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Trending: Bitcoin Casinos On The Rise

Bitcoin CasinosOkay, guys, I believe that the time has finally come to talk about a rising star in the online casino world – bitcoin! Some of you may be going “Huh? Bitcoin? Are you talking about one of those novelty chocolate coins I usually pass by on my way to the cashier in the supermarket?” Others may be somewhat familiar with the term, but have no idea how it relates to online casinos whatsoever. Fear not, dear readers, for I shall explain everything… As clearly as I can within 500 words. If you’d like to know more, you can (and should always) do your own research on the matter, because this stuff is really fascinating!

What’s a bitcoin?

Anyway, bitcoin is a form of e-currency. You know how only 8% of the world’s currency is physical (coins and bills)? Well, the rest of it is all e-currency – money that only exists online, in stuff like bank records. We’re talking virtual dollars, virtual euro, virtual pounds, etc. Well, bitcoins are also a form of virtual currency, except they have no real life equivalent or a physical counterpart. They don’t belong to any one government (in fact, nobody’s 100% sure who created them, though there are theories), and as a result can’t be taxed, monitored or controlled in any way. They’re operated by a fully automatic system with no central location, which is being hosted on hundreds of thousands of computers that receive a tiny amount of bitcoin for dedicating processing power to them (a process known as “mining bitcoin”).

So, what are they used for?

The brief of it is that bitcoin are a form of untraceable virtual currency that doesn’t belong to any one government. And, considering the fact that it’s untraceable, it’s generally used for a lot of illegal activity. Popular deep web drug dealing site “Silk Road” accepts exclusively bitcoins, and you can also use them to buy other nasty stuff like weapons and illegal pornography. However, in the last 5-6 years, numerous very legitimate businesses have started to also accept the currency, and nowadays you can buy anything from clothes to action figures with bitcoin. Hell, in some countries there’s terminals where you can even pay your bills with them! How cool is that?! And, naturally, plenty of online casinos have started to explore the possibility of using bitcoin for deposits and withdrawals. While none of the big names, like 888, have fully implemented this new form of currency quite yet, there are plenty of others who have made it their whole gimmick! And I know what you’re thinking – “Online casinos that deal in untraceable online-only currency? That sounds suspiciously sketch”. That’s what I thought as well, but don’t worry, these casinos are no different from their traditional currency counterparts and are subject to the same certification and verification. As a matter of fact, you can check out a whole bunch of them which have been tested and verified by independent sources right here!

If you didn’t know what bitcoins were up until now, well, hopefully you’re just a little bit smarter! And if you did, then maybe you’d be willing to give these new online casinos a shot! And who knows, perhaps I’ll see you at the blackjack table sometime! Hmm, how much did one bitcoin cost in pounds right now, anyway…

Women in Executive Roles at Trump’s Casinos

I doubt anyone would be surprised by the fact that Donald Trump is a racist. And though he denies it by saying ‘I don’t have a single racist bone in my body’, his actions speak louder than words. Wait, his words speak loud enough of his discriminatory beliefs. Remember the news we presented to you a while ago about black employees being removed from his casinos when Trump would arrive? Well, as you might expect, it’s not only black employees he’s not particularly happy with. His casinos are an example of another popular discriminatory policy – sexism.

Though he boasts that he ‘was the one that really broke the glass ceiling on behalf of women, more than anybody in the construction industry’, facts tell a different story.

Trump started his gambling endeavour in 1984 with the opening of his first casino – Trump Plaza, followed by Trump’s Castle in 1985 and the Taj Mahal in 1990. The casinos weren’t particularly successful as three bankruptcies can testify. However, they are a good example of his attitude towards women in executive roles.

Trump's Casinos - Taj MahalAfter his casinos went public in 1995, following his first going bankrupt, till present, he has had 59 executives, only 6 of which have been women. That’s not even 10%. And though this is nothing new in the industry, he made a pretty big claim there about breaking the glass ceiling. But then again he said ‘in the construction industry’ and he probably only meant what he said in that particular area.

We’re not going to go into construction but will remain skeptical. There are two examples that instantly come to mind when we’re talking about his construction business – his first wife Ivana and his oldest daughter Ivanka. If those are the women in executive positions he means, then probably he did make a breakthrough with women’s professional equality… in his family.

His claim that he broke the glass ceiling came at a time when he was confronted about his popularity among female voters going down. Indeed, the decline of female support in the Republic party can be clearly seen when compared to previous Republican candidates. Though the 72% of women who declared their willingness to vote for Mr. Trump may seem like a serious chunk of supporters, it is considerably less impressive than that of Mitt Romney in 2012 (93%), John McCain in 2008 (89%), and George W. Bush in 2004 (93%). Republican women don’t seem to appreciate Trump’s self-proclaimed contribution to women’s rights, obviously.

And, if you don’t appreciate it either, there’s no need to support him by playing at his casinos. There’re far better ways for playing casino games, whether you’d like to play for fun or are interested in making money. With online casinos today, no one needs to make the effort to go to a land-based casino, anyway. All you need to do is pick one or more of the top rated online casinos for real money and you’re all set. Entertainment and profit are within arm’s reach and all you’ll need to decide is whether to play on your desktop computer or on a mobile device.

Why Don’t We See Marvel Slots Anymore?

Marvel JackpotMarvel, once a company only known to children and comic book fans, is now an absolute powerhouse. While ten years ago nobody even had a vague idea about who Iron Man was, today he’s the face of the company, with millions of people around the world knowing Tony Stark by name and being familiar with his backstory and talents. The Avengers – once a pale imitation of the much more popular Justice League – have now left Batman and Superman’s team in the dust with not one, but two movies which made over a billion dollars in the box office, with two more set to come out before the decade’s even over. Hell, speaking of box office success, a movie about Captain America, of all people (a character whose live action portrayals have been failed time and time and time again) also made over a billion dollars. What does that even say about the popularity of the Marvel universe and its heroes?

But with every successful franchise, there must also come tons of merchandising. We saw it time and time again – “Star Wars”, Frozen”, “Cars” and more have sold literally billions in toys, colouring books and other trinkets with the faces of the characters (and I’m sure it’s no coincidence that all of those franchises, just like Marvel, are owned by Disney). Naturally, Marvel had to follow suit, which is why we’ve got this slew of toys, masks, mobile games and animated shows featuring the Guardians of the Galaxy everywhere, but in addition to that, Marvel also decided to extend their merchandising to the unlikeliest of places – online gambling! Indeed, over the years several licensing deals were made which would allow Marvel characters to grace the faces of physical and online slot machines. Playtech was responsible for bringing those slots to Europe (and did so extremely successful, considering that The Avengers became one of the highest-grossing slots of all time), while Cryptologic was in charge of making the American versions.

Sadly, the last slot either company released came out in 2013, and we haven’t really seen any more despite the fact that several movies came out which would be prime candidates for a slot adaptation, such as the aforementioned “Guardians of the Galaxy”, “Ant-Man” or “Civil War”. As someone who actually got into the slot game relatively late, this has always bothered me, so I decided to do some research on my own to try and find out exactly why there’s no more Marvel slots. And, surprisingly, we have Disney to thank for that. The company has always had a very strong anti-gambling stance, to the point where they actively opposed legalizing gambling in Florida (for those of you who don’t know, Disneyworld, their biggest theme park, is located in Orlando, Florida). As a result, any gambling deals made before Marvel was bought by Disney were simply allowed to expire without being renewed. The same fate befell “Star Wars”, which apparently also had a couple of slots with its theme before Disney bought Lucasfilm.

So yeah, there wasn’t a big drama or a conspiracy, it was all because Disney likes to maintain a family-friendly image and sees gambling as an obstacle to that. It’s a bit anti-climactic, when all is said and done, but honestly, that’s just par for the course when it comes to the functioning of big corporations. Now that Disney owns Marvel, they are perfectly within their right to make these kinds of decisions, even if the little guys suffer for them. Thankfully, Playtech recently managed to make a new deal with Warner Bros. which would allow them to make slots based on DC movies, so at least we’re still going to be getting these high-quality slots that we know and love!

Casino & Gambling News – March 2016

Hello everyone, hope you have all been well! Isn’t time just flying! It’s March already and we have some news to catch up on. Let’s not waste time and jump straight into it.

Gambling industry news for March 2016

Paddy Power has been digging itself deeper and deeper in trouble. At the beginning of the year a tragic incident involving the death of a young Englishman kicked off a huge campaign of rage against this (and other) operators in the UK. There have been stones thrown on both sides with tabloids digging out stories about irresponsible behaviour and failure to comply with regulations by bookmakers. They on the other hand have accused the press of creating scandals and basically scaremongering by publishing not checked and exaggerated information.

At the same time, the released UK Gambling Commission stats for the previous year uncover the fact that despite anti-gambling advocates claims, the UKGC has reported that the 0.5% rate of problem gamblers has remained static between 2014 and 2015 (and is in fact a drop compared to the years before). Another interesting finding from the study is that 61% of the surveyed players still use a laptop/PC as their gambling device of choice, with just 23% using their phone and only 16% a tablet. So contrary to popular belief, desktop is still a king when it comes to gambling online.

Whilst that was all going on, Paddy Power was still in the process of merging with Betfair. The £5 billion deal was agreed back in August 2015 and got finally completed on the 2nd of February 2016. Recently published profits for Paddy Power were positive, despite increased gambling taxes and the ongoing media scandals. So all and all, forecasts for the new entity on the UK market are pretty positive.

Another good news is that Unibet is toying with the idea of introducing voice recognition allowing users to speak instead of type when playing casino games. The new feature is being reviewed by Apple and once it is accepted it will be made available over a major app update. Can’t wait to try it!

Ireland got tougher on gambling too. The ASAI (Advertising Standards Authority for Ireland) released some updates to the Code of Standards for Advertising & Marketing. To sum it up “Advertisements for gambling services or products shall contain a message to encourage responsible gambling and shall direct people to a source of information about gambling and gambling responsibly”.

A new player is welcome to the UK gambling market this year.

A new player entered the British market. The Gambling Commission granted a license to Contagious Gaming early this March. The platform offers a full package of solution for gaming operators, covering sports betting, casino games, bingo and online lottery. It already had a license for pool betting facilities and with the new one they can offer sports betting on live events as well as casino options. The company had a blast on the ICE London 2016 and seems to be going strong with professionalism and a wide range of services under their belt. Always good news to have fresh players on the market and for sure the ones benefiting most from it are the end users.

Industry Events: ICE Totally Gaming London 2016

One of the most important events in the world of gaming – ICE Totally Gaming is approaching. If you’re lucky to be in London between the 2nd and 4th February this year and you’re into anything from mobile, online & eSports betting to all forms of bingo, lottery and casino – you should sure be there.

Record number of attendees at ICE London this year.More than 25,000 participants from over 130 countries in a 39,000 square meters space featuring 500+ exhibitors, all that over the short period of 3 days. This year will be marked also by the launch of the dedicated ICE App – it will make life easy for all attendees, speakers and exhibitors by providing them with a tool to follow and plan the events and meetings they are attending. All that on the interactive floor plan that they can navigate on their device.
This year a number of seminars will be held, most of which free to access. Let’s briefly outline some below.
The Totally Gaming Academy contains a number of courses to educate businesses about industry challenges and their solutions. Great initiative for new and established industry players. The US Tribal Gaming is back to cover all things concerning tribal gaming. There is more for start-ups – GamCrowd Studio is a great opportunity to learn about how to get into the gaming business, with an accent to licensing and regulations. A great opportunity for all of the start-ups attending ICE Totally Gaming to learn about how to successfully set up a gaming business, deal with licensing and regulation, learn from fellow start-ups that went through that process already and grow. And if you are not quiet there but just have the idea of some online gambling – then this is just the right space for you – you can pitch ICE and hopefully make your dream come true (in any case you will get some healthy guidance and advice and invaluable networking).
For the first time this year there will be a learning programme for affiliates. Affiliate businesses in online gambling are an ever growing sector and so this move comes very timely. The seminar will uncover the pros and cons of being an affiliate and becoming a gambling operator, the differences between the two business models featuring talks and case studies from businesses who have gone through the process. Comparison to the market situation and main players between now and 5-10 years back will be covered as well as some ideas of how it will evolve in the future. Another seminar will look at the e-gambling trends in 2016 – opportunities, new revenue streams and emerging games in the online gambling world along with regulations changes.
Another fascinating topic that earned itself a dedicated seminar at ICE is Millennials & Gaming – gambling operators worldwide are looking at ways to recruit new players and their audience is now of a new generation, one who’s childhood was riddled with technological evolution at a very fast pace. Those new players are not easily impressed and much more demanding. This seminar will look into the millennials gambling habits, expectations towards experience and customer profile.
On top of all that, there is a number of seminars covering geographical regions – Africa, Italy, India and Japan Briefings.
All in all – one of the biggest events in e-gambling hosted this year, so if you can’t attend – keep an eye for more news and check out the ICE website and social accounts for the latest updates. See you soon!

Black Employees At Donald Trump Casinos Removed Whenever Owner Arrived

Casino machineAlmost everyone knows who Donald Trump is. He’s one of the richest men in the world, president of the Trump Organization, owner of hundreds of successful businesses, host of popular TV show “The Apprentice”… Oh, and US presidential candidate who is currently in the lead, according to polls. His presidential campaign has been rather controversial, to say the least. Many have accused him of intense racism and hatred for minorities due to his pledges to extradite immigrants (which I’m sure would please a lot of Native Americans) and cut certain foreign relations, such as the US’ dependency on Chinese manufacturing (despite the fact that this would put several major American businesses out of a job and will heavily inflate prices). Trump has dismissed these allegations entirely – “I don’t have a single racist bone in my body”, he says. He just wants to stop illegal immigration, that’s all! Well… The employees of one of his Atlantic City casino might beg to differ.

According to Kip Brown, currently a retired bus driver who used to work at Trump’s casino in the 80s, whenever the real estate magnate came for an inspection all black employees were forced off the floor and hidden away until Trump left. “They put us all in the back”, Mr. Brown remembered. While his account has yet to be backed up by any other employee of the casino, it’s not exactly hard to imagine how that can be true. After all, Donald Trump, despite his claims, has a known history of dislike for people of color. “Laziness is a trait in blacks” and other racist quotes are quite typical for him, as is his condescending attitude towards African Americans, who, as of 2015, comprise more than 15% of American population.

Take a Punt at Mobile Roulette Games to Be Quids in on the Go

Insights into the Mobile Gambling Industry

The future of gaming lies within the mobile sector, experts say, and why should gambling be any different? According to a recent research published by the Juniper Research company, by the end of 2019, more than 1 out of 10 people worldwide will engage in some form of cyber gambling, with more than half the people in the UK and Italy expected to be involved in such activities by that time.

I mean, let’s not beat around the bush, us Brits love to gamble. Online, offline, on race tracks, on the bus, at our in-laws place, on hounds, horses, real and even virtual sports, roulette and whatever not. You name it, we play it! And due to the hectic lives that we live nowadays, we are accustomed to doing all our daily actives on our mobile devices. Paying bills, shopping for clothes, appliances and even groceries and, of course, gambling. If many years ago mobile gambling was but a digital ambition of renowned software companies, now its a fact and experts believe that soon enough it will take over the greatest share of the iGaming market.

Roulette Apps – the Sheer Joy of Mobile Gambling

I am going to go out on a limb here and suppose that you’ve tried roulette at least once on your mobile device or you have at least watched some useful videos about mobile gambling apps. If you haven’t already, you really should! The biggest casino operators have amazing apps that are compatible with the most popular, if not all mobile devices and their games menu is one to go bonkers for. I mean they just keep getting better and better at it! Such roulette apps now have features like changing the camera angle on live-dealer tables, re-betting, playing more than one table at a time, even watching the roulette ball spin and chatting with the dealers.

In some cases it feels so real that I expect the waitress to come by any moment and ask me if I want a drink. Of course, whether you will be as impressed as I am with roulette apps depends on which casino you choose and, to some degree, even on your device and your Internet provider. It’s not my intention to give names, but I can tell you about the software platform that perform best in this area. And I will even raise the bar a bit and give you a taste of some mind-blowing mobile roulette apps, some of which with real-time action and dealers. Here, watch this video and see for yourself:

What you have just watched is the Immersive Roulette by Evolution Gaming and my personal favourite lately. And if the video wasn’t proof enough of what a great job they do at mobile live-dealer games, let me describe their products a bit. The first thing that won me over was that their smooth-running games can be played in HD quality, without any lags or disruptions. Moreover, you have all the betting options that you would have on their desktop client and that alone is something to be admired. And last, but by no mean least, you get to turn the time you spend travelling or waiting into an exciting and rewarding experience and be quids in at the end of the day.

In a nutshell – Take Steps to Mastering Online Casino at the Best Online Sites

Hello and welcome onboard, casino fans! This blog is dedicated to providing the latest casino news and finding the best solutions for both new and experienced players. I will provide useful beginners’ guides for novice casino enthusiasts who’s in the search of great virtual casino lands and I will be tracking the best offers for high-roller players.

Well, first things first, let me introduce myself. My name is Jake Marshal and I’m from Leeds, West Yorkshire. I graduated a couple of years ago and since then I’ve been working as a freelancer. My job requires spending a lot of time surfing the internet, so it helped me discover my passion for online gambling. I’ve always been brilliant in maths and I found myself challenged to play table and card games. I love exploring new casino sites and sometimes I spent a lot of time comparing and researching for the best online bonuses and deals. Having gained knowledge in searching gambling sites over time is the reason why I decided to start my own blog.

At the very first steps, I made the decision to build a website around my hobby and start posting on the latest casino and gambling news and events. Now, when this blog is a fact I’m looking forward to keep you on track with all those interesting news you don’t have the time to research about.

My Mission

I know a lot about online gambling and I want to help other players find their perfect casino match. I’ve featured some brief overviews of some of the top gambling sites and I’ve prepared lists of sites to makes it easier for you to find the site that tick all your boxes. No matter if you prefer poker or thrilling slots, this blog will provide you with useful information about all casino-related topics.