Bet24 live casino have posted details at their website of a series of substantial wins by one of their players.

How substantial?

The first was €100.000 (one hundred thousand Euros) that came from 13 spins and less than 20 minutes at a live roulette table in September last year! This was then followed two days later by a 29 round/spin session that resulted in a win of €80.000. The streak didn’t stop there because he was back in November to take another €100.000 from the casino.

Bet24 only added live casino games (powered by Evolution Gaming) in April 2011 and this is the biggest win in their live casino so far. Manager Kim Larsen has publicly offered his congratulations to the player who hails from the UK but I bet privately he’s hoping the lucky streak has come to an end.

“We of course congratulate this lucky man and wish him all the best of luck in the future,”  said Kim.

‘Live mini roulette’ or ‘Mini live roulette’ from Evolution Gaming is a cut-down form of their normal live roulette game, presented in miniature form.

From a rules perspective you are playing European Roulette odds and payouts. And yes, the vision you are seeing (croupier/dealer and wheel) is a live video feed.

I can see the game’s novelty value and operators like Paddy Power have clearly demonstrated its versatility – presenting it as a side-play option to their sport betting pages.

At Paddy's you can play live roulette while placing sport bets on the same page

But gee whiz it’s small!

For me live (online) games are about closing the bridge (or blurring the lines as one platform puts it) between the traditional and virtual gaming experience.  The bigger that real human dealer and wheel/table,  the closer this format comes to achieving its objective. A beautiful dealer streamed to a large screen monitor in full-screen…awesome; streamed to a postage stamp-sized widget…not so awesome.

Here’s hoping the bigger picture for the developers over at Evolution Gaming is, well….bigger pictures!

…Club of platforms offering full screen versions of live blackjack, baccarat and roulette that is.

It’s a pretty select club, consisting of Evolution Gaming, Playtech’s Euro studio games and Microgaming….and of course now EntwineTech.

Why full screen games are better

The below picture speaks for itself.

Full screen games replicate the real casino experience far better than the ‘standard’ view where the video only occupies a small portion of the playing interface. Full screen views put you closer the game, closer to the cards, closer to the wheel, and of course closer to the dealer.

The only negative with the full screen view is that its tolerance to slower internet connections isn’t good.  But this isn’t a negative if you’re connected at a decent speed.

EntwineTech’s full screen live roulette

Here’s a peak at EntwineTech’s new full screen roulette.

If you want to play it, visit VC live casino or 888 live.

Alright let me say from the top, yes I realize this list is NEVER going to be completely accurate.   Most of history’s biggest wins will forever remain a secret between the happy player and not so happy casino.

Most of history’s biggest punters are very discreet about their gambling exploits. Take Zeljko Ranogajec. Never heard of him?  He’s a professional gambler who bets an estimated $1 billion each year.  His biggest wins will probably only ever be known only by him and his bookmaker(s) and speculated on by the rest of us.

But then you get the odd big win that makes into the public domain for one reason of another: the casino in question is a public company and has to issue a profit warning; a streak occurs in a public gaming area and captures the attention of surrounding players; or the winner simply let’s the cat out of the bag.  The media catches wind and the story breaks.

Here are some of biggest documented table game wins (ie blackjack, baccarat, craps etc…jackpots like MegaBucks don’t count) considering both the size of the dollars and/or the length of the streak involved.

……………………………………………

Blackjack

In May 1995 Kerry Packer won $20 million from the Las Vegas’ MGM Grand.  Reports vary on how quickly he got there and how much he was betting per hand.  News Ltd takes the line from the Paul Barry biography, saying Packer was playing up to 8 hands at once on multiple tables, betting up to $250,000 per hand and at one point won 20 hands in a row. Within 40 minutes of his initial bet he was $25 million up.  He finished $20 million ahead and gave $1 million of it to his dealers as a tip.

…………

From December 2010 to April 2011 Don Johnson, the CEO of Wyoming-based Heritage Development LLC, won $15.1 million from three major Atlantic City casinos.  The streak was confirmed by Johnson and verified by casino insiders to the Press Atlantic City to have comprised:

• $4.23 million at Caesars Atlantic City in December; then
• $998,000 at Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa also in December; then
• $1.8 million again at Borgata during March and April; then
• $2.25 million in 2 nights again at Borgata later in April; then
• $5.8 million at Tropicana Casino also in April.

The Tropicana win came in just 12 hours.

…………
In November 1991, Kerry Packer was playing blackjack at a table in the public area of the  Las Vegas Hilton and won $7 million on the night.  The win prompted the Hilton to build him a special private room and invite him back the following year…he gave back $10 million. source: News Ltd
…………

Blackjack Hall of Famer Ken Uston relied more on a masterful understanding of the mathematics of blackjack, team play strategy and a lot of patience than a massive bankroll to produce one of the games’ most impressive streaks.  Time magazine wrote that Uston and his team members accumulated winnings of over $4.5 million during a systematic attack on tables around America between 1975 and 1981.

…………

In Casino Player magazine’s “100 Greatest Events in Casino Gaming” edition, Frank Scoblete tells the true story of a bum who cashed his $400 social security check and turned it into somewhere between $1.3 million and $1.6 million during a week of phenomenal luck.  Scoblete writes:

“The folks who deal to him and the folks who serve him say he is the rudest, crudest, but luckiest bastard they ever saw–with the emphasis on the “b” word. At the height of his winning he alienates just about everyone he comes into contact with at Treasure Island”

Unfortunately he also managed to drop it all before being kicked out of the casino by none other than Steve Wynn.

Roulette

Around Christmas 2004 Philip Green, owner of the Arcadia Group of retail businesses, went on a roulette streak at London’s Les Ambassadeurs that included a single night win of £2 million, and other wins of at least £1 million according to the Telegraph. The wins resulted in the casino’s owner, London Clubs International, having to issue a profit warning.

Baccarat

In 1990 the Wall Street Journal reported that in February of that year Akio Kashiwagi took $6 million from the Trump Plaza in Atlantic City and $19 million from the Diamond Beach casino in Darwin.  Kashiwagi was a Japanese real estate mogul known also as The Warrior and was infamous for trying to re-negotiate settlement of losses after unlucky sessions.

…………
In the last 2 months of 1997 Melbourne’s Crown Casino lost $55 million to unnamed Asian high rollers. One player took $12 million according to then Chairman Lloyd Williams. The wins forced Crown Ltd to have to raise additional funds via a rights issue.
…………

In May 2001 The Age newspaper reported the story of a Chinese player named Mo Chan who took $10 million from Sydney’s Star City Casino in just under a month playing in their Endeavour Room.  When the casino cut his limits to try and limit the damage an outraged Chan left the casino vowing never to return.  A Star City insider told the Age, “If he had $10 million of my money and was playing a game of pure luck I would want him to stay so that I could get it back.”

Craps

Tom Breitling, former owner of the The Golden Nugget in downtown Las Vegas, writes in his autobiography Double or Nothing of the gambling habits of one of the Nugget’s biggest high rollers, identified only as Mr Royalty.  Here’s an excerpt from the book:

“He’d pulled up at The Nugget one night at the end of September in his $350,000 Maybach and six hours and three minutes later walked out with $4,753,200 of our money. A week later he came back in for three and a half hours and took us for another $1.5 million.”

By the way, Mr Royalty wasn’t actually royalty.  He was a young video game developer who Breitling describes in his book as, “a five-alarm asshole”.

…………

On May 23 2009 a New Jersey grandmother named Patricia Demauro playing craps at the Borgata Hotel Casino and Spa in Atlantic City rolled her point 154 times in a row  – a streak lasting 4 hours and 18 minutes.  The odds of this happening are 1 in 1.56 trillion.

Mrs Demauro has never disclosed how much she won on that incredible night but as you can imagine it’s a number that many have speculated on.  Reasonable bets would put her winnings in the hundreds of thousands.  Expert bets (she was a novice) would have seen winnings in the millions.

…………

Red or Black. 1 spin. £1 million.

This was the situation facing Nathan Hageman, a 31 year old brick layer from Reading, England.  A 50/50 choice that could change his life considerably.

He chose red and the rest is history.

Red or Black is the latest Simon Cowell TV game show in which 1000 contestants are gradually whittled down through a series of 50/50 choice scenarios culminating with the last man standing getting to choose red or black on the spin of a pure 50/50 roulette wheel (18 red, 18 black, no green pockets) for £1 million.

Can you imagine what this guy was feeling as the ball bobbled in and out of  the pockets before finally coming to rest on red?

Of course the big difference between this and a normal roulette bet (odds aside) is that Nathan didn’t have any of his own cash riding on the outcome.  Not like that guy from Kent who sold his house, traveled to Las Vegas and put it all (£153,000) on red, which interestingly enough was the story that inspired Cowell to come up with his new TV show.

“It became a big story in America and I was fascinated by it.” Cowell told the Sun.

Red or Black runs for 7 nights on UK TV and has now crowned its second winner – 44 year old Kevin Cartwright who made it through to the final big spin round and chose black…correctly.

Until now if you wanted to play a game of roulette being conducted at a bricks and mortar casino in Ireland (live from your computer), then Vuetec was your platform, Dublinbet and Lucky Live were your online casinos, and the Fitzwilliam Card Club was your Irish bricks and mortar casino.

Now there’s another option courtesy of ViG and available now at Fairway Casino.

The new game is called ‘Irish Live Roulette’ and is conducted inside the Sporting Emporium Private Casino Club…less than 1km from the Fitzwilliam Card Club!

View Irish Live Casinos in a larger map

The game is available for play during the Sporting Emporium’s open hours which are 6pm to 6am (GMT).

Place your bets…either in the casino or from your computer.

And the winning number is…

Don’t ask me why, but 32Red is one of the most popular bets in roulette (hence the name choice of well known online casino 32Red).

There’s not a lot of logic behind it.  The 32 red pocket is the identical size and shape to all the others on the roulette wheel, and it’s payout is the same as all other straight-up bets.

Superstition is rarely rooted in logic but it certainly drives many gambling decisions and bets on 32red in roulette is chief among them…so much so that casinos will often take a bit of a hit on a night when this number comes up a lot.

Below is a session that would have had the 32Red faithful jumping for joy.

Unfortunately for me on this particular occasion, I’m not one of the 32Red faithful. I was having a crack at hitting a straight up zero and watched painfully as that little white ball danced all around my pocket before coming to rest right next door…3 times in 9 spins!

In fact to be honest it’s been a pretty ordinary week at the tables for poor old LD. No matter which casino, regardless of the game and irrespective of the dealer I could not take a trick.  I began the above session with a balance of just over $850 and pulled the pin at $401…par for the course this week (hence no dealer of the week).

Yep…about as lucky as a black cat that walked under13 ladders, smashed a mirror then spilled some salt (I was going to say ‘about as lucky as  a New Zealand sheep with two assholes ‘, but didn’t want to offend all the Kiwi farmers that read this blog).

There have been some big changes this week over at Eurogrand…and not just at their live casino.

First I’ll get the general stuff out of the way…

1. a cracking new site-wide overhaul; and
2. a new bonus structure with up to €/$1,000 for your 1st deposit, €/$500 on your 2nd deposit (60% match) and €/$2,500 on your 3rd deposit (15% match);

Now the live casino related changes…

More focus has been given to live games on the newly-launched site with a dedicated live dealer page containing direct links to load the each game in browser play format.

The other big change is the addition of a new roulette game (top left).  It’s a totally new look live roulette version from Playtech, and Eurogrand are the only operator currently offering it.

It’s a European roulette game with the same odds, payouts and bet options (neighbour bets easily accessed etc) as Playtech’s standard live roulette game, and the dealers you’ll find sitting at the wheel are the same faces you see at the other Playtech studio tables. But the look of the game…WOW!

It’s like  Evolution Gaming and Playtech got together and created a love child!  Below are a couple of pics…

Plenty of nice features too, like the below outcome history chart…

By the way, don’t be scared by the ‘VIP’ tag.  Minimum bets go down to $/€ 0.10.

The American Gaming Association recently released a white paper reaffirming their increasingly receptive attitude toward regulated online gambling in the United States.

The paper, titled “Internet Gambling: Five Years Later” outlines the current state of online gambling and establishes a case for licensing and regulation in the U.S.  According to AGA president and CEO Frank J. Fahrenkopf, the paper is just one of a number of activities planned by the AGA to ‘build a coalition of support’ for new internet gambling laws.

The full paper can be read here, but if you can’t be bothered reading all 31 pages, the cheat notes summarizing key contentions are set out below.

1. Online gambling worldwide is becoming and activity that is increasingly legalized and regulated.  Some 85 countries presently license and regulate online gambling operators.
2. US policy toward online gambling is described as ‘schizophrenic’, with legal online bets allowed for pari-mutuel wagering and state based lotteries and a prohibition toward other forms of online betting.
3. The effectiveness of UIGEA as a prohibition mechanism is questioned, given the fact that Americans spend $4 billion annually on offshore gambling sites.
4. Worldwide there are now many working examples demonstrating that effective regulation having regard to fair games, exclusion of underage gamblers, problem gambling control and money laundering is possible.
5. The technology now exists to effectively regulate online gambling withing the US.
6. The AGA recommends the following actions from the government:
   i) reinforce measures against illegal offshore operators;
   ii) remove ambiguities associated with UIGEA and legalize and regulate online gambling activity;
   iii) ensure the regulations introduced include mechanisms to address game fairness, as well as under-age and problem gambling.

The timing of the paper’s release is significant – shortly after the ‘Black Friday’ domain seizures at FullTilt, PokerStars and Absolute Poker. Last week  another dozen or so US-facing online poker operations have been shut down.

So the first of the  AGA’s recommendations are already well and truly in full swing.  The second and third will be tougher to get over the line.

But in the absence of locally licensed options, preventing Americans from gambling online with unlicensed offshore operators is a near impossible task.  If one is shut down, they’ll just find another.  As Fahrenkopf points out:

“In fact, in the immediate aftermath of online poker’s “Black Friday,” the companies that continued to operate in the U.S. in spite of the law saw a surge in new business”

Can you remember the last time you had to work at 4.00 am in the morning?

I can’t. But I can say with certainty that whatever the circumstances, I would not have been happy about it.

Few thing will keep me awake (happily) until 4.00am…

• a VERY good party;
• a big sporting event being televised live from other side of the world (FA Cup, Champions League etc etc);
• the birth of my daughter

…NOT work.

So when I logged at Hill’s live casino at 4.00 am Latvian time (11.00 am Melbourne time) I expected a rather low key, maybe even somber mood in the dealer studio.  I didn’t count on Kristiana.

Could not wipe the smile off her face.  Chat, laugh, giggle, chat, laugh some more, flirt, smile, explain to players joining the table why she is so happy, laugh again…you get the picture.  In case you don’t, below are a couple actual pictures.

And the icing on my live-roulette cake…

A straight up hit for a $360 win 4 spins in!