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How to Tell If An Online Casino Is Rogue

Poker chips

Image via Wikipedia

In the online gambling world, casinos must go through strict registration and licensing to operate legally. These legit casinos are the safe, secure ones (well, as safe as it gets when you’re putting your money on the line gambling, anyway!), but many people new to the online gambling world don’t know about the other type: rogue casinos.

A rogue online casino is one that is not legit, not licensed, and not registered. Rogue online casinos do not aim to be accepted as a legitonline casino for long — they just want to look like it long enough to scam people out of their money. Rogue online casinos give legit online casinos a bad name; fortunately, there are a few ways to tell if your favorite new online casino is actually rogue.

The things that tip people off to a rogue online casino include:

  1. Customer service quality. Customer service that is unreachable or very slow in sending you responses is a sign of a rogue casino, because legit casinos pride themselves on excellent customer service.
  2. Unfamiliar and untrustworthy casino software. Online casinos, to prevent fixing prices too easily, use software made by separate companies that are highly trusted. This software is certified and reknowned; if a casino doesn’t use it, it’s likely rogue.
  3. No S in the “http://” in the URL during transactions. The S stands for “secure“; when your URL starts with “https://” you know your credit card info is encrypted before being sent anywhere. If there is no S, the connection is not secure, and the casino is likely rogue.

When in doubt, check an online casino listing for casinos voted legit.

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Filed Under: Casinos, Online Gambling Tagged With: , ,

Online Casino History in a Nutshell

Poker chip with the WSOP logo.

Image via Wikipedia

Online casinos are big — really big. They’re so big that for those who frequent them, it’s practically impossible to imagine a world without the ability to just log on and play some slots or poker from the comfort of your living room. But this was the truth not so long ago…

Here is the history of online casinos in a nutshell:

  • In 1994, the Free Trade and Processing Zone Act went into effect, creating laws online casinos are still operated under today.
  • In 1996 the first-ever online casino was created, offering a mere 18 games. That same year somebody placed the very first cash bet in any online casino in history — quite a milestone!
  • In 1998, people tried to ban online casinos with the Internet Gambling Prohibition Act, which thankfully turned out to be a big flop.
  • 1999 marked the very first multiplayer online casinos. Before this, everybody had been playing the games by themselves, which was considerably less fun than playing in a group and chatting with each other in text chat rooms on the side.
  • In 2002, a player won over a million dollars in an online casino, making a big splash — this showed that online casinos were no small stuff.
  • In 2003, the World Series of Poker winner was a player who had only ever played in online casinos before. Oh, and a bill is passed to make money transfers from online casinos illegal.
  • In 2004, the online gambling ban was lifted after somebody pointed out that regular casinos aren’t limited by it.
  • Online casinos have been going stronger and stronger ever since 2004 — they’re here to stay!
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Filed Under: Online Gambling Tagged With: , ,

Reading a Tell Digitally?

Croupiére de Hod'em Poker

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One of the biggest complaints about playing poker in online casinos for newcomers is how they can’t see the other players, so they can’t read their tells or even judge by their poker faces. For a game that centers so much around putting on a front, it’s a bit amazing that poker has done as well in a digital online format as it has.

The days when you have to choose between physical poker and digital poker based upon tell reading ability or convenience may soon be at an end, though. Several more advanced online casinos are now offering not only the option to play poker itself, but to play it within a virtual 3D computer-generated poker room, complete with digital avatars of the players that are fully customized to match them. Players can choose what angle and zoom distance to view the table at.

Of particular interest, also, is an advanced emote system designed to show an impressive variety of emotions, including nervousness, confidence, thoughtfulness, and aggression, so that you can put forth the emotion you want the other players to think you are feeling and then let them judge whether they are reading an actual tell or just playing to your bluff.

In addition to conveying emotions through expression, your custom avatar in one of these games can show your conversation through body language gestures as you type into the usual chat box to communicate with other players. The 3D avatars are of the more realistic variety to appeal to adults instead of the typical kid-friendly avatar, such as a Nintendo Wii’s Mii.

One of the most popular 3D poker games is PKR.

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Filed Under: Online Gambling, Poker Tagged With: , ,