How much money does a casino make in a day, how much does online casino make.

How much does online casino make

Online casino sites to play on real money

There’s a number of parallels between shopping centers and casinos, and hiding the progression of time is yet another example. With a lack of windows, a player will over time become unaware of the time, and spend more time inside the casino through the enticing offers and games around him, completely immersing them into the casino experience. Alongside this, the lack of clocks around the casino, it’s very easy to lose track of time and continue a game past when they planned on leaving. For any business, maximising the potential sales made is the main goal, but this is taken a step further the moment you walk into a casino. Every detail on the casino floor, even down to the layout is specifically designed to entice customers to make their next spend, and is achieved through both data analysis and industry knowledge. But when you’re enticing customers to spend more and more money, it’s also equally possible to neglect other factors, making the vital balance a professional casino holds an art form. In this article, I will be discussing some of the techniques employed by casinos to keep their revenue up, and figuring out just how much they earn daily.

How much money does a casino make in a day?

For any business, maximising the potential sales made is the main goal, but this is taken a step further the moment you walk into a casino. Every detail on the casino floor, even down to the layout is specifically designed to entice customers to make their next spend, and is achieved through both data analysis and industry knowledge. But when you’re enticing customers to spend more and more money, it’s also equally possible to neglect other factors, making the vital balance a professional casino holds an art form. In this article, I will be discussing some of the techniques employed by casinos to keep their revenue up, and figuring out just how much they earn daily.

A relatively modern technique used in our beloved supermarkets is one of the leading decision makers in a casinos layout – data mining. Through analysis of customer movement, purchases and reviews, a casino can see what machines or services customers use frequently after each other. These services can then be placed near to each other, which would entice a customer further to use another service once they’re done, resulting in even more spending, and greater customer satisfaction, giving them everything they need to enjoy their time at the casino.

Subscription benefits are everywhere in modern day – from clubcards in a convenience store, to subscription loyalty benefits. In a casino environment, enticing and beneficial programs are usually present, which can give you access to exclusive events, and benefits whilst at the casino. These packages are sometimes referred to as VIP passes, where a customer can access exclusive games at the casino alongside these other benefits. On average, some casinos can make $630,000 per day, a significant amount of that being achieved from these key methods of enticing a customer, through tailoring services to their every needs and by introducing promotions.

Advertising success

When playing in a large casino, it’s easy to lose yourself in the sounds of whirring slot machines and the cheers of the next lucky winner, and advertising these successes is important for a casino. Flashing lights accompanied by a variety of noises can be used to draw your attention to the success people are having, enticing you into a game – if they can win, you can too.

There’s a number of parallels between shopping centers and casinos, and hiding the progression of time is yet another example. With a lack of windows, a player will over time become unaware of the time, and spend more time inside the casino through the enticing offers and games around him, completely immersing them into the casino experience. Alongside this, the lack of clocks around the casino, it’s very easy to lose track of time and continue a game past when they planned on leaving.

Unlike a land-based casino, online casino platforms can perform similar techniques using the appeal of offers as a user is about to leave the game – this is often done in online slots, where a free spin, or bonuses on specific win conditions may be applied after a certain amount of play time.

Chips, not cash

Separating the money you’re spending from actual cash to a chip or another form of currency in the casino is a strategy often used to get more cash – removing some of the value psychologically associated with actual cash, and also allowing them to host more offers revolving around their custom currency which allows a player to spend more without hindering the casinos earnings. This technique is also used in online casinos – when depositing money a site may use their own form of a ‘coin’ which has a similar effect in terms of abstracting from genuine cash. Offering sign up bonuses which gives you even more money to spend on their site after depositing, employing this tactic is beneficial for both the casino, being one of the major reasons an online casino can make so much in a day, and the customer as more time can be spent enjoying their games of choice.

Relevant news

Top 10 play’n GO slots

Are you looking for some of the best slots that have ever been created by…

Here’s how casinos make money

Some of the top online betting casinos like wetten.Com gives players an opportunity to bet with real money.

The online platform has an atmosphere that is just like a regular casino, and it is tailor made for the german market. German-speaking casino players are able to play their favourite casino games all in the comfort of their home through a smartphone or a computer. The website has games from well-known manufacturers such as net ent and ygdrasil. There are games for both professionals and amateurs. This includes slot machines, table games and card games. In addition to that, they offer great bonuses. However, the big question is how do these casinos make money? Let’s find out how.

The handle

The first way in which casinos make money is through the handle. Regardless of the game, the handle is the most important part of the gaming operator. The handle is the total amount that the players have put in bets. In table games, for example, craps, all the players put their bets in the handle, and the handle is made up of cash or chips. The money could go two ways; the player either wins the bet or loses it.

It is often easy to confuse the handle and the drop. The drop is any money or credit that has been traded for chips. Take an example of a game like blackjack, the metal drop box at the edge of the table is the drop. Players drop the bills and credit slips into this box. In some cases, the two terms, drop and handle, are used interchangeably.

Factors that influence the handle

Casinos get more income when they find a method of increasing their house edge, the amount of time on each game and the average bet. If there are no bets or if the players are few, then the handle is less and the profit is less.

Looking at the casino as a business model, the overall handle is obtained through a product of the average bet, time spent and capacity use. This explains why most casino games are based more on your average bet and the hours that you have played and less on how much you have won or lost. A casino with about 100 explodiac slot machines is only profitable if the machines are in use. This is where the capacity of use plays a huge role. The more the machines are used, the more money is obtained.

The average bet of most games is constant. A minimum amount is required in most table games. However, it is very rare to find a blackjack game that has a minimum bet of $2 or $5. Players may want to play, but the rules of the casino may indicate that the minimum of the game is $25. It is simple math; the casino expects to make a certain amount of money for each round of blackjack. The dealer is able to get up to 375 hands to the player. If all the six players bet at $2, the total wagers will be about $750. That is if you exclude the double down and the splits. On the other hand, if a single player bets at $25, then the table will produce $4,125 in just one hour. The game may be dead sometimes due to lack of players, but the single game makes a huge difference. Low limits reduce the chances of having wealthy customers, reducing the chances of the casino making money.

House edge

In each bet, the casino usually has a statistical advantage in which they can make more money. This is called the house edge. The theoretical advantage that the casino holds in a game is what makes the game a gamble. The outcome is unknown and either party has an equal chance of winning at any time. This means that if the player losses, the casino wins.

There are two sides to the house edge. The casino win is the total amount of money that the casino is left with after all the players have paid their bets. This can be a negative amount if the players win more than what the casino is holding, or it can also be a positive amount if the casino makes money. The hold percentage of the drop to the casino wins.

A slot machine may have $100 that has been inserted by the players. During the course of the day, it may only pay out $80. The casino, therefore, makes $20. The hold percentage is obtained from the total number of bets. Spinning the wheel may cost $1 per spin. During the day, the machine may record 1000 spins, and that’s a total of $1000. The players may win only $20, making the hold percentage $20/ $1,000, which is 2%.

A good example is a roulette table that has zero and double zero. The casino has a house edge of 5.26% in this game. At the end of the game, the casino is likely to win 20% of the drop money. This means that for every $100 that is inserted in the drop box, $20 goes to the casino. The player is likely to make several bets during the game for them being against the house edge. In the process, they win some or lose some. They eventually lose what they were willing to risk or gain a small percentage.

The system is comparable to bookmakers

Betting platforms like wetten.Com also calculate similarly to casinos. They calculate their earnings so that even if for example some users win a system bet, they all in all still make profit. The difference in casinos is that the slot-games are at least programmed in a way that more than 50% of players lose.

Comps

Comps are like a bonus that is given to players, and it may be given because they are new players or because they spend a lot of money on the site. The players who make large bets or spend a certain amount of time in a particular game may stand a chance to get a gift such as an airline ticket or ticket to shows or even a certain extra percentage of their total winnings. Comps are based on the amount of time that a player spends on a game and the number of stakes that the player has put in place. In order to get a chance to get a comp, the player needs to sign up for a slot club card. The card keeps track of the games played, the stakes and how long you play the games.

Comps are more advantageous to the casino than to the players. Spending more time in casino games means that the players stand a high chance of making more bets or rather, losing more bets. While placing high stakes increases the chance of the player losing their money, the overall money that is spent on the games is usually much more than the comp that the casino offers. For this reason, a player must set a limit when playing casinos.

Conclusion

Some of the decisions that are made at the local casino are aimed at increasing the income as a form of business while others are for extending the payer comfort. Every year, large amounts of money are exchanged through casinos. In 2005, the united states had a gross revenue of $31.85 billion from the commercial casinos and $22.62 billion from the native american casinos. The profits in the casino industry are much higher than any other business in the country.

How much money do casinos make?

The only way to make speculations about how much an average US or UK online casino makes, is to look at total yearly industry revenue.

Compare that to the estimated number of online casinos and you've got your numbers.

However, that number can only be estimated, so results vary greatly. Some people swear that average casinos make around $20 million per year and others tell you they make $70,000 a day in vegas.

But we’d have to take a closer look at variables to be more precise. These include:

• Size, licensed countries, number of visitors


• Expenses casinos must pay to break even


• The US industry vs. The UK industry

There’s a lot of information (and also maths) ahead, so let’s dive right in.

Speculations: how much does an average casino make?

According to our own calculations, with some help from reputable sources, we've come up with an average monthly intake:

• For the UK, it’s £375,000


• For USA casino, it's $1.2 million

So how did we get to those numbers? Well, it’s a question of looking at the total worth of the gambling industry in each country, and then taking into account the variables.

UK online casinos: the value of the online industry

Data from 2017 provided by the UK gambling commission puts the value of the UK’s gambling industry at a total of £13.8 billion.

Online casinos pull in around £4.5 billion of that number.

When you see that land-based casinos pull in around £2 billion, it becomes apparent that online casinos are rapidly becoming the dominant gambling scene.

The UKGC’s findings thus show that a third of the UK gambling industry is online. This gives an idea as to the number of UK online casinos currently operating, and how successful they are.

Sports betting remains the highest grossing form of gambling, with slots close behind and table games lagging behind them both.

US online casinos: the value of the online industry

For some reason, there are more estimates about how many US gambling sites currently exist. This might be because US players are starved of legit sites they can play at, with the ban in effect.

However we don’t know quite how accurate those numbers are as they can fluctuate between the 1,500-4,000 mark.

Let’s stick to what we do know, first. According to 2017 data from statista, the total revenue for the online gambling industry in the US is about $44 billion.

Of course, there is a big gap between casinos that perform well and smaller ones that don’t earn quite as much.

But in order to calculate the average monthly intake of both UK and US casinos, we have to make informed guesses and averages with what we've got.

Calculating a monthly intake

Let’s say that, on the online market, there are roughly 3,000 US casinos and 1,000 UK casinos. The calculation is simply to divide the annual online industry income by the amount of casinos.

Annually, if we lived in a perfect world where profits were distributed equally across all casinos, this is what the numbers would look like:

• US: 44 billion divided by 3,000 = $14 million/year = $1.2 million/month


• UK: 4.5 billion divided by 1,000 = £4.5 million/year = £375,000/month

You’d of course have to then shave off the yearly license & software costs, and the monthly costs of running a casino (roughly 40% of the casino’s profit).

In the case of the US, you'd still have casinos that are raking in around half a million in profit per month. And for the UK, it'll still be in the hundreds of thousands.

Again, this is just speculation on average casino winnings. But in reality, the scales are tipped so that a small fraction of casinos make the bulk while the majority earn small pickings (in casino terms, anyway).

Speculations: how much it costs to run an online casino

You might be wondering where we got that “40%” figure from. It’s basically the royalties that get sent off to software providers and affiliate sites (if using the revenue share system).

But there are other costs to take into account, too. You may not have thought about this much, but casinos do cost quite a lot to keep up and running.

So even if they seem to make a lot of money on the surface, you can't really know if they are making a profit or if they're paying off their past deficits.

License fee

In the UK, the gambling commission makes casinos pay an annual application fee for the casino license. The amount you pay is incumbent on how much you earn per year.

This is what you’ll find on the UKGC’s official site:

Software fee

Now let’s turn to the monthly fees. The biggest expense a casino has to make is their monthly payment to the software providers whose games they host.

According to some articles, it’s estimated that certain big-name software providers power 60% of all online casinos. These are software giants like playtech, microgaming, and netent.

On average, they can charge around $11-12,000/month & ask for a 15% cut of the casino’s winnings.

Affiliate program fee

All successful casino owners have an affiliate program as a way of getting income from other sources than just their casino games & sportsbook.

Affiliate sites basically advertise the casinos they are partnered with, and in return they get a commission on each player they bring to the casino.

There are 2 types of commissions:

• CPA (cost per acquisition): up to $500

The casino pays the affiliate this fee for each player who finds the casino via the affiliate, signs up & makes deposits at the casino.

The exact number varies according to how often the affiliate sends in players, and how many are sent in.

The CPA must evidently be lower than the worth of the player, so that the casino can still profit. Some place the average online casino gambler worth around $1,000.

• Revshare (revenue sharing): 25% off of player’s losses

In this case, the casino will pay the affiliate a percentage of their players’ losses. The exact number is usually around 25%.

Of course, there’s room for negotiation here if the affiliate site is well-known and reputable.

Server hosting

If you’ve paid for your own site before then you’ll know something about how server prices skyrocket when your use of bandwidth goes up.

Now just imagine how high those prices climb when your server hosts a bunch of graphically heavy games. Some sources have estimated this price to be around $3,000 to build.

Employee & customer service wages

Now, an online casino may require a smaller team than a land-based one – but it’s still got to be a solid one for them to be successful.

Let’s count what an average online casino would need.

• 5-10 people for customer service


• Affiliate manager & customer retention manager


• 3-5 people on the IT team


• 3-5 people on the content team

The monthly expenses you’d spend on your team obviously depend on how big your team is, and whether you choose to use cheaper offshore labour or local labour.

Let’s say you have a team of 13 people and everyone’s on an average minimum wage ($1,200) – that climbs up to $15,600/month.

Overall monthly costs

So in total, this is a rough idea of how much you might have to pay per month to keep your casino running:

• Cuts on royalties: 15% (software) + 25% (paid out in commissions) = 40%


• Software ($12,000) + staff expenses ($15,600) + server costs ($3,000) = $30,600


• To break even, your casino would need 60% of earnings to be $30,600/month


• So in total: $51,000 a month just to break even

Many casinos only begin to break even a few years into the business, after finding their feet.

How much money does an online casino make each month?

So you’re wondering how much money an online casino makes each month. The answer is going to vary from website to website, but I have some ideas about how we might calculate what an average internet casino makes each month. Some of this is wild speculation, but sometimes it’s fun to speculate.

Keep in mind that this is all speculation, as we are not an online casino ourselves, nor do we have any concrete information to know about these companies finances.

Feel free to continue reading and see the crazy amount of money that these online casinos have the ability to generate.

How much does it cost to run an internet casino?

Let’s start by calculating the costs of running an internet casino each month. The biggest expense most online casinos have is software related. Almost all gambling sites lease their software from one of the big 3 casino software providers:

1. Playtech


2. Microgaming


3. Net entertainment

I’ve seen estimates that claim these 3 companies power 60% of all online casinos.

All of them have one thing in common:

All of these providers charge $11,000 or $12,000 a month to lease their software. They also get a 15% cut of the casinos’ winnings. That’s a pretty big expense right out of the gate.

But that’s not the only expense. Almost all online casinos run an affiliate program in order to drive business to their site.

A webmaster runs a gambling information portal or site. He signs up for a casino affiliate program. He advertises the casino in exchange for a commission on each player.

This commission usually takes 1 of 2 forms:

1. A CPA (cost per acquisition)


2. Revshare (revenue sharing)

A CPA is a flat amount that the casino pays the affiliate for each player who signs up and makes a deposit at the casino. This amount can range from $25 to $500, depending on how much volume a site is able to send a casino.

With a CPA arrangement, the casino risks paying more for the player than the player loses to the casino. But it’s okay, because over a large number of players, a casino has an idea of what the average player is going to lose. That amount is always more than the CPA.

I’ve heard from reliable sources that the average online casino gambler is worth at least $1000. That takes into account the low rollers who only deposit and lose $25, but it also takes into account the high rollers who deposit and lose $10,000 a month for months at a time.

The other arrangement is called revshare, or revenue sharing. In this arrangement, the casino pays the affiliate a percentage of the players’ losses for the lifetime of the player. This amount varies, but it hovers around 25%. Big affiliates can demand higher revshare percentages.

So if an affiliate refers a player who deposits and loses $10,000 a month, he gets $2500 in commission each month.

But affiliates on revshare also have to take into account the amount of money their referred players win. If that $10,000 a month high roller gets on a hot streak, he can wipe out the earnings from the other dozen or 100 players the affiliate has referred.

So far we have a flat fee of $12,000 a month going out the door. We’re also seeing 25% of the casino’s wins being paid out in commissions, and we have 15% royalties going to the software provider.

Casinos also have to pay for customer service and hosting. Let’s assume you can operate a world class customer service department using offshore labor and spending only $5000 a month.

Let’s also assume that a casino is using its own secure server. I don’t have a lot of experience with web hosting for sites with this kind of traffic or that sites that use so much bandwidth by hosting games, but I’m going to assume it’s expensive, but not too expensive. I’m going to call it $2500 a month. And if I’m way off on that estimate, let me know in the comments section.

So now we have almost $20,000 a month in fixed expenses, and we have 40% of player revenue accounted for on top of that. So just to break even, an online casino needs to earn enough money so that 60% of its earnings equate to $20,000 a month.

So we’re looking at a minimum casino win of at least $33,000 a month just to break even.

Let’s approach this from a different angle

The size of the online casino market is roughly $40 billion or $50 billion a year. That’s about $4 billion a month.

If we take the number of online casinos in operation, and divide that $4 billion by the number of online casinos in operation, we’ll have an estimate of how much an average online casino makes. The reality will be far different, but that’s a starting point, anyway.

The best known source of information for online casinos is casinocity, especially when it comes to managing a database of properties. When I look at their list of online casinos, I initially only get 205 properties, but my settings only allow me to see casinos which operate in english, accept players from the state of texas in the USA, and which accept US dollars.

When I change those preferences to “ANY” across the board, I get a list of over 3600 casinos.

Let’s assume that casinocity isn’t perfect and has left 400 casinos off their list. That means we have 4000 online casinos generating $4 billion in revenue per month.

$4 billion divided by 4000 is $1 million.

Does that mean every online casino makes $1 million per month gross?

I’m sure the pareto principle applies here as well as it does everywhere else.

The top 20% of online casinos probably make 80% of the profits.

So we probably have 800 online casinos generating the bulk of that money, while the other 3200 casinos make up a relatively small amount of that money.

Still, let’s assume that the $1 million a month is the number.

You knock 40% of that off the top to cover affiliate commissions and software. That leaves you with $600,000 a month in profit.

Subtract the other costs, and you still have well over half a million dollars in profit per month.

Conclusion

It’s impossible to provide an entirely accurate estimate of how much money an online casino makes each month. Suffice it to say that even with the high expenses involved in running such a business, the internet gambling sites offering casino games make plenty of money.

Of course, depending on where you live, the prospect of running an online casino might pose legal risks, especially if you don’t have strict limits on which countries you accept players from.

It still makes for an interesting set of numbers to analyze.

How to start an online casino in 6 steps (2020 update)

Gaming — an industry where billions are made and trillions are crawling its way up. Online gaming marketplace provides endless possibilities for growth and being part of this growth is equally exciting and rewarding. However, the growth itself is far from being a simple and uniform process. In life every journey starts with one small step, followed by another, likewise in gaming business. Approaches do not differ much, but how can one enter without little to no knowledge how and where to start?

Online casino business

Online casino business is a profitable business that is desirable to explore by interested business-minded individuals regardless of their previous experience. The enterprise has turned out to be one of the leading internet businesses in the world today that offers maximum profit over a relatively short period of time. However, you can come on board into the market either as an igaming casino operator or as an online casino affiliate.

If you wish you to kick-start your online casino business as an igaming casino operator, the costs of starting the business are much higher, and the laws and licensing are vast as well, but the casino business eventually yields great profits as soon as it gets accepted by casino customers in the gaming market. Also, you can plan to start this online business as an online casino affiliate, and this can be quite easy and profitable if you have the essential experience and skills in internet marketing.

As you can see, the business is very profitable and lucrative. But for you to start an online casino business that is successful and outstanding in the shortest time frame, you have to build your business around customers’ pleasure and satisfaction. With this in mind, you have to invest a lot of dedication and an enormous amount of work into your enterprise for it to achieve the expected success.

Some of the investments include an utter dedication to the latest cutting-edge technologies, your online casino must feature exciting and engaging game content with attractive promotion and bonus system, and it must be compatible with all platforms. Therefore, to enjoy the maximum profits and high return on investments available on this type of business, you must also be ready to pay the required sacrifices.

Starting an online casino business could be the one single step you might really have to take for you to grow your existing casinos or to start generating money from the igaming industry.

Below are the stepwise instructions as highlighted by softgamings on how you can start your online casino business.

Key steps to start your own online casino:

• Choose reliable software providers


• Select gambling content


• Get a gaming licence


• Secure verified methods of payment


• Create the online casino website


• Concentrate on marketing and promotion activities

1. Choose reliable software providers

Acquiring a high-quality gambling software is by far the most crucial step in opening an online casino, as it will both set and determine its performance expectations, so securing a deal with the trusted software provider is an absolute must. It’s in your own best interests to evaluate everything, starting from pricing and terms of guarantees to gaming reviews and security features.Pay particular attention to gaming content, individual cooperation conditions, certifications and the technical support, which has to come as a part of the whole package.Unfortunately, it is oftentimes easy to lose sight of business objectives, especially during the pre-opening stage when you are still questioning what is relevant about your online casino business and what is not. Softgamings will gladly help every step of the way by offering a full-service provider package, including licensing, 3,000+ games and even binary options.

2. Selecting the gambling content for your online casino website

As a rule, players judge your business based on your games. To attract as many of them as possible, it is important to put emphasis on the diversity of the gaming content.The website should support effortless integration and contain the most exciting and popular slots, poker, roulette, blackjack, bingo, baccarat. Having a live casino with real dealers and live video streaming features is fundamental for your business. In that way, you create a real casino presence for online gamblers to enjoy.Give a try, add virtual sport and the ever-popular sportsbook to tap into sport’s popularity among avid betters. Softgamings can offer any game beyond this list, guaranteed to be the great source of entertainment.

3. Get a gaming licence

Legal framework differs from country to country, therefore, the licensing process can be burdensome as such. The regulated market involves a handful of countries where there are predefined gambling requirements.Countries can be divided into the following categories:

• Countries governing their markets


• Countries governing their markets and having a monopoly


• Countries where gambling is prohibited


• Countries that do not regulate their market


• Create the online casino website


• Concentrate on marketing and promotion activities

The most popular gambling jurisdictions are united kingdom, malta, alderney, isle of man, curacao, and gibraltar. The determinant factors while selecting the jurisdiction are its reputation, licence duration and the price of the licence. Softgamings is ready to assist you with filling the licensing documentation for the turnkey casino. This can last longer than a month, but if you want to start operating your casino as soon as possible, we recommend you to use our licence through the white label casino system.

4. Secure verified methods of payment

Online casino is by all means an international pursuit, no wonder it should comprise international commercial transactions: both sending and receiving international payments.Clearly, you have to double check if your casino supports integration with major e-payment systems, otherwise players won’t be able to deposit funds or withdraw their winnings. Ignoring traditional payment methods which employ credit cards and vouchers is a disastrous business practice that can put your reputation at risk.To secure verified payment methods for your online casino, you should sign multiple agreements with payment system providers committed to transaction security. You can stay flexible with softgamings payment processing platform that encompasses a full range of high-calibre services for your online casino, including multicurrency support, antifraud, advanced risk management and the integration with 50+ most popular payment systems.

5. Website creation

Looks do count! A well-designed website is what counts the most when attracting and retaining customers, as it indicates better visual information of your landing pages and raises brand value significantly. The design must be of a superior quality, attractive and differentiated among other platforms of a similar kind.Do not overuse various graphical elements that will not only push the visitor away but will also overload the work of the system. It is also important to take care of the front-end integration with your database, add or improve existing navigation usability, as its layout is critical to your website performance. Make sure that the transfer from the website to the platform and provider’s game page stays invisible to users.If you would like to create a unique website for your casino, but still not sure if you can deal with it on your own, softgamings is here to help you out. We can offer full-scale redesign solutions, ready-made templates or even custom ones to meet your needs.

6. Concentrate on marketing and promotion activities

Marketing is a final step. When you are completely ready to open your own online casino, it will be necessary to develop an effective marketing strategy and set up an effective affiliate system that surely enables website engagement and increases traffic. Softgamings supports integration with the most popular affiliate management programmes and campaign tools like netrefer, incomeaccess, EGASS and unisender.In order to win over a new audience and keep loyal visitors satisfied at all time, introduce loyalty programmes, set up bonus systems and retention campaigns to motivate your players’ return. Explore competitors, identify their mistakes and try to avoid them in the activity of your own platform.All in all, starting a gambling business seems tricky, simply because it is so. However, it is possible to skip the “tricky” part and create an efficient casino site in the shortest possible time if you decide to joint efforts and choose to partner with softgamings.

How much does it cost to open casino

How much you will pay for online casino development is a question to which there is no clear and unambiguous answer, because every minor detail counts here. If you want to have a casino designed from the ground up, your definitive estimate will be higher than if you are fine with a templated design solution. A game package of five providers will cost you higher than this of one provider. Examples abound. Anyway, get in touch with our expert guys to get a quote for your project cost, and they will provide you with an accurate estimate based on your online casino project preferences.Broadly speaking, you will have to incur expenses on the pre-launch and post-launch stages of casino development. The former encompasses software setup expenses (around 30-40% of overall costs), marketing activities (30-40%), licensing procedures (10-20%) and some other areas of expenditure, including remunerations. The first phase of development efforts is normally more money-gobbling than the second, maintenance part of the project. As soon as your online casino is finalized and is in successful operation, you still have expenses, but they would probably be lower, with the most money-consuming item being marketing and promotion, which accounts for nearly half of the total expenses. Other operational expenditures include salaries to personnel (bookkeepers, various experts, managers, etc.), license charges, monthly/yearly royalties to game providers, and a host of other things. Spendings on this stage tend to pay back very quickly and are greatly alleviated by increasing incomes that your casino visitors generate (provided you have done everything right).

Pre-launch expenses	after-launch expenses
company set up	5-7%	licence fees	5-15%
licence	10-30%	software support	10-15%
software set up	30-40%	games providers	15-20%
staff	10-20%	marketing	50%
marketing	20-40%	staff	10-20%
other	10-20%	other	10-20%

2020 update

Being the above points always important for building an online casino, technologies and market demands do not stand still. What are the latest trends in the online casino industry? To start with, cryptocurrencies. Although this trend did not emerge yesterday, it is still among the ruling ones. Many people still buy, trade, mine and spend bitcoins, ethereum, litecoins and newly appeared currencies, which is used by casino operators, among others.

Paying with cryptocurrencies in online casinos is convenient for both an operator and a player since the player stays anonymous, and the operator receives his money quickly, avoiding intermediaries. So, if you plan to open your own casino, think about integrating a payment system that supports cryptocurrencies.

By the way, payments in cryptocurrencies are not the only way to get use of this invention. You can also create the whole project based on the blockchain system, the world’s leading platform for digital assets. In 2020, we see innovative projects, emerging on the market, the projects that build their own gaming systems on blockchain. While these projects are not many and every company uses its own technology to provide its products and services, you can start a similar project and have a very big success potential.

Note, for operating such a project, you will need a respective license. This is all about cryptocurrencies for now. Let us follow the changes in the industry and see how these innovations will turn out.

Of course, there are more things to pay attention to in 2020, and yet another one is gamification. Gamification is basically turning a ‘boring’ process into a more user-friendly experience, making it similar to some kind of a game.

Usually, gamification elements include badges, points, leaderboards, competition elements and rules of play. Examples of it are found in the games themselves, back offices, marketing elements etc. The more interactive and feature-rich product you create, the more engaging it becomes.

There are 5 main steps that will help you develop a working gamification strategy:

1. Know who your players are


2. Find out their goals


3. Understand their motivation and triggers


4. Introduce gamification elements


5. Monitor the effect you get from using gamification

Basically, if you use at least these two innovative features in your online casino, you have much higher chances to succeed. But don’t forget about the basics of creating any online casino, especially about marketing and promotion. So, good luck in creating your own casino, be it very rewarding business, and keep track of the innovation of the igaming industry!

Licence & legality

Is it legal to operate?

Numerous countries have legalised online gambling platforms. If your platform is licensed and your game providers are certified by the authorised organisations/laboratories, then you can operate in any of these countries. The global gambling market is out there for your venture.

What is a gambling licence?

A gambling licence is a juridical prerequisite needed to create a legal platform. Several global and local authorities provide gambling licences, such as curaçao egaming or malta gaming authority.

And why do I need a licence?

The licence is a major requirement for a gaming platform to cooperate with payment providers and gaming software providers. It is also a prerequisite for having a good reputation in the global market of the igaming industry and a medium to gain credibility among players.

Online casino platform

What are the requirements to establish an online casino?

There are several requirements and operational steps that need to be fulfilled to launch an online casino. These steps include having a global gambling licence, a legally owned domain address, an operational gambling company and bank accounts, payment gateways, certified software, and game providers. Softgamings provide the full service for each of these requirements and guide you through the steps of launching your online casino.

What is the difference between white label/turnkey/self-service? Which one is better for me?

White label is a ready-to-go solution perfect both for operators who have decent experience in casino traffic generation and for those who are new in the industry and have a strong interest in becoming casino operators. The white label solution is a time and cost-efficient solution that requires few human resources to operate; however, it requires some additional conditions to be met. The turnkey solution, on the other hand, is a more advanced solution for those who are interested in the self-owned corporate structure and licencing; a fully customised solution and platform design is tailor-made for each customer. The turnkey solution takes more time to be established but provides more independence regarding the operation. Self-service is the best fitting solution for those who would like to design and develop their own platforms. If you need further assistance to determine the best solution for your needs, you can contact our customer service.

How much does a platform cost?

The prices vary from one solution to another. Therefore, please contact our customer service to get a personalised quote.

How long will it take from start to finish?

The process depends on the solution. The white label solution takes approximately two to three months to complete. On the other hand, turnkey and self-service projects can take much longer, as the customisations of the platform depend on the customers’ needs and preferences.

Is it possible to have a kiosk (betting shop) solution as well?

Yes. We also provide kiosk (betting shop or closed platform) solutions, as well as our online solutions. You can contact us to find out more about it.

Is it possible to see a demo?

Of course! You are always welcome to contact our client managers who can provide you with a demo and introduce you to our software!

API integration

How long does it take to integrate?

The length of the API integration process depends on several factors, such as the type of providers to be integrated, the due diligence processes, the availability of the operator’s IT team, and the size of the package. While the shortest integration can be completed within 48 hours, it is always advisable to speak to our managers to determine the exact time and the process of the required integration.

How do I choose the best providers for me?

Our customer managers will assist you in choosing the most favourable providers, taking into account your target market and the gambling focus.

What is the difference between taking the API from softgamings and going to the provider directly?

There are several advantages our API services have. First of all, we offer on our platform a large variety of the world’s most prominent and renowned game providers. We can provide bundles and packages of the solution with a single integration, which is much more cost and time efficient compared to contacting and integrating each provider separately.

Is it possible to see a demo of the games as well?

Yes, we also offer a demo of our game providers. If you want to receive a demo invitation, please do not hesitate to contact our client managers.

Technical

Who is the owner of the software?

All rights of the software belong to softgamings as the solemn developer and distributor. The platform is maintained by our development & IT team and is only distributed as a closed-source. The front-end design and the casino brand-name is the property of the platform operator.

And who is the owner of the client database?

The client database is the property of the platform operator.

Does the platform support various languages?

The back office platform currently offers service in english, russian, german, and turkish. The front end, on the other hand, can be translated to any language of the operator’s preference, either by our translators or the operators themselves.

Space for your question

Feel free to leave your questions, and the softgamings support will get back to you shortly.

How casinos make money: the handle, house edge & more

Casinos make a profit by offering games of chance where the average payouts are lower than the income produced by the overall wagers. Exactly how this is accomplished and the terms used in producing casino records and income are explained below.

The handle

Regardless of what type of casino gambling is offered, the most important term for any gaming operator is the handle. The handle is the total amount of money bet. At a game like craps, all of the bets made on a table contribute to the handle, whether the bets win or lose, are made with cash or chips and are paid even money for bets like the pass line or 30-1 for bets like two and 12.

Players often confuse the handle (total bets) with the drop. For a casino, the drop is the money (or credit) exchanged for chips. At a game like blackjack, the total drop is what is found in the metal drop box attached to the table that all bills and markers (credit slips) are dropped in to. On occasion, the term handle is used interchangeably with the term drop.

House edge

The statistical advantage that the casino has in each game, and each bet, is called the house edge. This theoretical advantage the casino holds over the player on any single bet is what makes the game gambling, for the outcome is unknown, and regardless of who holds the edge, either party may win at any one time.

For the bottom line, the casino win is the net dollars retained by the casino after all bets are paid. This can be a negative amount - any time the players win more than the casino holds. The hold percentage is the relationship of the casino win to the drop.

If a slot machine has $100 inserted into it during a day and pays out $80, the casino win is $20. However, the hold percentage is based on total bets. If it is a $1 per spin machine and the machine recorded 1000 spins, then $1000 was wagered. Winning a total of $20 means the hold percentage is just $20/$1000 or 2/100 which is 2-percent.

Explaining the hold percentage

The hold percentage is better explained on a roulette table with a zero and double zero - the typical american wheel. On this game, the casino has a house edge of 5.26 percent. However, at the end of a shift, the game is likely to win close to 20 percent of the drop. For every $100 in the drop box, the house will likely have a hold percentage of 20 percent. This is because a player is likely to make many bets, over and over, each time against a house edge of 5.26 percent. They win some, they lose some and eventually lose what they were willing to risk on this particular table.

Factors influencing casino handle

The most important influence on casino handle is what is referred to as "time on device." regardless of what is bet, if there are no players, there is no handle and no profit. Casinos maximize their income when they find ways to increase not just their house edge, but the average bet and the amount of time each gaming device (table spot or slot machine) is in action.

As a business model, the overall handle is a product of capacity of use, game speed, and average bet. This is why all players club comps are based on your average bet and the hours played, not on how much you win or lose!

A casino with 1000 slot machines is only successful if they are in constant use. However, the utilization of game space and betting minimums at table games can be deceiving. This is why it is rare to see a blackjack game with a low $2 or $5 minimum, even if players are wandering around wanting to play that amount while there are several $25 tables with no players.

This phenomenon is best explained by the math produced for expected win per hour at a blackjack table. With six players betting $2 per hand, a dealer can get out 375 hands to the players. The total wagers (excluding double downs and splits) will equal $750 and the house expects to win 2 percent, or $15. However, just a single player at a $25 table will produce $4125 in bets per hour where the house expects to win 2 percent and a total of $82.

Obviously, the $25 game will be dead at times, but that single player easily makes up the difference, and if all the tables have low limits and there are no seats available for the big better then the house is losing out.

So, some decisions at your local casino are made for player comfort to extend the amount of time played, and some decisions are made simply based on casino income, as with any business. The above example also probably illustrates pretty well why a $5 blackjack player can only expect to earn about 30-cents per hour in comp value from their play.

The casino expects the player to get 60 hands per hour, so their total bets per hour ​equal $120. Using the same 2 percent house edge, the casino will retain about $2.40 from their play. Giving back 30-cents equals a comp value of 12.5 percent, which is pretty good. Most casinos hold the line between 10 and 15 percent.

How casinos use math to make money when you play the slots

Back when I worked security in an atlantic city casino, patrons would often ask me, “which slot machine is the one that’s going to hit?” my usual response was, “if I knew that, I wouldn’t be working here anymore,” followed by a knowing chuckle. Never failed to get at least a smile in return.

Even slots with physical reels use sophisticated software and circuitry.

Now that I’m the director of the center for gaming research at the university of nevada, las vegas, every now and then someone asks me, “which machine is the one that’s going to hit?” my usual response is the same, but I’m in a better position to explain how slots work, why people play them, and what you should know about them.

Slot machines remain the most important money-making part of casinos in the united states. In many states, casinos make between 65 and 80 percent of their gambling income from slots. In las vegas, the percentage varies from 88 percent in casinos that cater primarily to locals to 50 percent on the las vegas strip, where high rollers betting tens of thousands a dollar a hand skews the results in favor of table games. Every day, players put millions of dollars into slot machines. Why?

A modern slot machine is simple to play. Players insert currency, decide on their bet amount, press spin, and hope for the best. There are many varieties of slot machines in casinos today, from machines with physical spinning reels (industry folks call them “steppers”) to slots that replicated spinning reels on a video screen, but they all play essentially the same way. Video poker is a special variant of video slot in which players can use some skill in holding the most advantageous cards. All other slot machines, whatever their branding, are games of pure chance.

The chance aspect of slot machines is what makes them so appealing to so many people. If you know how to put cash into a slot and push a button, you have just as good a shot at winning a jackpot as someone who’s been playing for twenty years. In the end, it all comes down to luck. And who doesn’t feel lucky, sometimes?

Slot machines are deceptively simple to play, with four steps from "want to play" to "cashing out."

Slot machines appeal to casinos because they are, as long as enough people play them, stable money-makers. To explain why they are so reliable for casinos, I talked to bob ambrose, who broke into the industry at the tropicana atlantic city in the early 1980s and is today a gaming consultant and casino management instructor at fairleigh dickinson university. “it is all,” he says, “about the game math.”

When casinos look at how a slot machine is performing, the most basic number they look at is the drop. That is the money deposited by the player in the machines. Another number you might hear is handle, which ambrose defines as the total amount bet by a player. How can a player bet more money than she puts in? Well, if she puts in $100, wins a $50 jackpot, and keeps on playing until all her money is gone (including that $50 "win"), she has generated a drop of $100 and handle of $150.

What’s left after the machine pays out its jackpots is the casino win, also known as revenue.

So how do slot machines decide who wins and who loses? “payouts on slots are statistically calculated,” says ambrose. Pressing spin activates the random number generator, which is an algorithm that determines whether each spin is a win or a loss, and how big a win is. Each game, ambrose says, has a set hold percentage and a pay table that details how often and how much games will pay back.

Video poker games, which have elements of skill, often return more to players than other slot . [+] machines.

PHILIPPE LOPEZ/AFP/getty images

Games with low volatility, like video poker, pay back more frequently but in smaller amounts, while high volatility games, like the megabucks progressive, have fewer, bigger (think several million dollars at most) hits. So while the potential payoff from a high volatility game can be bigger, your money will usually buy you more time playing on a low volatility game.

Can a player get an edge on a slot which relies on pure chance? Not really. “there is a statistical advantage for the casinos,” ambrose says. “the math of the game ensures that casinos generate a consistent positive win for themselves.”

But the player can benefit from one thing: if slot machines never paid out anything, players would stop playing, and casinos would go out of business. Most jurisdictions mandate that slots return a set minimum amount to players (85 percent is the magic number in nevada, though most machines return more than that on average). It might not be much comfort when you’ve lost your last credit, but someone has to win a piece of that 85 percent, and next time it might be you.

And that is the appeal of slots, to casino manager and jackpot hunter alike. “for the player,” concludes ambrose, “there has to be a realistic chance to win. But in the long run, the edge will always fall in the casino’s favor.”

Something to remember, because no matter how lucky you feel, eventually the casino will get luckier.

Have fun playing slots, but remember, they don't build all this by giving money away.

GTA online casino penthouse: how much does it cost, and what can you do once you own it

If you want to move in to the master penthouse above the GTA online casino, here's everything you need to know

One of the most important updates to arrive with the diamond casino and resort was the ability to purchase a GTA online casino penthouse, so you can move in and live above it all in a luxury suite. There are lots of customisation options available to make this swanky pad your own, as well as various services you can request from the casino, and it can all get a bit overwhelming if you try to take it in at once. Handily, we're already residents at the GTA online casino, so have a decent handle on the benefits of being a VIP member. Follow on, and we'll tell you exactly how much the GTA online casino penthouse costs, how to buy it, and what you can do next. All of your GTA online pals will be envious when you invite them round for a decadent party – just don't forget to book the cleaning service afterwards to deal with the mess.

How much does the GTA online casino penthouse cost

(image credit: rockstar games)

To purchase a GTA online casino penthouse, you can either visit the diamond casino and resort website from your phone, or follow the prompt when interacting with guest services in the casino foyer. There are three preset penthouse suite layouts you can choose, or design your own, and their costs are as follows:

• Crash pad - $1,500,000


• Party penthouse - $3,776,500


• High roller - $6,533,500


• Design your own - $1,500,000

To be clear – all of these options are just different configurations of the same penthouse area, where the more expensive versions have additional expansion options and colours/patterns added in, so there is only one type of penthouse available for purchase.

What expansions are available for the GTA online casino penthouse

(image credit: rockstar games)

After purchasing the GTA online casino penthouse, there are eight additional areas you can add as expansions to fill out your luxury pad, which appear in the locations as marked on the above floor plan. These are as follows:

Lounge area - $400,000

This is where your penthouse development begins, adding a dining area and a bar. You'll need this expansion in order to incorporate the next five areas.

Media room - $500,000

As well as giving you a private venue to watch your favourite shows on, you can also play don't cross the line on the big screen as long as you have at least two players present.

(image credit: rockstar games)

Spa - $600,000

As well as a adding a private hot tub to your penthouse, you'll also have access to a stylist at all times to change your look whenever you fancy.

Bar and party hub - $700,000

This expansion allows you to host your own parties in your penthouse suite, as well as adding the invade and persuade 2 and street crimes: gang wars edition arcade machines with a choice of two cabinet styles. You'll need a minimum of two players to start a game a street crimes: gang wars edition.

Private dealer - $1,065,000

Play blackjack or three card poker from the comfort of your penthouse by hiring a private dealer to keep the cards flowing. This is also where you'll see your special card set if you collect all 54 of the GTA online playing cards. To switch the table between blackjack and three card poker, go through the interaction menu > penthouse management > private table.

(image credit: rockstar games)

Office - $200,000

As well as providing a computer to access the internet, the office also features a hidden safe and a gun locker, which can be used to customise your loadout. To access either, head to the opposite end of the room from the computer and follow the prompts that appear near the wall.

Extra bedroom - $200,000

The extra bedroom provides some more sleeping space for visitors to crash over, and they will also be able to access their personal wardrobe from here while staying at your place.

Garage - $900,000

This gives you a private luxury 10-vehicle garage to store your most cherished motors, which you can also request to be delivered to you using the casino's valet service.

What else can you do in the GTA online casino penthouse

(image credit: rockstar games)

The other key feature of owning a GTA online casino penthouse is being able to access phone services, available by picking up the telephone marked by an i on the minimap near the lift. Here, you can acquire casino chips in the same way you would from the cashier (with the same restrictions), host a party for $20,000, order the valet to deliver one of your vehicles from the garage, request a free bottle of champagne to add to your inventory, call in the cleaning service if your penthouse needs a spruce up, order a limousine to take you to a set destination, or have a helicopter you own delivered to the rooftop helipad.

You can also kit out your suite with a variety of artwork pieces, which are accessed through the interaction menu > penthouse management > place decorations then choosing a room and the piece(s) you wish to purchase with chips before selecting a placement for them. However you decide to kit out your GTA online casino penthouse, you'll be living the high life in opulent surroundings. Now get out there and work through the new casino missions.

You can also check out our predictions for GTA 6 in the video below:

15 things you didn’t know about online gambling (but should)

As of 2016, the online gambling market worldwide is a $45 billion a year industry. But it’s amazing how uneducated some people are about the industry. After all, it’s not like cars or fast food—not everyone participates.

If you’re new to the hobby of online gambling and want to know more about what you’re getting yourself into, this is the blog post for you.

Here are 15 things you didn’t know about online gambling even though you should.

1. Online gambling isn’t exactly legal everywhere, but it isn’t exactly illegal, either.

I’m writing this post from the united states, and the legal situation related to online gambling is murky at best. There are no federal laws explicitly banning activities like online casino games and online poker, although the federal wire act does forbid betting on sports over any kind of “telephone-like” device. But state laws vary widely.

Of course, it is illegal for a company not licensed in the USA to offer gambling to US citizens. Most offshore gambling companies just ignore this, assuming that they’re too far away to face prosecution. Keep in mind that this means that the companies which are offering the games for real money are the ones breaking the law—not the bettors.

State laws vary, too. In some states, specific kinds of internet gambling are explicitly illegal. For example, in the state of washington, it’s a felony to play poker for money! (as far as I know, no one has ever been charged or prosecuted there, though.)

In a few states, online casino gambling is explicitly legal and regulated. In those states, you have to play at a state-regulated online casino, and playing at a casino which isn’t licensed by the state could cause you to run afoul of the law, too.

And in still other states, the laws prohibiting gambling are intentionally broad. They’ll often say something to the effect that using any device for gambling purposes that isn’t specifically mentioned in the laws of the state is illegal. This would presumably include a computer that’s connected to the internet.

But for practical purposes in the united states, gambling online might as well be legal. Gamblers are almost never charged or prosecuted for placing wagers online. The only exceptions I know of are a couple of cases related to sports betting, and in both of those cases, it’s likely that the sports bettors were facilitating bets for other people. (in other words, they were running their gambling like a business, which is always riskier than recreational gambling.)

The united states authorities seem to treat online gambling the way they do some other vice crimes (like prostitution, for example). They focus their enforcement efforts on the business people who are providing the services to the customers rather than trying to arrest the customers themselves.

Some other countries have far stricter laws related to online gambling. In the middle east, it’s illegal to play chess in some countries. You can imagine how the laws of that country relate to blackjack played for money on the internet.

Other—more enlightened—countries enjoy unlimited access to almost any kind of legal online gambling that they want. England, for example, has a tightly controlled and active gambling industry. Sports betting is a traditional activity that’s promoted heavily there. You can hardly walk a block in london without seeing an advertisement or a billboard for an online bookmaker.

It means that it’s up to you to determine what level of risk you’re comfortable with. It’s also up to you to make an educated decision about whether or not it’s legal for you to gamble on the internet from your jurisdiction. My advice is to obey the law where you live.

But failing that, at least do some research into the laws and realize that online gambling carries legal risks—minimal though they may be—when compared to traditional brick and mortar gambling.

2. The random number generator (RNG) might be the most important piece of technology in the industry.

This statement applies to online casino games, online bingo games, and online poker games. But it obviously has no bearing when it comes to online sports betting.

If you want to understand a little bit about the internet gambling niche, you should start by learning what a random number generator (RNG) is.

A random number generator is a computer program that generates random numbers. When you’re playing any kind of internet gambling game, the outcome is determined by a random number generator program.

This isn’t unusual, by the way. All the gambling machines (slots and video poker) that you see in a traditional land-based casino use the same kind of software to determine their outcomes, too.

The program is essentially just a list of numbers. Each of those numbers corresponds to an outcome in a gambling game. The program cycles through those numbers thousands of times per second. When you hit the “deal” button in a game of internet blackjack, for example, that program stops on whatever number it was at during that millisecond.

The parameters for these programs usually correspond to the game you’re playing so that you’re seeing the same odds you would in a real casino.

Example

On a traditional american roulette wheel, you have 38 numbers. Each off those has an equal chance of being the result on any given spin. The random number generator duplicates this probability. You have a 1/38 chance of any given result on a spin of the wheel, regardless of whether you’re playing on an actual physical reel in las vegas or on an animated reel at bovada casino.

Here’s another example

You’re playing single deck blackjack at ignition casino. The random number generator has numbers that correspond to each card in the deck. Each time you press the “deal” button or take a hit, the random number generator has a 1/52 chance of dealing a particular card. But it also keeps track of which cards have already been played, so you don’t wind up getting duplicate cards.

The net effect is to duplicate the odds you’d see if you were playing blackjack at a regular casino.

All internet gambling games use the same kind of software to generate their results. It doesn’t matter if you’re playing poker, bingo, or craps—the computer program (the RNG) behind the results works in approximately the same way. The only thing that changes is the parameters for that game.

3. Over 70% of the profits in the industry come from online slot machines.

This used to be the number attributed to slot machines in the land-based casino industry, too, but in more recent years, slots have come to represent 85% of the profits in a land-based casino—at least in the united states. (I understand that in europe, table games are still more popular than “fruit machines”.)

I’d also imagine that in some countries, slots make up an even greater percentage of the profits. I know that australians LOVE playing the “pokies” with a passion that’s hard to understand. Finding a blackjack table in a land-based casino there can be done—it’s just not easy.

Internet slot machines are about as close as you can get to duplicating the traditional casino experience on the internet. The technology works the same. Land-based slot machines use the same random number generator programs that the internet casinos use.

In fact, the days of mechanical and electro-mechanical slot machines are long gone. Even the slots in a traditional casino which LOOK like mechanical slots are powered by a computer program.

Here’s how a modern slot machine works, online or off:

You have a number of spinning reels. Often you might have 3 reels, but 5 reels is more common now. Each of those reels has a number of “stops”. Some of them are blank and some of them have symbols on them. (on some machines there are no blank stops.)

Each stop has a probability of coming up on any given spin, but it’s not necessarily the same as the other stops. For example, you might have a bar symbol that’s programmed to show up with a probability of 1/10, but the cherry symbol might have a probability of 1/20.

The designers of these games know the probabilities of each symbol appearing. They can then calculate the probabilities of combinations of these symbols. They then program the payoffs for those combinations in such a way that the house has a mathematical edge over the player.

Let’s use that cherry symbol with the 1/20 chance of appearing as an example. Let’s say you’re playing on a 3 reel machine. The probability of getting a cherry on each reel is 1/20 X 1/20 X 1/20, or 1/8000.

The designer programs the 3 cherries to pay off at 6000 to 1. That seems like a great payout, but look at what happens to your bankroll if you achieve mathematically perfect results.

Suppose you’re betting $1 per spin. You make 8000 spins, so you’ve contributed $8000 to the casino. But you’ve won $6000, so the casino only gets to keep $2000.

You can’t predict how soon you’ll see the winning combination in 8000 spins. In fact, you might not even see a winning combination in that many spins. But in the long run, the actual results will start to resemble the mathematically expected results.

A casino, either online or off, relies on the laws of large numbers to make its profit. Since they have hundreds of machines being played by hundreds of gamblers for hundreds of spins per hour, their results start resembling the mathematical expectation in short order.

This is why the casino doesn’t mind when you win. If you never won at a slot machine, you’d never play, and that would be disastrous for their business model.

But in the long run, the casino always wins more on its slot machines than it pays out in winnings.

(this is true of almost every other casino game, too. I’ll explain why later.)

4. You can’t count cards in online blackjack. No exceptions.

Not all internet gambling games are powered by a random number generator. Some casinos offer the option of playing some table games via webcam with real live dealers and actual decks of cards. Blackjack is probably the most popular of these.

Counting cards is covered elsewhere on the site. It’s not hard to do once you know how. You just assign a value to the low cards in the deck and a value to the high cards in the deck. Then you move your count up and down as the cards are dealt.

This is a heuristic method for keeping up with the ratio of high cards to low cards that are left in the deck. When there are a lot of high cards (aces and tens) left in the deck, you have a better chance of being dealt a “natural” or a blackjack. Since that hand pays out at 3 to 2 instead of even money, you raise the size of your bets when the deck is stacked in your favor.

But this only works in a game where the deck doesn’t get shuffled on every hand.

When you’re playing a traditional internet game, the random number generator ALWAYS starts with a freshly shuffled deck of cards. After all, why wouldn’t it? You’re using a computer program. It takes no time or effort for a computer program to reshuffle a deck of cards.

But what a lot of neophyte blackjack players on the internet might not realize is that live dealer blackjack casinos also shuffle after every hand. They use automatic shuffling machines for this purpose.

I don’t know of any casinos on the internet that are exceptions to this rule.

That’s not to say that blackjack isn’t the best game available at many web casinos. It is. The house edge at some internet casinos—assuming you’re playing with perfect basic strategy—is as close to 0 as any you’ll find.

But that’s not true of every blackjack game. Do a little research into the rules variations being used where you play to see what the house edge is for yourself. Most gambling websites I’ve played at offered at least half a dozen blackjack variations, but only one or two of them offered the best odds. The other games aren’t even worth playing.

5. Online casino signup bonuses aren’t as good a deal as you think.

New casino gamblers on the web are often impressed with their ability to get free money to play with just by signing up to play at an internet casino. These offers are there to incentivize new players to sign up and gamble. They seem, at first glance, anyway, to be a can’t-lose situation.

The reality is not as pretty.

You deposit a certain amount of money, and the casino matches those funds at a certain bonus percentage. For example, you might be playing at a casino with a 200% matching bonus worth up to $400.

• This means that when you deposit $200, you get a $400 signup bonus.


• Your total bankroll is $600.


• This seems like money for nothing, and it is—sort of.

But casinos don’t want to be taken advantage of. Early advantage gamblers quickly did the math on these kinds of promotions and figured out that they could use the extra funds to get an edge over the casino.

In the early days of internet gambling, wagering requirements for cashing out were minimal. You were generally only required to wager your entire deposit plus bonus once before cashing out. In the case of the example I’m using now, you’d need to make $600 in wagers before being eligible to cash out.

But suppose you’re playing blackjack. It’s not even an especially good blackjack game, either—the rules are set up so that the house edge is 1%.

You wager your $600, and your expected loss is only $6. You expect to have $594 left. You cash out, and you’ve made $394 profit, most of it because of the signup bonus you got.

So casinos started raising their wagering requirements. For a while, wagering requirements were more like 12X or 15X your deposit plus bonus.

But smart blackjack players would still have an edge. 1% of $7200 is still only $72. 1% of $9000 is only $90. That still leaves the bonus player with a significant profit.

So casinos decided to start disallowing wagers on games with a low house edge. In fact, at most internet casinos, only wagers placed on slot machine games count toward fulfilling your wagering requirements.

And the wagering requirements themselves have increased over time, too. Now it’s common to find casinos who require you to wager 25X, 35X, or even 50X your deposit plus bonus before being eligible to cash out.

I’ll be generous and assume that the online casino in this example has slot machines with a 95% payback percentage. That means the house edge is 5%.

I’ll also assume that this casino skews toward the lower end of the wagering requirements and only demands that you bet 25X your deposit plus bonus.

25 times $600 is $15,000 in total wagers. 5% of $15,000 is $750.

Since you started with a bankroll of $600, your expected winnings are -$150.

And most casinos have higher wagering requirements and a lower payback percentage on their slots games.

Don’t get me wrong. Free money is great, and you can still come out ahead when using a casino bonus. But that bonus doesn’t give you better odds of walking away a winner at all.

6. Most online casino games aren’t rigged.

Most people misunderstand how casino games work. They assume that the casinos are able to manipulate the results behind the scenes in order to guarantee their profits. You might remember a scene in the movie casablanca where rick has his croupier rig the game so that a particular player could win a certain amount of money.

The house gets its edge by paying out winnings at less than the odds of winning.

I’ll use roulette as an example since we were just discussing it in the context of casablanca.

Here’s another example

One of the most popular bets at the roulette table is the single number bet. It’s a bet that a specific number will come up. The odds of that happening are 37 to 1.

That’s pretty easy to understand, right?

There are 38 numbers on the wheel. When you bet on one of them, you have 37 ways to lose and 1 way to win.

The bet pays off at 35 to 1.

Here’s what it means mathematically, though:

Let’s say you play a mathematically perfect 38 spins, making the same single number bet on all of them. And let’s also say that you’re betting $100 per spin.

All of the bets at an american roulette table have the same house edge (except for one).

Let’s look at one of the even money bets as an example. Let’s say you’re betting on black.

The roulette wheel has 18 black spots, 18 red spots, and 2 green spots. That means the odds of winning are 20 to 18. (you have 20 ways to lose and 18 ways to win.)

You place $100 bets on 38 spins, and you lose 20 times for a net loss of $2000. You win 18 times for a net win of $1800. (this bet pays even money instead of 35 to 1.) again, you’ve lost $200 in 38 bets, or $5.26 average per bet.

All casino games work in a similar manner. You place a bet, and you get paid off at a certain amount when you win. But the odds offered by the payoffs are always less than the odds of winning.

You might argue that this constitutes rigging the game. You might be correct. But it’s not the same type of rigging that most people think of when they talk about rigged games.

The casinos have no control over who wins or loses on a particular spin of the roulette wheel. Their blackjack dealers aren’t card sharps. They’re not using loaded dice.

The math is in their favor.

And this is just as true of an internet casino as it is of a traditional casino.

In fact, casinos have an incentive not to cheat. Since they have nothing to gain—the math’s already rigged in their favor—they have to consider what they have to lose. In the case of internet gambling, reputation is everything. And gamblers talk.

If an internet casino cheated with the results of their games, they’d get caught.

7. Online casinos have loyalty clubs just like traditional casinos do.

If you’ve read any pages on the internet offering legitimate tips for slot machine players, you’ve heard of loyalty clubs at casinos. They’re sometimes called slots clubs or players clubs. But they all work more or less in the same way:

They track how much you play and how much you’re risking when you play. Then they provide you with rebates and comps equal to a percentage of what your expected losses are.

Here’s another example

You’re playing at a casino in oklahoma. You play the dollar slots, and you visit the casino twice a week and spend 4 hours playing each time.

• An average slot machine player makes 600 spins per hour. At a dollar a spin, you’re putting $600 per hour into action. If you’re playing an average of 8 hours per week, you’re putting $4800 per week into action.


• The casino knows that its payback percentage on their slot machine is say 92%. (I’m just using that number as an example—we don’t know what the actual payouts are in oklahoma casinos, as they’re not required to disclose that information.)


• This means the casino expects you to lose 8% of the $4800 you’re putting into action. That’s $384.

Since you’re expected to lose $384 a week, it makes a lot of sense for the casino to give you 2 comp meals at the buffet every time you’re there. That’s 4 meals costing $20 each, or $80. The casino still makes $300 profit.

And actually, they make even more than that, because their cost on those meals is probably closer to $6 or $7.

Depending on how much you gamble and how often, they might be willing to provide you with even more comps and even send you cash rebates or free spins on their slots.

But it’s all based on your expected loss.

That number is easily calculated. It’s the product of the amount you’re betting per wager, the number of wagers you make per hour, and the number of hours you play.

Internet casinos provide the same kinds of rewards, although they usually provide these rewards in the form of cash rewards or rebates. An internet casino doesn’t have a buffet on site.

I’ve heard, though, that high rollers on the internet get special treatment just like high rollers at land-based casinos. This means you get your own host, and he rolls out the red carpet for you. This means free trips, event tickets, and meals out.

If you’re a high roller at an internet casino, you should always contact the casino to find out what kinds of rewards they can offer you. They can probably even increase the size of your betting limits.

8. Some online poker players cheat.

Cheating at online poker can be defined in various ways. One way is data mining. At one time, most internet cardrooms had no rules preventing the use of software that tracked players’ statistics en masse. You could pay for a subscription and get access to their database, and it would act as an overlay on top of the poker application.

You could literally see, historically, how often a particular player put money into the pot. You could see whether he was overall profitable. You could see how often he placed in tournaments.

And you could use that information to make better educated decisions about how to play against him.

Some might argue that it isn’t. They might contend that they’re using information that anyone else could access.

Most internet cardrooms disagree, though. They now forbid the use of this kind of software.

Some internet cardrooms, like ignition poker, have eliminated the problem entirely by making the players anonymous. When you play texas hold’em at ignition, your designation is player 1 or player 2.

You can take notes on your opponent while you’re at the table with them, but those notes disappear when the player leaves the table.

But that’s not the only kind of cheating that’s gone on at internet cardrooms. Collusion is another example.

Let’s say you have a buddy in ohio who likes to play poker just as much as you do. You could easily play at the same table as he does. And it would be easy to call him on the phone and share information about what cards you’re both holding.

In fact, you could conference in your buddy from indiana, too. Now you have 3 seats out of 9 at the table, so all 3 of you know what hole cards you’re holding.

How much of an advantage does this give you over the other players?

It depends on your skill level. But any advantage that you gain this way is cheating, by definition.

Most cardrooms have software that helps them identify collusion when they see it. For example, if a player has pocket kings and folds them when you have pocket aces, that’s a clue that something might be wrong. It isn’t prima facia evidence, but it’s a clue, and when a pattern develops, it sometimes makes sense to draw a conclusion based on that pattern.

But those aren’t the only examples.

A few years ago, some members of a poker forum noticed some odd playing patterns from some of the other players at absolute poker. It turns out that absolute poker had a “super-user” login, where someone who was logged in as a super-user could see all the other players’ hole cards.

The outrage over this event resulted in ruined reputations for multiple players. It also meant the end of the line for the businesses involved.

This is another example of something I mention every time I write about internet gambling sites and their reputations. Regardless of how strict or lax the licensing authority in question is, the site’s reputation is the make it or break it factor that will determine whether or not the business succeeds.

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that I’m discouraging you from playing poker online, either. I’m just encouraging you to go into it with your eyes open.

9. Online sports betting is no easier to beat than traditional sports betting.

Did you ever wonder why it’s so hard to make a profit betting on sports?

It’s actually similar to how the casinos make their money.

The book makers require you to wager at least $110 for every $100 you win. Some of the internet book makers even require wagers of $120 to win $100.

Usually they’ve set the lines in such a manner that you’ll have a roughly even chance to win.

So let’s say you’re a sports bettor who bets on 100 games per season. You’re smart, but once you take into account the lines (or the point spreads, as they’re called), you’ve only won 50% of your bets.

So you’ve lost $110 on 50 games and won $100 on 50 games. Your losses are $5500, and your winnings are $5000, so your net loss is $500. Over 100 games, that means you’ve lost an average of $5 per game.

If this were a casino game, that would be considered the house edge, but in sports betting terms, it’s called the “vig” or “vigorish”. The phrase basically means something similar to commission.

But in a nutshell, it’s the reason the sports book is able to operate at a profit.

Here’s what happens in that case:

You win 53 times for a total of $5300 won. You lose 47 times for a total of $5170 in losses. Your net profit is $130, or $1.30 per game.

And winning 53% of the time ain’t easy, folks, regardless of whether you’re placing the bets online or off. They use the same oddsmakers to set the point spreads. And those guys have the most advanced software in the business to help them determine the point spreads.

Let’s talk about point spreads for a minute, too. I’m an american writer, and so when I write about sports betting, I’m thinking mostly about betting on football.

When you’re betting on football, one of the teams is almost always the favorite. You’ll rarely find a game where the teams are evenly matched.

When one of the teams is favored over the other, they have to subtract the point spread from their score to determine whether or not they’ve won.

If the green bay packers are a 3 point favorite over the cowboys, and if they win 10-7, you still lose your bet, because they didn’t beat the point spread. Their score of 10 has 3 subtracted from it, which means the game resulted in an effective tie.

The point spread is used by the books to make sure that they get an equal amount of action on either side of the game. From the book maker’s perspective, it makes sense to get half the money on one team and half on the other. That way the book can use their winnings from one side to pay off their losses to the other side.

And since everyone is laying $110 to win $100, the book makes a profit.

Here’s another example

A book maker takes 100 bets on a game. 50 of the bets are one side, and 50 are on the other side. They’ve collected a total of $11,000—100 bets at $110 each.

Only 50 of those bets win, and the book only has to pay them $5000 in winnings.

That’s how bookmakers stay in business, and they have the same business model on the internet as they do in vegas.

10. Most online gambling information sites are loaded with nonsense.

The sad truth about the internet is that when there’s a lot money to be made, people will invest the minimum effort and expense into making the biggest return they can. Internet casinos are insanely profitable. The average player is probably worth a minimum of $1000 over the life of the player.

Most internet casinos are willing to pay between $100 and $500 in referral fees to webmaster who refer these players to their business.

This gives information portals a huge incentive to say nice things about the casino in question, regardless of whether or not those nice things are true.

And many of these information portals rely on traffic from search engines for their marketing plans and business models to work. One popular phrase that results in a lot of conversions is “example casino review”.

Yes, you can find some real reviews of online casinos by searching for reviews on google. But you’ll probably find 9 advertorials for every legitimate review.

Luckily, it’s not hard to discern between legitimate reviews and advertorials. Just be skeptical about the claims that are made in the review. Also, look for examples of marketing language in the so-called review.

How often have you reviewed a product on amazon and called it “the premier example of this product”?

That’s the kind of thing a marketer would write for an ad. It’s not the kind of thing a real reviewer would write about a product he’s reviewing.

In fact, legitimate reviews will usually include a list of pros and cons about a product. You’ll find few casino reviews which list the pros and cons of a casino. Most of them just list the selling points of the casino.

But that’s not the only kind of bogus information you’ll find on the internet related to gambling.

Another popular type of site is the one that sells bogus gambling systems to unsuspecting readers. You can recognize these easily, because they’ll offer vague promises about how you can beat games which are mathematically unbeatable. They’ll offer no real advice on their sales page, either.

They’ll just promise you the ability to earn insane amounts of money using their “little known expert secrets”.

There are legitimate advantage gambling techniques you can learn, but those are limited to certain activities. And there aren’t many of them.

You can get an edge at the following gambling activities:

• Blackjack


• Fantasy sports


• Horse betting


• Poker


• Sports betting


• Video poker

You might also sometimes be able to take advantage of a promotion at another game which puts the odds in your favor, but that’s rare.

The good news is that legitimate information about beating those gambling games isn’t expensive. You can usually learn what you need to know by spending a tiny amount of money on a book or two.

You can buy a used copy of sklansky talks blackjack for a penny on amazon. The shipping costs are $3.99. So for just $4, you can learn how to count cards and beat blackjack.

On the other hand, you can buy a bogus system for beating slots for $25. The book is written by a “slot machine technician”, so how could you go wrong?

The sad thing is that even though you’ve spent 6 times as much money for the slots book as compared to the blackjack book, the amount you’ll earn from it is nothing. In fact, it’s worse than nothing, because slot machines can’t be beaten with any kind of consistency.

Almost all gambling games are impossible to beat. If someone is selling a system for beating a gambling activity that isn’t on the above list, be VERY skeptical.

Those aren’t the only kinds of sites which are misleading. In this niche, where you can make a large bounty just for referring a single depositing player, your return on investment can be huge—especially if the cost of creating your content is low. Google and bing have gotten better at returning results which are well-written and accurate, but they’re not perfect yet.

Be on the lookout for pages that are poorly written. It’s not that people who write badly can’t sometimes share good information. It’s just that they often get their information from elsewhere, and sometimes they misinterpret the info or draw erroneous conclusions from it. Often they leave out important details and subtleties, too.

One way to get a little more confidence in the site that you’re reading is to look for sites where an author’s name is attached to the page. That’s not a guarantee of quality, but it’s a clue. If the author’s name links to an about page for that writer, and that about page includes a detailed biography and photo of the author, that’s another clue that the site and its information is for real.

Be wary of anonymously written content, though.

You might also consider the length of a page. If you’ll spend a little time on this site, you’ll notice that the other writers and I cover subjects in-depth. That demonstrates that a certain amount of care and effort went into the production of these pages. That’s a clue that you’re looking at something worthwile, too.

Even the headlines can be a clue. Generic headlines like “best online casinos” or “top internet sportsbooks” are often hyper-focused on keyword phrases so that the page will rank in the search results. But if the page doesn’t include some words to back up that headline, it’s useless—and misleading.

Finally, if you’re a blogger, be wary of which gambling sites you link to. The SEO community spreads a myth that it’s bad for your site to link out to sites about gambling. That’s not true.

But it is bad for your site to link out to poor quality sites about gambling. That is true.

11. Many of the online licensing authorities are sketchy at best.

Since most internet casinos and gambling sites are located offshore (again, I’m writing from an american perspective), the licensing authorities that govern their activities are also offshore. This doesn’t mean that a casino or sportsbook licensed by one of these authorities is bad. It just means you can’t put as much confidence into some of these jurisdictions as you can others.

On the other hand, some of these licensing authorities are strict indeed. They audit their licensees and keep close tabs on them.

Some of it’s just common sense.

The isle of man, for example, is part of the united kingdom. They license gaming sites, sure, but they’re strict about it. The cost of getting a license there is astronomical. That weeds out some of the greedier and less ethical elements immediately.

Kahnawake, on the other hand, is just a tiny indian tribe in canada. Getting a gambling license from them is inexpensive. They provide little to no oversight of their licensees.

Here’s a list of some of the jurisdictions which license online casinos:

• Alderney – this is one of the oldest countries on the list. It’s small but legitimate.


• Antigua and barbuda – these are small islands that provide little oversight. They’re closer to a rubber-stamp for internet gambling sites.


• Costa rica – another licensing body that’s notoriously lax in their oversight.


• Gibraltar – this is one of the better licensing bodies on this list.


• Isle of man – it’s basically a small island in the irish sea, but they provide reasonably strict oversight to their licensees (of which there aren’t many).


• Kahnawake – A tribal licensing body located in canada. They’re similar to antigua and barbuda.


• Malta – another reputable licensing body with high standards.


• Netherland antilles


• United kingdom – obviously the united kingdom is one of the more trustworthy governmental bodies in the world, and a license from them is a good sign.

The industry also has several regulatory organizations that online gambling sites can become part of. Some of these memberships mean something. Not all of them do.

• Ecogra (ecommerce and online gaming regulation and assurance) – this is actually an arm of the internet gambling industry itself. It’s meant to help the industry regulate itself. Not all sites are members of ecogra. Not all members of ecogra are perfectly trustworthy.


• EGBA (european gaming and betting association) – this organization is similar to ecogra but it operates in the sports betting side of the industry. It’s made up of six privately owned sports betting companies.


• G4 (global gambling guidance group) – their stated goal is to help prevent problem gambling via strict accreditation for member sites.


• IBAS (independent betting adjudication service) – this is the oldest name on the list, having been around since 1998. They provide arbitration for gamblers who have disputes with betting sites.

And there are also organizations which audit the numbers behind the scenes.

Some of these organizations include:

• APCW (association of professional casino webmasters) – this is an unusual site on this list, because its purpose is to look out for the interests of webmasters who run informational sites in the industry. Adherence to certain standards of operation is required for an internet casino to have a membership, but this is NOT a player advocate in any way.


• BMM compliance – this is an australian company that provides consulting and auditing related to internal procedures and practices.


• CFG (certified fair gambling) – they audit game logs for fairness and look for irregularities. It’s a california-based company.


• Directorate of offshore gaming – this is the auditing arm of the antigua and barbuda industry.


• ESSA (european sports security association) – they monitor betting activity to prevent insider sports betting. These are the folks who are looking out for unusual betting patterns.


• Gambling commission – they regulate and audit gambling in great britain.


• Gaming associates – they test software and provide consulting regarding internal procedures.


• Itech labs – they analyze and audit random number generator software to make sure the games are fair.


• Jacobson gaming – the leader in terms of analyzing any particular gambling game for its fairness and accuracy in terms of duplicating the actual odds found in a casino.


• KPMG – they provide auditing services for ecogra.


• LGA (lotteries and gaming authority of malta)


• Price-waterhouse coopers – they’re one of the biggest accounting firms in the world. They do provide auditing services for internet gambling sites, but it’s a small piece of their overall business, and not one they promote heavily on their site. Still, any site that’s been audited by price-waterhouse coopers is almost certainly running a fair game.


• RGA (remote gambling association) – their focus is on making sure internet gambling sites are doing their part to prevent underage and problem gambling.


• Talisma – they provide secret shopping services for internet gambling sites. They also provide consulting for how to improve your customer service if you are in the industry.


• TST (technical systems testing) – they provide testing of games and random number generator software to various licensing bodies. They work for the governments rather than for the casinos.


• Verifyme – their auditing focuses on membership controls—making sure the company is screening underage gamblers and problem gamblers.

There’s a bewildering number of organizations of various categories that license, represent, and audit internet gambling sites. Treat all of them with a skeptical eye, but some of them are better than others.

Your jurisdiction as a player matters, too. If you’re from the united states, you’ll have a hard time finding a casino on the internet that’s licensed in the united kingdom, for example. Those properties tend to avoid accepting real money players from the USA.

12. Don’t believe anything you read, even on players’ forums.

I mentioned earlier that this is one of the most lucrative industries on the internet. Any time there is a lot of money involved, opportunists are everywhere. You won’t find a lot of players’ forums anymore, but even on the ones you do find, remember that you’re dealing with anonymous members.

Any one of them could be a hidden shill for the casino.

You’d be surprised at how easy they are to spot when you become aware of them. Just knowing that they exist makes their posts pop out like a sore thumb.

You can even find people complaining about casinos who are representing that casino’s competitors.

It’s a strange industry. I enjoy gambling online. I think a lot of people do, and I don’t begrudge them those pleasures.

But be aware that you have to be cautious.

13. Online gambling is a $45 billion a year industry, and it’s growing at 11% per year.

This fact is important to understand. Here’s how that compares to some other industries:

• The land-based casino industry generates about $300 billion a year. $45 billion doesn’t sound like much compared to that, but keep in mind that most online casinos don’t accept united states players. That makes for a lot of lost customers. It’s amazing that the internet industry has become as large as it has in comparison with land-based casinos.


• The industry is tiny compared to a larger, broader industry like travel and tourism. That industry is worth an estimated $7 trillion throughout the world. Of course, some of that includes travel and lodging at gambling related facilities.


• The restaurant industry in the united states alone sees sales of $780 billion a year. Compared to eating out, online gambling is a tiny business indeed. In fact, land-based casinos don’t even compare to that. But keep in mind that everyone eats, every day, and a large percentage of that eating is now done in restaurants.

The other factor to keep in mind is the value of a single customer. Sure, a restaurant customer might be worth $1000 a year or more to a restaurant. But how much is an average gambler worth over time?

Depending on the demographics, probably quite a bit more than that.

14. Not all online casinos have good customer service.

In fact, when you hear about an internet casino cheating customers, it almost never has anything to do with them dealing an unfair game. It almost always has to do with a customer who is having problems getting her withdrawal processed. That’s the nature of this business.

If you spend any time at all on player forums, you’ll find that having a hard time collecting your winnings is the #1 challenge you’ll face. You won’t find this problem at all casinos, though. The sites listed on our site have been thoroughly vetted, in fact.

We can’t guarantee that you’ll have a great experience at every casino we refer you to. But we do spend a lot of time looking into the reputations of the properties listed here. We’re confident that the casinos on our site conduct themselves with integrity.

In fact, one of the advantages of signing up at an internet casino through an informational portal such as ours is the fact that you have someone you can go to and ask for help when advocating for yourself. Casinos listed on this site (and on other sites) have an interest in keeping their partners happy. They can’t do that if the partners are getting player complaints.

Internet casinos have a financial interest in keeping their advertising partners happy. And that means keeping their customers happy.

Here’s an example of what can sometimes happen with a rogue casino:

You sign up at a casino and deposit $200. You get a $400 bonus. You have a 35X wagering requirement, so you have to place $21,000 in wagers before cashing out.

On your first spin of the wheel, you win a $10,000 jackpot. By the time you finish your $21,000 in wagers, you wind up with $8000. You go to the cashier and withdraw your funds.

A few days later, you contact customer service to ask about the status of your withdrawal. They advise you that they need further documentation as proof of your identity.

This in itself isn’t unusual, actually.

You contact customer service again. They tell you they’ll look into it and get back with you.

You contact customer service again, and this time they tell you that they received the copies of the documents you sent, but something was wrong and the files weren’t clear enough.

At this point, you figure what the heck. You already have the money in the account. Maybe you can run it up to $10,000 while you’re waiting for customer service to review your documents.

But instead, you lose $3000.

You immediately try to withdraw the $5000, and the cashier says the withdrawal has gone through.

A couple of days later, you check your account, and your funds still haven’t been sent. In fact, they’re back in your account again.

You contact customer service again. They apologize and say that there was a problem processing the transaction, and they’ll try again.

• These stalling tactics are done in the hopes that you’ll eventually go back into your account and lose all the money you’ve won. It’s unethical.


• But it’s effective.

After all, we are talking about casino gamblers, here. They love to play, and if the money’s in the account, they’re likely to take a shot at a big win.

But since the house has a mathematical edge, the longer you play, the more likely you are to lose.

If you get this kind of treatment from an internet casino, contact the site that referred you and ask for their help. They might not be able to do much for you, but then again, they might.

You should also look into the various player forums on the internet. Tell them what happened. Ask for advice. Most of the players on those sites will have some idea of what you should do.

15. Online gambling is still better for society than the lottery.

You might come away from reading some of these facts to think that I’m negative about online gambling.

I think adults who earn their own money should be allowed to spend that money on anything they want to, even games of chance where the other party has an edge.

I also think that those adults have a responsibility to educate themselves about the games they’re playing and how the math works.

The lottery offers the worst odds in the business. No self-respecting casino offers games with a house edge of 50%.

I’m baffled as to why the american public is so willing to take such a bad bet.

Most americans play the lottery because it’s the only game in town.

And that’s the main reason I’m opposed to the lottery. State governments shouldn’t be running the equivalent of a bad casino. That’s not government’s role.

And the smarmy commercials that make the outrageous claims about how much good that additional revenue does are sickening. Most of the money collected from lotteries goes to pay for corporate subsidies and tax breaks. That money isn’t specifically earmarked for education at all.

You can do some before and after analysis of most state’s budgets to see that their education budgets never increase after the establishment of a lottery in that state.

The lottery has been called a tax on people who can’t do math, but it’s more than that.

It’s also a regressive tax on the poor—the people who can least afford to be gambling.

And the irony is that if people were better educated about math and personal finance, they would NEVER buy a lottery ticket. NEVER.

And the money generated by the lottery is supposed to go to education.

I think most people who like to gamble are better off playing at an internet casino or bingo hall than they are buying a scratch off ticket at the grocery store. Even if you don’t play the games with the best odds (blackjack and video poker), you’re still getting odds that are way better than those offered by the lottery.

Then again, if enough people did that, the state governments might actually step up their enforcement efforts related to online gambling.

Maybe the solution is to take a look at what various politicians think about gambling on the internet and using that as a factor when deciding how to vote.

Conclusion

Online gambling can be a lot of fun, but it’s more fun when you know exactly what you’re getting into. That’s the main reason I wrote this post. I wanted to make sure you knew most of the above facts before getting involved.

Of course, if you’re already involved, it’s still important that you’re up to date on the facts about the industry. A smart gambler is an educated gambler. With any luck, this post is just the beginning of your online gambling education.

How to make money from online casino bonuses

Almost every online casino has some sort of welcome bonus to help try and persuade you to sign up and use their website rather than their competitors. With a little bit of thought and cleverness, we can take these new-player casino bonuses and convert them into withdrawable cash.

But before we delve into casino bonuses, let’s talk about sportsbook bonuses. Making money from them is known as matched betting, and if you have never done it before I strongly urge you to stop reading now and head over to my matched betting guide.

1. Matched betting is easier and is completely risk-free.


2. Most websites that have both a casino and a bookie make you take the bookie’s bonus first. If you try and sign up and take the casino bonus you could forfeit that easy profit from the bookie.

If you’re still here, let’s talk about point 1. That’s right, unlike matched betting casino bonuses are not risk-free. But that doesn’t mean that they can’t be profitable and worth doing.

To show you what I mean, let’s first talk about how casinos make money.

How casinos make money

Let’s say that we are playing a game of flip the coin, and because we’re fun people we’re also betting on it.

• I win £1 and you lose £1 if the coin comes up heads.


• You win £1 and I lose £1 if the coin comes up tails.

That is what we call a fair game.

There is risk – we could play 100 flips and I might lose money, or I might win money. But either way, it is just down to luck. Statistically, I am not more likely to win than to lose.

There is a 50% chance of me winning each throw, and a 50% chance of me losing each throw.

That is not what it is like in a casino.

Let’s change the rules slightly:

• I win £1 and you lose £1 if the coin comes up heads.


• You win £1.10 and I lose £1.10 if the coin comes up tails.

That is not a fair a game.

There is still risk – we could play 100 flips and I might make money. But I am more likely to lose.

I have a 50% chance of winning £1 and a 50% chance of losing £1.1.

That means that on each coin toss I expect to lose 5p.

We use this word “expect” a lot when it comes to making money from casino bonuses. It basically means the average profit from all possible outcomes.

Here is a very simple tree showing you how we worked out that expected loss of 5p.

Please take a second to make sure that you fully understand why that is. If you can get your head round it then everything else should quickly fall into place.

Now let’s turn that expected loss into a percentage of the amount we staked. That number becomes what is called the house edge.

So the house edge is 5% (0.05 means the same thing as 5%).

That means that in the long term I expect to lose 5% of whatever I bet. If we play 1,000 flips, I will have bet £1,000 and expect to lose £50 (5% of £1,000).

There’s that word expect again. It doesn’t mean I will definitely lose £50 (in fact I may be lucky and make money), but it means that on average I will lose £50.

Now we get a bit more complicated. The longer I play, the more likely I am to lose money. I am not going to explain the maths here (email me if you want to know) but, but over 1 coin flip my chance of walking away with a profit is 50%. The coin can either come up heads or tails. Over 100 coin flips my chance of making a profit has dropped to 31.7%, that’s almost a 1/3rd chance which still is quite high. I might decide that I’m feeling especially lucky and take that 1/3rd chance. But over 6,000 coin flips my chance of leaving with a profit drops only 1%.

That is how a casino makes money. If there are 60 people playing at your casino and each plays the coin flip game 100 times, then each person has a 31.7% chance of leaving with a profit. But as the casino is playing 6,000 total flips it only has a 1% chance of not making a profit overall. A pretty clever business model.

Now you can’t actually play our coin flip game in a casino so let’s apply this concept to two real casino games.

Roulette. Is a very basic game which almost everyone understands.

There are 36 numbers not including the zero. Of those 36 – 18 are red and 18 are black. The number zero is not red or black. Each time the wheel spins there is an equal chance that the ball will land on any of the numbers 0 – 36.

If you bet on red and it comes up, you win your stake back. So a £1 bet would win £1.

There is an 18 out of 37 chance of a red colour coming up. That means that you have a 48.6% chance of winning, and a 51.4% chance of losing.

Let’s draw that same tree we did earlier but this time for roulette:

Once again we turn it into a percentage of the amount we stake to get the house edge.

So the house edge is 2.8%. If you remember that means that over 1,000 spins at £1 a spin we expect to lose £28.

If you had the choice to play either the coin toss game or roulette, you would choose roulette as it has a lower house edge.

But roulette is not the casino game with the lowest house edge. That award goes to….

Blackjack. Forget card counting or anything you’ve seen in the films, your basic blackjack is the casino game with the smallest house edge.

There are many different rule sets for blackjack, and the house edge depends both on those rules and also on how close to perfect strategy the player is playing. But most games of blackjack have a house edge of about 0.5%.

Let’s just think about that, 0.5%. That’s so low! It’s the equivalent of playing the coin flip game with the rules:

• I win £1 and you lose £1 if the coin comes up heads.


• You win £1.01 and I lose £1.01 if the coin comes up tails.

If we played 1,000 hands of blackjack at £1 a bet, we would have staked £1,000 and expect to lose just £5.

How casino bonuses work

Thank you for sitting through all of that. Now that the basics are out the way let’s talk about the juicy stuff. How we can actually make some money from casino bonuses.

Just like with matched betting, most casinos offer new players an incentive to sign up and play at their casino.

Unfortunately, unlike with matched betting, there is no way we can hedge out our bets. But we can use this knowledge of the house edge to turn things in our favour. Provided the bonus is good, we can expect to make money.

Let’s take a look at one bonus that is currently offered by william hill on their live casino.

To get the bonus, we need to deposit £25 and then place a series of bets that total at least £200. When we have reached that target and we contact customer service, a bonus of £25 will be added which we are then free to withdraw along with whatever is left of our initial deposit.

£200 sounds like a lot, but after what we’ve learnt about house edges and blackjack it shouldn’t sound so bad. Remember blackjack has a house edge of 0.5%. Over £200 staked we expect to lose only £1.

This is what we expect to happen.

• We deposit £25 into william hill live casino.


• We place 200 £1 bets. At the end, we have lost £1 and have £24 left.


• A £25 bonus is added to our balance.


• We withdraw our balance of £49 (£24+£25).


• We have made a profit of £24.

But, there is risk. There is a chance we will lose more than just £1. There is even a chance of us losing more money than the bonus is worth. If we use up all of that £25 we would need to deposit more in order to finish the staking.

We don’t need to go into the maths, but in case you’re interested blackjack has a house edge of 0.5% and a standard deviation of 1.15.

That means that at a £1 bet size there is a 95% chance we will make somewhere between £7.75 and £40.25. But it also means there is a 7% chance of making a small loss.

That is the essence of making money from casino bonuses. You are simply moving the odds to your favour.

How doing the bonus works in practice

Great, we’re doing well. That’s the basic concept and theory done, let’s talk about the practicalities.

If you have followed my advice and already been matched betting, then you will already have an account at william hill and taken advantage of their sports bonus. In the sports book offer terms is this line:

This offer is only available to new william hill customers who open an account using a valid promo code

There is no such requirement in the casino bonuses terms and conditions. So do the sports bonus first!

Once we head over to the live casino. Deposit our £25 and open up the game we realise something that could scupper our plans. The minimum bet on blackjack is £3. While this doesn’t affect our expected profit from turning over £200, it does change the variance or, in other words, it means there will be a much larger swing on how much we expect to make

While this doesn’t affect our expected profit from turning over £200, it does change the variance. Or, in other words, it means there will be a much larger swing on how much we expect to make from the offer.

At the £1 bet size, we had a 95% chance of our profit ending in the range £7.75 to £40.25.

But with a bet size is £3, that range grows to -£2.38 and £50.61. Let me reiterate that the expected profit is still the same, it’s is just the range that if difficult. If you’re happy taking that slightly higher risk, then

If you’re happy taking that slightly higher risk, then the wizard of odds has a good strategy table to teach you blackjack. Just follow the instructions to play perfect strategy.

But if that range is too rich for your blood, we could take on a different game. Remember roulette? It has a higher house edge, meaning that we can expect to make less money. But it does allow £1 bets. If we take a look at the terms and conditions again, play on roulette is allowed, but we are not allowed to place bets that cover the board. So we cannot place bets on both red

If we take a look at the terms and conditions again, play on roulette is allowed, but we are not allowed to place bets on certain combinations that cover most of the board. So we cannot place bets on both red and black. If we could then we would be able to lock in a profit. But that’s OK, we can still bet on just red.

At a house edge of 2.8%, over the £200 staked we expect to lose £5.6. We have a 95% chance of making between £5.6 to £33.54. That’s a much tighter range than betting £3 a go on blackjack.

Ok. We’re ready to do the bonus for real. Let’s see the steps once again.

1. Go to the live casino section on william hill website.


2. Check the terms and conditions of the bonus. Make sure they haven’t changed.


3. Make sure you have £0 in your account and then deposit a fresh £25.


4. Open the live roulette game.


5. Place £1 on either red or black and spin. Repeat 200 times.


6. Monitor your number of bets on a piece of paper so that you know when you reach the £200 total bet point.


7. Once you have made 200 £1 bets, then go to live chat and ask for your bonus.


8. Voila! Once the casino bonus is credited you can withdraw it and your balance. Easy money.

After all that explaining, the actual steps were very simple. But we had to go into the details because it will enable you to look at more advanced offers and take advantage of them as well. Now you understand what ‘expected profit’ means you should be able to look at the terms and conditions of other casino bonuses and work out if there is any ‘expected profit’ to be made.

Which brings us on to the hardest part of making money from casino bonuses.

How to find good casino bonuses

You can only do that william hill live casino offer once, so to continue making money you need to find some more offers. You can do this in exactly the same way as you would when sports matched betting:

Now before we talk about the merits and disadvantages of each one, a word of warning.

We have only scraped the surface of how to take advantage of casino offers.

There are hundreds of offers out there and they all have their little intricacies and quirks. Be very careful, especially when you first start. Until you get some more experience it can be very easy to miss something when reading the terms and conditions and coming up with a strategy. And what type of casino matters a lot too, live casinos and flash casinos often have very different styles of bonuses.

For that reason, I strongly suggest either: paying for a service that provides tutorials for the first 10 or so offers you do, or getting involved in a forum and asking them to help hand hold you.

My two favourite paid for services for casino bonuses are:

Profit accumulator is the oldest, most popular and most expensive service. They have the widest range of opening account offers. Oddsmonkey is a close contender and slightly cheaper. They stand out for me because of their great calendar of daily offers which includes both sports and casino bonuses. As well as having a large catalogue of standard casino offers.

I’m going to stop now before I go into too much detail. By now you should understand the concept of expected profit and therefore making money from casino bonuses. You have a step-by-step guide to tackle your first bonus and you have plenty of resources to help you research and find new offers.

USEFUL LINKS

What happens if I lose all of the £25 before completing the wagering requirement??

This is a very real risk and is also the reason why there is a chance of losing a small amount of money while completing the wagering requirement.

What you need to do is to deposit more money and finish the betting.

I hear people talking about ‘sticky’ bonuses or doubling up. What does that mean?

You should really join a forum and start asking people there. You are getting into some quite complicated areas with the potential to lose some large amounts of money if you make a mistake.

But in short: A sticky bonus is one that you can never withdraw. You can only withdraw the winnings. This means that the tactics we spoke about earlier don’t work. Doubling up is a technique to make money from them. You basically bet the whole bonus on red on roulette. If the bet wins you withdraw the winnings. If you lose you’ve lost the bonus which you couldn’t withdraw anyway.

What are the house odds of some other casino games?

• Baccarat – 1.06%


• 3-card poker – 2.01%


• Craps – 0.34%


• French roulette (you get 50% of your stake back if it lands on 0) – 1.35%


• American roulette (two 0s) – 5.26%


• Slots – 3-10%. Average is about 5%.

Can I card count online blackjack?

No, you cannot. Card counting relies on the contents of the remaining cards changing as the rounds go on. In online blackjack the cards are shuffled every hand so the contents don’t change. You can do it with live blackjack – but I believe they shuffle regularly to make it more difficult. I have never tried.

I have a question that is not answered here?

So, let's see, what we have: how much money does a casino make in a day? For any business, maximising the potential sales made is the main goal, but this is taken a step further the moment you walk into a casino. Every at how much does online casino make