October 19th, 2009 by Beat Casinos, How To Beat The Casinos, www.howtobeatthecasinos.com

For some years now, Shuffle Master gaming have been producing a range of electronic table games, called “Table Master“. I’ve played a few of these games in my time (they’re only found in land based casinos), and they’re actually pretty good. For me, the absence of a human dealer can be both good and bad: some dealers are great, some are lousy. At least with a computerised dealer you know what to expect. And the Shuffle Master Table Master games look good too – as can be seen in this photo taken by Shuffle Master themselves:

One feature I really like with these Table Master games is that the gameplay of all seating positions is completely independent of the others. This means that no one elses decisions will ever affect your play, as your cards are coming from a separate virtual deck. This is actually BETTER than a normal blackjack game, when some idiot player sitting on 13 against a dealer picture can really screw YOUR hand.

The Table Master games can be configured by casinos to have minimum bets etc. On the games I’ve physically played, I found $2 – $200 bet spreads – but I know of some casinos that have a $5 minimum. In any case, the odds of the game are set by the rules that the game gets configured to for that casino. A fairly typical rule set for a Las Vegas casino might be as follows:

6 decks (shuffled after four decks)
Blackjack pays 3 to 2
Dealer hits soft 17
Double after split allowed
Double on any two cards allowed
Surrender allowed
Split to two hands only
Seven Card Charlie (un-busted hands of 7 cards automatically win)
Bet range: $2-$200

If these exact rules are configured, then the house edge on this game is around .68%. That’s not too bad – but when playing you must bear in mind that there are no breaks at the end of a shoe, that the gameplay is quite fast, and that its very easy to get addicted to this type of game. From my own experience at least. Do make sure whenever you play that you are using a casino Players Card to get comps / points etc and make the most of your play.

If anyone has played this game in their local casino lately, let me know how you got on. It would be interesting to have another article on this in the near future, perhaps comparing the various game configurations that are out there in the market (and therefore helping to direct players to the casino with the best configuration set). I can be contacted (as always) at davewestlondon@yahoo.co.uk.

October 18th, 2009 by Beat Casinos, How To Beat The Casinos, www.howtobeatthecasinos.com

The Battleship Search and Destroy slot machine is now available at Virgin Casino. You can feel the excitement of battle in this action-packed slot machine game based on the popular Battleship strategy game. Battleship – Search & Destroy™ features 25 paylines, stacks of three Wild symbols on every reel, and two exciting bonus rounds! Line up Stacked Wilds® on the reels to trigger a huge number of simultaneous wins and some amazingly big payouts — up to 125,000 credits at max bet! (Note: you can bet up to 5 credits on every payline – so a maximum 125 credits bet is possible).

You can trigger the Pick Your Battle™ Bonus (on the Battleship Search and Destroy slot machine) by getting three Bonus symbols on a played line. In this Bonus, YOU decide which bonus round to play. You can choose from the Winning Encounter™ Bonus or the Sink the Fleet™ Bonus.

In the Winning Encounter Bonus, engage in thrilling ship-to-ship combat and earn up to a 5x multiplier. Spin for free until you sink the enemy ship, the enemy sinks you, or you have spun 100 times. A single payline win could pay you up to 25,000 credits at max bet!

In the Sink the Fleet Bonus, stage a daring sneak attack on a fleet of enemy ships. Strategically fire at the enemy fleet hidden somewhere on the 8×8 grid. Win up to 16,000 credits at max bet if you sink the entire fleet. There’s a bit of strategy involved with this (I recommend starting in the middle squares first and then firing out from the centre), and a good player really can do well here.

With so many profitable adventures awaiting you in Battleship – Search & Destroy, it’s time to play! Virgin Casino offers all new players a 100% match play bonus - so make sure that you get your bonus today! Free cash, free chances to win!

October 18th, 2009 by Beat Casinos, How To Beat The Casinos, www.howtobeatthecasinos.com

It’s time to get paid back by the casinos: the Transformers: Ultimate Payback™ slot machine at Virgin Casino wants to pay you BIG money! Transformers: Ultimate Payback™ simply explodes with powerful features that can transform you into a supreme winner.

As with the Transformers TV series, there’s more to this 25-payline game than meets the eye as wild symbols suddenly transform and multiply your wins into fortunes! Watch for Transforming Wild symbols on the second and fourth reels as they expand to make the entire reel wild. When the Cybertron Wild on the third reel unfolds, you can pick your multiplier, up to 10X! The Transforming Wild and Cybertron Wild symbols can all appear on the same outcome leading to outrageously sized pays. That’s right: outrageous, huge, mega slot machine wins are possible – and all for you!

When the Optimus Prime and Megatron bonus symbols land anywhere on the first and fifth reels, the battle of the millennium will begin! Optimus Prime and Megatron aim to settle the score in the Ultimate Payback Bonus™. Choose who will win the climactic battle and win up to 3250 extra credits if you choose correctly. Spin for free, up to 100 free spins, or until one of the Transformers prevails in the battle. Until then, enjoy supercharged reels packed with even more Transforming Wild and Cybertron Wild symbols. When a Fight symbol lands anywhere on the fifth reel, watch your favourite Transformers battle it out in amazing graphic detail.

You can play 1, 5, 10, 15, 20 or 25 paylines, and up to 5 credits on each payline – giving this game a maximum bet of 125 credits per spin. The maximum win that is possible on any spin is capped at a massive 250,000 credits.

Note that for this game at Virgin Casino: Hasbro and its logo, TRANSFORMERS, and all related characters are trademarks of Hasbro and are used with permission. © 2009 Hasbro. All rights reserved. Ultimate Payback and Ultimate Payback Bonus are trademarks or registered trademarks of IGT in the U.S. and/or other countries, and are used with permission. © 2009 IGT. All rights reserved.

Play Transformers: Ultimate Payback™ slot machine now at Virgin Casino – and if you’re a new Virgin Casino player, make sure that you claim your 100% match bonus up to 100GBP!

October 18th, 2009 by Beat Casinos, How To Beat The Casinos, www.howtobeatthecasinos.com

Most large land-based casinos have offered the Bejeweled classic video slot machine in their inventory for some time – well, from my experience, that’s been the case anyway. Now you can play this fantastic slot machine online at Virgin Casino. The game play is great, and is so incredibly like the original land-based slot machine version of Bejeweled that you’ll find it hard to tell them apart.

The Bejeweled slot machine has ten pay lines, five of which are aligned horizontally and five of which are aligned vertically. You can bet from 1p to 5GBP per line – so a maximum bet of 50GBP per spin is possible – imagine the HUGE payout if you hit a winning combination with that bet size! Return to player is 94.5% on this game.

Playing the Bejeweled slot machine is easy. When you press spin, twenty five gems appear on the screen. If you line up three or more identical symbols on any of the pay lines they light up and then disappear. At this point more gems fall to replace the ones that have left. This then triggers any further wins, and this continues on until you have no winning combinations left. (This is known as the Cascade feature).

Several high jackpots can be claimed on the Bejeweled slot machine. If you get five wild Bejeweled symbols on the tenth pay line, you can win a massive 20,000 coins. Get five wilds on any other line and you win 1,000 times your line bet! Other top payouts include 8,000 coins for hitting five of anything on line five and lines 6, 7, 8, 9 or 10 at the same time. After this the next highest jackpot is 500 times your line bet. There are some fantastic prizes on offer.

Check out the Bejeweled Slot Machine at Virgin Casino today. Remember that Virgin Casino offers all new players a 100% match bonus up to 100GBP - so you really could be in the money, and quicker than you think! Have fun playing Bejeweled!

October 13th, 2009 by Beat Casinos, How To Beat The Casinos, www.howtobeatthecasinos.com

Today in little Auckland, New Zealand, battle will commence. The battle will be fierce. It will be heated. It will be fun to watch and participate in. Because today, the Skycity Festival of Poker will begin.

With only 180 seats maximum up for grabs, at a price of $3250 NZD each, the poker tournament prize pool will be significant. The Skycity Festival of Poker is already being billed as “New Zealand’s biggest poker tournament” based upon the prize money on offer. The festival goes from 10th to 18th October 2009, with the main event start date of 14th October 2009.

Quite a few well known international players are competing, including Joe Hachem and Tony Hachem. Skycity Auckland casino bills this as “your chance to play with the pros”. It takes a lot of cash to play alongside these guys – but I guess anyone can win. I know – I won a VIP invitation only poker tournament only a week ago (the prize was a ticket to the main event). My best wishes to all of the players competing in the Skycity Festival of Poker.