business class airfare, limo transfers, 5 star hotel, $1k for dining, $1k for shows, Grand Canyon chopper...

It’s not too late to get in on this one, but you’ll have to go hard to get to the top of the leader board.

The promo is being run at Party Casino and up for grabs is a trip to Vegas worth $13,000.  This includes return airfares to the value of $8,000, limo transfers, accommodation in a 5 star hotel ($2,500), a dining and show allowance of $2,000, and a chopper tour of the Grand Canyon.

It’s a straight wagering comp with the 50 leaders at 23:59 ET on 13th June allocated prizes based on their position on the leader board.  There’s still plenty of time to crack the top 50 if you’re a high turnover player so if you’re shopping for live casino options right now this could be worth a look.

Strictly speaking the promo is for Palladium Lounge VIPs only, however if you’re turning over enough to make it onto the top 50 leader board you will easily meet qualification criteria for the casino’s Palladium Lounge VIP Club.

All players making the top 50 leader board get prizes, as follows:

To visit Party Casino, click here

Good luck!
LD

Victor Chandler's loyalty bonus offer

Most online casinos offer VIP or loyalty programs and as a general rule, the bigger the casino the more compelling the program. It’s simple economics (or accounting) – the big guys have bigger budgets at their disposal to reward their VIP players.

So rather than a few hundred dollars in bonus funds here or there, they reward in the thousands, or ten of thousands.  And other sweeteners like tickets to various holiday destinations or events (World Cup, Las Vegas etc), nifty gadgets, unlocked table limits and dedicated account managers are also provided to enhance the gaming experience of their high value players.

The above maxim (bigger casino = better rewards program) works well for live casino games because most of the casinos that have adopted the platform are the bigger operators…bet365, Unibet, Ladbrokes, 888.com etc etc.  Also, as a newish platform, most casinos seem pretty eager to push their live games games to VIP players, believing it’s a format that has natural appeal to these players.

Anyway, the upshot of all this, is that most of the casinos listed on this site run active rewards programs.

What do I get? How do I qualify? Which casino has the best VIP loyalty program?

The thing with VIP programs, is that casinos are very non-specific about both what you get, and how you qualify to get it.  Unlike general promotions and new player sign-up bonuses where precise terms and conditions are published, the VIP programs are largely governed by casino discretion.

BetFred offers a tiered VIP structure (see below) with the only guide as to how to move up in class provided as:

“the more often you play, the faster you’ll climb the ladder”

Victor Chandler are similarly vague in their description of how you get access to their £3000 weekly loyalty bonus (per player – see top promo image)…

“Play in the Live Casino for real money on a regular basis and you will be rewarded with a weekly bonus amount that reflects your game play”

As are bet365, whose qualification criteria for Diamond VIP status is as follows:

bet365 are typically vague about qualification for special treatment

Because of the discretionary nature of these programs, it will likely only be when you get a call from the casino manager that you know you’ve earned any entitlement, and what exactly the entitlement is.  It’s therefore very difficult to compare programs unless you’ve actually experienced them first hand.

One casino that does seem to dangle some big VIP carrots on a regular basis though, is 888.com.

Something tells me you're looking for big baccarat bet limits

OK so we did a post on the biggest roulette and blackjack limit games, so to be fair to the baccarat players we should let you know where the highest live baccarat limits are.

And while the big brand European operators running Evolution Gaming’s platform seem to have a mortgage on the high roller action where blackjack and roulette are concerned, baccarat is a slightly different story.

It should be mentioned, that any of the majors will extend limits on application to VIP players, but as we have no way of doing a comparison of privately agreed limits, its strictly advertised limits we’re talking about here.

So,cutting to the chase, here it is – the biggest single hand bet you can place playing live baccarat…

The casino:

Bodog88

The game:

Premium Baccarat -  14 seat table with peeks for highest staked player

The limits: $15,000

For a complete list of maximum and minimum bets for all live games, visit our bet limits page where you’ll limits ranging from a low of 0.10 cents/pence to highs of $200,000 at over 25 different casinos.

Something tells me you're looking for big blackjack bet limits

We did a quarterly review of live game bet limits the other day to ensure our published limits were on the mark, and edited accordingly if not.  One of the pleasant surprises coming out of the review was the fact that ranges have expanded a little in the time since we’ve been looking at this niche.

The bet minimums have dropped at some casinos (check the lowest limits here) and bet maximums on offer have gone through the roof, for those with deep pockets and appetites for risk.

Casinos streaming action from Evolution Gaming’s Gold tables in particular have seen some really big limits introduced and so its no surprise to find the the biggest blackjack limits at one of the Evolution powered casinos.

So, here it is.  Live dealer blackjack for high rollers with limits as big as you’ll find online…

The casino…

Unibet Live

The game…

Gold Blackjack

The Limits…

Bet minimum (£,€,$): 100  |  Bet maximum (£,€,$): 10,000

If you know of a high bet max than this, please let us know in comment form below.  To visit Unibet, click here.

Below is  a couple rounds I played on Unibet’s Gold Blackjack table, although I didn’t get anywhere near the $10,000 upper limit on my bets!

Something tells me you're looking for big limits?

If you’re like this guy (not necessarily with the same fashion sense, but you get the idea) and shopping around for the biggest casino game limits then this could be worth reading.

Now we’re not going to pretend to be across every single game limit at every live casino.  In truth, published limits are pretty malleable anyway and high rollers wanting to test a casino’s mettle can always ask for limits to be extended and most casinos will usually oblige…within reason.

But for the purposes of this post, we just thought we’d let you know which game we believe, at this point in time, offers the highest published table bet limit for a live online game.

Now as already noted, we haven’t reviewed every single casino.  But we have checked quite a few (with most of the big names amongst them) including:

• William Hill
• bet365
• 888.com
• Unibet
• Canbet
• Ladbrokes
• 21 Nova
• bodog88
• Victor Chandler
• Blue Square
• Royal Vegas
• BetFred
• Dublinbet

If there’s a smokey out there with limits that eclipse the biggest bets these guys have to offer we’d be surprised to say the least.

So, the game with the biggest published limits…

It’s a tie, between Gold European Roulette and Gold French Roulette, both offered at Unibet.

And the limit? … $US 200,000 per spin.

If you know of any limits above this we’d love to hear from you.  For a comprehensive list of bet limits by casino and game click here.

cheers

LD

The Sultan on his own stamp

Q. What do Kerry Packer, Adnan Khashoggi and the Sultan of Brunei all have in common?

A. Enormous propensity for gambling and the ability to bring the house down with a single streak.

The terms high roller and whale are thrown around quite a bit but in gambling circles, but there are really only a handful of guys with both the gambling appetite and bankroll to really scare casinos.  And this statement is not at all being over dramatic.  A good night at the tables for a real whale can (and quite possibly has) bankrupt casinos.

It was one such good night in 2004 when Paul Newey, who reputedly wagers up to £300,000 per spin on roulette, took £3 from Star City Casino and forced owners Stanley Leisure to issuing a profit warning that wiped 12% off their share price.   When the Aspinalls Club ran out of money and was forced to close its doors in May 1990, there were reports that Kerry Packer was responsible – though neither the casino nor Packer would confirm or deny.

That old saying that the house always wins, because it can weather what ever you throw at it before you eventually give it back…just doesn’t apply in the case when the players’ pockets are much bigger than the casinos.

The dollars these guys throw around are astronomical.  And while all the facts and numbers are hearsay and vary from source to source (according to the Mail Packer’s 1995 $US20 million win at the MGM Grand came from a 7 hand streak while  News reports it as a 20 hand streak; the Review Journal puts the win at $US 26 million), what is consistent are the orders of magnitude.

Philip Green, owner of the UK’s Topshop reportedly wins or loses up to £8 a night at his casino of choice – Les Ambassadeurs in London.  Packer during his 1995 win at MGM was, according to witnesses playing 8 blackjack hands at once, staking $US250,000 on each!   Adnan Khashoggi’s wife complained that her then husband used to regularly cash half million pound cheques during a night at the casino back in the 1980′s!

Other names whose win/loss positions move in the multiple millions in a single night include Malaysian tycoons Tan Sri Lim Kok Thay and Quek Leng Chan, Indonesia’s Putera Sampoerna, and Hustler founder Larry Flynt.

After reading up on the exploits of recent history’s best known high rollers, no matter who the source, the Daily Mail, News Corp, the Independent or Forbes the consensus appears to be that Packer, Khashoggi and the Sultan were in leagues of their own at the casino tables.  And of this elite group, Packer seems to be the undisputed champion.

His exploits at the tables have become the stuff of legend and are so numerous they could fill a book.  Way back in 1987  he lost £8 million in a single night at London’s Ritz casino.  That’s probably closer to £20 million in today’s currency.  Apparently he was playing multiple seats at 2 blackjack tables and cashing £1 million cheques to fund chip purchases.  1999 was another bad year at the London casinos with a losing streak put anywhere from $US15 to 30 million.  In September 2001, stranded in Las Vegas when airlines were grounded after the 9/11 attacks, he dropped around $US 30 million playing baccarat hands at $200,000 a pop.

But it wasn’t all bad.  There was his $US26 million winning night at MGM Grand.  A run at Crockfords in London that associate Trevor Kennedy estimated to be ‘about 10 million quid’ and which lead to the casino’s manager asking that he find another casino to gamble at – a request that apparently brought no end of joy to Packer.  And of course there was the Aspinalls win – no figure reported but big enough to put the casino out of business.

A couple of months ago we posted a news item about a guy who had approached us who was entertaining placing a $1 million roulette bet.

We’re not about to re-hash the whole story here for the blog, but thought this would be a nice vehicle just to keep anyone interested on how this little story is progressing.  And the first key point to report is that NO, it hasn’t happened yet.

To be honest, I was doubtful from the outset.  But then stranger things have certainly happened, and Mr Roulette (as we call him) has on numerous occasions assured us that he is deadly serious about taking the plunge so to speak.  Of course no undertaking has been given as to when exactly this will happen…nor can one be expected.

So what is he waiting for?  Well, (and this is kind of funny) – what Mr Roulette is waiting for is a dream that is going to tell him exactly which colour to bet on…red or black.

We’ll be sure to keep you posted if that dream and the resulting bet ever happens!