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Before you play free slots online or enter a land casino, you have to know slot terminology. This is the jargon used in slot machines, so make sure you understand all the terms. Slots terminology can be confusing to some. That’s why we have gathered all the terms related to slots and slots gambling.

Regardless of whether you play free slots online or are a fan of progressive slots in land casinos, these terms will be very helpful. Bet Max This button places the highest amount of coins allowed by the machine Bonus Feature Any possible way of winning besides the typical payline combinations Bonus Video Slot A video slot machine that has a bonus feature. There are may different features, but the most common most common are pick a box, free spins and wheel or fortune game style.

Buy A Pay A slot machine with multiple pay tables. With any additional coin played, you activate an additional pay tables. Consider max bets.

Maximum Bet The highest amount of coins allowed in the game.

Multi-Line A slot machine that has more than one payline to win.

Pay Line The line where the combination should line up for you to win.

Pay Out Percentage The pre-set percentage of bets that will be returned by the slot machine over the long term. Casinos cannot change this percentage.

Pay Table The chart outlining all th wins payed by the machine.

Pokies Slot machines in Australian slang

Progressive Jackpot Any jackpot that increases while the game is played. A part of every bet is contributed to form the jackpot. Usually met in linked jackpots.

Random Number Generator (RNG) The chip inside every slot machine that decides when the reels will stop.

Reels The drums inside the slot machine that spin when you press the button or pull the lever. Modern video slots use digital images instead of spinning drums.

Scatter Pay Typically found on video slots, a pay that wins without having to line up in the payline. Often found on bonus slot machines.

Slot Machine Any casino game machine that involves reels

Symbols The images displayed on the reels in the slot machine. Common symbols are bars, fruits and sevens.

Video Slot A slot machine using a computer screen instead of physical reels to display the symbols. Wild Symbol A symbol that substitutes other symbols. Acts like joker in card games.

Keith had started using a computer in the Nevada casinos to play “perfect” blackjack. Keith’s first computer weighed fifteen pounds. He went on to develop dozens of concealable computers and other electronic devices over the next two decades, ever smaller and more powerful. Nevada had no laws at that time prohibiting the use of devices at their tables.

In the toe of each shoe there were two “switches”, or buttons - one above each big toe and one beneath - for a total of four switches. The computer itself was about the size of a pack of cigarettes, but thinner. By using a series of toe taps, kind of like Morse code, the player could relay to the computer everything it needed to know in order to make a decision in a blackjack game: which cards had already been dealt, what cards the player held, and the dealer’s upcard. It was not very easy (but still very important) to use one of these devices. It essentially entailed learning to “type” with your big toes.

Each switch conveyed a different code to the computer, which was a small epoxy-encased device that was strapped to the calf beneath the trousers. Even once you had memorized the codes, inputting them via the toe switches was a chore. It took weeks or even months of practice to get to the point where you could use the device at casino-dealing speed without foot cramps stopping you.

When I was much younger than now, so many years ago I can’t remember with ease, gambling was so much easier. You either got in your car or on an airplane, and went where people were playing casino games for real money, or you asked around and found out where the floating games were for that night. After that, going to a real casino had the edge. But everything loses its shine eventually.

I suppose some of the motivation for regulation is the sense that online gaming is not regulated. Go into any real world casino, and you should always be “safe” except from your own gambling habit, of course. There are security cameras everywhere making sure no-one is going to cheat you. Regulators check the slots to make sure they are all working properly. Once you are online, there are no external eyes looking after you. You have to protect yourself. Except you do not know who the company is behind the online casino.

Then along came the internet with a whole lot more liberty. Yet, there is a “crackdown”. The US has been legislating. This has produced international litigation with Antigua taking action against the US. This is more action than you see in some casinos. All you have are a few animated versions of the casino games that lack any sense of physical involvement. Worse, some of the games just are not the same. For example, thanks to the random number generator, counting the cards in online blackjack is a waste of time.

But because the overheads for running an online casino are significantly less than the real world equivalents (paying salaries to all those countless people is not required), the online payout schedules are more generous. You no longer have to wait on other players or croupiers. There is always another game ready to play. Because you do not have people looking over your shoulder (and judging you), you have more freedom to learn new games or try out different strategies without people getting impatient with you. And finally, you can achieve free money. In the real world, you can get drinks, food and, sometimes, accommodation comped. Online, the only thing the casino can give you is a credit of money. This doesn’t sound bad does it?

So does that mean online gaming is a positive experience? The only thing bad with it is that it is too easy to play. But, so long as you have your gambling under control, you say when, where and how long you play. What can be better than that?

The counting system Wong published was the Hi-Lo Count, and like Revere’s count, used the easy divide-by-remaining-deck(s) approach to running count adjustments. So, at last, some twelve years after Harvey Dubner had proposed the Hi-Lo count values, his system was available in a format both fully optimized with strategy indices, and presented with a simple methodology of play.

Wong’s table-hopping approach to shoe games was in many ways similar to Al Francesco’s Big Player (BP) team approach, but allowed a solo card counter to attack shoe games invisibly, and without a team of spotters. This playing style has since become widely known as wonging.

In 1975, Stanford Wong came out with Professional Blackjack. As four-deck shoes were the most widely available games in Las Vegas by that time, this original approach was brilliant. The casinos looked for card counters by watching for their betting spreads. It had never occurred to the casinos that a counter might be watching a table from the aisles, waiting for an advantageous count before jumping in to bet.

When you walk up to a slot machine in a casino or log into an online casino and play the slots, it’s a battle between you and the machine to see who comes out the winner. That’s the way casinos make a profit. But for fun, you can sign up for a tournament where you’re playing against the other players. In the real world, one of the current tournaments is running at Cache Creek Casino in Brooks, for the next six weeks.

Like most real-world tournaments, the casino has corralled a number of machines and members of the local slots club are rotated in every fifteen minutes to play for three minutes. The total prize money fund is $200,000 with everyone in the top fifty winning at least $1,000.

Online, the same principles apply. Whoever enters the tournament is given a preset number of credits and a fixed time. The winner is the one who has the biggest total at the end of the allocated time. The others have an entry fee. It is customary to return most of the stake money as prizes. This differs from the real world where the players may get other comps like drinks, meals or subsidised rooms in the hotel to offset any reduction in the prize money.

This high pressure may not be for you. If you’re playing for fun, this may be taking life too seriously. But if you do want to improve your skills, playing a tournament or two will get the adrenaline running and build up your speed and accuracy.

How do you play in a tournament? You need to be fast and extremely lucky. Whatever the time allocated, you must make sure you use all the credits you are given. If you cannot get through your credits in the time, you are not going to win unless you are lucky enough to get some good scores. Always check the pay table before you start and make sure you aim for the best paying combinations. That means it’s all down to concentration and fast reflexes. As soon as you see the draw, you must be hitting the holds and draw button. If you slow down, you lose.

To the most of the public, one of the most incomprehensible things about professional blackjack strategies is hole-card play. This includes a wide range of strategies. The one feature that can be found in all of these strategies is that the player either knows the dealer’s hole card, or has valuable information about that hole card, whether it’s a paint or not. To most casual blackjack players, this seems absolutely incredible and impossible, unless there is some sort of cheating going on. But it’s not impossible, and in fact, most hole-card strategies are perfectly legal.

Last year one of the best blackjack books author interviewed “RC,” one of the most successful hole-carders of modem times. In introducing us to RC, he writes, “For every one hour spent on the table playing, the hole-card player may spend ten hours scouting… Most players, even if shown a dealer who is flashing, would not be able to spot the hole card anyway. Holecarders spend hundreds of hours training their eyes to see something that flashes by in a fraction of a second, often cast in shadow.”

Most consider blackjack card counting too weak to be worth the trouble. Many quickly attain notoriety in the casinos and a degree of fame among other pros that appreciate the rare skills they have developed. But let’s look at some of the forerunners of today’s players, describe some of the most common hole-card strategies, and get a historical overview of this type of legal strategy.

What is warp play invented by Stanford Wong? In the old days, dealers used to manually peek under their tens and aces to see if they had a blackjack before satisfying the players’ hands. This constant bending up of the corners on the tens and aces tended to put a warp into these cards if the casino did not change its decks frequently. Warp play was simply using this information to make strategy decisions.

What is front-loading, another invention of american authors? A front loader is simply a sloppy dealer who flashes his hole card as he is placing it beneath his upcard. It’s actually a pretty descriptive term, since one common way that such a dealer inadvertently flashes the hole card is by tipping the face of the card up toward the “front” of the table as he is “loading” it. A player who sits in a seat that provides him a view of this card is said to be “front-loading.”

There is one place in the US, that is probably the less interesting place in all state. It sits in Pointe Coupee Parish. Pass down Main Street to False River Drive and you’ve missed it. Except there’s been a crime. Nothing too heavy. No gore. Just two guys who stole two video poker machines. There’s never been a crime wave in this small town but there were surveillance cameras saw the whole thing. The bad guys pulled up outside the Waterloo Exxon and Daiquiris Shop in their Chevy truck. Now these two climb out wearing masks - shows foresight and planning. The smaller of the two has a gimpy leg but that’s not going to hold him back. The big guy (as eyewitneses tell him have wearing a size 13 boot which matches his impressive build) breaks through the glass frontage like it was a movie set fake. One impressive thing is that they’ve used two machines. Each video poker machine comes in at a slimline 300 pounds but these two heroes exit their truck and drive away with the two machines in the back in 33 seconds. This record is made due to they’ve used a sledgehummer. A bit of cheating there, but they made a few thousand dollars for their efforts. So if you meet a small guy with biceps to die for and a limp in a bar down in Louisiana, he’s buying the next round.

Your business shouldn’t stop you from enjoying your life. With the stresses of modern day life, juggling family and work, maintaining personal time as well as sustaining a relationship with friends in a social setting, life can get hectic. But what about the days when we were kids saying, “I’m bored. I need something to do.” Nothing similar? But you can find that “something to do” easily when you start to play casino games. Don’t sit around a table with some friends quietly playing bridge or some other mild card game. An hour later, everyone leaves and you’ve got nothing to talk about on Monday at work! Invest money in your happiness! You deserve it. Watch as you are able to say, “Dinner is on me tonight!” How can you do this? By joining the millions of people who have already developed a keen sense of casino online games, is how! You can soon find yourself winning at game that you could have never imagined yourself playing. Slots is just naming one. There are progressive slots, jackpot bonuses, themes galore, and so much more to the seemingly easy game of Slots. Slots will lead you into the casino online world quickly and safely. So join the others and end your days of boredom right now!

There is nothing worse than trying to figure out new software and to bring to life a site that really isn’t great to begin with. I have tried this often enough with my new gaming software and have since given up. While sites compete with each to be the best in offering casino games online, you can bet that you have a large pool of options to choose from. If you like the slow and easy style of playing slots online, you can find them as well as so many other types of games on the better sites. But don’t forget: you are playing to win, right? Why would someone dedicate their free time to playing casino games? Money? Sure. It’s not a greedy thing or even a needy thing. Playing for money helps encourage a healthy competitive nature in an individual. Winning at casino games can also boost self-esteem in someone. If you are ready to win at progressive slots or other popular online casinos, you should start today. Within moments you could feel better than before.

I want to say, that now I’m feeling a little ornery. Had a bad run with the cards and lost a few dollars - got my pride wacked outa shape.

But, after the third screwdriver, he did get me to thinking. When I lost the third pot in a row to river cards against the odds, I must say that I was catched in a wicked game. Ain’t no-one with the cojones to try anything against me for real - not with my connections. But there’s lots of folk get it into their heads that online video poker sites are cheating them. So I s’pose I’d better say a few words of reassurance - not that it’ll actually boost your confidence.

So, let me sit you down in front of a video poker machine playing Jacks or Bette. For those who’ve not boned up on the jargon, that’s a machine paying 250 per coin on a Royal Flush, 9 on a Full House and 6 on a Flush. That machine’s set up to pay back only a fraction over 98% of what it takes. Even if you play a perfect strategy on this machine, the theoretical return never gets above 100%. It bears saying again. No matter which lucky rabbit’s foot you got in your pants, the very best you can hope to do is to almost break even.

No one uses the proper strategy, so casinos continue making profits. That’s why you gotta pass the carousels of slot machines before you get to the tables. They’re the bread-an-butter earners for every casino.

So why do some folk get so all-fired sure they’ve been cheated by slot machines? In a word: frustration. They were hot, certain their luck was in, but had a long bad session. That always makes the loss harder to bear - when your emotion gets in the way of your judgement. Gambling’s got streaks of luck both ways. On one hot August night in 1913, the roulette wheel in Monte Carlo came up black a record-breaking twenty-six times in a row. The House took millions of extra profit. Half the room got to playing the Martingdale System. They were doubling their bets after every loss. But they tapped out of money before the streak ended. Was there anything wrong with the wheel? Nope! The math god smiled and it was true.

If I stopped there, there’s no sense in any casino cheating on the slot machines. But there’s no denying you’re right ’bout one thing. Greed’s the worm in the gambling apple. Don’t matter which side of the fence you’re on, there’s always some as thinks they’re gonna hit it big. So I’ve seen pit bosses and managers decide the Vig’s not enough and rig the games. Well, you gotta test their slot machines. Pick one of their video poker games. Say before you start how many times you’re gonna play and what you hafta see to prove the machine’s rigged. S’pose you think a video poker game don’t have all the faces in the deck - you’ve to track the frequency of the faces as they show in the count of all non-face cards. Tracking how many hands you played and how many you won or lost ain’t no proof at all. You need a test that’s statistically significant to prove cheating. So how many thousand hands of data you gonna pay to collect to test your hypothesis? It’s put up or shut up. No-one likes a sore loser unless they got the evidence to prove otherwise.

Finally yout machine becomes something like school teacher for you. Me, I don’t have no problem with that, but some online casinos’re uploading Dynamic Link Library subroutines to identify the applications you’re running at the same time as the casino package. They might not like some of the things they find - not within the spirit of the game from their point of view. Remember the old Chinese saying, “Big fish eat small fish.”

Catch ya ’round.