ONLINE SLOTS

Online slots often have a wider range of wagering options:

Many machines in live casinos are tied to a specific coin denomination – you’ll see 1-cent machines, where you can wager 1 cent per payline, or 25-cent machines, or $1 machines. Even on machines that offer multiple denominations, players in live casinos have a limited number of options. The most common configuration is for players to be able to choose among three denominations – 1 cent, 2 cents or 5 cents per line, for example, or on high-denomination games, 25 cents, 50 cents or $1 per line.

Cleopatra:

In the first months after online casinos began operating in the U.S. state of New Jersey, Cleopatra was the most popular game. It helps to have a familiar face. The original Cleopatra game has maintained a niche in live casinos for more than a decade and has inspired sequel games including Cleopatra 2 and Cleopatra Wild Tiles. Symbols are Egyptian-themed, such as scarabs, the Sphinx, the Eye of Horus and, of course, Cleopatra. The Cleopatra symbol is wild and worth double payoffs on any winning combinations that include it. Three scattered Sphinx symbols launch 15 free spins, with winning payoffs tripled. If you get three more Sphinx symbols on a free spin, you retrigger the event and get 15 more free spins. The retrigger feature and the multipliers mean bonus wins can get quite large, and that’s a key to Cleopatra’s popularity both online and in live casinos.

Cool Jewels:

Instead of usual video slot screen of five reels that are each three symbols deep, Cool Jewels has six reels, each six symbols deep. All symbols are gemstones, and they move down the reels in a “cascading reels” format. When jewels of the same type are grouped together in a winning combination, they explode, add credits to your meter, and leave blank spaces. The gems above then slide down to fill the blank spaces, and new jewels slide onto the screen to replace those that have moved down. That opens the potential for new winning combinations, and each play continues until no more winners are formed.

Black Knight:

Medieval times are the theme of this game with the traditional video configuration of five reels, each three symbols deep. Symbols include kings, queens, scepters, orbs – the sights of a European court of the Middle Ages. The black knight on horseback is a wild symbol, and he expands to fill all three spaces in a vertical column to create extra potential wins. The knight is on horseback, animated with a galloping motion. The free-spins bonus is launched with three shield symbols. The shield is black with a gold chess knight, befitting the black knight. In the free spins, the black knight symbol is something special. He not only expands to fill a column, he stays in place for all remaining free spins.

Shadow of the Panther:

This looks like a standard five-reel game with each reel being three symbols deep, but look closely. The high-paying big cat symbols come in two varieties. Some symbols contain only a single leopard, tiger or black panther. But some contain two, and a two-image space counts as two symbols. If you have a single panther on each of the first three reels, then you have three in a row and will get a small payback. But if symbol with one panther on the first reel lines up with a symbol with two panthers on the second reel, then you have also have three in a row, worth the same return. Five single symbols in a row bring a nice return. But five double symbols on a payline is 10 in a row, and that’s a credit- building bonanza. A common pay table for Shadow of the Panther shows a six-credit return per credit wagered on a winning payline if you have three black panthers, rising to eight for four panthers, 10 for five and so on, up to 250 for 10 panthers. Not only that. Shadow of the Panther uses stacked symbols. It’s possible – though not common, of course – to land stacks of the same symbol to entirely fill columns all across the screen.

In the United Kingdom, for instance, the Gambling Commission regulates online play just as it regulates live casinos, sports and race betting shops, bingo and gaming machines at arcades.

Geolocation tools are critical. Online casinos must be able to tell where their players are located.

Online casinos may accept wagers from any nation in which online gaming is legal.

However, the situation is much different in the United States.

HOW PLAYERS MAY FUND THEIR WAGERING?

In order to play, you must have credits in an online casino. And unlike playing in live casinos, you can’t just walk up to a machine and slide currency in a bill validator. Instead, you must sign up for an account in an online casino, and you must add funds to the casino account.

You can add funds in several ways:

CREDIT CARDS:

Buying online casino credits with your credit card is fast, easy and available worldwide. This was problematic in the United States for several years after 2006 bill prohibited credit card transactions for illegal online gambling.
However, in a 2011 then-assistant Attorney General Virginia Seitz issued an opinion that the Wire Act of 1961, which had been interpreted as banning online gambling, applied only to sports and horse betting. Since then, the U.S. federal government has left it up to individual states to ban or legalize online gambling, and has opened the door to credit-card funding of accounts.

PAYPAL:

The well-known facilitator of electronic funds transfers works with online casinos just as it does with eBay and online merchants.

NETELLER:

A United Kingdom-based electronic wallet system, Neteller allows you to open account for funds transfers to and from online merchants, including casinos.

BANK TRANSFER (ACH):

The ACH stands for “Automated Clearing House,” and it facilitates funds transfers between banks. It can transfer funds from your bank account directly to your online casino account.

CASH:

This works especially well in jurisdictions such as New Jersey, where online casinos are affiliated with live casinos. You can deposit funds at the live casino cashier’s cage and have the money credited to you online account. There are other methods of funds transfers – when you investigate signing up for an online account, check the site of the casino you select.

Regulation is the key to randomness. In order to know how random the games are, you must know who’s regulating them. In the United Kingdom, where a number of online casinos run from the Isle of Man, games have a reputation of being well-regulated. In many jurisdictions, especially in Caribbean nations, online casinos seek to build player trust with independent certification of their games.

If you see games have been certified by services including eCogra, GLI and its test labs either in Europe or Canada, Gaming Associates or iTech, you can be confident the games have been tested for randomness. Games in the United States must live up to the randomness standards of their host jurisdiction. Nevada, New Jersey and Delaware all are vigilant about randomness in live casinos, and online games are overseen by the same regulatory bodies. Regardless of whether you’re playing OMG! Kittens in a live casino or online casino, you’re getting a random game.

illions of people play slots in non-wagering social casinos, whether via social networking sites such as Facebook or through mobile device apps. Social casinos are not regulated in the same way as wagering casinos. There are no age limits, and restrictions on who may play and where.
These social sites are not making money off game results, and there has been no regulatory concern over whether the games are random. However, social casinos are not nonprofit organizations with no interest in your money. Standard procedure is that they will give you free credits every day, or every few hours. If you want to play for free, you can, and no money need ever change hands. Like many online games, there’s a level-up feature. The more you play, the more levels you move up, and as you move up you unlock more slot games to play.