Month: October 2015

There are many aspects that could turn a gambling site into the best place to play at for users all around the world, but mostly for us Brits. Unfortunately though, there are many players that get distracted by the flashy commercials and the apparently generous bonuses, losing sight of what is really important such as safety, privacy, fairness and variety of the games, good wagering requirements and so on. For the untrained eye, having to choose between the hundreds of online casinos that offer their services in the UK will turn out to be quite the challenge and a poor choice could be more than discouraging. This is why it is imperative to find a reliable source of info on the best online casinos, before you jump in head first in what could be a total fiasco.

My long-time experience has showed me however, that sometimes one site can be perfect for you, but not remotely good enough for me, simply because we have different preferences in terms of favourite games, types of bonuses, preferred payment options and so on. Although this is true, fact to the matter is no one would choose a dodgy operator, with poor game selection if they were given a much better alternative. So, here they are, ladies and gentleman:

888 Casino – I am sure that they need no introduction, but still I would like to point out the factors that made me recommend this operator and support my choice with indisputable facts. First and foremost, the large number of safety certificates such as McAfee, GamCare and eCogra are solid proof that 888 Casino takes your safety seriously and would spare no efforts to offer a secure gambling environment. Moreover, their responsible gaming page includes useful links to help players that may have a problem with compulsive gambling. Their game selection is not exactly something to write home about in terms of quantity, but their quality and uniqueness sure makes up for that. New players receive quite the warm welcome, even before they make their first deposit. Overall, they must be doing lots of things right, since they already have over 25 million registered users worldwide.

Ladbrokes Casino – This is an operator that is also no stranger to safety certificates, proudly displaying no less than 5 of them on its website, among which Essa, GamCare and one from the Responsible Gambling Trust. As far as the games are concerned, I would say ‘Now that’s a rich collection to choose from’ and if you had a look over the over 500 Playtech titles that they offer, you would totally agree. And the best part is that most of their featured games and jackpot slots are also available on the go and their app for iOS can be downloaded from the official store.

Casumo – A fairly new addition to the UK gambling market, Casumo brings so many new things to the table, that it’s no wonder they claim to be from another universe. This operator’s intention is to transform you gambling experience into something unique, fun and easy as child’s play – an 18 year old child’s play, that is! Leaving aside the entertainment element, Casumo does surprisingly well for a casino launched only 3 years ago and actually much better than some gambling sites with a lot more experience in the field. It just seems to come naturally to Casumo to offer such a good product, with games from 5 of the best software providers and exciting promotions, bonuses and free spins.

Have you ever gone to a casino intent on making it big at the slot machines, only to leave broke and disappointed? No matter how many times you spin the reels, absolutely convinced that you will hit a good combination next time, you just can’t seem to win anything bigger than peanuts. You might chart it off as bad luck, or maybe a bad day, but in fact, it’s not just that – slot machine RTP has decreased almost 15% over the last 15 years across the country, according to new statistics.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, RTP, also known as “return to player”, is the amount returned to the players, under the form of winnings, out of all deposited cash. For example, if a slot machine’s RTP is set to 95% and $100 are deposited in it, on average $95 will be distributed among the various players as winnings while $5 will be kept for the casino. The opposite of RTP is known as “hold”, which is the percentage that the casino keeps for itself (in the example above, the hold would be 5%).

Throughout all of slot history, players have complained about them being “unfair”, but those complaints have often being dismissed as just sore loser talk. Well, Marcus Prater, executive director of the Association of Gaming Equipment Manufacturers, finally decided to address these complaints by hiring Las Vegas-based advisory firm Applied Analysis to inspect slot machines nationwide and compile statistics that show whether or not there’s anything to the gamblers’ accusations. As it turned out, they were quite a lot more substantial than anyone had suspected.

According to the study, the nationwide hold in 1990 was only 5.9%, which has increased to 7.7% in 2014, which may not seem like much, but it’s a dramatic change, meaning that players were now a lot less likely to win than they were in 1990. The study examined statistics from each of the 12 states in which gambling is currently legal, determining that perhaps a part of the problem might be the decrease of gambling-free states. While in 1990 only 3 states allowed casinos on their soil, that number has grown 4 times over 15 years. In states such as Nevada, where gambling is a big part of the culture, the hold is as low as 6.4%, while in others like Iowa the hold percentage is 9.37% – almost twice as high.

However, that’s not the only possible answer to the riddle that Applied Analysis are contemplating. As sad as it is, a much more likely answer would be a “self-fulfilling prophecy”. Gamblers complain about slot machines being “too tight” and stop playing, and since there’s less people playing casinos are forced to increase the hold in order to profit, which makes gamblers complain, and the whole circle starts from the beginning. While certain slot machines (mostly the ones where profit is shared with the manufacturer) do not allow any adjustment to the RPM, most have left it almost entirely at the owner’s leisure. In theory, they could even make the hold 100%, though of course it’ll never come anywhere near that level. My point is that it’s mostly up to casino owners to adjust the RPM in order to meet market demands… And that adjustment isn’t always good.

To add some weight to this hypothesis, Applied Analysis have also collected statistics on casinos’ average profits throughout the 15-year period of the study. As it turns out, slot machine revenue has decreased by a full 5% over 10 years, from $7.09 billion in 2004 to $6.74 billion in 2014, which, again, might not seem like much, but we’re still talking hundreds of thousands of dollars here, especially when you consider that the all-time high for slot profits in Nevada came in 2007, where they brought a grand total of $8.4 billion – not even close to what they’re making these days. Sure, a lot of things could be blamed for this, such as the economic crisis and the subtle decrease in casino’s cultural relevance, but it’d be naïve to believe that the gradually increasing hold didn’t have anything to do with it. So we can quite clearly see that despite the decreased RTPs profit is not only not going up – it’s actually decreasing at an alarming rate.

Keep in mind, the above statistics were purely for the profit of the slot machines – how much the hold allows casinos to keep for themselves. But when it comes to overall player interaction, the numbers tell a similar story. In Nevada, slot machine wagering has gone down an astounding 23%, from $138 billion in 2006 to only $105.4 billion last year. If this rate keeps up, slot machines may continue to lose relevance and become nearly obsolete in the eyes of gamblers in the US. “Consumer spending has improved in most major gaming markets throughout the United States in recent years, while gaming volumes continue to contract”, the firm explained in their report.

According to executives of the trade association’s board, the study was done “to open a dialogue” between manufacturers and casino operators in order to come up with a solution to the problem that can benefit both parties and restore slot machine performance. According to Tom Jingoli, Senior Vice President of Konami Gaming, the study was meant “as a talking piece and not a broad brush stroke for the gaming industry”. Certain elements might help revitalize the declining medium, such as the legislative changes that were approved this year to allow for skill-based elements (such as the ones found in various videogames) to be aded to slot machines, but as a whole the future of slot machines remains in peril. While the decrease in profits may not seem dramatic or serious at the moment, if it continues it could snowball into something that could potentially hurt the entire industry.