Last week I finally took my pilgrimage to gambling’s Mecca: Las Vegas. I stayed for four days and three nights, and probably couldn’t have lasted any longer. By my last day, running on three hours of sleep had finally caught up.

My group stayed on the Strip at the Luxor, whose two “headline” acts were Carrot Top and Criss Angel. Needless to say, we found better ways to occupy our time.

That being said, I wouldn’t trade my experience for anything. And you can bet that I’ll be making a second appearance in Sin City before long. So, like I did with Atlantic City, and my colleague Gary Trask did with the Gulf Coast, here are my Top-10 first impressions of Las Vegas.

10. Under construction
Everywhere you looked there were construction signs. The CityCenter project looms high over the Strip, and it looks like it will be unbelievable (if it ever gets completed). There were lane closures and detours all over the city. This didn’t help the traffic situation, as it always seemed we were stuck at a red light.

9. There’s plenty of other stuff to do
It’s not all about the casinos. There are a ton of attractions you can enjoy in Las Vegas without sitting down at a blackjack table. The water show in front of the Bellagio (made famous in Ocean’s 11) was incredible. There were more shops than you could shake a stick at. And the roller coaster at New York, New York was running all afternoon and evening — which leads to number eight…

8. Families are everywhere, at all hours
There were people of all ages milling about the Strip. The pool area at Luxor had plenty of twenty-somethings, but also plenty of pre-teens. And it wasn’t just during daylight hours. There were more than a few “Parents of the Year” who were pushing around strollers at 3 am.

7. The sportsbook can get a little crazy, especially during the Preakness
We picked a pretty good time to go to Vegas, especially since everyone in my group is a sports fan. On our first night we headed over to the Mandalay Bay sportsbook to watch our hometown Celtics take on the Magic in an all-important Game 6. Not only did the Celtics blow a double-digit lead to lose the game, but they also could not cover the eight-point spread (driven home by Ray Allen missing a wide-open three at the end that would have done the trick). The packed house was going crazy for that game, not to mention the other NBA playoff game and two NHL Game 7s.

But that was nothing compared to the atmosphere on Saturday for the Preakness. We got there early enough to snag some seats, but after that it was standing room only. The build-up to the race was crazy, especially since half the sportsbook was betting on the smaller races leading up to the big one. The race itself was great because Mandalay Bay used the Pimlico track feed, not the NBC broadcast feed. The sportsbook had an announcer calling the race, and the crowd went nuts after Rachel Alexander took her historic victory. The only negative? I went 0-for-4 on my bets.

6. The club scene is intense
I was in Vegas for only three nights, so I was only able to attend two of the dozens of clubs the city is known for. But the two I went to were intense. LAX in Luxor was free to get into with a room key, which was a huge benefit for me. The venue itself was very cool. And Pure at Caesars was probably the best club I’ve ever been to. It was huge and completely packed. The women were drop-dead gorgeous (well, a few of them anyway). There was a rooftop area overlooking the Strip. Plus, I was able to see a washed-up rap star in person (Ja Rule at Pure) and just missed seeing a washed-up rock group (Everclear at LAX).

5. Food options galore
The only thing in Vegas more abundant than the casinos was the restaurants. At every turn there was a food option, from buffets to filets. In fact, the filet I had at David Burke’s Modern American Cuisine at the Venetian was one of the best steaks I’ve ever had. And the buffet at MGM Grand was well worth the $38 I spent.

4. The heat
You can be warned a hundred times before you go to Vegas about the heat, but you can’t really appreciate it until you actually set foot outside. Of course, it’s a dry heat, and everyone says a dry heat is better than a humid heat. Well, 100 degrees still feels like 100 degrees. Thankfully I loaded up with sunscreen or else there would have been real problems.

The one benefit to the heat? The pool scene is fantastic. Just make sure you lube up.

3. Casinos everywhere you turn
There are slot machines in the airport. There are slot machines on the sidewalk. There are so many casinos I can’t remember how many of them I gambled at, let alone just walked through. From the guy playing $500 craps at Caesars by himself (not me) to the guy playing $5 craps at Bill’s Gambling Hall on a full table (me), there are options for everyone regardless of their tax bracket.

2. No open container laws
This is one impression I didn’t see coming, even though I should have. They don’t call it Sin City for nothing. But I was a big fan of this impression, as was basically every other person over the age of 21 that I came across on the Strip. It certainly made the long walks between casinos much more enjoyable.

1. The Strip at night is the sight to see
Of course the Strip is #1. In fact, it was so good that I walked it two nights in a row. It’s simply something you need to experience at least once in your life. The lights are glaring. Everyone is drinking and having a good time. The street peddlers handing out flyers for women (WHO WANT TO MEET YOU!). The casinos seem to go on for miles. This walk should be on every person’s bucket list.

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If you are aware of all that has been happened around the UIGEA (the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act), it won’t be unexpected for you to hear the last announcement of the EU about the US position in the online gambling world. The European Union inclined the United States to annul the ban; as this ban is the violation of WTO standards. They made the investigation regarding the ban but they hadn’t published its results officially until recently.
Now these results have been announced officially and though they are rather incriminating, this fact does not shock anyone. According to these results the USA break the World Trade Organization standards prosecuting and blocking foreign online casino gambling companies in their country. Besides, the report shows that US Department of Justice tries to pursue everyone who allows US citizens to play in foreign online casinos.

Congress knew that the report would be published. However all warnings was unnoticed by the Bush Administration, even understanding that the country would be in great trouble for such policy. So, now the US should decide how they go from this situation and if it will be possible to recover from the damage that the online casino industry has had. Before going and filing an official charge with the World Trade Organization, the European Union will try to discuss a settlement with the United States. They say that President Obama, by himself, will take part in the talks and show us all online casino gambling muddle.

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All players of Lucky18Casino have been watching the jackpot meters carefully. There are three largest progressive jackpots, two of which are over a million and one with about a million, and several smaller jackpots. A total jackpot pool is almost $4 million, which is the biggest progressive jackpot money US players can find anywhere online.

The largest jackpot is Jackpot Piñatas with over $1.2 Million at a moment. The slot was launched in November, 2007 with an initial prize of $250,000, and within several weeks the slot jackpot of $273,914 was hit but since then nobody has managed to win it again.

Two other games - Aztec Millions and Shopping Spree with current jackpots of $1.1 Million and $940,000 respectively have never been hit.

While these huge jackpots are still waiting to be won, some of jackpots have just made several players a little wealthier. It’s Good to Be Bad $1 slot paid over $151,000 in the beginning of April and It’s Good to Be Bad 25p have just paid $88,000.

Robert Goldman, CEO of Lucky 18, said “Who knows when we will have a big winner. That is up to Lady Luck herself”. He added that they are glad that they have such big jackpots and one of them is sure to be won soon! But the next jackpot that will be won is sooner to be Caribbean Stud or Light Speed.

These two jackpots must be won according to statistics. An average Caribbean Stud Poker jackpot is hit every 15. Now it is the thirtieth day since it was won last. An average Light Speed jackpot is won every 123 days. And almost a year has gone later since the day when the previous jackpot has been won.

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Microgaming is really good at attracting the gamers’ interest. Every third week of the month you can find the previews of the new slots which will be launched next month. That’s why during the fortnight these games are told about all over the place. The players will share their impressions with each other and discus the expectations. In the first week of the month they will be busy trying these new games. On average Microgaming releases four slots every month, so the players are busy with learning new releases during two weeks. After it the new part of previews is published and it repeats again and again.

Very soon in the beginning of April four new games: Stunt Pilot, Lucky Eggsplorer, The Great Galaxy Grab and Mayan Princess will be released. All four games have completely different themes, the Stunt Pilot is connected with flying, The Great Galaxy Grab is based on the popular space theme and Mayan Princess describes the epoch of the ancient civilization. But Microgaming keeps up to date and Lucky Eggsplorer has the Easter theme, because April is the time of Easter.

Furthermore most of the Microgaming powered casinos shows the screenshots of all new slots. But Roxy Palace also selects one of the games and describes some of the details. Today we have the opportunity to learn some information about the Stunt Pilot. This is 5 reel 30 payline video slot game which has the aerobatic flyer theme. It offers different coin values from 1 to 25 cents and as the game has 10 coins max bet that is 75 dollars per spin. Stunt Pilot has a nice mixture of different features, including scatters, multipliers and free spins. Also Microgaming performs some innovative bonus games but all the details are the top secret now. Stunt Pilot has the popular gamble bonus feature, so the players can try to double or quadruple the sum of the prize if they guess correctly the card colour or suit.

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32Red Online Casino which comes into 32Red Plc and was called the Best Casino 6 times, has recently declared about the unbelievable individual wins of the slot gamers in February.

Mr F (we can’t say his full name without violation his privacy) is the head of the list of the main slot winners of 32Red online casino in February. He has hit a nice prize of £35,000 for a single spin playing the Avalon slot machine, which can be called one of the most frequent among the 5 reel slot games of 32Red Online Casino.

Pat Harrison, Operations Director said that large prizes were the distinguishing feature of 32Red casino, but this gamer was the really lucky man, because spending only £100 for a single spin he won the significant sum of £35,000.

Totally 32Red casino paid out £13,024,341 in February, it included both large individual prizes and the smaller payouts of the most part of the players who were not so lucky.

Pat Harrison was glad to congratulate all the slot machine winners of the last month and to wish them good luck in playing online games in future and increasing the payouts.

Alongside with the announcement of the most remarkable wins 32Red casino has presented 5 new online casino games including 4 slot machines.

Mark Quayle, the Head of Marketing 32Red said that all the players both the winners and those who were eager to be in the front line were really pleased with the fact they could try four new slot games with the free spin feature. The games are the following: Fighting Fish, Beach Babe, The Rat Pac and Kings and Queens, the other good news for all the 32Red casino players is the increasing of the Mega Moolah jackpot, which has passed over £5.6 million.

The fifth new game which has been launched is the Triple Pocket Hold’em Gold, which is the online casino variant of Texas Holdem Poker.

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At the moment there are two biggest progressive jackpots totaling over two million dollars at Lucky18Casino. They are Jackpot Piñatas with nearly $1.2 million and the Aztec’s Millions with $1.1 million. The highly popular Shopping Spree slot could break a million dollar mark if no one wins it very soon. And the newest slot game, Cleopatra’s Gold, is already $100,000.

While most large online casinos do not accept players from the USA, Lucky18Casino welcomes players from every corner of the world.

Robert Goldman of Lucky18Casino said: “Seems like lots of people think these games should be about due for a hit. They have been our busiest games for several weeks.”

Because a progressive jackpot grows every time a player adds a little to their bet, and as these games are very popular, the jackpot has been rising quickly.

Jackpot Piñatas is a 20 payline slot machine with beautiful señoritas, tacos, roses and various piñatas. The slot has free spins, wild symbols, and bonus game that make the slot a true fiesta. Five Bull Piñatas on any of the active paylines win the progressive jackpot. To get for the jackpot, a player must bet 25 cents per line. Appeared a year ago with an initial prize of $250,000, Jackpot Piñata slot was won for $273,914 several weeks later but nobody hasn’t been able to win it again since then.

Being a relatively new game, Aztec’s Millions jackpot hasn’t been hit yet. 3, 4 or 5 idol symbols activate free spins and during the free spins feature, more free spins can be won. All the prizes are multiplied by 3 during the free spins except for the progressive jackpot. The player can make a fixed bet of $5.00 per spin at Aztec’s Millions that is $0.20 for each of the 25 paylines.

Lucky18Casino offers 16 slot machines and other popular games including blackjack, roulette and craps. The casino is powered by RealTime Gaming.

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There are only several casinos in the online gambling industry that can be called the best of the best. It’s rather difficult to gain the good reputation and casino does not only have to offer the largest choice of games, but also should provide the high quality customer service, in that case the players will select this particular casino from the wide range of gambling sites.

Bodog can be really called one of such casinos. Nowadays among the hundreds of different internet gambling sites Bodog has the reputation of the reliable casino and this is a high complement. Bodog always tries to offer something interesting and new to the clients and the casino promotions attract players to their site.

Bodog Casino is running the new Baccarat contest for the visitors of the casino. According to the plans this contest will last during 4 weeks and players will win over 3,000 dollars. Every week the leader will be called and everyone will be able to see them on the special board, the best 5 players will earn a hundred of dollars. After these 4 weeks the best gamers of the month will be chosen and they will receive 1,000 dollars.

In other words those who have the top scores on the cards will get the highest spots and if you play more and more your chances to become one of the best players also increase. You can see what you have, all the cards from 2 to 9 have their face values, aces are equal to one point and the rest mean zero points.

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When you think of playing slots on the Net, you would find that an online casino with the name of VIP Slots could offer something unique concerning slots machine. At the point VIP Slots online casino is running daily free roll tournaments (with just $2 rebuys) and the top ten daily players are awarded a free entry in VIP Slots Casino’s March Madness tournament in March.

The tournament is sponsored by EH New Ventures, the parent company of the most popular, longstanding internet casino network powered by Vegas Technology Software. EH New Ventures Inc. consists of a poker room and 6 online casinos among which the most renowned ones such as English Harbour and Millionaire Casino. Without any doubt, EH New Ventures wants to draw up a great deal of traffic at its newest casino site, the abovementioned VIP Slots.

The fact that the tournament is paying out an unprecedented $250,000 in guaranteed winnings makes this event newsworthy. The only slots tournament to give out the bigger sum was the $500,000 World Series of Slots run by Microgaming’s the Jackpot Factory Group. The only catch was that as the Jackpot Factory is very popular (they were then open to American players), there was a flood of players competing for their slice of the tournament winnings.

In fact EH Gaming Ventures is one of the most popular online casino networks with American players now. At the moment many players consider that Microgaming has become too large in some respects. As regards March Madness tournament, it will generate 5,625 winners over a single month that is the course of the tournament. First prize winner will bring home a massive $100,000, second place will get $25,000, 3rd place is $15,000, 4th place: $10,000, and so on down the line.

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Two well known online casinos Jackpot City and River Belle has recently reported about start of free online tournament. With the help of this slot tournament the Lance Armstrong Foundation would like to collect some money for supporting cancer awareness. This event starts on the 1 of February and lasts till the 21.

The rules are rather simple, the first play is free, but you should pay 10 dollars at the semi-final stage. The top hundred gamers from each day will be able to participate in the semi-final for free. The best will move to the final part of the tournament, which will cost 15 dollars for start and 2 dollars for prolongation the game. The top 20 gamers will get the prize of 3,500 dollars.

The best of them will get 450 dollars and the others will split 3,050 dollars. If you wish to take part in this tournament you can visit one of the casinos, every day they will show the results and the winners.

Lance Armstrong who has cooperated with the casinos is the outstanding person, he is the cancer survivor, the famous seven time winner of Tour de France. He has recently declared that he is going to race again in 2009. Lance Armstrong is widely known for his activity both in sphere of racing and cancer research and now online casinos have a perfect chance to participate in his project.

Some members of the Internet gambling community are thinking over the ways to give back and such a tournament is the good choice, with the help of such outstanding persons as Lance Armstrong they can do much.

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All Slots Online Casino is mad about unprecedentedly new idea of how to win at online slots.
Being proudly included into Jackpot Factory Group, All Slots Online Casino stands at the forefront of slots variety, it launches and promotes 3 new slot games, paylines-free Burning Desire slot game, which offers 243 ways of winning.

Characterizing Burning Desire’s release, this slot game comes just together with St. Valentine’s Day; therefore it is stuffed with all the attributes: red-hot rubies, valentines and roses on the reels, the absolute absence of the paylines. But, meanwhile, there are 243 ways of winning offered in this game, all the symbols here act as scatters. While appearing anywhere on the reels (the first three reels), these symbols mean a great prize.

There is an extra feature, Free Spins in this slot, which really adds to the excitement, as it offers the players such a chance to hit up to 90,000 coins! You can also retrigger the Free Spins feature to get the larger bonuses, if you do, during this Free Spins game all your wins get multiplied by three.

David Brickman, Vice President of Player Affairs of Jackpot Factory Group, in a joint statement together with All Slots Online Casino has said that Burning Desire is a really unique online casino innovation, and this fact really thrills them, as they are a part of this wondrous endeavor. From its part, All Slots Casino is a leader among online casinos, as it is ready to bring joy to the players by the help of its wonderful new slot game.

The new and humorous Bearly Fishing Video Slot and entertaining Track and Fieldmouse UK-style Pub Slot really add some comic to this month’s release. Bearly Fishing Video Slot is stuffed with the most regular and widely spread features of slot game.

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