So you want to become better at gambling, beginner or pro, navigating the world of games of chance and skill is difficult to learn and impossible to master. Yes, it’s a lifelong process of trial and error that never ends. But this journey itself is where all the fun is. Lucky for all of you gaming lovers out there. We decided to give a little push, gentle but a valuable nudge in the right direction. As experienced gamblers ourselves, we compiled a list of casino tips and tricks to help you realize your full potential and strive to become the best version of yourself in the process.
1. Do your due diligence before settling for a casino.
Ever heard the expression, your reputation precedes you? Reputation can be good or bad, and if a casino really is bad, you will find a lot of angry players venting online.
Ask yourself, would you blindly plunge into any other undertaking no matter the consequences, unless you take the time to investigate your chosen casino in depth chances are you will regret it down the line. Google is your friend here. Search for unbiased, detailed reviews on reputable player oriented portals like https://www.trustpilot.com and find out as much as you can before committing to a gaming site. We invest all of time and effort to dissect casinos inside out and present objective findings, both good and bad.
But, that doesn’t mean you’re off the hook here. The first and most important rule is to do your own due diligence, double check, scrutinize, judge with righteous indignation and leave no stone unturned. Then, and only then can you proceed to the sign-up form.
2. Read Terms of Service
Make sure to inspect the terms and conditions carefully before checking off ‘I agree’ and depositing cash. Unless you know exactly what you’re dealing with. Making mistakes may result in losing your money or getting yourselves banned.
Let’s be honest here. We know you don’t read the terms of service. No one ever does. The biggest mistake to make is to scroll down to the I agree box as quickly as possible without reading. And off you go into your new gaming adventures. But do you even know what you’re signing up for? Terms and conditions define the exchange between casinos and customers, outlining the rights and obligations of each party. Sure, they are boring to read, but doing so will help identify potential legal traps, ambiguous and confusing rules, and save you lots of trouble when a rule that you didn’t even know exists gets broken and it’s too late to file a complaint.
Why? Because you agreed to everything already. Here’s a useful tip. Small print is where the devil hides.
3. Advantage Play and Bonus Abuse
Did you know that many advantage play in bonus hunting strategies are considered irregular play and banned by most online casinos. Though they are not illegal in the strict sense of the term. Due to some convenient loopholes in the nature of the gambling game players get an advantage over casinos and clearly use it. Why not? It’s not illegal to do so. And guess what? Casinos do not like that at all. No one likes to get outsmarted and lose money in the process.
Nowadays, casinos have very strict rules when it comes to bonus abuse, and many newbies are caught off guard with restrictions such as maximum bet, maximum cashout or restricted games when playing with bonus money. Irregular play, as defined by a vast majority of online casinos, is an exceptionally ambiguous term, sometimes even predatory, enforcing such unfair restrictions on unsuspecting gamblers allow casinos to deny or confiscate winnings. This is based purely on their own interpretation of what constitutes irregular play or retroactively proclaim bannable conduct that is not defined as bannable when performed.
Breaking bonus rules is a bannable offense, so don’t expect any online casino to budge and give in to your complaints, no matter how justified you may be when defending your case. To prevent this make sure to read and understand the rules before claiming a bonus. If a casino is careless enough to offer a so-called beatable bonuses, they should own up and pay players in full. Better yet, if you come across casinos whose terms of service screen red flags, the best course of action is to avoid them altogether.
4. Check the license
Every decent online casino should be licensed through one or more igaming jurisdictions. While it is true that online gambling is still in the grey zone when it comes to regulations. This doesn’t mean casinos are free to act as they please. There are many international and smaller scale igaming regulators nowadays. However, not all of them are reputable. Some are worse than others. And in our decades long experience, the least reliable of the bunch are Curacao and Costa Rica.
Curacao is undoubtedly the weakest jurisdiction currently operating in the industry. Any casino can obtain this license cheaply, and Curacao’s audition processes competency evaluation of new candidates, as well as quality control of active licenses have always been very poor. Even though there are great casinos operating under these permits, players should, by all means, proceed with caution. Costa Rica, on the other hand, does not officially exist as a regulatory body, has absolutely no government authorized protocols of any kind and should be considered a huge red flag for any player.
In addition, Costa Rica has long served as a smokescreen for numerous rogue predator black market online casino groups to hide behind.
5. Know Your Customer (KYC) Procedure
Not many players know about identity verification, especially given the fact that it is only after a withdrawal request has been placed that casinos will ask for documents to confirm your identity. Not only can this process further lengthen the time it takes to receive your cash out, but you may also be tempted to cancel the withdrawal request and continue playing.
To prevent this, you can complete the KYC procedure at the time of registration as it is usually a one time process. Admittedly, gathering the necessary documentation is a tedious undertaking. There’s a saving grace for the impatient among us, the so called anonymous or no registration sites, mostly cryptocurrency casinos that don’t require any documents. However, keep in mind, even such sites reserved the right to verify the identity of customers in certain circumstances.
6. The Reverse Pending Period Withdrawal Lock Manual Flushing
The reverse pending period is a trap that works best on inexperienced players. The pending period is the time it takes to process a cash out request and many casinos will offer this reverse withdrawal option during this period, meaning you can still reverse your winnings, continue playing and eventually lose the money altogether. Withdrawal lock or manual flush will counter this. However, these options are often not automatically available, and experienced players will usually contact customer support to flush cash outs manually.
Are you absolutely sure that after having won a nice sum of money, you’ll be on your best behavior and request to cash out immediately? If there is any doubt, there is no doubt. So do yourself a favour, flush the money or lock down the reverse pending procedure. Sit back and enjoy your well-deserved reward.
7. Multiple counts or IP addresses.
The number one rule of all online casinos is not to use multiple accounts. You need to be very careful in sharing your household with another player or players, and you will use the same IP address. To further complicate things casinos fraud alert can be triggered if the IP address you login from is different from the one you used to register your account, such as logging in from a different country or using public networks. The tricky part is that most casinos will let this slide and leave you alone as long as you are not winning.
It’s when you decide to cash out when the real trouble starts. What you can do is notify the casino at the time of registration and have them confirm that you are allowed to use more than one account and or IP address and keep the file on record in case of potential disputes. With this said, there is an exception to this rule.
At times, casinos will allow multiple players from the same household or the same IP address if they are indeed unique players and verified beforehand. It is on you to notify the casino and explain your situation to avoid potential penalties.
8. Record any and all correspondence.
Experienced players will tell you to record any and all correspondence with online casinos. This means emails, chat transcripts and even phone calls. There are numerous call recorder apps for your mobile phone that will allow you to record calls for a legal and security reasons.
The records will be useful or even crucial if you find yourself in a dispute with a casino, and especially if third party services or mediators are involved. Be sure gaming sites are doing this on their end and for a good reason. So why wouldn’t you do the same?
9. Choose your game wisely.
If you want to reduce the house edge and increase your winnings chances, choose table games, video poker, poker or blackjack over slots. Slot machines may be the easiest to play, but they have the highest house edge that is impossible to overcome and very high rates of play that combined can destroy your bankroll in no time. If you absolutely must play slots, select games based on RTP, the term that describes the percentage of all the wagered money a slot machine is expected to pay back to players over time.
You’re ideally looking for an above average return to player. Another important factor to take into consideration is volatility, which should be low to medium for any given slot. Even though high volatility slots may potentially produce big wins, the risks of losing money are much greater. The general rule of thumb is that low to medium volatility machines are less risky to play, but players can expect a more steady stream of smaller wins in return. The exception to this rule would be if you play with a bonus. One advantage strategy best employed here might be to look for very high variance slots, wait for a big win and then switch to low or medium around a slot in order to clear the remaining wagering requirements easier but be careful and check beforehand if the casino considers this strategy fraudulent or abusive.
10. Sign up for VIP cashback bonuses.
A cashback bonus is a percentage of your total net loss over a specified time period awarded back to your account as bonus money with rollover requirements and the maximum cashout limit is attached or as a real cash. These types of promotions are usually offered as part of the VIP package or loyalty program and come with very little wagering requirements compared to other types of bonuses. Wagering requirements or, as they are often called, playthrough or rollover requirements are defined by casinos as the number of times a player must play through the amount of bonus received before withdrawing is allowed.
Naturally, the lower the wagering requirements, the greater the chance to successfully complete them and cash out winnings. If you are an active depositor, cashback promotions offer long term value with reduced risks so you have nothing to lose and much to gain claiming them.
We hope you found this list of casino tips and tricks helpful. If you have some of your own tried and tested strategies for newbies or experienced players, please leave your thoughts in the comments.