My friend Jason Osborne once again gives his predictions.  In this post he covers the Midwest Region.  His favorite team, the North Carolina Tar Heels, are still alive in this region.

Kendall Marshall and the Tar Heels

Without a doubt, the biggest news in the college basketball world going into the Sweet 16 round has been Kendall Marshall.  The bulk of sports commentators, including myself, believe that Kentucky is the favorite to win the Tournament, but that if any team could challenge the Wildcats stout on-court presence, it would be the Tar Heels.  Remember that North Carolina played Kentucky to within one point in Chapel Hill in their annual meeting way back in early December.  That same team beat Michigan State in the first ever Carrier Classic, played on a Naval aircraft carrier right in San Diego Bay.

What is different now?

North Carolina had Dexter Strickland backing up Kendall Marshall at Point Guard.  Mr. Strickland blew out his ACL during the close of the regular season, and is no longer available.  That leaves Stillman White at Point Guard, and going into the weekend, he was averaging about 5 minutes a game.  John Henson also injured his wrist, but came back for the Creighton game and looked healthy.  That is the good news.  The bad news is that during the post-game press conference, Roy Williams announced that Kendall Marshall had fractured his wrist during the game.  However, he played through it during the game, and truth be told, no one truly knows Kendall Marshall’s status for the upcoming Sweet 16 matchup against Ohio.

Midwest Wrap-up

If the March Madness betting sites offered the wager, I would bet that we will not see any Kendall Marshall against Ohio University.  North Carolina’s problems thus become how to move the ball around safely.  However, those problems are counter balanced with a defense that became immeasurably better with the return of John Henson.  I am sticking with North Carolina against Ohio, but there are a few too many variables remaining to call the potential Kansas vs. UNC matchup, or for that matter, the potential NC State vs Carolina matchup.  Again, the best thing that Carolina has going for it against Kansas is their defense, if they are absent Kendall Marshall.  If Marshall is truly done for the season, take Kansas here into the Final Four.

My favorite topic this March has been the Wolfpack of North Carolina State.  When the bracket was announced on Selection Sunday, they were an easy Cinderella pick, and they have shown their quality throughout the tournament so far.  Mark Gottfried was my pick for ACC coach of the year, and although Leonard Hamilton of Florida State took those honors, the team that goes further in this tournament is all that matters.  Gottfried has been here before and look for him to go a bit further leading an NC State team that is playing truly inspired basketball.  They were down big against Georgetown early in the first half and clawed back to dispose of the Hoyas.  They never looked back.

Defense was the Wolfpack’s strongpoint against Georgetown, and it will have to be against Kansas, if NC State has any hope of beating the Jayhawks.  CJ Leslie and Lorenzo Brown are both complete players and they can give you game on both the offensive side, as well as the defensive side.  NC State plays seven players, and every one of them is a threat to steal the ball.  They have lengthy arms and can block the ball very efficiently.  As a team, they had 144 blocks this year in a very tough conference, the ACC.

NC State vs. Kansas

Kansas has some obvious players in Tyshawn Taylor and Thomas Robinson, who at 6’10” will be very tough to defend against.  Unfortunately for Kansas, Mr. Robinson has a lackluster assist to turnover ratio, and look for that to be a factor against NC State.  Interestingly, Robinson never took a 3 point shot in either his freshman or sophomore seasons, but he found the talent this year, shooting a very respectable 46%.  Tyshawn Taylor can move the ball well, giving the Jayhawks 164 assists this year, but unfortunately combining that with 120 turnovers.  At 6’3”, he will likely make an easy target for NC State, who seems to thrive on stealing the ball, as well as blocking it.  Look for NC State to roll again, upsetting the Jayhawks this time, on their way to a Regional Final against conference foe North Carolina.  I will be making that bet on my favorite basketball betting sites.

If the Wolfpack manages to pull off the upset and play against the Tar Heels in the Regional Final, look for a defensive matchup.  Without Kendall Marshall, Carolina will have to reinvent itself to continue forward, and they will have to do it defensively.  John Henson will be a big part of that.

Bodog provided a press release today that was distributed by PR Newswire.  This press release stated that players could now request hand histories that show all hole cards from players dealt in the hand with them.  What is interesting about this move is not how Bodog decided to give the information about what cards players flopped or folded in hand histories, it is how they went about it.

Typically, when there is some Bodog Poker software change, such as the “Note Taking Innovation“, there is a post on Calvinayre.com from somebody that does not seem to be a poker player, proclaiming how poker players will love their latest move.  They go on to discuss their “Recreational Poker Model” and that every online poker room will follow in their footsteps.  That did not happen this time.  The only mention of this on that website is the same press release that has appeared on hundreds of PR Newswire partner sites, including the CBS station I linked to earlier in this post.

The press release itself is quite entertaining.  Knowing Bodog, that is probably intentional.  Bodog states that when they implemented their “Recreational Poker Model”, that “Almost immediately other poker rooms changed their rakeback structure”.  They do not cite who those rooms were, or what the structure changes were.  They also go on to state:

Microgaming upped the number of anonymous tables it offered and also made all Heads-Up tables anonymous.

and…

Most recently PokerStars introduced the casual-player friendly ‘Zoom Poker’ to their product suite.

It seems like Bodog is trying to take credit for what other poker rooms are doing.  Even though Bodog was not the first (or second) online poker room to use anonymous tables, they imply that they are the reason another network is expanding them.  They also seem to want some credit for PokerStars introducing Zoom Poker.  Players have been looking to fill the void left by Rush Poker and have requested PokerStars create a similar product to replace it.  PokerStars is 25 times the size of Bodog.  Somehow I doubt they are taking pointers from anyone.

I also do not believe Zoom Poker is recreational friendly like Bodog seems to imply.  The Rush Poker games at Full Tilt Poker were full of rakeback grinders.  The flop percents in those games would often be in the low to mid teens, and the average pot sizes were pathetic compare to the other tables.  Fish would bust quickly in those games.  Not just because of how tough they were, but playing four times the hands per hour would make for 25% of the play time before going bust.  It was like injecting crack into online poker.  Rush Poker made it harder to track players due to the datamining limitations, but hand histories were still available to players when the hands ended.

Having started this movement the Bodog Poker Network is now looking improve the product and listen to its customers. Once all the noise of whining poker ‘pros’ who could no longer use software allowing access to data on how you play your game against Bodog players died down the only credible complaint was the threat of collusion.

Let’s ignore the fact HH Smithy cracked their anonymous tables within a few days of release, calling your customers whiners is not how most businesses operate.  There are several considerations beyond collusion as well.  I guess they do not feel the need to listen to their whiny customers.

The latest release on the Bodog Poker Network now allows players, after 24 hours, to request not only their own hand histories but also the hole card information for all players in the same hand. The unique nature of Bodog’s anonymous tables means that the WHOLE hand can be requested by a player. No other poker room can offer such a service.

Note that the emphasis is theirs, not mine.  I think it is clear why no other online poker room is releasing hand histories that show all hole cards of players dealt in.  I am not sure that I would be bragging about this, but they seem to think it is such a positive move that they wanted to make sure it was in bold.

Jonas Odman, VP of the Bodog Poker Network, commented:

The fact that we can now offer players this information is another advantage of our anonymous tables and something nobody else can offer. Collusion is a natural concern for any poker room but this new additional feature puts the player in full control. This makes the Bodog Poker Network the fairest place to play poker online in the world.

So playing at a table where you have no idea who the other players are is apparently the fairest way to play online poker in the world.  Forget the fact that the only way to police the game is to get hand histories over 24 hours later that may or may not disclose when players changed at the table, the information is mostly useless since players will have no idea who the player is, and likely not know when they were replaced by a new player.  Players will be unable to put together patterns of suspicious play.  Good cheaters can just sit for a few orbits at a time and leave.  By the time 24 hours has passed, the cheats could already have their money cashed out of the poker room.  How is that fair?

Bodog has the right to manage their poker room however they want, and players have the ability to vote with their wallet.  That is what is great about a fair market.  I completely respect Bodog and their wish to run their business as they see fit.  It takes a company as eccentric as Bodog to put out the type of press release like they did today.  I dissected it both to give my opinion about where we disagree, and to poke some fun at it in good humor. Knowing how Bodog works, they should take it in stride.  I think they enjoy some of the critics speaking out, especially when it is just a whiny poker player.

In what other industry would the 18th largest business, with about a 1.5% market share, act like the top dog that influences the entire industry?  That is part of why I love covering the online poker industry.  There is never a dull moment.

As a followup to yesterday’s post, it seems that Bovada did in fact do more than just ban players from Maryland.  Players in Maryland received emails yesterday telling them that they could no longer play at Bovada and would have to cash out immediately.  Without any announcement from Bovada, players from three other states are also affected.

Bovada is no longer accepting new players in New York, Utah or Washington State.  Players that attempt to sign up for Bovada in those states get an error telling them that residents of their state cannot register.  Players with existing accounts in those three states are not affected, at least for now.  Washington residents have no options for online poker.  If they do not already have an account at an online poker room, they are out of luck.  Players in Maryland and New York are also running out of options for online poker.

As much as the people involved with Bodog and Bovada like to be in the press, they have been noticeably absent here.  There are no posts on Calvinayre.com about this.  There has also been nothing announced through social media.  Forum representatives have not made any comments either.  This is part of what has caused so much confusion.  The few sources that could be contacted were only saying that Maryland was blocked and that nothing else was affected.  Hopefully there will be some sort of official announcement in the near future from Bovada.

This guest post was written by Jason Osborne.  Jason is an NCAA basketball fan and backs the North Carolina Tarheels.  Here are some of this East Region predictions.

There are two teams in the East Region that are playing their best basketball of the season right now.  Those teams are Florida State and Vanderbilt.  Florida State is the biggest threat to Syracuse right now, not Ohio State.  Before I get to FSU and Vandy, let’s discuss Ohio State.

Ohio State

Ohio State has one of the biggest impact players in the country in Jared Sullinger.  He is a 6 foot 9, 265 pound basketball machine, averaging 17.6 points per game.  He is also a perimeter threat, shooting near 40% from beyond the arc.  That being said, Sullinger does not always play with a huge thirst for victory.  He looked flat against Wisconsin and Michigan State.  He is a sophomore, so perhaps it is simply a case of him having two more shots at carrying Ohio State to a National Championship.  Want to contain Sullinger?  Simply watch the game film from both meetings against Michigan State.  His high against the Spartans was 14 points.  While the sports betting sites like Ohio State,  there is simply too much talent in the East Region to compete against.

Florida State

Florida State slaughtered North Carolina in their first meeting back in January.  Then, they went on to squeak past Duke 76-73 at Cameron Indoor Stadium.  Would that normally be enough to make any Seminole fan happy?  Sure it would, but they went on to the ACC tournament in Atlanta and beat both Duke and Carolina again in two close games.  FSU was not on anyone’s radar when they met Carolina back in January, so you could attribute some of that win to simply bad expectations.  During the ACC tournament, Carolina was without John Henson, who is crucial to Williams’ defensive scheme, so maybe Henson would have made the difference for a Carolina win.  However, the fact remains that the Seminoles owned both Carolina and Duke the entire season, and that is a huge propellant into the big dance.  I like Florida State to cruise fairly easily to the Regional Semis, and then play a close game against Ohio State.

Introducing Vandy

As for Syracuse, they will have to play against an upstart Vanderbilt team that is playing their best ball right now.  Jenkins and Taylor are both very credible threats from beyond the arc, both of whom are shooting well over 40% from downtown.  In my opinion, the senior Jeffrey Taylor is the better pure shooter of the two, averaging close to 50% in field goals.  However, that is a lot to defend against, and look for them to cruise against Harvard and Wisconsin, who simply does not play that well against ranked teams.   I like Vanderbilt to come on top there and cruise to the regional semis against Syracuse.

Syracuse’s “Achilles Heel” is rebounding.  They rank 125^th in the nation in rebounding and they will come up against a Vanderbilt team that is not too far off that mark coming in at 182^nd, nationally.  Whoever establishes that big inside presence early in that game will come out on top.  Vanderbilt will spread out Syracuse’s defense, with their credible threats from 3 point land.  For a team that does not rebound well, that should leave Vanderbilt with plenty of room to start pulling down offensive boards.  Lance Goulbourne is leading the team in rebounding at 6.9 rebounds per game.  However, he has a very lackluster assist to turnover ratio, and unless something changes, I would not expect him to be a huge factor in the game.  He is only 6’8”, 225 pounds and that obviously will not cover the job.  The point is, for Vanderbilt to pull off the upset against Syracuse, they will have to have someone step up big time and really start grabbing some boards, and I do not expect it to happen.  Take Syracuse in this game, but no further.

Wrapping it up with Florida State

Florida State is a much more formidable foe against Syracuse.  The Seminoles are averaging a much more respectable 36.9 rebounds per game, good enough for 52^nd overall, nationally.  However, I do not think that is the game changer in this one.  Look for Michael Snaer to make a difference in this match up.  Snaer is leading the Seminoles in points per game, and is a threat from 3 point land as well.  However, those are simply numbers.  This kid is a player, and he plays with a lot of heart.  He is clearly the glue of the team, and look for him to be the difference maker in this match up against Syracuse.

This post was written by one of my long time friends Jason Osborne.  He wanted to share some of his predictions to help with your college basketball betting during March Madness.  He is a big Tarheels fan, but also follows other teams and has a few predictions.

Midwest Region

It is easy to say that North Carolina will win this region, and it is probably correct.  The Tar Heels simply have more talent than anyone in this region, even more than Kansas, and their national rankings in points per game (2^nd at 82.0), rebounds per game (1^st at 45.2) and assists per game (4^th at 17.6) would indicate that they should have the easiest road to the Final Four out of all of the regions.  There are still other jewels in the Midwest to be discovered.

In keeping with the ACC format, North Carolina State is easily the best 11 seed in the tournament.  Do not forget that the Wolfpack reached the ACC Tournament semi final game and only barely lost to North Carolina, needing some bad officiating calls to do so.  The Wolfpack have CJ Leslie, who was a 2^nd team all ACC player, and in some years in the ACC, would have been a 1^st team player fairly easily.

NC State in the 1^st Round

North Carolina State will meet San Diego State in the first round.  On paper, this is not a #6 seed versus a #11 seed game.  NC State has a BPI ranking of 45, combined with a Strength of Schedule (SOS) ranking of 24.  Remember that NC State gets to play Duke, North Carolina and everyone else in the ACC, at least once, every year, and that is great preparation to play in the big dance.  San Diego State has a BPI ranking of 40 (only 5 spots ahead of NC State), combined with a Strength of Schedule of 57.  They have a couple of ballers in Jamaal Franklin and Chase Tapley, but I frankly think that they are way over matched.

North Carolina State is playing their best basketball at precisely the right time.  Everyone talks about CJ Leslie and Lorenzo Brown, but the person everyone seems to forget to mention, indeed the force that everyone forgets is Scott Wood.  Every now and then, Wood will jump up and give you 20 points like he did against Boston College, but the point is that you have to guard him and that will simply be too much for San Diego State.  Three threats is too much for the Aztecs, who are talented in their own right.  When the bracket came out, this was the first upset that jumped out at me.   Look for the Pack to roll here and play an over rated Georgetown team in the second round.

Georgetown Flounders Early Again

Georgetown comes off as a team that peaked back in December or January.  Early on this season, they were handily beating teams like Memphis, Alabama, Louisville and Marquette, but this is March, and their early exit from the Big East Tournament is foretelling on what to expect from their play in the big dance.  While we are facing ugly facts, remember that Georgetown is ranked 145^th nationally in points per game at 69.1.  That simply will not work in March, and expect the Wolfpack to take the Hoyas out here, before cruising on to the Regional Semi final against Kansas.  That’s where the train stops for North Carolina State.

Misplaced Cinderella Creighton

When the bracket first came out on Selection Sunday, Creighton was given the worst position for what I would normally call my Cinderella for the tournament.  Creighton is ranked first nationally in points per game, just ahead of North Carolina.  Doug McDermott is averaging just over 23 points per game, and shooting 61%, not to mention 49.5% from beyond the arc.  This is a fun team to watch.  They should cruise against Alabama, but it will be a good game.  However, when they play North Carolina in Greensboro, they will meet their match, and I wouldn’t look for Creighton to be a Cinderella.  UNC is 29-1 all time when playing in NCAA tournament games inside the state of North Carolina, and this game will unfortunately for Creighton, not be any different.  Carolina rolls here.

ESPN is Wrong

ESPN has been all over Michigan losing to Ohio University in the first round.  The talking heads over at Sports Center base this on the fact that Ohio University’s coach John Groce’s former tenure at Ohio State on their coaching staff.  John Groce has obviously seen Michigan before, but that does not mean that due to that fact, Ohio will pull off an upset and handle the Wolverines.  First off, Groce last sat on Ohio State’s bench in 2008.  The Wolverines no longer have anyone playing for them that Groce would have coached against.  Secondly, Ohio University’s top scorer DJ Cooper is only averaging slightly better than 14 points per game, but is shooting a dismally low 34.8%.  We simply need better figures and bigger players to have Cinderellas, and Ohio University simply does not qualify here.  Look for the Wolverines to prevail here.

The 888 Network, sometimes referred to by old school poker players as Pacific Poker, has a serious bug in their Royal Flush Jackpot tables.  The first report of this came on February 3rd, 2012 from an unhappy player that had complained about the bug, and was promised a refund. Nearly six weeks later, the tables are still bugged.  The bugs are just one of several issues though.

888 Royal Flush Jackpot tables

When a player is seated at a Royal Flush Jackpot table at 888, they have the option of posting the jackpot drop.  By default, when a player sits, the automatic jackpot posting box is checked.  When the box is checked, it means that a player wishes to post the $.50 jackpot drop.  The problem is that the player will end up posting the jackpot drop, even if they are waiting for the big blind.  Posting this jackpot rake is unavoidable for the first hand a player sits, even if they are not dealt in.  If a player does not notice this bug, they will post all the way around the table.  If a player is not dealt in, it is impossible for them to win any jackpot money.

The same problem occurs when a player sits out.  If a player has the auto jackpot post box clicked when they sit out, they will post the jackpot drop every hand while they are gone, even though they cannot win anything from it.  If a player misses a couple of orbits, they will be out close to $10, just for sitting out.

Conflicting Terms and Conditions

Adding to the confusion, there are two sets of terms and conditions posted throughout the network.  One set of terms states that the jackpot resets at $5000, while another set of terms and conditions states that it resets at $25,000.  A network spokesman says that the first set I linked to is correct.  I pointed out this error nearly two weeks ago, and yet there are still conflicting terms on network sites.  888 also takes 20% of all jackpot drops as a rake, but this is not disclosed anywhere in their terms and conditions.  This means that 888 is making thousands of dollars off of this bug that they seem to be unable or unwilling to fix.

Incompetent Player Support

The network has been aware of this problem for nearly six weeks.  888 forum representatives in multiple forums have acknowledged the problem, yet the software is still bugged.  Making matters worse, when players notify support of the problem, they get replies like this:

Thank you for contacting us. My name is Stefanos Member Support Representative and I will be assisting you today.

Firstly, please accept my apology for the delay in my response. This is due to a high volume of e-mail queries we are presently experiencing. Your patience is greatly appreciated.

Regards your issue I may inform you that it is your choice to participate in the jackpot or not. As stated in the Jackpot instructions section.

The recipient of that reply states that it took four days to get, after sending a detailed complaint about the issue.  Another player received this response:

Thank you for contacting 888.com support,my name is Tiffany and I will be assisting you today with your query.

Andre, cards are dealt totally at random – there is no way that they are dealt with the sole intention of giving hands to players.

I put this down to bad luck to some extent but mostly to competing with poor players who are willing to chase anything regardless of their pocket cards. This is one of the main problems of online poker, anybody can and will play and a lot of these people have money to spare.

I can empathize with you on these setbacks and can only advise you to perhaps try and be more careful and take advantage of our player notes feature which can allow you to keep track of any careless players.

Please remember that online a far greater number of hands are dealt than when playing live. Instances like these are bound to appear and stick in the mind.

It’s the times when things go in your favor that you tend to shrug off as a run of good luck, but when they don’t go so well a “rigged” site is to blame.

I hope this helps ease your concerns whilst playing on 888casino and I wish you the best of luck for the future.

Those are not the only pitiful responses from 888 support, there were several more.  They all make the same point, 888 customer support clearly has no understanding of the player’s complaints.  Instead of trying to get help, they chose a canned response.  Even worse, it took days to get that type of response.

888 stated weeks ago that this would be resolved, and that players would get paid back in full what they posted while sitting out.  Although this was announced weeks ago, some players are still reporting that they have not been paid anything.  The bug is still active in the software as well.  As you see from the replies above, contacting support goes nowhere.  It is starting to seem that players looking for a refund, or a software patch that fixes this, are out of luck.

Avoid 888 Royal Flush Jackpot Tables

I urge all players to avoid the 888 Network’s Royal Flush Jackpot tables until they resolve this issue.  I also urge the network to make a correct, uniform T&C for this promotion.  If the house is going to rake a jackpot drop, this needs to be disclosed.  There should also not be conflicting terms on different network websites.

Bovada banned players from a well known anti online poker state.  Players from Maryland can no longer play on Bovada.  Their accounts were closed, and the players received the following email:

Due to continuing difficulties finding and maintaining acceptable payment options we have been forced to make the difficult decision to stop offering our services to residents of your state.

As a resident of Maryland, your account has been closed to further activity.

If you have any questions, we recommend you contact us by phone at 1-888-263-0000 at your earliest convenience and ensure you we will do everything we can to service your state in the future.

There are a lot of rumors floating around now about other states no longer being accepted.  Some websites are reporting that new players from New York, Utah, and Washington are no longer being accepted but existing players are allowed to continue to play.  While this would not surprise me, I have heard from two sources very close to Bodog and Bovada that say this is not true.  New players are allowed from those states.  It would not surprise me if those states were dropped as well, but I am unable to confirm it.

One player in New York posted an email he received saying he was banned.  I am told that was a customer service error.  There were also several reports last week that stated that Bovada was no longer operating in Maryland, New York, Utah and Washington.  Those reports turned out to be false.

Why Ban Certain States?

The main issue here is that there are some states that processors and poker rooms feel are riskier than others.  The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Maryland was responsible for Blue Monday.  The network now known as the Winning Poker Network was a part of Blue Monday, when the company that owns True Poker and Americascardroom (formerly DoylesRoom) was indicted and lost their .com domains.  This same U.S. Attorney’s Office indicted Bodog in late February, along with founder Calvin Ayre and two executives.  This makes Maryland an undesirable state to do business in for online gambling companies.

New York State was the home of Black Friday.  Utah is a strong anti gambling state that has a past battling online gambling companies, and in Washington it is a felony to even play online poker.  That is why those four states are banned by some online poker rooms.  In fact, if my sources are correct, Bovada is the only major choice available to players in Washington State as all other U.S. friendly networks have already stopped taking new players from there.

I will continue to check with my sources about this situation.  Until players from those states report being blocked from creating new accounts, I think it is safe to assume nothing has changed outside of Maryland unless my sources tell me otherwise.  Hopefully Bovada will make a public statement that addresses all of this confusion very soon.

As I have moved most of my online poker articles to other websites, I have wanted to write more about Las Vegas on my own blog.  Living in Las Vegas is a unique experience.  There is no other place like it in the world.

There are so many casino choices away from the Las Vegas Strip.  There is a big local’s casino market.  Station Casinos is the big player in this market.  Station Casinos owns high end properties such as Green Valley Ranch and Red Rock Resort, as well as more working class casinos such as Texas Station and Boulder Station.

Red Rock Resort is within sight of my house.  It is located in the Summerlin area and is one of three Summerlin casinos, with Rampart and Suncoast being the other two.  Red Rock is the most popular of the three, and has by far the lowest average age of patrons.  It is aimed more at the 21-35 age range, where Rampart and Suncoast pursue the higher age groups.

I typically make it out to Red Rock late in the night.  It is a good stop for after a poker session or some other downtown or Las Vegas Strip outing.  There is a food court that is open late, including a 24 hour Smashburger.  The cafe is 24 hours as well with some great graveyard specials.

I always head right to the Rocks Lounge bar.  That is because I enjoy a glass of wine and the Rocks Lounge will comp Kendall Jackson wine.  While certainly not high end, it is much better than the garbage wine most video poker bars want to push on you.  The service at Rocks Lounge is always great, especially if they know you.  The video poker games are decent for a bar, including 8/5 Bonus Poker and 9/5 Double Double Bonus.  Comps are earned at a rate of .3%, which makes the Red Rock Boarding Pass better than most player’s clubs in the city.  Locals get many free play offers.  Every week I get a free $20-50 in free play as seed money.

After a couple of glasses of wine, I will go find something else to go play.  Red Rock offers three different blackjack games.  There is a single deck that pays 6-5 on blackjack that should be avoided.  They also offer a double deck that allows doubling down after the split, and a six deck shoe that allows doubling after the split and resplitting aces.  All blackjack games hit a soft 17 at Red Rock, even in high limits.  As much as I enjoy blackjack variations, Red Rock does not offer any.

If blackjack is not your game, there are many other table games offered.  There is Craps, Baccarat, Ultimate Texas Hold’em, Mini Tex, Deuces Wild, Progressive Pai Gow, Double Zero Roulette, Three Card Poker, and Let it Ride.  Most of these games will have a $5 minimum that may go up on weekend nights to $10.  If I go to Red Rock with my wife I will play Pai Gow, if I am by myself I may hit the poker room or play some 3-4-5 Craps.

If video poker is your game, Red Rock has some of the best video poker in the city.  There are several sections with 100%+ payback machines.  These machines only pay you 25% of the normal player’s points.  On bonus days, it is best to play the “Up to 99.8% Payback” machines that include games such as Not So Ugly Deuces, 9/6 Jacks or Better, and Full Pay Aces Bonus.

I do not play slot machines, but since the video poker machines pay back well, I would expect the same from the slot machines.  On bonus days, you may find up to 10x bonus points on slots.

Even tourists might find the drive out to Red Rock worthwhile.  The games are much better than the strip, and if you play enough, you may get a comp at their high end hotel or a nice dinner at T-Bones Chophouse.

This article is a guest post from industry expert Jim Griffin.

Over the many years I’ve been involved in the gambling industry, I’ve certainly noticed that many gamblers are not even attempting to win money.  It seems for some the thrill of winning a t-shirt, redeeming points for a custom jersey, or reaching some new VIP tier to display next to their avatar is what makes gambling fun, enjoyable, or maybe is just what feeds their addiction. This article is not written for these players, but rather for those actually hoping to win, but are too caught up with the concept of how much they’re getting for free.

You see in online gambling, human nature has long led to players to be more interested in what they’re getting for free than in finding the best value. Allow me to use poker as the first example. I recall years ago, before UIGEA, one of the best bonus offers in online poker was a 20% up to $100 bonus offered by PartyPoker.com. All you had to do to clear each dollar was be dealt cards in five hands that were raked. After 500 raked hands the $100 was yours to keep. Each time this bonus was offered I’d clear it in less than 2 hours by eight tabling $0.25/$0.50 fixed limit hold’em full ring. Not all pots were raked at this stake, but still I was averaging about $40.00 per hour (winnings + cleared bonus) without the slightest chance I wouldn’t come out ahead.

In time marketing took over. This started with Full Tilt Poker advertising a 100% up to $600.00 bonus. However, when playing the 8-tables of $0.25/$0.50 limit hold’em strategy here, it didn’t work out well at all. This is because at $0.25 in rake, the Full Tilt Poker bonus would clear at 1.5 cents per raked pot, where the PartyPoker bonus cleared 13.3 times faster at 20 cents per hand. Of course, the Full Tilt Poker website didn’t spell this out. In fact they just put get $600 free ads all over the web, and trying to read through the terms would make anyone’s heads spin. First you had pending bonus cash, then had to earn 333.33 FTP to clear each twenty dollars of bonus, and had to figure out how these FTP were even earned. And this is what the industry evolved to.

Starting with Noble Poker, then Titan Poker, Absolute Poker, Ultimate Bet etc. all the online poker sites began offering massive 100% up to $500+ bonuses in order to compete. Quite a few of these bonuses were just an 8%-15% return on rake which was far less than you could have gotten signing up with a rakeback provider for these same sites. It also took a ton of research just to figure out how the bonus cleared as poker sites began making their bonus programs more and more confusing.

However many players actually said things like, why are you joining PokerStars? Their bonus sucks; Full Tilt Poker offers $600.00 free. (Of course, the free was far from free). In time even sites that had great bonuses (example Bodog had an instant cash bonus, as did 888) all in order to compete needed to reduce the value of their offers, and change to a large, not so free $500+ bonus.

My advice to online gamblers playing poker is even though it is tedious to do, always read the bonus rules to see what it is you’re actually getting. It is quite possible that a transfer $50 in chips to the poker room and get $50 free offer is far better than some whopping 100% up to $1,000 bonus in terms of the value.

Sports Betting Bonuses

In the UK, most the popular football betting sites give risk free bets. While Betfred offers a £50 free bet and Coral a £30 free bet, most of the offers are £10 or sometimes £25 free bets. How this works is if your first bet is a loser they refund the stake. For the sake of keeping it simple even at the £50 free bet offer of Betfred, this bonus has just a £25.00 value if you’re betting odds 2.00. This is because on average half time you’ll win the bet (getting £0.00 in bonus) and half the time you’ll lose the bet getting £50, on average you’re getting a £25.00 bonus.

A smart gambler would merely take all these sites up on their bonus offer, then say wham bam thank you ma’am, and be gone. This is because it is well known UK bookies offer by far the worse betting odds in the industry and these sites are offering you risk free bets in hopes you’ll get used to using their site and wager with their poor odds long term. A smart bettor would easily be able to recognize Asian bookies such as SBOBet, and discount bookies like Pinnacle Sports, and betting exchanges like Betfair all offer far better odds. However nothing much lost here, US players have it far worse.

In the US, many bettors use the site BetOnline.com for the reason they offer a 25% free play bonus on every deposit. However in exchange for this free cash the player needs to agree to roll their deposit plus bonus over 6-times prior to cashing out. So if you deposit $1,000 you get a $250 free play and have $7,500 in rollover. If you’re a 53% winner on -110 point spreads and use your $250 to make 10 bets of $25.00 to win $22.72. 5.3 times you win $22.72 for $120.42 profit, while the other times you lose your free play. You balance is now $1,120.42 and you have $7,500 in rollover to meet. To meet this you make 100 wagers of $82.50 to win $75.00. As a 53% winner 53 times you win $75 and 47 times lose $82.50 which nets you $97.50 in winnings. You balance is now $1120.42+$97.50=$1217.92. You started with $1,000 so you’ve made $217.92 at BetOnline.

If you had instead used www.5dimes.com, a betting site that offers -105 instead of -110, and made the same ten bets of risk $25.00 @ -105, and risk $87.50 @ -105, and kept the same 53% win rate, your profit would come out to $324.58. That means making the exact same bets at BetOnline and 5Dimes, despite having no bonus you made $106.66 more at 5dimes. You see getting the best odds is far more important than a bonus offer. Also with no bonus offer you’re free to come and go as you please not having rollover that stops you from cashing out. While everyone likes to get something for free, in sports it’s true the sites offering the largest bonuses most often offer the poorest value. Many sites such as 5Dimes and Pinnacle offer better value with no bonus than the largest bonuses on the net provide.

Casino Bonuses

The final group to mention is casino players. Now unless you’re getting a true no deposit casino bonus, or are picking off software errors, payout mistakes, or rare +EV bonuses this is a form of gambling, that unlike poker and sports betting, can’t be beaten long term. As a result many casinos use a lot of deception in their bonus offers knowing the typical casino gambler deposits, plays and keeps playing until they have nothing left. So here the casino group gets creative.

An example of a deceptive bonus comes from Golden Cherry, who uses Rival software. Their website has a massive 300% up to $3,000 bonus offer flashing on it. However research it and you’ll find this bonus is loaded with terms and impossible to beat. You have to make so many bets you’ll near certainly go bust before making them in order to cash out, and if you meet all this – the bonus is not yours! You can only wager the bonus after losing your real money, and when cashing out that bonus is deducted. You agree to a massive near impossible to meet rollover that prevents you from cashing out, for the privilege of this sticky bonus.

I would sincerely need to write a book to show how poor the typical casino bonus is, and how bonuses are the leading reason online casino gamblers rarely get lucky and book a win. For example you start playing a $500 deposit, run well and are up $300, what good is it when you have $24,000 more in rollover to meet? Let me just say scouting you can find some decent bonuses. For example at Bet365 their bonus is a cash bonus, and when used at Caribbean Stud Poker, if you play optimal strategy, don’t play the progressive, your effective odds (due to having the bonus) result in just a 0.06% house advantage. On average you’ll get away with losing only your bonus, and a few dollars of your own money. This is a bonus you MIGHT! Be able to beat with some luck.

For everyone else you’re better off playing low house edge games such as online baccarat. Or, you could scout online casinos looking for the lowest house advantage game. Or for those outside the US consider playing at the casino of PinnacleSports.com where you get 0.3% rebate on all bets made win or lose, and they also have favorable player rules at many games. Here you have a far better chance of getting lucky and walking with cash. The reason you can walk is because you have no rollover to meet.

In closing my advice to gamblers looking to win, is to never window shop bonuses. To get the best value the xxx% to $xxx means little and shouldn’t ever get you excited. Spending some time scouting the fine print and visiting sites like beatingbonuses.com for advice, will greatly increase your chances of winning.