5 UK Online Casinos You Can Trust
This topic was inspired by a conversation I had with my wonderful girlfriend a few days ago. I’m a gamer, and as such I play EVERYTHING – console games, handheld games, mobile games, Facebook games, board games, roleplaying games, card games, party games, you name it. That’s just what I do – I believe that every single game I play, regardless of its medium, the device it’s played on (or lack thereof) or its intended context can teach me something about gaming and how everything fits together. Naturally, that also extends to casino games. I don’t really frequent casinos all that often – I’ve gone maybe about 3-4 times in my entire lifetime, mostly just to see what it’s like (and once because one of my friends decided to get married in a hotel instead of in a church and after that all the guys went to the casino attached to the hotel and played for something like four hours – first wedding night be damned).
It bears saying that I’ve got a whole lot more experience playing in online casinos – I had to test out quite a few as part of an assignment for one of the magazines I worked for a couple of years ago, and since then I picked a few that I really liked and am still playing to this day. Admittedly, I’m not the highest roller – on average I spend about £10-15 a month on gambling, which generally brings me enough profits to keep me going. The biggest win I’ve ever had was just under £1000 on a £0.5 bet while playing slots, which was pretty cool. So obviously I know for a fact that online casinos are legitimate because I have won actual physical money from them… But there’s also this huge misconception among people who aren’t gambling who believe that online casinos are completely fake. My girlfriend, a brilliant computer coder, told me that it’d be ridiculously easy to craft an algorithm which seem genuine and can even fool verification software, tricking it into believing that it’s random when it’s really not. According to her, there’s no such thing as true “randomness” – computers can only follow very specific instructions, so ultimately what would be considered random in real life (such as, say, playing Rock-Paper-Scissors for the first time) all depends on algorithms that need to be pre-determined by humans, down to the lowest level. There isn’t just a “random” command you can input – or if there is, it has been pre-programmed by someone else and is not really random.
Obviously, she’s entirely right (I know that people often joke that women are always right, but my girlfriend really is almost always right), at least when it comes to the algorithms part… But I had to highly disagree with her conclusions that just because online casinos aren’t truly random that automatically means they must be cheating. The truth is that they have no reason to cheat – they’d get more than enough money just by playing fair! Hell, if a casino had to cheat in order to survive, how are physical casinos (where it’s impossible for the dealers to cheat) still around? I mean, it’d make no sense! Most casino games are designed with a house edge anyway, so literally all a casino would have to do to remain functioning and profitable is to have an active player base, and everything else will come into place as it is. But even though this is rather obvious to me as someone who has intimate knowledge of how game theory works, quite a lot of people just assume that online casinos must be cheating – take this thread on Yahoo Answers, for instance. “That’s ALL they will do is take your money! You MUST understand something – WHY are these on-line casinos made????? For ONE REASON ONLY – that is to TAKE your money, NOT to give you any!”, a particularly angry commenter explains. “If you honestly think that anything is going to happen besides you GIVING these people money, you are a fool who will soon be parted with their money”, he says.
Well, I disagree with that assessment. Sure, people must lose money so that other people can win. That’s really all there is to it. If someone offers you £5 if a coin lands on heads, but will take £5 from you if it lands on tails, then he must have already played this game with at least one person where the coin landed on tails – otherwise he wouldn’t have £5 to give you in case you won! That’s how casinos work – some win, some lose, and the people who lose are always about 3-4% more than the people who win, which is how the casino makes profit. As I said, I’ve played in a variety of online casinos, and not a single one of them has ever ripped me off – each one has paid out my winnings, and there have been winnings (with varying frequency) in each one. So how about this – let me give you a brief list of 5 of my favourite online casinos, all of which are confirmed as legitimate by me. I’m not going to go into much detail on those – if you want more information you can always look up a list of uk based online casinos on the Web and read up on whatever you like. I’ll just list the name, some of the bonuses, their pros and cons. Are you ready? Get set! GO!
888 Casino
Bonus: £88 upfront, 100% match of your first deposit for up to £100 more
Pros: Sleek and intuitive interface; brilliant “demo account” feature that gives you the full casino experience without asking for a penny
Cons: Not a huge selection of games; live casino glitches badly on some mobile devices
32Red
Bonus: £10 free, up to £160 300% match of your first deposit
Pros: Truly huge library of all sorts of games – slots, roulette, you name it; The ability to try out most of the games without registration
Cons: Average quality of the games is somewhat mediocre
Ladbrokes
Bonus: 100% bonus of up to £500
Pros: TONS of amazing licensed slots and games, such as the famous Marvel slots; Betting, poker, bingo & more with the same account
Cons: Clunky interface, mediocre mobile version
LeoVegas
Bonus: 200% match of up to £100
Pros: By far the best mobile casino you can possibly find on the UK market, with over 300 games fully optimized and working on mobile
Cons: Web browser version isn’t really all that impressive or standing out
William Hill
Bonus: 100 match up of up to £150
Pros: Probably the most famous bookmaker/online casino in the UK, with the reliability that its reputation implies
Cons: Relatively low amount of games
There you go, that’s five online casinos that you can check out right now, all with my own, personal guarantee of legitimacy! But hey, don’t take my word for it – each of them has been registered by the Gambling Commission (which is the UK’s foremost authority which triple-checks a casino’s legitimacy), and all of them have been certified by eCOGRA or a similar independent organization as being fair and giving everyone an equal opportunity to win. So get out there and play some games, folks! Remember – it costs literally as much as you want it to!
Don’t Wait For Half-Life 3
Recently, Kotaku UK reported that a very peculiar file has been found in “Dota 2 Reborn”, the new version of Valve’s popular MOBA Dota 2 which runs on Source Engine 2. The file, titled “hl3.txt”, contains quite a few lines of seemingly random code – parts of it revolve around AI, parts of it are about VR (as in, Oculus Rift support), there are mentions of procedural generation and open world and there’s even a line about ziplines in there. All of this, combined with the text file’s name and the fact that it wasn’t “leaked” by some anonymous fan with dubious connections to Valve, but was found right in the database one of their games and can be accessed by anyone with the right tools, have renewed fans’ hopes that a third instalment of the extremely popular franchise might be on the way. After all, it has been eight years since we got the last game set in the Half-Life universe (“Portal 2” notwithstanding – while the game is in the Half-Life universe, it’s also very much its own beast), which was just an expansion for “Half-Life 2”, the second of three planned. It has been 11 years since we saw “Half-Life 2” hit store shelves. Just for reference, the difference between “Half-Life 1” and “Half-Life 2” was only 5 years. Considering the fact that both games can easily be considered among the best ever, with “Half-Life 2” winning Spike Video Game Awards’ Game of the Decade award, suffice to say that the wait has left the fans anxious. It has reached the point where there’s a very popular meme of finding “Half-Life 3” confirmations in literally everything. Well, I’m here to say one thing – don’t wait. It’s not happening. Like, ever. Not next year. Not in five years. Not in ten years. Never. Never ever. The sooner you accept it, the less it’ll hurt.
Let’s analyze the txt file first real quick. It really does not prove anything at all. As a matter of fact, lots of Source Engine games have a hl2.txt file which lists basic functions that appear in the engine, but nothing too concrete about “Half-Life 2”. Similarly, a text file titled hl.txt was found in games using the “Half-Life 1” engine, such as “Team Fortress Classic”. Do those files contain shocking revelations about their respective games? No, not really. I mean, now that we’ve got intimate knowledge of the first two “Half-Life” games we may be able to find SOME connections, but there’s also a lot of things in them that are nowhere to be found in “Half-Life”, such as a system for RPG elements (which is also found in hl3.txt). But you could make the argument that the existence of hl3.txt must confirm “Half-Life 3”, since there’s also hl.txt and hl2.txt in other games, and we already have “Half-Life” and “Half-Life 2”. Why would Valve make a file titled hl3.txt if there wasn’t a “Half-Life 3” to go with it? Absolutely fair enough. Let’s pretend that this file is, in fact, part of “Half-Life 3”. Which part? I mean, it’s got all kinds of stuff in it – citizen AI, procedural generation data, VR output support and so much else. There’s scripts for so many systems in there that aren’t even remotely related. In videogames, generally different elements are tied to different systems – there’s a series of scripts that control the AI, there’s another series which crafts the procedurally generated world, etc. They all work independently of each other – the PC or console is viewing the data for AI and calculating that while also taking care of stuff like dynamic lighting/shadows and other world effects, as well as the mechanics of the game, such as jumping, shooting and moving around (and some weapons might require additional processes on top of that, such as grenades or homing missiles, both of which are staples of Half-Life). Running everything from the same script is ludicrous and makes absolutely no sense. And if it wasn’t meant to be run from that script, then why is it there? Did Valve just put random scripts from “Half-Life 3” into a txt file and then accidentally left it lying around in one of their games? I don’t think so. More likely than not, some of those scripts are just placed there by default, as an option that could be loaded should a certain game using Source Engine 2 require it. For example, if “Portal 3” has VR support, the scripts to call it and enable it would be taken from hl3.txt.
But let’s look at this from another angle. The Half-Life series has always been known for being a highly linear, cinematic experience. Every single little part of Gordon Freeman’s journey is always meticulously crafted down to the finest detail to ensure the best possible player experience. If you read “Raising the Bar” – a book about the creation of “Half-Life” and “Half-Life 2” you can see just how detailed the designers at Valve were in their desire to ensure that the game plays exactly the way they want it to, to the point where they spent time making minor adjustments that no one would even consciously perceive. This crazy attention to detail to the specific experience seems to have worked wonders for them up until now… So why replace that with an open, procedurally generated world? That seems to go completely against everything that Half-Life is. The same goes for the assumptions that the new game would have a quest systems where citizens placed around the world would give Gordon Freeman quests, much like they would in an MMORPG. This, again, goes against the basic principles of Half-Life’s cinematic experience, which is more akin to a smooth train ride (to the point where it doesn’t even have cutscenes – all important story moments happen right in front of the player, with no loss of control) than to an MMO-like grind. Half-Life has always felt more like an interactive movie than a videogame, and thus making it less focused and more game-y seems like steps in all the wrong directions. Ziplines make sense, of course, as does VR support, but then again, should we really be surprised that Valve wants to add VR support to their engine considering the impending release of the SteamVR?
Releasing “Half-Life 3” also doesn’t make sense from a purely financial point of view. “Half-Life” and “Half-Life 2” were made in a different era, when Valve was primarily a game developer. Now they’re something a lot more different, in no small part thanks to Steam – the marketplace which revolutionized PC gaming, to the point where over 90% of all PC games sales in the world are done through Steam. And with Valve taking between 15% and 30% (with some sources claiming their share could be as high as 40%, for games that have received a lot of exposure on the store), that amounts to a whole lot of money. Additionally, Valve are currently operating “Dota 2” and “Team Fortress 2” – two of the most popular online games in the world, especially the former, which is placed just a little bit behind the world leader “League of Legends”. Those two games alone are bringing them millions every single day, in addition to all the money Steam is making. There are thousands upon thousands of games on Steam (the official Steam page lists them as over 3500, but I’m pretty sure the number could be as high as 10 times that number, considering that only the action games currently available on the store are about 5000 – and that’s just one genre, out of ten), each of which sells an average of 32,000 copies. It’s impossible to do the math because of just how much that amounts to, as each game is sold for a different price, but it amounts to millions.
To this day, “Half-Life 2” has sold 12 million copies, but A) it’s an immensely popular 11 year old game, B) it was included in the brilliant “Orange Box” bundle which sold 5 fantastic games for the price of 1, and C) it’s often on sale on the Steam store, usually for about a dollar or two. But hey, let’s say, purely for the sake of argument, that “Half-Life 3” will match it in sales and will also sell 12 million copies, all of them at the full price of $60. From those $60, Valve will only get about $40 due to taxes (even less if it was on console, but we’ll assume that the game was a PC exclusive and sold on Valve’s own store, where they don’t need to pay a commission fee). That amounts to about half a billion in profits, which might sound like a whole lot of money (it’s definitely more than most of us will even be anywhere near in our lifetime), but removing the development and marketing budget (which, for a big title like this, would be about $200m), you’re left with about $280 million in net profits… Which is about the same as what Steam and Dota do in a good trimester. Keep in mind – that’s an “absolute best case” scenario, which will definitely not happen, as even hotly anticipated games such as “Metal Gear Solid V” only managed to sell about 4-5 million copies, and “MGSV” in particular came out on pretty much everything ever instead of being PC-exclusive as “Half-Life 3” will presumably be. At the end of the day, the development hassle would just be too much to be worth the financial risk. Here, I’ll leave this Gabe Newell look-alike explain.
So yeah, what I’m trying to say is that you really shouldn’t be holding your breath for “Half-Life 3”. That game just doesn’t fit with Valve’s priorities right now. Best case scenario, we MIGHT get “Portal 3” or another IP from them eventually, but chances are that for the foreseeable future they’ll just focus on running the store and updating “Dota 2” and “Team Fortress 2”. But instead of holding out hope for a game that’ll never get made, why don’t you just focus on anticipating the games that will actually be released, such as “Beyond Good & Evil 2”! Wait…
Smudo – The Gamers’ Haven
I was only six years old when I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life. I still remember that day like it was yesterday – it was Christmas Eve of 1985, and my parents, my older sister, my baby brother and I were all resting in the living room, spending quality time together. We were never very religious at all, but we still liked to treat Christmas as a family holiday, to celebrate our own connection rather than the birth of a man who may or may not have lived 2000 years ago. Sure, it sounds sappy now, but remember – it was the 80s, and I was six years old, and considering my parents’ schedules, Christmas time was one of the very few ones in which all of us were together, so I was ecstatic. All of a sudden, my dad just goes “You know what? I’ll make you kids a deal – you can open one of the presents tonight instead of tomorrow, but I get to pick which one. Deal?” My sister and I immediately went “Of course”, because what kid wouldn’t? My father nodded, crouched down next to the Christmas tree and pulled out a rather large, neatly wrapped box. We opened it, and lo and behold, it was a brand-new Nintendo Entertainment System! “What’s that thing?”, my 10 year old sister asked, clearly not impressed by this gray piece of hardware. “You can play arcade games on this, except on the TV”. My sister immediately went “NO WAY!”, while I personally, having never even seen an arcade cabinet before, found myself way more entertained by the robot that came included with the system (also known as R.O.B.).
My dad and my sister plugged the gray box into the TV (with quite a lot of effort, mind you – since our cable for TV was secured pretty tightly and required unbolting, believe it or not) while I was perfectly happy to just play with my new robot – for all I cared my sister could keep the box, I just wanted R.O.B.! Finally, with a whole lot of effort, the NES was all set up. My dad, who already knew all about the system thanks to his best friend, who worked in retail (in fact, his whole scheme of “Let’s open this today and not tomorrow” was specifically because he knew that if it was faulty he could exchange it for a new one today and not damage our Christmas with a non functioning gift), quickly inserted the “Super Mario Bros.” cart into the system and pressed the Power button. Some funny images showed up on the screen, like a cartoon with no plot and a particularly low budget. Since I was a little bit slow to get things as a kid, it actually took me five more minutes to realize that the funny Italian plumber jumping around on the screen was actually being controlled by my sister. That’s when I realized just why this gray box had been so important – it played cartoons that you could control! My six year old brain just blew up right then and there. We’re talking full-on mouth-gaping, little eyes in awe, trying to comprehend the whole new world that had just been revealed to me.
Just then, at that precise moment, I knew that whatever I was going to be working on, it was going to be THAT. I didn’t care if I’d be making it, writing about it, selling it or just shouting about it on the streets with a megaphone and a sign, but my entire career was going to be related to that. Almost 30 years later, I’m happy to say that I have done three of those things, but which ones I leave to you. Well, alright, I’ll give you a hint – I’ve written articles for several gaming sites and one physical magazine, none of which ever became particularly big, but let’s just say I’ve worn a lot of different hats in this industry. “Smudo” is my latest attempt at a publication, and this time, I’m going to be my own boss. You can expect reviews, news, editorials, all the good stuff that you see on big sites suck as Kotaku and Polygon, except, well, from me. Let’s see how it goes, shall we? As for why I chose the name “Smudo”… Let’s just say that it’s a reference to something. To what, though, I’ll leave a mystery. Keep guessing, kids!
-John Cox