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Top Tips to Winning at Online
Casinos |
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Note: This page
was first written when this site was created in 2006, and although online
casinos (especially their T&Cs) have changed an awful lot since then,
most of these tips are still totally relevant today. Introduction While some
people claim to play online casinos with real money ‘just for fun’, I’m sure
that the majority of us play in the hope of winning. I think I fall somewhere in the middle – I
want to win of course, but I want to have fun doing it! Even though I admit my profits (2001 to
2010) was only made due to the advantage of using bonuses, I did not ‘abuse’
them by playing just the lowest risk games allowed and seeing if I can sneak
off with a tiny proportion of the bonus.
But
whatever your motives, if you are really serious about trying to win
you need to set yourself some basic ground rules, and these are my
recommendations:- Never play with money you are not prepared to lose I don’t
want to preach, because I’m sure you’re all pretty sensible out there, but
please do not gamble with money you are not prepared to lose and cannot
afford to lose. Gambling which gets
out of control wrecks lives as much as drugs or drinking. Financially more so
in fact; you could never drink a £/$1,000 worth of booze in one day – but you
could lose that in minutes at a casino!
Although I personally did use online gambling to help clear my debts
back in the noughties, I am not recommending that anyone else try to do the
same. Always record ALL your transactions I know
exactly how much profit or loss I’ve made since 2001 – but only because I
recorded everything. I recommend that all players should do this so that they
keep their gambling under control and know if they truly are winning or
losing. I do mine on an Excel
spreadsheet, but it could also easily be done by keeping a little ledger in a
note book. Make sure you record EVERY
deposit & EVERY withdrawal – no cheating now! Read & Understand the Bonus T&C’s If you’re
claiming a bonus always read all
the T&C’s related to it before
you deposit. In particular look for; Is there a maximum bet allowed while your bonus
is in play? How much do
you need to wager to qualify? Is the
bonus withdrawable once qualified? What games
do not count towards WR? What games
must you not play at all during WR?
If there’s
anything in the T&C’s that are not 100% clear to you, use live chat or an
e-mail the casino & ask! (Or e-mail
me & I’ll try to answer!) Record the T&C’s Casino
T&C’s can change surprisingly frequently, so when you first sign up and
each time you take a bonus record the T&C’s at the time for future
reference. Either print them out or
take an ‘electronic’ copy, or both! I
usually take a dated screenshot & copy it onto a Word document and also
copy & paste the text on to the same document (easier to read!). Wait for your bonus! At some
casinos (particularly MG’s) you may have to wait up to 4hrs for your bonus
after depositing and/or claiming it. DO
NOT start playing before the bonus hits your account. I know it’s
tempting – but bets placed before the bonus arrives will NOT count towards
your WR! Record your wagers Make sure
you know how much you’ve wagered if qualifying for a bonus. Some casinos have a very clear indication
of how much you have wagered and/or still need to wager for your bonus. But some
casinos that I’ve seen have either crap, or non-existent log facilities – so
I keep track manually. For slots I
record the number of spins (usually by using autoplay) and multiply by the
cost of each spin. Again I use a
spreadsheet, but you could just as easily manually write it down & add it
up. Be patient, patient, patient! By their
very nature most gamblers are impatient. They all want the same thing – a
quick profit! Otherwise they wouldn’t gamble – they’d just stick their cash
in the building society for the annual 2% interest. So don’t be in a great rush to meet the WR
qualify for your bonus. If you do, you
are more likely to place larger and more risky bets. There is no hurry – all bonuses I’ve ever
seen have at least 7 days to meet the WR. Take your time with several
different sessions – get some good playing time for your money! (I once
took 3-4 weeks to do a slots-only $8,000 WR at an MG
casino – and made $375 profit!) Don’t abuse the monthlies! Decent
monthly bonus offers are getting fewer & further between these days, so
make sure you don’t get excluded from any by a playing style which the casino
could deem ‘abusive’ even though not breaking any of their specific
T&C’s. Eg. Don’t just play one
low-risk game for the whole WR. Try to wager a bit more than the required
WR. Avoid depositing, meeting all the
WR and withdrawing all in one visit to the casino. Don’t push or chase If you’re having
a great run of luck don’t push it too far, or if you’re having a dire
session, don’t chase your losses (believe me – we’ve all done it!). Set
yourself max win/loss targets before you start playing each game – and stick
to them. Once reached, switch to a different game! If you’re making money – don’t waste it! If you’re
having a good month or just a good winning streak at a casino – don’t go mad
and lose your profit by doing crazy big bets, or playing games with low
chances of winning. (Been there – got
the T-shirt!) By all
means have a ‘little dabble’ like this, but make
sure you don’t waste too much – you never know what rotten luck might be
waiting for you in the next casino….! Have fun! If you are
taking your gambling too seriously, thinking about
it all the time or getting stressed & depressed when you lose, maybe you
should be asking yourself if you should be gambling in the first place. Remember that gambling is really just a
form of entertainment that you are paying for – the house edge is always
going to be against you, and you are expected to lose… that doesn’t mean you have
to though! J +
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KK’s Winning Methods |
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Again, this section was first written in 2006 when I was taking
advantage of the more generous bonuses casinos offered their players back
then. I have kept it on the site for
posterity! Introduction I do not
claim that my methods are the very best way to win online; in fact I’m
certain they are not! But this
website is about my experiences, so I’m going to tell you how I like to
play. For my first 5-years online I
used to play mostly card games – this is reflected in my original text below.
By 2006 I had switched to nearly exclusively slots play, but still continued
to make regular profits! I feel the main reason for this is my self-control
in using the Frames & Targets and Money Management as outlined below, which
can be allied to all casino play. First of
all, I am a committed low-roller and normally start playing all games at the
minimum, or the next level up. The
biggest bet I normally play on card games is £/$15, and that’s only on games
where the minimum is £/$5. The main
reason for this is I hate losing big bets! Secondly,
in the long run you cannot win from casinos.
Why? Because of a little thing called 'The House Edge'. All casino games are mathematically
engineered to ensure that no matter what you do, over an infinite number
of rounds they WILL take a precise % (averaged across all rounds) of
your money. If you're
still not sure what House Edge is, I'll try to explain; Suppose you
gave me £100 to toss a coin 100 times. Every time it lands on heads I
will give you back £1.10, and every time it lands on tails I will give
you £0.85. If a
miracle happened & I tossed heads 100 times you would win £10 off me (100
x £1.10 = £110), or if the miracle went the other way and it was 100 tails
you would lose £15 (100 x £0.85 = £85). However, on
average I would toss 50 heads & 50 tails and you would end up
getting £97.50 back ((50 x £1.10 = £55) + (50 x £0.85 = £42.50) = £97.50. You
would lose £2.50 which is 2.5% of your original £100, and so the house edge
is 2.5%. Now 2.5%
does not sound very much, but in gambling terms it is pretty damn big! (For
example, Blackjack games have a house edge of about 0.5% on average - though
some variations go down as low as 0.015%!).
Whatever the house edge, as long as the casinos have the mathematical
advantage there is nothing you can do to beat them in the long run... Except of
course… you can - if you have a head start!! There is no
possible way to beat the casinos mathematical advantage on any given game in
the long run (if there was any
way, do you think the casinos would still be making the game available to
play?). However there are strategies involving the use of bonuses (for a head
start), and money management (loss control) which can let you win in the long
run. As I said
before, I don't claim to be any kind of expert in this, but I must be doing
something right because I have made reasonable profits from online casinos
year on year since 2001! And I am not
a bonus ‘abuser’ – I NEVER only play the lowest house edge game possible to
WR & withdraw, and I dislike other players who do this as it only forces
the casinos to tighten up on their bonuses & associated WR’s. I play for fun as well as profit, and
frequently switch between games, even the ‘high risk’ ones, like slots. Sometimes I forget all my strategies, go
completely bonkers and blow my stack (as you will see if you read my Personal
Results page), but hey – I’m only human!
I just give myself a good telling off & try not to do it too
often. J I never set
out with the following particular strategy in mind, and actually never even
thought about analysing my method until I started compiling this website in
Feb-2006! In a
nutshell this is how I do it:- Frames & Targets Using the calendar
month & Bonus WR gives me a 'Frame'
to work within & a 'Target' to
aim at. It gives
structure to my gambling. For
example: A 100$ 100% bonus with a WR of Bx20 ($2,000); I take this
bonus at any time during a month, and my first target is to finish the
WR by the end of that month while losing as little of the bonus as I can (but
with out ‘abusing’ it). Only when I have
completed the wagering requirements do I have to start making the
important multi-choice decisions.
These decisions will be based mainly on how my overall month is
looking (including all the casinos I am playing). Firstly, how have I done at the current
casino? If my account balance is less than 50% of my original deposit, I will
normally play on until it is around 50% - or I bust out. Secondly, if I have taken the bonus early
in the month, I wont know how it’s going to turn
out, so I will just leave that account alone until I
have a better picture. I am never
afraid to leave any casino account untouched for weeks at a time. If towards
the end of the month it is looking tight (only a small profit) I will take
what I have & wait for the next month. (Remember, my prime target is just
to not lose in any month). If I am
well up I will risk a bit of my profit to see if I can win even more, but I
am careful not to risk too much (say about 20% max). If I’m down
from about $1-$150 I will try to recover by playing on in the casinos
I’ve already started, or I may decide to take up a new decent sign-up bonus
and attempt to recover with that. If I’m down
$200 or more, I will call it a day (or rather, a month!), lick my wounds
& wait for the next month. Money Management Money
Management gives me further targets and means I cannot lose more than a
certain amount in a given month, but there is no limit to how much I can win! Per Casino Limits: The first limiter is how much I
need to deposit for the bonus I’m claiming.
Say I take a bonus on a $100 deposit, and suffer a complete blow out –
I will not deposit more to try to win my money back, instead I will move on
to a different casino, different bonus.
So the most I can lose at that casino is $100 – but of course, there
is no limit to how much I can win if I get really lucky! If I had total blow outs at the first 4-5
casinos I played in a month I would probably stop right there & then,
rather than risk having a mega-loss month. However, this has never happened
yet – and I hope it never will! Per Game Limits: Before I start playing any
game I set myself targets on how much I am prepared to lose and how
much I am prepared to win! The maximum
loss is easily understood – if I’m having a bad run of luck in a game I know
from experience it does not mean it must turn around & get better – there
is just as much chance of it getting even worse. I don’t have exact set rules for this, and
it does vary a bit from game to game, but typically for card games with
starting bets of $2 my max loss would be about 10x this = $20, and for $5
games about $40-50. With slots it is
roughly 10-20% of my total account balance.
You may not
understand why I have a maximum win, but remember that the house edge is
always against you, so if I’m ahead it means I have been lucky and am beating
the odds. But runs of good luck never
go on for ever, so I try to get out before the tide turns the other way. My win limits are roughly the same as my
loss limits, but of course, I am much happier to exceed these! For example, if I was playing $2 BlackJack
with a win target of $20, but a good run took me to $24 up, I would play on
with the $4 and try to get to $30. If I did that I might (if I’m feeling
lucky) try for $40. But then I’m very
strict with myself – if my profit falls back to my original target of $20, I
WILL stop and move to a different game.
Slot play is a bit more tricky, but basically
if I’ve had an unusually good run of decent wins I’ll stop too. Playing Strategy It makes me
cringe when I hear of players using the ‘martingale’ system – this is when
you increase your bet each time you lose in the hope of winning back all your
losses. In my book this is a recipe
for disaster! This is
why; You lose a $5 hand of BlackJack, so you double your next bet to $10,
lose & bet $20, lose & bet $40, lose & bet $80 – hooray! You win
the hand! You get $80. Total wagered =
$155, total won $160. Well done – you just risked $155 to win $5! Hmmmm, that does not sound like good odds to me. I use the
opposite strategy – I increase my bet when I win. So if I was playing $5 BlackJack and won a
hand, I would bet $10 on the next hand. If that won it would be $15 or $20 on
the next one depending on how well the session is going. Win or lose, I would go back to $5 on the
next hand. I use this
strategy (or something very similar) on most low variance card games, but not
so much on higher variance ones (see Beginners Guide to
Cards). The only card game where I
would increase my bet after losing is Let it Ride, and then only small
increments after at least 5 or 6 losing hands. (The chances of getting a
winning hand are only 1 in 5). Slots are a
different matter altogether, and are much more subject to my perception of my
chances of winning. I cover
this in more detail on my slots page.
There are loads of different types of slots, but I mostly play the
5-reel multi-line bonus video slots.
On these slots the hope is to get the bonus round because this is
almost the only chance of profiting from them. But you need to know the chances of
this. On Microgaming's Ladies Nite &
Spring Break, for example, the chances of getting the 3 scatter symbols to
trigger the bonus round is one in 143 spins, so I start at very low stakes
for about 100 spins, then increase it slightly every 25 or 50 spins. If I get
to about 250 spins without it ‘hitting’ and/or I reach my max loss limit, I
will give up & try a different game. Take care – and be
LUCKY!! KK. |
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Page created: March-2006. Last full review: 10-04-18. Last
update: 10/04/18