every week at your local bingo parlour, no?

Currently thanks to the UIGEA it’s almost impossible for American players to gamble at online casinos. However, a large number of Americans feel this is severely infringing on their freedoms and have chosen to disregard this law and are finding more and more ways to gamble online. The UIGEA has made it very difficult to get money into online casino accounts, most American players use NETeller or Firepay or some other third party website.

Online Casinos are aware of and sympathetic to the American plight and many of them have incorporated a new way of transferring funds into an account through a MoneyGram deposit. Moneygram kiosks can be found in hundreds of locations across the US but most notably in the biggest symbol of coporate America - Walmart. Almost every Walmart contains a Moneygram making it easy for you to feed money into your online casino account. It’s a simple solution to a daunting problem for most American gamblers. Of course breaking a law, even one you feel is unjust, will come with consequences if you happen to be caught

Hal Lubarky is a very good poker player, he placed 118th out of 335 players in the World Series of Poker in 2007 with a chip count of over four hundred thousand dollars at the end of it. Hal is special in his poker playing abilities even more so due to the fact that he is is legally blind. A poker enthusiast from a young age Hal found himself struck with a serious eye disease in the late nineties that left him unable to read the cards.

Hal fell into a great depression when he was forced to give up the game he loved but eventually was coaxed into trying an online poker game with a friend over his shoulder reading the cards to him. Soon Hal had discovered a new way to play the game he had loved. Hal progressed to live poker games and finally started entering tournaments. It was a red letter day for Lubarky when the gaming officials finally altered the rules so as to allow handicapped people to play in professional tournaments. To most players at last year’s tournament Hal is an inspiration. Hal is just happy to be able to enjoy his game again.

So if you’re a gambler you know about the UIGEA (Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act) which has made online gambling in the United States illegal. However this has presented a problem in New Hampshire’s lottery sales tickets of which had previously been sold online however with the UIGEA in effect credit card sales of these tickets stopped going through, things got so bad that local stores were even refusing to sell lottery tickets if the customers were paying for them with so much as debit cards!

Noted experts from the American Banking Association, Congress and the Department of Treasury as well as private citizens such as ex Senator John Sununu all spoke up in opposal to the UIGEA prior to its implementation claiming that it would in fact disrupt legal business in instances such as this one. New Hampshire’s internal revenue is losing money due to this act, money that’s dedicated to schools and hospitals while sketchy unlicensed sites create ways around the UIGEA all because legislators could not be bothered to regulate internet gambling in America. It seems like a real shame to me.

Five Card Stud is easier than most forms of poker because your opponents only have one face down card. It’s won not by straights or flushes but mostly by high cards and pairs so keep an eye out for those. You should definitely fold if you don’t have a pair in your first three cards or at least a live card that beats everyone else’s hands. Here are some more strategy tips for playing this game both at online casinos and physical gambling arenas.

•    Pay attention to the players hands that have folded so you know which cards are out of the deck.

•    Pay attention to the players themselves, study their hands, try to predict their moves.

•    Don’t get overconfident if you’ve got a high card, it won’t mean anything if put against someone with a stronger pair of cards than you.

•    Bluff badly every now and then so you get called on it, people won’t be able to predict when you’re actually bluffing for real and it will make you a harder opponent to beat.

•    If your hand (including the facedown card) is beaten by someone else’s face up cards you should fold.

•    Trust your instincts.

•    And above all don’t play with money you can’t afford to lose.

The last two are good advice to follow both in poker and in real life!

One of the hardest parts of picking up a new game is learning all the technical jargon that goes along with any new game. Luckily for you the online casino Five Card Stud Poker short hand is the same as those found in regular casinos so if you know the terms you’re set. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Five Card Stud here are some new phrases for your vocabulary.

Door Cards – the first face up card dealt in an opening hand.

Low Cards – Cards 2,3,4,5,6,7,8 9

High Cards – Cards 10, Jack, Queen, King, Ace

Live Cards – cards which haven’t been dealt yet that the players feel might possibly still be dealt in gameplay.

Dead Cards – cards which have already been dealt.

Fast Play – when the players bet and raise as always and then re-raise multiple times on hands to increase the speed of the game by making as many players drop out as quickly as possible.

Slow Play – when the players only check and call. This is done to keep everyone in the game and to increase the odds of the pot.

Alright so now you know, log onto those casinos and clean up at those poker tables!

5 Card Stud Poker is one of the simplest forms of poker to play, with logical rules and straightforward game play. Each player puts up their ante and then is dealt one card face up and one card face down. The lowest face-up card must put in either half the minimum bet or the full bet to start the game. At this point in the game the cards are ranked according to their face value as well as their suits – Clubs being the lowest with Diamonds and Hearts higher than that and Spades ranking the highest. (After this round cards are only ranked according to face value.) Then in a clockwise direction the other players either call or raise or fold their own hands. Round two begins when the players are dealt another card face up leaving them with three cards total now. The player with the highest card from here on out will be the first person to check or bet. Once all the players have finished calling or betting in a clockwise order once more a fourth card is dealt face up. The minimum bet is doubled in this round.

The fifth and final card is dealt after all the players have finished calling or betting, followed by another round of betting on their hands with the minimum bet doubled. The cards are turned over at this point and the best hand wins the pot. And there you have it now you know how to play Five card stud poker.

Five Card Stud poker is ideal for online casinos as it’s fast (over a hundred hands can be played in an hour!) and easy to grasp the concept of. It’s lost popularity over the years thanks to Texas Hold ‘Em but we foresee a resurgence for this game as online casinos become more established on the internet.

The UK gambling Commission has been doing such a bang up job on policing online gambling, making it safe for players both new and experienced that in the last two years since its implementation gambling amongst UK citizens has increased greatly. The Commission at the end of 2008 surveyed a random sample of eight thousand adults across the country on their gambling habits. 9.7% of those surveyed claim to have gambled virtually using computers, phones or even special interactive television programs which shows a steady increase from 8.8% in 2007 and 7.2% in 2006. We can only presume that 2009 will continue this rising trend in online gambling from this constant increase.

So well done UK Gambling Commision. We wish more governmental agencies like this could be formed globally.