Online casino groups are operators that run a number of online casinos. Since the owner and operator are the same there are bound to be similarities in the structures of the individual casinos. At the same time the individual casinos will have their separate defining characteristics. This mix of similarity and differences exists in the bonus structure as well. The concept is illustrated using the online casinos of the Rushmore Group.

The Rushmore Group of online casinos is owned and operated by Isagro Holdings Ltd, Nicosia, Cyprus. The brands are Rushmore Casino, Cherry Red and Slots Oasis. All the brands are powered by software from Real Time Gaming. All three online casinos offer welcome bonuses. Rushmore Casino offers a 100% welcome bonus over the first two deposits subject to a limit of $888. Cherry Red offers a 100% welcome bonus over the first two deposits subject to a limit of $777. Slots Oasis offers a welcome bonus that is different in structure. The bonus is 400% of the first deposit only subject to a limit of $4,000. The wagering requirements at each online casino have to be met on slots, keno and scratch cards only.

There is greater similarity in the other sets of bonuses offered by the Rushmore Group of online casinos. The bonuses that are offered by all three online casinos are Blackjack Special Bonus, Weekly Bonuses, Weekend Bonuses and Authorization Bonus. In addition Rushmore Casino and Cherry Red offer a Slots Special Bonus and Cherry Red casino offers a Video Poker Special Bonus. Some of these bonuses are discussed in greater detail.

The purpose of the Blackjack Special Bonus is meant for players who want to wager the bonus onblackjack games. They can wager this bonus on slots, keno and scratch cards if they want to but wagering on roulette, craps, baccarat and pai gow poker is not allowed. At Rushmore Casino the Blackjack Special Bonus is 200% of the first deposit subject to a limit of $1,000. At Cherry Red it is 200% of the first deposit subject to a limit of $1,200. At Slots Oasis it is 200% of the first deposit subject to a limit of $1,000. At all three online casinos the Blackjack Special Bonus is only valid for deposits made using Credit or Gift Cards, eWalletXpress, UseMywallet and Click2Pay.

The Weekly Bonuses are reload bonuses and are identical at all three online casinos of the Rushmore Group. Each of the reload bonuses offers 50% of the deposit made and is maximum $500. Five bonuses are offered on Tuesdays and five on Thursdays to play slots, video slots, keno and scratch cards. Like wise five bonuses are offered on Tuesdays and five on Thursdays to play blackjack and video poker. The Weekend Bonuses too are reload bonuses that are identical at all three online casinos of the Rushmore Group. There are five 150% bonuses subject to a maximum of $750 for slots, keno and scratch cards. And there are five 100% bonuses subject to a maximum of $750 for blackjack and video poker.

The Authorization Bonus is an incentive to submit the authorization form in time. If the form is submitted within one month of making the first deposit then the player gets a cash refund of 10% the first five deposits. This is common to all the brands of the Rushmore Group of online casinos.

New players and regular prayers both will require assistance from customer support from time to time. However, players should not contact customer support for every small thing they need. It is essential that their first check out is the information required is available on the website of the online casino before seeking assistance from customer support. Players who contact customer support needlessly often irritate the representatives of the casinos and this may result in poor service when they really need assistance.

There are two important tenets about customer support. Assistance should be available when it is required. Assistance delayed is of no use. Also assistance should be available without cost to the player. Online casinos factor in the cost of providing customer support in the average payout percentages of their games. Therefore the player is already contributing to the cost of customer support as he is wagering. There is only one method of customer support that measures up both of these tenets. This method is support through live chat.

At one time customer support over telephone was very popular. However in most online casinos toll-free telephone support is available to very few areas such as the United States and Europe. Players from other countries have to call customer support through a paid line and the cost of which has to be borne by the player. This is obviously not acceptable. Another problem with telephone customer support is that it is time consuming. The discussion often involves the exchange of sensitive customer information and therefore the customer support representative has to be certain that he is talking to the stated customer. This involves a cumbersome verification process, which is all the more irritating if the player is paying for the time. Another problem that sometimes arises in telephone customer support is that players cannot understand the accent of the representatives because they belong to different countries.

Another customer support method that does not fulfill all the requirements is support through e-mail. This method is a free of cost to the player and also does not involve verification since the player is already logged in. However the response to e-mails takes time. There is a queue of e-mails to be attended to and most online casinos indicate that they would require up to 24 hours to respond to e-mails. This drastically reduces the utility of e-mails as a method of customer support. No player can afford to wait for 24 hours to sort out problems like payments not being recorded or software freezing up in the middle of a game.

Live chat customer support is perfect. It is free, no verification is required and the response is instantaneous. Therefore players must check out whether the online casino offers live chat customer support. In case it does not then that online casino is really not worth joining. The existence of live chat customer support does not guarantee the quality of the support. It is advisable that players check out the quality of the customer support before opening a real money account or at least before making a deposit at the online casino. Players need to frame some genuine queries the answers to which are not available on the website. Then the players should contact customer support through live chat and put these queries to the representative online and make their judgment as to whether the customer support is satisfactory or not.

New players should simply not assume that they will never require customer support. This simple advice about customer support if taken seriously will avoid heart burns at a later stage.

Average payout ratio is the term that all online casino players should completely understand. In the long run a person wagering at an online casino is expected to lose money. This does not mean that nobody will win. There will be winners and there will be losers but if all the payouts are combined then they will be less than the total wagers. This is because online casino games are designed to have a house edge which provides them with means to cover costs and make profits. The average payout ratio is the proportion of the wagered amount that a player can expect to get back in the long run. It is usually between 95% and 100% depending on the game classification. Therefore it is the essential for new players to know which games pay out more and which pay out less.

At the top of the list are most variants of video poker games and blackjack games. These games have a theoretical average payout ratio of more than 99%. There are variants of these games that have significantly lower payout ratios and therefore players need to check out individual variants before wagering. The average payout ratio for online roulette varies from about 95% to 98%. This depends on the variant of roulette being played. Online slot games generally have an average payout ratio of around 95%. In online craps the average payout ratio varies from bet to bet. In some bets it is as low as 85% whereas in some bets it can be as high 98%.

The question that is likely to arise in the minds of new players is why they should play any other online casino game apart from blackjack and video poker. There is a very reasonable explanation to this. Both blackjack and video poker games involve the player in decision-making unlike roulette, slots and craps. The theoretical average payout ratio of over 99% is based on the players making the correct decisions all the time. Players who have acquired this expertise usually stick to blackjack and video poker. But new players would not have this expertise and when they play these games they are likely to make mistakes. This can drastically reduce the average payout ratios for such players. Hence for players who do not have the requisite expertise in blackjack and video poker the other online casino games can offer better returns.

Everything is not about returns. There are other advantages that need to be factored in. Online casino gaming is also about enjoying oneself. To most players online slots offer far greater pleasure than video poker or blackjack. There is considerably more variety in online slot games.Slot games are visually very rich and have a number of exciting features. If the winning potential is kept aside for a moment, slots provide greater value for money. Another advantage of slots is that they offer very large payouts. In the large progressive jackpot online slots the payout can run into millions of dollars. Whereas such hits are extremely rare many players are willing to take the risk. Even if they do not win they consider their investment well spent because of the enjoyment they have derived. These kinds of wins are just not possible in games like blackjack and video poker.

Most online casinos offer a variant of roulette known as French Roulette. It is this variant that offers the highest average payout ratio of all roulette games and new players would be advised to avoid other variants. New players who are interested in craps should find out which are the bets that have higher payout ratios and stay with those. Unfortunately these bets are more complicated ones but it is worth the trouble in figuring them out because they pay out significantly greater amounts compared to the other craps bets.

After the player selects an online slot game to wager at he has to make up to three important decisions before he can start spinning the reels. This set of decisions is known as betting options. It includes selecting the number of paylines, the number of coins wagered per payline and the coin size. Most slot games allow players to choose all three betting options. Some slot games fix the number of coins wagered per payline, usually at one, and this choice is removed from the betting options. There are very few slots that fix both the coin size and the number of coins thus effectively freezing the line bet.

Before the betting options are discussed two terms need to be clearly defined. The line bet is the amount wagered per payline and is the product of the coin size and the number of coins per payline. The total bet is the total amount wagered per spin and is the product of the line bet and the number of paylines selected.

Most online slot games allow players to choose the number of paylines. However this is only a nominal choice because it makes little sense to play the online slot game without enabling all the paylines. Winning combinations, except for the scatter wins, result in payouts only if they occur in an enabled payline. The worst nightmare for a slots player can be to see five of like symbols in a payline that is not enabled. Progressive jackpot online slots emphasize the need for selecting all paylines even more pointedly. The progressive jackpot usually pays out only when the stated combination occurs in the highest payline. By selecting all paylines the total bet per spin can increase drastically, especially if the player has chosen a slot game that has 50 or 100 paylines. In such cases the player should enable all paylines and reduce his line bet so as to remain within budget.

The coin size and the number of coins per payline together contribute to the line bet. Some slot games allow only one coin to be wagered per payline, but they have a larger coin size range with a fair degree of choice within that range. The slot games that allow players choose the number of coins usually have a smaller coin size range with fewer stops in that range. Either way it usually works out to the same thing.

Consider the slot game Mayan Queen that offers one coin per payline with the following coin size range: 0.01, 0.02, 0.03, 0.04, 0.05, 0.06, 0.07, 0.08, 0.09, 0.1, 0.25, 0.5, 1, 2.5 and 5.00. This gives a line bet range from 0.01 to 5.00 with 15 stops. There is another recently released slot game Moonlight Mystery that offers up to 5 coins per payline and coin sizes of 0.01, 0.05, 0.1, 0.25 and 0.5. This gives a line bet range from 0.01 to 2.50 with 18 stops.

Hence the coin size and number of coins per payline have to be chosen in conjunction with each other so that the player gets the desired line bet. The line bet must be decided based on the players bankroll for the session and the number of spins that he expects to play. Suppose that the player has a bankroll of 100 credits and wants to play 100 spins. Then he should go for a line bet of 1.00. In games like Mayan Queen he simply chooses the coin size of 1.00. In games like Moonlight Mystery he can choose 2 coins of size 0.50 or 4 coins of size 0.25. Both options are essentially the same. Whatever the player wins can be kept aside for another day.

Playtech is one online casino software provider that has taken several steps in the last year to increase its potential in the online gaming industry. Regulation of online gaming appears to be imminent in both Europe and the United States. Playtech has ensured that it is in a position to exploit that situation when it arises.

Playtech was founded in 1999 by a group of entrepreneurs. In 2006 it was listed in the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange. However that year Playtech received its worst setback when theUIGEA was passed in the United States and Playtech had to withdraw from the American online casino market. Since then Playtech has fought its way back with a number of well-timed and the lucrative licensing arrangements and is now producing some of the most innovative online casino games.

One of the first agreements was with Paramount Digital Entertainment. This agreement allowed Playtech to develop online slot games based on two of Paramount Pictures most popular film releases. One of these slot games, Gladiator, was released earlier this year. The slot game was path breaking in the sense it featured the images of the actors who played the various roles in the movie. It also featured video clips from the movie. The other major agreement was with Marvel Entertainment Inc. This agreement was for developing online slot games based on superheroes featuring in Marvel movies. Of these, The Incredible Hulk and Iron Man have just been released. Both these online slot games feature exciting bonus rounds and expanding wild symbols.

The improvement in online casino games is not restricted to the slot games alone. The recent pack of games released has scratch cards, roulette and fixed odds games that promise to take online casino gaming to a new level. The scratch cards have exciting themes such as romance and football. The quality of graphics has been much enhanced from earlier scratch cards and the payouts are fantastic. Playtech is also introduced the first ever 3-D fixed odds game called Knockout. So good is the animation and the audio that players can actually feel the thrill of being inside the ring. However, the best of the latest games is the 3-D roulette. Players are transported into a 3-D animated Casino. This game is not only visually superior to its competition but also has innovative game features.

Playtech’s closest competitors in the online casino software industry are Microgaming and Cryptologic. In terms of number of online games being offered and addition to the portfolio each year Microgaming is far ahead. It crossed the 400 games mark earlier this year. The quality of Microgaming online casino games both in terms of audiovisual appeal and games features is excellent. However Microgaming is staying away from branded games, even though it was the first online casino software provider to introduce such games with Tomb Raider and Hitman. Cryptologic is less innovative but it has an excellent portfolio of branded games. Most of these are based on Marvel Comics superheroes. Playtech has now directly positioned itself against Cryptologic with its Marvel Movies superheroes. Cryptologic has chosen the route of expansion by licensing its games to operators that are functioning on other platforms and has signed a large number of deals using this business model.

Playtech was always counted in the top three of online casino software providers, but placed at number three. Very clearly Playtech is intending to change this and is fast narrowing the gap between the leaders and itself and would soon even overtake them.

Online casino software providers by and large offer similar games at their casinos. However each software provider has a slightly different way of classifying their games and has some unique and special offerings within each classification. Hence it makes sense for online casino players to understand the portfolio of each software provider so that he can make an appropriate choice. This understanding also helps the player in selecting appropriate games after he has narrowed down on a particular online casino software provider. This article discusses the classifications and some of the unique games in the Vegas Technology software.

Vegas Technology classifies its online casino games in four main categories. These are Table Games, Slots Games, Video Poker Games and Specialty Games. Table Games are further classified into blackjack, roulette and progressives. In addition there are a number of individual games like craps and many card games. Blackjack has the two most common variants, which are European Rules and Vegas Strip. In addition there is a blackjack game called Perfect Pairs. It has a side bet that pays off at 5 to 1 if the first two cards dealt to the player are of the same rank. If the cards happen to be of the same color as well the pay off is 10 to 1 and if the cards are of identical suits apart from being of the same rank then the pay off is 30 to 1. Vegas Technology software offers American and European roulette, but French roulette is not available. The other Table Games are the usual ones found in the other casino software as well, except for Mulligan Poker. In Mulligan Poker the player is dealt a five card hand after he places the ante bet. He can choose to keep the hand or he can “take Mulligan”. In the second option a raise bet is automatically placed and all five cards are replaced. The player’s hand is compared with the dealer’s. If the player has replaced his hand then the dealer is also given an opportunity to replace his hand if so required. The win or loss is decided by comparing the two hands and the payout is decided based on a payout table.

The Video Poker Games has nothing unusual to offer. Seven of the common variants of video poker are offered in the single-hand format and the 2-4 hand format. Deuces Wild is offered in the Mega Multi-Hand format as well, which plays ten hands at a time. The Slots Games are also standard fare. There are three reel and five reel slot games, with and without bonus rounds in separate categories. There is a category called Traditional Slots which has three reel slots but with themes other than the conventional fruit machine symbols. There are two points of departure in the slot games category in the Vegas Technology software. Vegas Technology offers to slot games with seven reels. These are Farming Futures and Lucky 7s. No other online gaming software provider offers seven reel slot games. The second unusual aspect is that all the progressive jackpot online slots in the Vegas Technology software are of three reels.

The Specialty Games category offers keno and some other unusual games. Poker Slots has cards dealt in a 5 x 5 matrix and calculates paylines vertically, horizontally and diagonally. Payouts are made when poker hands appear in enabled paylines. Poker Dice is played by rolling five dice with playing card symbols from nine to ace on the faces. Poker hands starting from two pairs payout according to a pay table. The other two games in this category Bingo Bucks and Dazzling Dice.

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