Blackjack and roulette debut in Spanish client—the first time that real money gambling has been available under the PokerStars brand. “The casino games launch gives a hint of what things may be like in the New Jersey online gambling market.” Casino games for real money have launched on PokerStars’ Spanish online poker room. It marks the first time that real money games other than poker have been offered under the PokerStars brand. Various forms of Blackjack and Roulette are available for both play money and real money, with a variety of stakes and both single and multi-player options available. A launch in the regulated Italian market is expected soon. Whether the games will also launch on PokerStars.com is not yet known. “We know that many of our customers are enjoying online casino games on competing platforms and our offering will enhance their experience with PokerStars and provide a safe, trusted and convenient way for them to be entertained, ” Gino Appiotti, President of Southern Europe for PokerStars, is quoted as saying in a press statement. The games are available from within the online poker client under a new “Casino” tab, keeping the table games separate from the online poker lobby. They are only available on PokerStars 7, the online poker room’s new client that is the default in Spain and available in most markets, including dot-com. There is no indication yet if or when casino games will launch on the PokerStars brand in the dot-com market. Currently the group is using its Full Tilt brand for its entry into non-poker games, blackjack and roulette, various slots games, and most recently live dealer games, are already spread. Players are able to play blackjack or poker online at various other online poker rooms. In Spain, the group only operates the PokerStars brand. “PokerStars aims to remain as the number one poker operator in Spain and strongly believes that in this market, adding casino games is the best way to serve players, ” stated Appiotti. Amaya stated that Spain and Italy would be the first markets to launch casino games, with “a wider rollout” coming in 2015. The introduction of an in-house developed sportsbook is also expected to follow. The casino games launch gives a hint of what things may be like in the New Jersey online gambling market. PokerStars is expected to enter the market in the coming weeks and spread both online poker and casino games in the regulated market.

Winning at roulette takes luck; winning at blackjack takes strategy. "It's the only game in the casino that's subject to something called 'conditional probability, ' which means what you see impacts what you're going to see, " said Jeff Ma at last week's inaugural Society for Information Management Boston Technology Leadership Summit in Newton, Mass. Ma knows this better than most. In a past life, he was part of an MIT blackjack team that used math and card counting to win millions, inspiring the book Bringing Down the House by Ben Mezrich and the film 21 , starring Kevin Spacey and Laurence Fishburne. More recently, Ma made a name for himself as a different kind of gambler - a serial entrepreneur. It's safe to say he's winning in that arena as well: In April, Twitter acquired his latest venture, TenXer, a project management platform for engineers, for approximately $50 million, according to TechCrunch. Rather than Ma's knack for making money, however, it is his unshakable belief in data-driven decisions - in the face of some daunting setbacks - that makes his personal story inspiring for IT professionals. During his presentation, Ma described how on two separate occasions while playing blackjack, a card game where players try to accumulate a score that's higher than the dealer's but less than or equal to 21, he lost $50, 000 in one fell swoop. The second time it happened, he contemplated quitting before realizing "the decision to quit would have been based on two hands versus the year I'd been playing and done quite well, " he said. Instead, he returned to the table and, in a couple of days, not only recouped his losses but walked away $70, 000 richer. Ma sees this as a lesson on how short-term value can lead to bad decision making, and it was one of several examples he shared with IT leaders that highlighted the power of sound strategy and data-driven decisions in blackjack - and in business. Here are four more: The fallacy of the gut feeling Jeff Ma Ma jokes that the most dangerous person in the world is author Malcolm Gladwell because "he can [take] what is a faulty concept and make everyone believe it's true, " he said. In his book Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking , Gladwell makes the case for "thin-slicing, " or relying on one's instincts (honed by experience) to make decisions. Even then, Ma argues, these gut feel decisions aren't data-less; decision makers are simply "using data that's in their brains, " he said. That point aside, when it comes to making decisions, Ma's rule of thumb is simple: "The best way to make decisions is via the data, " he said. He guarantees that if he plays blackjack using basic strategy, which relies on math to objectively decide what to do next, against someone using gut feel, "I'll win more than you do, " he said.

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We know celebrities like to let their hair down at the casino. Harry Styles enjoys a game of roulette, Bruce Willis likes craps and Pamela Anderson enjoys playing the slot machine branded in her honour. What about the celebs that don’t actually get caught at the casino? What game does Beyonce play when she’s getting ready to perform? How does Miley relax in between shows on her Bangerz tour? Will Lemmy ever get that ace of spades – and why does he want it so badly? We’re swiping right to pick the perfect celebrity match for all our favourite casino games. It’s casino Tinder – celebrity edition: let’s play! #1. Blackjack – Jack Black and Jack White The clue is in the name. We don’t know of any celebrities called ‘roulette’, so we’re putting forward a pair of Jacks as our winning blackjack hand. Californian comic actor, Jack Black, 45, has even got his own blackjack-themed tongue-twister meme: ‘Black Jack Black playing a black jack while playing blackjack with Jack Black’. As for Jack White: he co-wrote the theme to the James Bond film Quantum of Solace. In the video, he looks like he’s just stumbled out of a casino in the early hours of the morning. #2. Roulette – Miley Cyrus and Paris Hilton Like a sexy wrecking roulette ball, Miley Cyrus would definitely smash it at the roulette table. The long-tongued teen star has put her Hannah Montana days behind her and now only occasionally wears clothes. This makes her a sure-fire hit at the roulette table and the perfect partner for Paris Hilton, who famously likes to spend her time surfing Chatroulette. That is, when she’s not making NSFW home movies and pretending to DJ. #3. Video Poker – Lemmy and Lady Gaga Long-haired speed freak and rock god Lemmy is famed for necking bottles of whisky and shouting ‘the ace of spades’ at the top of his voice. Clearly, Lemmy loves a game of video poker at the casino and often finds himself a black ace short of a great hand. Meanwhile… at the other end of the musical spectrum is Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta, aka Lady Gaga. With a song called Poker Face, there’s only one game for this modern day pop icon #4. Craps – Chris Tucker and Sharon Stone Let’s get the obvious one out of the way first: Sharon Stone is famous for two film roles. In one, she goes commando (Basic Instinct). In the other, she goes nuts. In Martin Scorsese’s Casino, Sharon Stone’s character Ginger is a professional Las Vegas hustler who makes a living working the craps table. In Rush Hour, Chris Tucker shows his skills at the craps table before taking out the bad guys with Jackie Chan. Clearly both Stone and Tucker know what they are doing when it comes to craps.

Online casinos have become extremely popular over the last few years. While this has been largely led by poker other games like blackjack are also widely played online. This has created a bit of a problem since there is no way to know how trustworthy an online gambling site is due to the lack of regulation on the subject. It is important that you be able to separate the ones that can be trusted from the ones that can't before you start playing. Otherwise you are very likely to get cheated. The question about whether or not online gambling sites are to be trusted is not an easy one to answer. The reason is that some of them are while others will not be. That means that it is going to be up to you to find the sites that you can trust if you want to play online. There are lots of ways that an online casino can cheat you so you are going to have to be very careful. You are going to want to do some research before you start rather than just signing up with the first casino that you come to. The first thing that you are going to want to look at is how long has the casino been in business. This will help you to get rid of most of the fraudulent casinos right away. Sooner or later people are going to figure out that they are getting cheated and when that happens they are going to move on and play somewhere else. As a result fraudulent casinos tend to be short term businesses. If a casino has been in business for a long time that that is a good sign. Of course it is no guarantee. There are also many new casinos that are perfectly good but you will need to be very careful if you are considering trying one of these. One of the great things about the internet is that you can get reviews of almost anything online. This can be a huge benefit when it comes to online gambling sites. Any large site is going to have lots of reviews floating around the internet, if you can't find any that should be a warning sign right there. All sites will have some negative reviews so you will need to keep that in mind. However you should be able to get a good idea based on the general tone of the reviews how trustworthy a site is. In general you will do best if you stick to the large well known online gambling sites. They are generally safe. That is not to suggest that all of the small sites are frauds because many of them are not but the reality is that it is just so hard to know. You are going to have to take steps to protect yourself because you will have little recourse in the event that you do get cheated.

When it comes to using questionable tactics to win in blackjack, much of the attention has often been put on the players, who’ve used everything from chip placing to cards in their sleeve to cheat the house. Even card counting is sometimes construed as cheating by novice blackjack players (though it’s not). In any case, it’s not always the players trying to pull one over on the casino, because casinos have also been known to use certain tricks on blackjack players. Some of these tricks are blatant cheating methods that are rarely used today, while others are more subtle tricks designed to keep people playing the game and spending money. With this being said, here are some of the most common casino tricks used against blackjack players. Removing Cards from the Deck Before we launch into the first way that casinos cheat in blackjack, it should be stressed that this method is rarely used by casinos today because of the severe consequences by gaming regulators. With that out of the way, some casinos have/will remove one or two 10-value cards from the shoe, which increases the house edge. The reason why this affects the house edge is because less 10-value cards reduces a player’s chances of getting a blackjack, which also reduces the amount of times they can get 3:2 payouts (or 6:5). Subtle Tricks While this isn’t cheating per say, some casinos use a number of psychological and subconscious methods to cheat players out of money. For example, dealers are instructed to deal as quickly as possible to get more hands in, which exposes players more to the house edge. Another well-known trick involves offering blackjack players free alcoholic drinks to dull their senses and promote poor play. Finally, casinos offer fewer low stakes tables so that players are forced to play mid and high stakes blackjack, which leads to more casino profits. Slight of Hand One final blackjack cheating method that casinos have used to defraud players involves dealers and slight of hand tricks. Going further, some dealers are so skilled that they can slip a player a bust card without anybody even noticing. Now it should also be noted that dealers rarely have anything to gain from doing so, and very few casinos would ask their dealers to do such a thing.

Don't forget that card games are also great for holidays - both for travelling and ideal for filling long evenings once you are there and your younger children are tucked up in bed. Snap (2 or more players) An oldie but a goodie, and an ideal first card game to learn - plus it's one of the simplest 2 player card games around. Deal out the whole pack between the players. The players take it in turn to place cards down (either in one pile in the middle or in a pile each in front of them). When two people put down matching cards then the first person to shout SNAP wins the pile/s and puts them to the bottom of their stack. The winner is the person that wins all the cards. There are many variations of this game. Clock patience (In theory for one person, but fun to do together) There are different variations of the patience card game but we like clock patience best... Deal 13 cards out - make a circle of 12 (for each point on a clock) and put one in the middle. Now deal out the rest of the cards on top of those (don't forget the middle one each time you go around) - you will end up with four in each pile. Start by picking up one of the centre cards and look at the number / rank. Place it face up next to the point on the clock where it belongs (ace is one, jack 11 and queen 12. If you pick up a King it goes next to the pile in the centre). Then pick up a card from the pile that you just put the card next to, and see where that one goes. You keep going until you can't go any more (you get stuck when you use your last King). The aim is to have ALL the cards face up at the end, but it doesn't happen very often, so you can also count the number of face down cards to see how close you got. Beggar my neighbour (for two players) The aim is to end up with the whole pack and for your opponent to run out of cards. Deal out all the cards between the two of you.

One of the original blackjack side bets is the Insurance wager. This side bet pays 2-to-1 whenever the dealer’s hole card is a ten-valued card, otherwise it loses. This side bet is clearly countable by keeping track of the number of ten-valued cards relative to non-ten-valued cards. The only reason it has not been crushed by APs is because of two limitations on this wager. First, it can only be made when the dealer shows an Ace up, so that the player only has the opportunity to make this side bet once per 13 hands on average. Second, the Insurance wager size is limited to one-half of the player’s main blackjack wager. Without these two limitations, the “ten-in-the-hole” side bet would have long ago been abandoned. The house edge for Insurance is easy to compute. For example, in a single deck game, there are 16 face cards and 35 non-face cards (the Ace is already exposed). It follows that the true odds for Insurance are 35-to-16, while it pays 32-to-16. The edge on the Insurance bet is then 3/51, or 5.8824%. This is a fairly high house edge, hence the admonition to “never take Insurance.” The following table gives the house edge and variance on Insurance for various numbers of decks: Many gamblers and industry insiders alike don’t understand that Insurance is not part of the main game of blackjack. There is no rule that says this side bet must be offered. While almost no one makes this side bet, once per 13 hands the dealer has to ask the table for Insurance. If this takes 10 seconds (as the dealer waives her hand back and forth over the table), and the game is moving at 78 rounds per hour, then a full minute is consumed per hour with no benefit to the casino. That amounts to a loss of 1/60 = 1.67% of the total action at the table, and a corresponding incremental loss in revenue and decrease in hold. From a time and motion perspective, Insurance doesn’t protect against disasters; Insurance is a disaster. In addition to the time and motion issues Insurance has, the real estate lost to this side bet is tremendous. Typically, side bets are offered in a small circle next to the player’s main wagering area. However, Insurance usually appears on the layout like this: Imagine the artwork or other wagering opportunities that could replace a banner that advertises a side bet that wastes time and is barely utilized. For example, the casino could advertise a restaurant or a show in this space. To see that Insurance is susceptible to card counting, consider an AP playing single deck blackjack. On the first hand after the shuffle, suppose that the AP looks at his cards and those of one neighbor and sees only non-ten-valued cards. Then there are 31 non-ten-valued cards remaining in the deck, so that the odds of winning the Insurance bet are 31-to-16. Voila! The AP has an edge of 1/47 = 2.1277%.

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Read all you need to know about the best Casinos in Connecticut Connecticut is widely recognized for its rolling hills and miles of lush, green grass. It’s hard to believe that there are any casinos nestled among the serenity. The history of casinos in Connecticut goes back to more than 100 years ago. In those times, casinos were more of a charitable and fund raising venture rather than anything else. It wasn’t until later on, towards the middle of the 20th century, that gambling in its true sense started in Connecticut. History of Casinos in Connecticut Gambling in this state initially began with state lotteries in 1972, followed by pari-mutuel wagering in 1976. After this, many Indian tribes based in Connecticut were granted federal recognition, while utterly bolstered the gambling scene as it was once known. It was in the 1990’s that the state opened the gateway to tribal casinos which led to the birth of two of the world’s largest casinos; Foxwoods Resort in Mashantucket and Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasville. Both casinos were in the New London County of Connecticut. The Mashantuket Piquot tribe started the Foxwood casino in 1992 and the Mohegan tribe started the Mohegun Sun four years later. They don’t face any competition from anyone besides themselves and they are arch rivals to each other to this day. Located in the southeastern part of the state, they are just about an hour’s drive from Waterbury. There aren’t very many casinos in the state if you search on its map, as most of the casino games have not been legalized here. However, there aren’t too many legal restrictions imposed on the two giant casinos located in its capital. The simple reason for this is the phenomenal revenue that the state earns as a direct result of keeping them open. They have memorandums signed which commit that 25% of their revenue earned from video facsimile/slot machines goes directly to the state treasury. You can play at one of the largest Bingo halls of the world accommodating about 3600 people at one time or you can do with a in a room with 104 tables round the clock in Foxwood Casino. You wouldn’t be disappointed with the arrangements at Mohegan Sun as well that boasts of 116 blackjack tables, craps, , , 3-card poker as well as video games. However, if you are from Connecticut and wish to take a break via train, car or even hop of a plane, there are many casino resort options in the New York area that are worth visiting as well. Connecticut Gambling Laws Connecticut remains the state with a lot of restrictions on different games that offer prizes to its participants. Here are the forms of gambling that are considered legal in the State of Connecticut, according to Pari-Mutuel Connecticut allows off-track pari-mutuel betting. It means that players pool their bets, and the total amount is split among the winners. However, only a single entity is allowed to run the entire business – Sportech Venues – the company that considered as one of the world’s largest pool betting establishments. It now operates 15 sports bars and off-track betting venues all over Connecticut, and also runs . In exchange, the state gets 3.5% in taxes from the operator. Online Gambling Pari-mutuel Betting run by Sportech Venues is the only legal online gambling in Connecticut. Online casinos, off-track betting, online poker and applies even for online gaming sites that are being operated from other locations outside the state are illegal here. The state government closely keeps track of Sportech competitors who may be targeting Connecticut residents to entice them to place bets on their websites. have been issued during the big sporting events where the stakes are higher and it is easier to tempt more people to place their bets. Casinos Despite the strict restrictions when it comes to gambling, two legal tribal casinos, Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun, are more than enough to keep gambling visitors happy. They could both easily rival even the large casinos in other states. Foxwoods has over 5, 500 slot machines and over 300 table games, so you could just imagine how much they are trying to make up for the lack of other alternatives within the state. The Mohegan Sun is smaller but just as impressive. As with others states, tribal land is considered as autonomous, bound by their own laws and rules. This means that tribal casinos are allowed, but only within their territory. Of course, state laws about the legal gambling age still apply, and only those aged 21 and above can play in these venues. Each tribe contributes 25% of the video facsimile/slot machines “win” to the state of Connecticut. Although there are risks that both locations may lose part of their customers once have been set up, they are still pretty confident that they are still the better options compared to their soon to rise competition. State Lottery Like most other states, Connecticut also has its own lottery. Interstate games such as Powerball are also included in the gaming options, aside from the classic lotto game. Tickets can be purchased through any of the retailers around the state, such as Crossroads Cards and Gifts, which remains to have the highest number of high stakes tickets cashed in. Other retailers are M&M Pawn Shops and Stop and Go Food Marts. There are a number of websites (privately owned) that offer lottery tickets for sale online but Connecticut Lottery Corporation doesn’t endorse or encourage the use of these sites. Minimum age allowed to play the lottery is 18. Social Gaming Social gaming means that all participants are somehow related to each other aside from their common intent to play. This also means that all the money gathered will go towards the prizes, without anybody standing to profit whether directly from the game or from selling other forms of merchandise like alcohol as the game is being played. The state also limits the giving of gifts to other players; you could even get in trouble for bringing a bottle to the party where the game is being held. Charitable Games Bazaar, sealed tickets, raffles and bingo charity games are allowed. Bingo is the most common form of charitable gambling. Prizes that are offered for the winners of bingo games may consist of cash, promotions or tickets for the lotteries. Generally no permittee may offer a prize that exceeds one hundred dollars in value. When there is more than one winner, the designated prize shall be divided proportionately.