By Samantha Williams

The one thing about playing slots which can be dangerous, is that these type of games are so much fun they can become addictive. If you are playing for money every time and you don’t take care what you do, you may end up with a gambling problem, or possibly very rich! The beauty of playing freeslots online is you can slot until you drop and never have to worry about even spending a penny. These games are available to play at most good casinos online and you don’t even have to register as a member to play; but this is not the case with all online casinos – you first have to register and login to play and you still can’t play all of the games.

Playing free slots games can prepare you, help you get used to it and find out the best way to play. Slots are completely random games, therefore strategizing is a waste of time, there is no way to change a winning outcome. But you could call it strategy to trial freeslots to see what coin range will fit into your budget and how to spread out your bankroll. Let’s call it an exercise in quantifying random adventure, rather than strategy!

Freeslots come in all shapes and sizes and all types of themes, but the easiest way to find a theme you enjoy is to first find a site that you like which allows unlimited play for free. As an exercise, I chose Victor Chandler Casino, because I like Net Entertainment games and I k now they allow free play. Simply click on the slots tab, and the first video slots game which caught my eye, was Jeff Wayne’s “War of the Worlds”.

This game can be played through Flash in “Enhanced 3D Animation mode, with rich audio and in a reduced version. I chose the recommended (rich) version and this is currently loading as we speak. Please note, I have not registered at this site (although I am seriously thinking about it!), and it is allowing me to play this brilliant sots game in “demo” mode. Let’s just say that this is an “entertainment experience” the music is completely fabulous and you get to play slots while you listen. This is a massive 100 pay line game, and playing for the minimum maximum wager, if that is what you call it; costs £€$5.00.

This site features some unbelievable slots; titles such as Arabian Nights, Spellcast, Blood Suckers, Boom Brothers, Beetle Frenzy – there are so many, and all can be played for free. There are also a huge amount of casino table and other games to choose from; it really is a superb site. They are not the only online casino where you will find freeslots obviously, but I have certainly found it to be, one of the fastest and least troublesome for free fun.

By Samantha Williams

“Man against the machine” was once a far fetched Asimovian ideal, this is no longer true, we have reached the age of superior technology and playing video poker online could be said to be a matter of man against the poker machine. In Asimovian ideology, this would have been a war of attrition with the machine winning virtually every time, but there is one thing some gamblers still don’t understand regarding playing real money games online for real prizes, and this is the Random Number Generator. While Asimov ideas were once a progenitor of the fictional future, many of these ideas have actually come to pass and been relegated to the past.

What the RNG does is make it fair to play at online casino games, by consistently and fairly emulating, the same conditions as would appear in a live casino, when playing the same games. A random number generator has to be certified by specific licensing and testing authorities and needs to offer measurable results regarding fairness as well as have results regularly and independently audited.

With online video poker, an RNG is a series of software algorithms, in a physical video poker game on a real casino floor, there is – or was a microchip which controls these algorithms. Algorithms are problems solving procedures, or a means to an end if you prefer. RNG’s cannot be manipulated – just like every slot game on the casino floor at the Mirage in Las Vegas; every game from Microgaming (which also designs games for the land casino), has to conform to technical standards. This is why it is so important for the US to pull their finger out of their ass and get regulation and legislation in place for online gambling in this country. The UK has it in place so there is recourse for both players and operators. If an operator is found to be wanting there are arbitration procedures in place and renegades can get their license revoked by the pre-requisite jurisdiction.

Every online gambler knows, or should know, that playing at most UK sites, with a good Gibraltar, Malta, Alderney or at a push Cyprus, licensed site; their interest will be protected, if that online casino wishes to continue operating. There are also online casino watchdogs out in full-force; ready to black list any site for even the smallest of infraction.

But back to video poker; there are various algorithms used, in the old days these were the Knuth or Fisher-Yates shuffle; today the more superior Mersenne twister is used, as this is actually more stable. In a 52 card deck, playing video poker, there are 8.065817517 x 1067 possible unique sequences and this – expressed mathematically, is what the RNG algorithms makes sure takes place. So when you play Video Poker online, this is man against machine, made fair!