Roulette is an incredibly popular casino game with a history that stretches over 400 years. Players have developed various systems and strategies over the years to help them beat the house. Given there are so many different strategies, perhaps you would like to know which work and which don’t. Of course, there is no system which is 100% fool-proof and can guarantee you profits. After all, if such a system existed, then casinos would soon go out of business! Here I will briefly describe some of the most popular and widely used roulette systems, and fill you in on how they can be used to try and improve your rates of success.

The Martingale Strategy – One of the most popular and well known progressive betting systems is the Martingale roulette system. This system is used for placing bets on simple chances only. You place your bet on either red/black, high/low or even/odd and then the result of the spin determines your next bet. If you lose a game, you double your bet size for the next spin. Once you get a win, you return to your starting bet size. Provided you keep doubling your bets, this approach enables you to recuperate any losses as soon as you win a game and also make a small profit. However, there is a clear disadvantage to this system. If you have a run of losses, you may find that you cannot continue to double your bet as you would exceed the table limit, or indeed your bankroll. In such a situation, you stand to make significant losses.

The Paroli System – This is also known as the Reverse Martingale strategy. It works in a similar way to the previous system, however, with this approach, you increase your bets when you win and decrease them when you lose. The idea behind this strategy is that if you have a lucky streak and get several wins in row, then you will increase your profits. On the other hand, if you have a string of losing bets, you will limit the amount of money you will lose. Again, this strategy is intended for bets on simple chances. The major drawback of this system is that it can be risky if you lose, as you will forfeit your entire winnings. In order for this system to work your advantage, you have to hope for a series of wins and make sure that you quit before you lose.

The D’Alembert Strategy – Named after the French mathematician and philosopher Jean Baptiste le Rond d’Alembert, this system is a little safer than the previous two, as it uses flat progression rather than doubling your bets. In essence, if you lose a game, you increase your bet by a set amount. At the same time, when you win. You decrease your bet by the same set amount. The advantage of this approach is that your bet amount increases much more slowly, meaning that you will be able to play much longer when you hit a losing streak before exceeding the table limit. Of course, the drawback is that by increasing and decreasing your bets by a small amount, you do not stand to make any significant profits with this system.

NetEnt, as we all (hopefully) know, is one of the best casino games providers out there. Known mostly for making roulette tables and slots for online casinos, they’re the people behind some of the best video slots ever such as “South Park” and “Gonzo’s Quest”. They employ 750 people in Sweden and Malta, and thus far their company has only been expanding its influence in Europe, where it holds a 30% market share. Their earnings have only been growing recently, seeing a 50% increase over 2015. This all sounds amazing, and yet it doesn’t seem to be enough for CEO Per Eriksson. “We still have big growth potential in Europe. We have approximately a 30 percent market share and that means 70 percent to take,” he told Reuters earlier this month. Yes, you read this right, ladies and gentlemen – NetEnt wants ALL the market share, and they don’t care how feasible that is.

According to Business Insider, NetEnt isn’t just content with taking all of the European market share, oh, no – they also want all of the American one too. It’s currently one of the biggest companies lobbying for looser online gambling regulations in the US – and, as recent developments in Pennsylvania and New Jersey have shown us, it’s working. Eriksson hopes that this will create a domino effect across the East Coast which will eventually reach the rest of the continent. Of course, it makes sense that he’d want that – NetEnt’s market share in the US is only 15%, which means that legalizing online gambling across the board will allow them to expand even further. Right now, it seems less of a matter of “if” and more of “when” – many experts are predicting a legalization of gambling across the board, as that would bring major profits to casinos, providers, the government and, potentially, consumers. In other words, everyone wins. NetEnt just wants to win more.

Still, all irony and sarcasm aside, though, while I can’t see NetEnt having 100% of the market share as Eriksson wants, I’d be okay with them growing even more than they already have. As I said, their games are generally of a very high quality. It’s pretty obvious that they’re not in it just for the money – they want to provide unique and interesting casino experiences to anyone looking for them. In founder Pontus Lindwall’s words: “I did the pay tables behind the slot machines, calculating how it works under the hood. My father said if you want to have good games you have to make sure the player wins a lot. I knew how to do the math to make that happen.” And playing some of their games, even only for a bit, is enough to convince anyone that Lindwall is right – while this isn’t the kind of article where I say who has the best payouts, I’ve never complained of bad pays when playing NetEnt slots. Currently, though, the biggest concern is whether a company growing so quickly and ambitiously can sustain itself without crashing under its own weight, but that’s a question only time can answer.

So, I guess it’s about time to ask the loaded question – what’s the most important part of a slot? Keep in mind that I’m talking about both online slots and physical ones, but when I say “physical ones” I mean video slots and not fruit machines. I just want to make sure we’re all on the same page here, because I’m about to get into some pretty complicated territory, the kind where I’m using big, complicated words such as “aesthetics” and “usability”. Sadly, there’s no easier way to examine this subject, as we really need to go deep under the hood of the slots we all love in order to check just what it is that makes us want to go back to them.

The obvious answer to this is “Well, they bring money, duh!” Yeah, I guess that’s a good response, but lots of things bring money. Your job brings money, but most people don’t really do that for fun. Lotto tickets bring money, but the amount of people who buy them religiously is less than the amount of people who play slots regularly. Hell, other casino games, such as Blackjack and Roulette, have better odds and can bring you more money, and slots are STILL the number 1 game in online casinos by a landslide! And then there’s all these slot apps online and on the Play Store and App Store which remain immensely popular despite not involving real cash at all! So money is obviously not the correct answer – maybe it’s the reason why we play casino in general, but certainly not the underlying cause of the slots’ popularity.

Want to know what I think? I believe the secret lies in the aesthetics.

Aesthetics (in other words, the visuals – graphics, animations, etc.) are one of the most important aspects of ANY visual media – websites, movies, videogames, and yes, slots. Numerous studies have been conducted on the importance of aesthetics, and they all say the same thing – we regard things more positively if they look good. Now, keep in mind that this isn’t universally true for everyone – if you’re a long-term slot player who’s played dozens of slots, then you probably care more about playability than looks, but most people are very attracted to a slot which just looks good. It’s a remnant of our hunter-gatherer instincts, and also the same reason why ads hire beautiful models to be their products’ faces, or why film directors hire cinematographers, or why most of us refuse to eat food that doesn’t look good. Humans, as a species, love things which look good. Now look at the most popular slot you can find. See all those shiny coins, pretty visuals and fun-looking characters jumping around? Suffice to say, there’s a very good reason why they’re there.

The bonus games in slots are supposed to give you a sense of agency, a feeling of control. “Yeah, sure, slots are completely random, but now I’m finally given the chance to use my skills and wits and win it big!” is what you’re supposed to be thinking when you finally luck out and manage to activate a bonus game… But that’s not really how it works, is it? Bonus games, while giving you a certain illusion of choice, are still completely and entirely random, with no strategy to help you win. A common bonus game is selecting one of several objects, each of which holds a random prize for you. Imagine 5 cups, each of which holds 1 coin, 2 coins, 3 coins, 4 coins and 5 coins, but you don’t know which one holds what. You’re just supposed to pick one out at random and see what you get. You’re given a choice that’s not really a choice at all.

If you’ve ever found that frustrating, please know that it’s not really the slot providers’ fault – there is actually a law in many countries which separates arcade games (from which you can’t win money, only prizes) and gambling games (over which you have no control, but can win money). As a result, it would actually be illegal for me to create a slot where the bonus game requires skill instead of luck, and I could be facing a huge fine and maybe even jail time, depending on the country I’m in. In some countries it’s even more complicated – Japan, for instance, has banned random gambling completely, so instead of slots the Japanese play Pachinko machines, which have both skill-based and luck-based gameplay built-in by default.

But if you think that skill-based games should be legal, well, you’re in luck! There’s currently a discussion going on within the government about whether laws should be changed to allow it. As you know, numerous classic games (such as “Black Widow”), are currently set to receive a slot adaptation, so if the law passes there would be literally nothing stopping Namco from releasing a Pac-Man slot where the bonus game allows you to play a round of Pac-Man, and if you manage to clear it you get a bonus winning on top of that. Hell, take it one step further! How awesome would it be to see arcade games in a casino? I’d love to be able to play “Guitar Hero” or “Time Crisis” for real money, and not just because I’m absurdly good at these games. I think it’d be fun, I mean, most casinos only have the same games, so maybe a legalization of arcade games as means of gambling might be really fun? But I’m getting ahead of myself here. For now, the important thing is that we may actually be on the way of getting something truly interactive in our online slots. And that’s no small victory.

If you’re an avid bingo player who’s looking for the best bingo bonus, there are certain rules for picking the best deal, especially when you’re forced to choose between multiple offers. There’s such a variety of lucrative bonus offers out there, that it can be challenging to choose just one that is best for you. Bingo industry is literally flooded with undistinguishably similar-looking sign-up bargains, so finding the right operator may transform your journey into a nightmarish experience.

A good way to find the best deals is to go through the different offers which usually vary from operator to operator. Before making any final decisions, you should make sure you’ve chosen a well-trusted name with a large following of happy players. Another thing to consider is the fact that as long as one offer is too good to be real, it may be a positive sign that you’re dealing with an untrusted site, where real-money gambling may carry some risks. Before joining a site and claiming their welcome offer, you should invest some time in reading in-depth reviews of the sites that caught your eye. Check the brands’ reputation before putting your foot in the door or alternatively, you can save some time and find reviews of popular operators at some specialized sites for bingo reviews, such as bingobonuses.org.uk. That’s a helpful source of info that will present you a long list of tried and tested operators, where each one is carefully reviewed by experts with long experience in playing online bingo.

However, before you even start thinking of some strategies for finding the best bonus, you may want to get more info about the main types of bonus offers that are up for grabs on the market. So, let’s take the new operators who are just coming out on the market. Standing at the forefront of the niche, new bingo sites are hardly trying to increase the number of their subscribers by offering compelling no-deposit bonuses. The latter are free money given upon registration that entitle you to have risk-free trial of online bingo (and/or casino) games. If you’re lucky enough, you can increase those initial credits and make some bonus cash that can be used for purchasing bingo tickets to play some real-money jackpot games.

Next, the deposit bonuses come. Those are the most popular rewards that are offered by the majority of the bingo operators to tip their players for making real-money deposits. The amounts of the bonuses vary from site to site but usually they start from 100% and increase up to amazing 1100% welcome bonus packages, based on the first three reloads. Despite being the most popular way for operators to attract new subscribers, there are some incentives for loyal players, too. Most of the trusted names in the industry feature rewarding loyalty and VIP programs, bringing generous benefits for their loyal players. Becoming a VIP member of a certain site will get you some exclusive rewards and dedicated treatment, including bigger bonuses, access to private play rooms and competitions, birthday presents and various cash prizes and gifts. Plus, for every penny spent on the site, you will receive loyalty points that normally can be redeemed for cash. So, becoming a loyal member of a site will get you easy access to multiple benefits. That’s the reason why choosing the right operator is crucial. One of the top-notch loyalty schemes that I’ve come across and, in my humble opinion, one of the best on the market is the one from Dream Bingo. The excellent Dream Bingo VIP offers ensure that the loyalty and dedication of the regular players is well paid off. Despite being a bingo site, the brand also tip casino lovers, so you will keep earning points if you play their casino games or explore their marvelous selection of Microgaming slots. Climbing up the ladder will do get you countless of benefits, so make sure you don’t miss them!

Whenever I talk about online slots to someone who doesn’t really play them, it’s funny just how often people think they know what they’re talking about. In most people’s minds, slots are nothing more than what they’re shown to be in the movies, primitive devices that blink a lot and make annoying noises when you win. In fact, as of recently they’ve become rather complex devices that blink a lot and make annoying noises when you win. If you’re a season slot player, then chances are you’re not going to find much of value in this article (unless you want to send it to one of your non-gambling friends, in which case go right ahead), but if you’re new to the world of slots, then this will be an invaluable read that will definitely clear some things up!

Misconception #1: Slots Are Simplistic

”I don’t get what the big deal about slots is! I mean, you just pull a lever and look at 3 symbols falling down!”

Actually, what most people are referring to when they’re saying the word “slots” is fruit machines, which are actually fairly simplistic, yes – they don’t have fancy graphics, usually only have one line and aren’t particularly pretty to look at. Slot machines, on the other hand, are MUCH more complicated. I mean, sure, most of the time the player interaction still boils down to essentially pulling a lever (well, more like clicking a button, but still) and watching, but what’s happening behind the scenes is far more interesting. First of all, almost all slots actually have three rows instead of just one and five columns instead of just three, which at first seems to decrease the chance of winning… but what if I told you that you’re actually MORE likely to win on slots than you are on fruit machines? The secret comes in the form of paylines, which are a bit more difficult to explain, but imagine it like this – in most fruit machines, you only win if you line up three identical symbols in the center, right? Well, in most slots you can win if you have two symbols in the centre row, one right above it, another one in the middle and one below it! Every slot has multiple paylines – sometimes there’s only about 20, while sometimes there’s over 10 times that number, but they’re generally kept between 25 and 40, making it that much more likely to win. In addition, there’s also special symbols, such as the Wilds which can substitute for any other symbol (so if you have 4 identical symbols and a Wild on one of your paylines, you get paid as if you have 5 symbols – and you can often win on multiple paylines with the same Wild, too), and don’t even get me STARTED on the bonus features. Speaking of which…

Misconception #2: Slots Aren’t Interactive

”You yourself admitted that the way to play slots is to just push a button and wait, and then push a button and wait again! Where’s the fun in that?!?

Well, not quite – I just said that MOST of the time this is what you do when playing slots, but not always. The best slots around have bonus features and bonus games which are fully interactive. Sadly, due to legal reasons these games need to be pretty simplistic (as slots aren’t legally allowed to be considered “skill games”, but that’s probably going to change soon thanks to some new laws), but they can still be very interactive. For example, the slot “South Park”, based on the popular show, gives you several bonus games if you meet certain conditions – you need to cross the street while looking out for cars, for example, or you need to chase hippies out of the bushes, and if you’re successful you win even more cash. “Spider-Man” gives you the chance to engage in a fighting game which, while simplistic, comes with all staples of the genre such as special attacks and combos, and “The Avengers” gives you four bonus games, all of which award you free spins. So yeah, while I’ll completely agree that for the most part playing slots can be rather monotonous, it’s definitely a lot more complex than you thought. While not every slot has its own bonus game (some just offer free spins with no game attached to them, and a few don’t offer anything special at all), the ones that do have put a lot of time and effort into making them very entertaining. Activating them may be a tad difficult, but when it happens it’s definitely an event, and you’re gonna win some good money!

Misconception #3: Slots Are Scams

”Slots have been specifically designed to just take your money and run! They’re scams that always take away more money than they give!”

Well, if I’m to be honest, both of these statements are correct, to some degree. Slots ARE designed to keep a certain percentage of the money to themselves, and by extension, yeah, they do take more money than they give. Each slot has what is known as an RTP – Return To Player percentage. In physical slots they’re mostly hidden unless you know where to look, but with online slots it’s pretty easy to look it up online. Basically, slots are designed to keep a certain percentage of all profits for itself while dispersing the remaining randomly among the players. So let’s imagine for a second that four players have deposited £25 each into a slot with a 96% RTP (which is more or less the default – sometimes it’s as high as 98%, sometimes it’s about 94%, though of course there’s some with an even lower RTP, but you should stay away from them). Out of those £100, the casino will keep £4 for itself, and the remaining £96 will be spread randomly between the people who played, so for example Person A will get £50, Person B will get £30, Person C will get £16 and Person D will get nothing. Obviously, you want to be Person A, but sometimes it’s just up to fate. And yet sometimes it’s not! Which brings me to…

Misconception #4: You Can Only Win At Slots If You’re Lucky

”When you play games like blackjack you can win based on your skills, at least in part, but slots rely 100% on luck! If you’re unlucky, there’s no way you’re winning!”

Well, first of all, it’s important to remember that there’s no such thing as “luck”. Nobody is born lucky or unlucky – there’s chance and probability, and also human perception. We as humans tend to only notice things that go wrong – getting into a traffic jam would make us think we’re unlucky, but we didn’t even think twice when crossing the last few dozen miles that were completely jam-free. As the old saying goes, if you do your job right nobody will know that you’ve done anything at all. Sometimes things go right, sometimes they go wrong, but either way, it has more to do with variables and probability than with something so abstract as “luck”. The sheer concept of “luck” implies the presence of a higher power that somehow remembers whether you’re supposed to have “bad luck” or “good luck” and then alters reality around you in order to fit your alignment, which when put like that I’m sure you’d agree is ridiculous. So now that we’ve completely debunked the notion of “luck”, let’s examine the rest of this statement, shall we? It implies that no matter what you do you’re entirely dependent on random chance in order to win at slots, which is simply not true. Finding the right slot to play, making the right bet, choosing the optimal amount of paylines and more are all variables that you’ll need to be taking into account which can influence whether or not you win, and how much. So while a good amount of slot success has to do with random chance and probability, luck isn’t really a factor.

Misconception #5: The Only Way To Win A Substantial Sum Is If You Get The Jackpot

”Even if you win at slots, the most you’re ever going to get is just small potatoes. The only way you can win a considerable sum is if you win the jackpot”

What if I told you that sometimes you can win a bigger sum by getting a standard win than you would have if you’d gotten the jackpot? It’s true – the slots with jackpots in the millions are actually fairly rare, there’s only between half a dozen and a dozen slots like that in the UK, and of course your chances of winning those, statistically speaking, are lower than winning the lottery. Most slots actually have relatively modest jackpots – enough to maybe get you a decent car, but not nearly enough to completely change your life. As a matter of fact, most one-time winnings (jackpots or not) aren’t enough to allow you to live the life of a celebrity. But even then, you can get some pretty substantial sums just from regular wins. A bonus feature in a certain slot which turned several columns into Wilds once netted me about £1,000 in one spin. Another slot’s bonus game got me about £4,000. The most I’ve ever won at one point without a jackpot was about £15,000 in a free spins feature that went very, very, very right for me (with me getting about 200 free spins at a huge multiplier thanks to pure chance). That’s actually more than many jackpots (for example, the Marvel Super Power – one of the four jackpots you can win by playing Marvel slots – is at £20,000 as I’m writing this), and it wasn’t even a special one-time win, it was something that anyone could do. But in any case, wins like that are rare – for the most part you’re going to be making your profit slowly and steadily.

Hopefully you’re now a little bit more savvy about how slots work! If you found this article helpful and informative, then feel free to share it with your friends and show them that, as the Weird Al song goes, everything they know (about slots) is wrong! Now that you’re all caught up with the world of slots in 2015, we’ll soon start exploring other subjects, such as how to pick the best slot for you. Stay tuned!

The purpose of this site is to teach you how to make money by playing slots, but interestingly, not all the tricks I’m going to teach you to that purpose involve actually playing slots. Sometimes, maximizing your winnings isn’t just about performing well in the game, but also in how you manage your earnings. Imagine this scenario – you’re a successful football player, and a manager comes to you and says he’s going to arrange that you’re bought by a huge team (Arsenal, Barcelona, whichever one is your favourite). For his services, he’s going to take 25% of the money they’ll pay you. But then you meet another manager who says he can do the same, but will only take 10% of the money. Both are very respected and successful managers, and both will make the deal happen – so the obvious choice is to go with the latter one, right? The same holds true for withdrawing and depositing in online casinos.

Most bank cards (be they credit or debit) in the UK actually tax all of your deposits and withdrawals, especially when they’re bigger. For smaller sums, you may not see it at all – if you withdraw £50 and get £48, you’re not even going to look at it twice. But if you withdraw £1000 and get £960, suddenly that’s a bigger deal. And what if you win a jackpot of £5,000,000 or more? We’re talking thousands of pounds lost because your debit card has a hidden tax on deposited winnings that nobody told you about because 99% of everyone who owns a card like yours isn’t going to have any winnings deposited. Believe it or not, it’s actually extremely easy to circumvent this almost completely only by using PayPal.

For those of you who don’t know, PayPal is a free e-wallet program that will safely and securely store your money and your bank information. While there is still a tax attached, it’s much smaller than what most banks charge, and there is also no periodic tax that you pay every month or every year. Alternatively, with just a PayPal account, you don’t even need a bank account in order to make purchases. Imagine that you win £5000 from slots. You withdraw that money into your PayPal account and then can use it to make online purchases from eBay, Amazon or local retailers such as GAME or Argos, all without even stepping inside a bank and dealing with any contracts or anything of the sort. Sure, if you want to physically withdraw that money you’re going to need a bank card, but you can use it for online purchases without one.

I understand that a lot of you may be worried about whether or not your online casino of choice will even work with PayPal, but I assure you, it most likely will. This list of Casino Sites that take PayPal deposits can show you that quite a lot of the best online casinos are perfectly fine with working with PayPal, among which giants such as Ladbrokes and 888. So here’s my advice to you – if you can avoid it at all, stop giving your bank any more than you absolutely need to! Making a PayPal account is easy, free and, in the long run, a much better idea, especially if you make it big!