Gambling At its Best

  22BET uses a number of software providers and thus offers a surprisingly wide range of games. The casino software is supplied by Amatic, NetEnt, Microgaming, Endorphina, Yggdrasil, and many other providers. This means that you can find many gaming offers on 22BET, sometimes very diverse. The software is available both for download to the desktop and as a browser flash game. This means that you can enjoy everything that 22BET offers right in your browser.   All games are adapted, which means that they automatically adjust to your screen size. There is also a special mobile casino for gambling on the go. The software is multilingual, and gamblers from anywhere in the world can play games in their native language. There is a huge selection of slots, including classic video slots, branded slots, progressive jackpots, and even 3D games. All slot machines feature excellent modern graphics, amazingly good soundtracks, animations, bonus options, and massive jackpots. The gamblers ca...

  22BET is a fairly new online casino that primarily focuses on gamblers from Europe yet accepts gamblers from all over the world. The website offers a wide range of games, special bonuses, and an extensive VIP program. The gamblers can also participate in regular tournaments on this Malta-licensed multilingual website.  Using several casino software providers secures your access to a wide variety of casino games and allows to play directly in your browser. We have tested 22BET and checked whether this offer really suits gamblers of all levels. All the information can be found in our detailed 22BET casino review. Hundreds of games, including classic games like blackjack and roulette, video slots, jackpot arenas, and even a large live casino, can entertain 22BET casino visitors for hours. The Malta-licensed company was designed for the needs of clients all over the world, and it proved reliable, multilingual, and secure. With this in mind, this good casino can be confidently re...

  I’m a person in recovery. What that means is that I haven’t had the need to use a mind-altering substance since 2010. I did develop some severe problems gambling, though. That’s what they call a secondary addiction: when you deal with your drug problem, but get hooked on things that aren’t illegal, like drinking and gambling. And let me tell you, gambling just took off with me. I’d go to a Keno hall or a casino, and I’d say to myself, “I’ll just try out $40,” but then I’d spend all that I had in my pocket, and then take out my credit card and drop another $500. I can remember what it was like to do drugs, and gambling was the same for me. I’m playing games, rushing, scratching, all discombobulated. I was just gone. I have a nice house now, a family, a good job, and I realized that gambling was like putting rock on the pipe and pulling it. And I knew that that would destroy my life. That’s when I got help for the gambling, and things got a lot better. If someone in recovery asks m...

  I never thought I had a gambling problem, I thought it was more of an enjoyment. But when you lose $15,000 on a single weekend in Vegas, you know there’s something wrong. That outdid when I was using heroin – that’s how bad I felt. You go in with your head up, you come out and your head’s down, and then you continue going back and taking chances. That’s a problem. I am still in recovery from addiction. I go to meetings, and I also go to different schools and talk to kids about getting high, and how peer pressure and boredom can make you a victim – whether it’s gambling, whether it’s drugs. All that stuff has an impact on your life – I wish I’d listened to my mother a little more closely! If I met someone at a Narcotics Anonymous meeting and they told me they’re going to a casino, I would tell them: be careful, because gambling is another form of addiction. I wouldn’t tell them “don’t do it,” because that sometimes makes people want to do it even more. But they need to k...

 It may sound weird to you that someone won an online casino prize without paying a single penny. However, it did happen. Katherine, a determined online casino gamer from Canada, was determined to play her favorite jackpot, not knowing that her life would change after.  She got a free spin at the casino just like any other player would get on some sites featured on the Canadian online casino list. She did not want it to go to waste, so she went ahead and played it. But unlike most free spins, this one was a winning spin. Taking advantage of that freebie landed her the 1,200 pound jackpot (over $1,600 dollars). A casino nightmare can strike at any time and plenty of people have experienced a chill when gambling both online and in person. Horror stories don’t have to be about murder and gore, the prospect of losing money can be pretty frightening too. One gambler began betting regularly on trips to Las Vegas with his wife but it got out of hand quickly and soon he was playing wi...

  This mysterious story is one of the craziest gambling stories and it shares an eerie resemblance to some of the greatest spiritual and mystical films. It’s about a young man who went into a Los Angeles casino to have a routine good time with friends, but what happened was anything but routine. Although he was tired, the young man knew that going to the casino would help him stay active and keep him alert. Evidently, he was more tired than he thought because he fell asleep the minute he settled in at the casino. Or maybe there was a supernatural reason he fell asleep.  He woke up suddenly with the unsettling feeling that someone was staring at him. Realizing he had fallen asleep in one of the casino corners, he surveyed the room nervously. True to his instincts, he found a beautiful lady in an old dress looking directly at him.  In shock, he watched as she broke the stare and walked straight to the roulette table. The table began to spin immediately. She stared at the ga...

  Gambling addict tells of destruction wrought in a terrifyingly short time by fixed odds betting terminals – and battle to change his life. It took Tony Franklin just 59 minutes to squander £3,500 on high-speed, high-stakes gambling machines in his local Coral bookmakers. Losing the money was easy. Thirteen days before Christmas, he walked up to the counter, swiped his debit card and spent £500 picking the wrong numbers on electronic roulette. Eight minutes later he took out a further £1,000, which was immediately applied to the machine as credit. He burned through that in 39 minutes, and promptly spent another £1,000. Ten minutes later and he was back at the counter buying another £1,000 worth of credit. “I was in a fog. It was me and the machine. I threw it all away,” Franklin said, fighting back tears. “All that money was supposed to pay back debts. It was for Christmas presents. For my son, my wife.” The 43-year-old had lost almost everything he had saved in months of being “c...

Bookmaker Paddy Power encouraged a problem gambler to keep betting until he lost five jobs, his home and access to his children, according to a report by the Gambling Commission.   The company also failed to perform sufficient checks to ensure customers were not using its betting machines to launder the proceeds of crime. The betting regulator said Paddy Power would make a voluntary payment of £280,000 to a “socially responsible” cause following its findings. Paddy Power will also review procedures designed to prevent money laundering and problem gambling and agree to share details of its own failings with the rest of the industry.  But politicians and campaigners called for a review of the industry following the report, as they warned of an out of control gambling epidemic in the UK. 

How would you feel about all of a sudden winning around $700,000 at once? It does sound like that would be the best day of your life. You may think that such lucky occasions don’t just happen to anybody. Some people who engage in gambling claim that it’s all about karma, some are sure that you need to find the right slot machine and others believe in lucky numbers or omens.  No matter what your beliefs are, we all know that big wins at casinos are scarce. How about two huge wins in a lifetime? Okay, we won`t intrigue you anymore. Because having two wins in a lifetime is the story of a 67-year-old American lady who never thought she would become a millionaire. Does anyone of us think of this though? Unfortunately, the name of this woman remains unknown, but it doesn’t matter. What matters is her story. It was the year of 1996 when she just walked in a casino, decided to bet about a hundred bucks, and ended up winning $680,000.  A couple of months later, the same adventurous luc...

This proverb can be traced back to the 17th century, and we assume that gamblers were the ones who invented it. In most cases, we associate casinos with a night lifestyle, but a 74-year-old cool American lady proved it wrong by winning a whopping sum of money before breakfast time. How do you get almost $23 million just after you wake up? Johanna Heundl may have her recipe but, please, note that there is a chance it won’t work out for you. So this respectable lady decided to play Megabucks and bet $170 which immediately turned into $22.6 million. At first, Johanna thought that her win was $2 million and she said that this sum already had made her very happy. However, when she found out that she’s a multimillionaire, she was just over the moon. Just when you naively thought that we would offer you a mega-interesting article which will include all those inspiring casino stories about famous gamblers who went from rags to riches. Oh no, did we just lie to you and none of this is going to ...

  There have been numerous cases of punters attempting to cheat a casino down the years. It’s likely that some of the best gambling stories slipped through the cracks because, well, they got away with it. Needless to say, these upcoming cheats didn’t get away with anything – eventually. When a group of maths whizz kids from the famous MIT university in the US decided to play some blackjack in Las Vegas, they had a cunning plan up their sleeves. They found a way to predict when the cards being dealt would be favourable to them by using a technique called card counting. They won tonnes of money, including over $400,000 in one weekend. They were able to roughly predict how many cards are left, which ones have been spent and which ones remain in the shoe. To avoid detection, they rotated personnel regularly and employed a counter to sit in on games and secretly signal when the team’s designated high-roller should start playing. The tale was turned into a movie called 21, starring Kevin...

Do you have to be crazy to risk everything? That’s probably a question you should ask Ashley Revell, who bet all he had on a roulette wheel landing on red. The Englishman sold everything he owns, including clothes and childhood football trophies, to fly to Las Vegas and gamble it all in one spin of a wheel . It was just under £80k, which included cash from an online bookmaker who sponsored him for changing his name to ”Ashley Blue Square Revell”. He won, and doubled his money. Given the nature of gambling, it can throw up a surprise or two. But sometimes, when the stakes are raised, the story becomes that bit more compelling . The whole thing was filmed for a TV show entitled Double or Nothing, and has been a source of inspiration for nutcases the world over ever since. Possibly the craziest thing about the story is that he chose to risk it all on an American roulette wheel, which offers worse odds (47.3%) than on a European wheel (48.6%).

  “A guy lost approximately $20 million over a night by betting $600,000 a hand. He was frustrated but never got angry at the staff. Meanwhile on the main floor, you get called a cunt when someone loses $10.” Caroline Richardson, for example, became a whale for the Ameristar Casino in Council Bluffs, Iowa. In 2011 alone, she lost nearly $2 million, primarily on the casino’s slot machines. The casino allegedly allowed her to go behind the cashier’s “cage,” an area normally off-limits to patrons, to collect cash to gamble. It increased the limits on some slot machines so that she could spend more on single games. It also made a new machine off-limits to other customers so that Richardson could be the first to play it. Management assigned Richardson an executive host, who offered her free drinks, meals, hotel stays, and tickets to entertainment events.

  A few years back I saw a big player lose $320,000 in 25 minutes. He had just sat down with three full racks of $1000 checks (chips). A rack holds 5 stacks of 20 checks, so each of these racks held $100,000 in checks. I was on my way to a 20 minute break as he was just getting started. As I returned to the floor, I noticed that he now only had two rows of checks left ($40,000). Five minutes later, my friend who was in the section where this player was playing informed me that he had lost the last $40,000, re-bought for $20,000 and then lost that in a matter of minutes. This is a player who get whatever he wants. We don’t do bottle service at our tables at my casino, but this player will have a bottle of wine sent to his game. He, obviously, will have a reserved table waiting for him when he arrives and will get his choice in dealer as well. He doesn’t like to talk to the dealer or supervisor and no other guests are allowed to watch him play. He will have multiple filet mignon meal...

  “A few weeks after he was caught, he came to our Casino with 4 brief cases of $250,000 each and said “I’m not leaving until the sign outside says ‘(insert players name) Casino'”. Super upbeat and happy guy. Really nice to the dealers.  After 5 hours, my shift was over and he was down $720,000.” Several companies supply casinos with ATMs that allow patrons to withdraw funds through both debit and cash-advance functions, in some cases without ever leaving the machines they are playing. (Some of the companies also sell information on their ATM customers to the casinos.) “

  This one comes straight from Scoblete’s “100 Greatest Events in Casino Gaming” in Casino Player magazine. As he tells the tale, Scoblete checked around at the Treasure Island Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas to obtain verification. Back in 1995, a man living on Las Vegas Boulevard—as in, literally living on the street—cashed in a $400 check issued by the Social Security Administration. Instead of spending the funds on food or lodging, he took a shot at the TI blackjack tables. Soon enough, a hot streak like no other saw the man stacking $1.6 million in chips. Unfortunately, he failed to get out while the getting was good. Instead of buying himself a new home, the unlikely blackjack titan wound up losing every last penny back to the house.

According to Scoblete, a man by the name of Barney Vinson told him about the time a roulette wheel seemed to be stuck on 7. With 38 possible spaces on the standard double-zero roulette wheel, we can use the equation (38 x 38 x 38 x 38 x 38 x 38) to calculate the odds of such a run in roulette. As it turns out, if Vinson’s report is indeed true, that particular wheel beat odds of 1 in 3 billion.. While working as a gaming instructor at Caesars Palace on the Strip in 2000, Vinson says he watched Table #211 produce a string of spins the likes of which he’s never seen since. Per Vinson’s account to Scoblete, the ball somehow managed to bounce its way to Red 7 an astounding six times in a row In 1985, Frank Scoblete first set foot inside of a casino not as a gambler, but as a small-time theater actor researching a bit role. He never left, however, quickly transitioning from the stage to a career as a professional gambler, strategy author, and chronicler of the Las Vegas lifestyle. The autho...

  Fred Smith started a small delivery business in 1971. It was tough at first, and at one point he was so low on cash, he couldn’t afford to fuel the planes to make the deliveries.  Fred took his last $5,000 and flew to Las Vegas. He was determined to get enough money to keep his company afloat. While there, he turned his $5,000 into $27,000 and managed to keep the company going so he could afford to cover his fuel bills. Today that company isn’t so small anymore. It’s worth about $5 billion. You may have heard of it. It’s called FedEx. Another amazing bet involved a man predicting 4 different things that would happen in the year 2000. The man from Wales bet £30 that the TV shows EastEnders and Neighbors would still be on the BBC, that U2 would still be a band, and that musician Cliff Richard would be knighted.  Ladbrokes Casino took the bet and gave him 6,479 to 1 odds.

  Another incredible roulette story is that of Gonzalo Garcia-Pelayo. But this story isn’t one of luck or cheating like the previous stories. It’s a story of mathematics and science. In the early 1990s, Garcia-Pelayo observed roulette wheels, and he noticed, by chance, that some numbers would come up more often than others. He decided that he was going to see if there was a way to determine which of the numbers would come up and how often. Over the next few years, he would analyze the spins on the wheels. He and his family would eventually play these wheels to find the number that they would commonly land on. He found that each wheel had its own minor flaws and caused them to favor some spots over others. Using his the data he accumulated, he and he family would beat the casinos at the game. Being the first to honestly do so at the roulette table. A movie was made about his exploits and released in 2012. The movie is called  Winning Streak .

  Are you a James Bond fan? I know I am. One of my favorite actors in the role is Sean Connery. Connery is an avid gambler. It started when he was a child. Connery’s father Joseph would take young Sean to watch him gamble. From there, Sean became enamored with the pastime. Over the years, Sean would play at many casinos all over Europe and the US. One time in the Italian Alps, Connery walked into a casino and decided to play some roulette. As the legend goes, Connery bet on the number 17. He lost. So he tried again and lost again. But on the 3rd try, his luck would change. He hit on the 3rd try and let it ride. Odds were 35 to 1 that he would hit, but hit he did. Defying logic, instead of walking away, Connery would let it ride for a 3rd time. He won again. He hit 17 three times in a row and won 17 million Italian lire. In today’s US dollars, that would amount to about $226,000 . Incidentally, for years it 17 was the most common bet on a roulette table, due in part to Connery’s rol...

  Harry Watanabe founded a gift shop, the Oriental Trading Company, in 1932 and made it grow until it became one of the largest players in its market, until 1977 when his son, Terry Watanabe, became its CEO. Later, in 2000, Terry sold his entire stake in the company to a private equity firm. From this sale, Terry amassed a huge fortune that would later propel a drinking and gambling problem into astronomical losses at various Harrah's owned casinos. It started in 2007 when Mr. Watanabe took a trip to Las Vegas, but then never left. Enjoying the various comps and perks of being a high roller, the casinos slowly drained his fortune for an entire year. It was a gambling binge that ended up costing him over $200 million. During that year, 6% of Harrah's total Las Vegas gambling revenue came from Terry Watanabe. He gambled so much that Harrah's invented a new tier in their Total Rewards program just for him called “Chairman.” It came with various perks such as $12,500 a month fo...

  The Lobster falls under my friend’s list of great poker nicknames and sayings. “DBSRO,” the Lobster told my friend. It was good advice. So good that the Lobster was hired to do some work for my friend who paid him ahead of time for additional work. Unfortunately, the Lobster was not results-oriented enough to actually do work he was hired to do This guy would show up at the poker room in his scrubs around eight, play all night, go to work, go to bed around four, and come back for more. Unfortunately, the man was always angry and one of the worst players my friend had ever seen. Hopefully, that was the only reason he got the nickname “Doctor Kill.” As you can see, funny poker stories can come from different angles, different games, and different venues.  The stories can be funny, be about revenue, or focus in on the unusual conversations had around the table. Hopefully, these stories were amusing to you and made you want to get out there and experience all of the unique playe...

  One of my friends met an older gentleman in a poker room. After a while, the older man asked my friend if he played golf. My friend said he did not. The old man said he used to, but later found out that bowling had air conditioning. Later, the same guy asked if my friend went to the doctor because he, the older man, never did. His brother did, the older player said, at the age of 72 and died. The old man, at the age of 76, swore never to go to the doctor because that, after all, is what kills you.

  My wife once won some money at a slot machine in Kansas City within the first few minutes of being there. When I asked what happened to it, she said she lost it all. “I knew I was going to be there three more hours and I didn’t want to sit and do nothing.” Casinos always find a way to get their money back! The first time my friend went to  visit Las Vegas  (which was her first time playing blackjack), the dealer gave her a card to cut the deck. Not knowing any better, she tried to pocket the card thinking it was a free gift. Back in the days of Full Tilt Poker’s friends list, one of my friends got chewed out by a guy to whom he just delivered a bad beat. To get back at the guy, my friend added the guy to his friends list and spent the next two weeks finding him online, playing against him, and telling the table this dude had taught my friend to play poker. After two weeks, the guy finally lost it and started yelling at him in the chatroom. Revenge achieved!

  A friend of mine knows a guy who runs a bar. A lot of the folks who frequent this bar tend to play cards and, like good card players do, talk a lot about playing cards. However, in the world of poker playing anecdotes, there’s always a danger that someone is going to start talking about their bad beats. A bad beat is when a player wins even though the odds are against that person winning. Pretty much any time you draw to an inside straight or two pair magically becomes a full house on the run in Texas Holdem, that’s a bad beat. Anyway, sometimes bad beat stories are fun. Sometimes, they just turn into a player’s excuse to whine. Because of this, at this guy’s bar in Philly, there’s a special tip jar set aside just for those who would grouse about their bad beats. Whenever anyone starts to tell their favorite bad beat story, the bartender points at the tip jar and waits for money to be deposited. Only then does the bartender listen (well, partially listen anyway) until after the s...

  With ten World Series of Poker bracelets to his name, Phil Ivey is arguably one of the greatest all-around card players on the planet. Yet sometimes greatness isn’t immune to controversy. After winning £7.7M at London’s Crockfords casino playing baccarat in 2012, the gaming establishment refused to pay Ivey. The man who is often called the Tiger Woods of the poker world admitted to using edge sorting, which is a system that takes advantage of irregularities in playing cards to help players determine whether a card is high or low. The real question is whether edge sorting is cheating in a game of pure chance like punto banco baccarat. So far, the courts have repeatedly sided with the casino, but Ivey is hoping the Supreme Court is on his side .  It’s worth noting that Atlantic City’s Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa successfully sued Ivey and his accomplice for $10.1M for using the same edge sorting technique.

  The 1969 moon landing feels like ancient history, but it was an unlikely proposition when Kennedy proposed to land on the lunar surface seven years earlier. Although JFK didn’t live to see his vision come to life, one bright bloke from Preston was rewarded handsomely for his patience and faith. In the spring of 1964, David Threlfall convinced William Hill to give him 1,000 to 1 odds that a man would land on the moon prior to January 1971 . Even though the sci-fi fan only wagered £10, he obviously received his £10,000 with time to spare. That’s worth more than £155,000 today. What’s even more interesting is William Hill has offered 500 to 1 odds that the government will admit to faking the whole thing. Who knew being a conspiracy theorist could be profitable? Of course, we would advise you against placing that bet.

Confronting a compulsive gambler – calling him or her on the indisputable facts that indicate gambling has become an addictive behavior – will usually generate this kind of lie in response. The gambler cannot admit to you or him/her self that there’s a problem, number one, and, number two, if that doesn’t work, he or she will profess vehemently that stopping is no problem. To prove it, the compulsive gambler may even stay away from the casino, sports book, Internet gaming, or track for a short period of time. But the lure of cashing in on the big score, snagging the elusive prize is too great. Before long, the compulsive gambler is right back at it. He or she simply cannot resist the temptation. The urge to gamble has become a craving that gnaws incessantly on the consciousness. To ignore the craving is to suffer – and the compulsive gambler only wants the high that comes from gambling 

 Anyone who flat-out denies they have a gambling problem, despite evidence to the contrary, is either well on their way to full-blown gambling addiction or is already there. By the time someone is deep into gambling, their behavior becomes consistent and predictable. They will do anything and say anything to get to their primary goal: gambling. That they stretch the truth or tell outright lies is an understatement. Gambling addicts, even after disastrous losses, bankruptcy and financial ruin, legal problems, deteriorating family and personal relationships, will often steadfastly maintain that they don’t have a gambling problem. Denial is a coping mechanism the compulsive gambler uses to attempt to mask his or her problem. By hoping to keep the truth from coming out, the gambler tries to buy time – time he or she uses to keep on gambling. Thus, there’s self-denial and denial to others. Both types of denial are symptoms of many kinds of addiction, not just gambling addiction. The mor...

  Michelle spent time with her parents as she started   drinking  and   taking pills . One of these times, she overdosed and was rushed to a hospital. Even then, Michelle said her senses were dulled and she felt nothing – until one faithful doctor visit. “You have one-in-three chances to survive,” the doctor said, explaining that Michelle had done  near-irreparable damage to her liver . It was at this moment she suddenly came back to life and decided to live. Her husband had started coming back and bringing her daughter to visit. Slowly, he was going to forgive her. Does the story end here? It almost does. Michelle is back with her family,  but they have a big debt to cover . In three years, she managed to gamble away £550,000 and, in her own words, the family would never be able to afford a home. While this addiction story can serve as a reminder for us all about the irreparable harm we can do to ourselves and others through our obsession with gambling,...

  Michelle Singlehurst had a cozy life. She was chipping away at a job that gave her £25,000 steady annual income,   and her house was worth £440,000 , more than many people make in decades. Yet, Michelle also loved to escape in games. Nintendo  and  GameCube  gaming  became online slots , and between taking care of her husband, daughter, and elderly mother who nearly passed away in a nursery home due to maltreatment, something inside Michelle snapped. Suddenly,  online gaming didn’t seem such a bad idea . She would escape her worries playing away for hours, waking up at night, and logging back in. At one point, she had no idea if she had any money left. She felt embarrassed as well as drawn to gambling. Before long, she had incurred  thousands in debt   from   friends , and this would only be the beginning of what is one of the worst gambling addiction stories we have read. Michelle decided to take care of her mother, and so the fa...

  During a visit to a casino with friends, I wanted to impress the girl that I liked, so I bet everything I had on roulette. Once the ball started rolling, I was filled with courage and I kissed the girl, right in front of her boyfriend for good luck. The result: I left the casino with a black eye, a new girlfriend and a small fortune. Not interested in wasting any more of my time on him, I put the money I’d won in my wallet and went back to the guy who had pointed out my win and offered him a drink. He accepted and we started talking. I found out that he was there for a bachelor party, but not being a veteran of the casino, he was bored. He gave me his number and I gave him mine. My boyfriend, meanwhile, had managed to lose half his salary and came over to me asking me if I had money in my wallet. I didn’t give him any. We left. The next day, I broke it off with my boyfriend and am now happily engaged to the sweet guy I met and befriended at the casino. At each anniversary, we cel...

  My hubby and I are a part of a team of ghost investigators. We were an hour early before our "lockdown" at the prison we were investigating, so I decided to waste that time in a casino near the jail. This was my first time ever to any casino. I sat down at a slot, put in a handful of quarters (yes it was a long time ago) into the machine and tried my darndest to figure out what the heck I was doing. My hubby, who had been sitting next to me, said he was going to the restroom and would be right back. When he was gone, I pulled the handle of the slot and lights started flashing all over the place. “ Oh no, I am in trouble! I broke something,” I thought, as I sat there not knowing what to do and then a man showed up. I apologized and said, "I'm sorry, what did I do?" He said, "You hit!" I said, "I hit what?" He responded with, "A nice one." Then my hubby returns with a very confused “Now what did she do?” look on his face. Well, it t...