Category: Gambling and Casinos

Spanish residents like gambling. Spain has one of the highest proportions of gamblers in Europe. Statistics claim that 22.68 billion euros was spent on gambling last year, with illegal gambling said to be double that amount.

The El Gordo and ONCE lottery systems have also become massive industries in their own right, with billions being spent on tickets each year.

So how have the Spanish residents taken to the recent phenomenon of online gambling, now that broadband and software technology has allowed online games to progress into their country. Certainly when gambling laws were relaxed in 1977 there was a massive increase in gambling on fruit machines and such. So now, and with no restrictions to online gambling, Spain could be getting ready to experience another huge increase in gambling of a different kind.

Spain’s 468 licensed bingo halls have certainly seen a drop in recent years, but are people converting to online, or is it a sign of the times that people just do not have the money to enter bingo halls and casinos as much as in the past. Nielsen (net research statistics) claim only 10% of Spanish residents with an internet connection actually visited an online gambling site in 2004. But given the recent growth of broadband in Spain over the past year those statistics could be doubled by 2006.

Juega Poker Ya, who are part of the St Minver white label games network, operate Spanish poker dedicated to Spanish residents. Since its launch, it claims to have seen an increase in the numbers of players signing up of some 30% each month, with the average cash drop per player almost twice that for the UK.

The Poker phenomenon arrived in Spain having worked its way around Europe over the past two years, to become the fastest growing internet sensation. Similar to the popular Spanish gambling game Mus, poker is a game of great skill and psychology where players try to out fox the competition.

Over 12 million people worldwide have already played poker online this year alone with the global market continuing to grow at more than 10% every month. Thousands of budding Spanish poker players are queuing up to learn how to play the world’s greatest card game in the hope of repeating the success of Spanish poker supremo Carlos Mortenson, World Poker Champion just three years ago.

What was once the domain of smoked filled gentleman’s clubs has been transformed by the internet into a highly competitive, compelling leisure activity, where groups of players from around the world come together to play cards and chat over the Internet.

Are the Spanish more cautious

Spanish players are a little more cautious. While the numbers of players signing up are growing rapidly, the actual conversion rate (people actually making cash deposits) is lower. Players could be concerned over the security of such poker sites and perhaps they are they holding back until online game brands become more established and the confidence in them grows.

Poker sites certainly take enough precautions to ensure their sites are secure and to allow players the confidence in the sites. Juegapokerya for example has well established fraud procedures in place to monitor any fraudulent behaviour.

Cheaters pose little or not threat in online poker. No one can mark the cards, no one can peak at your exposed or holed cards and no one can stack the deck or deal from the bottom. Playing poker on line is very safe. The things that can and do happen in land based poker rooms cannot and do not happen online.

However, there is one thing that happens in land based casinos that cheaters do try to get away with online. They try to collude. That is, they try to share information and play their hands in order to help each other win. This is also known as playing partners. Customer services monitor their poker sites and track all the play in real time. Any suspected collusion is reported to the security or fraud department for a particular site. Accounts are locked immediately pending a detailed investigation. Play is checked over a period of days to find out if the players involved in the original incident have a history of playing together on the same site. Patterns of play are also studied in detail. Chat logs are continuously monitored and recorded. Colluders will have their accounts frozen and can be banned from the site and all affiliated sites. Some sites will even report to unconnected sites to warn them of potential cheaters.

So when they sign up with the many poker sites now entering into the Spanish markets, players can be assured that the sites will be well protected from all fraudulent behaviour. It may be this factor that proves to the Spanish that online gambling is a feasible prospect

So are the signs there that Spanish players will take hold of this online gambling phenomenon? Well, of the 40 million people in Spain, with 37% now having internet access, the potential for money making is there, and certainly companies will find it tempting to delve into the Spanish markets in the hope of tempting Europe’s most eager gamblers to part with their well earned cash.

When playing poker, it is important to understand that the poker hand you hold, how well you bet and how well you bluff will ultimately determine if you will win or lose that hand. Before you can play the game with competence, you will need to understand the card suits and ranks, as well as what makes a good poker hand.

Suits of cards for example are the clubs, diamonds, hearts and spades. This information is imperative to how you will play any of the hands that you are dealt. It is important also to understand the value of a given card. Cards increase in value according to their number or face, they will increase from 2 to 10 J, Q, K and A.

You will also need to learn what cards make a winning hand and what doesn’t make a play at all. The most common hands in order of importance are:

One pair (any matching set of numbers, regardless of suit)
Two pair (any 2 matching sets of numbers, regardless of suit)
Three of a kind (any 3 matching numbers, regardless of suit)
Straight (any 5 cards in numerical sequence, regardless of suit)
Flush (any 5 cards not in numerical order, of same suit)
Full house (any 3 of a kind and 2 of a kind in same hand, regardless of suit)
Four of a kind (any 4 matching set of numbers, regardless of suit)
Straight flush (any 5 numerical order of cards, of same suit)
Royal flush (contains the 10, J, Q, K, A of same suit)

With any hand beating the hand that is placed before it on this list. Therefore, a Royal
flush will win over any other hand that is dealt to the table.

While you are working on mastering these poker hand rules, you may also be faced with a game that calls for wild cards. This could be aces wild, or whatever card the dealer chooses. The point of this rule is that the wild card is available to become the value of whatever card, giving a greater possibility of obtaining a straight flush (or five of a kind).

Generally, a hand that uses a wild card is considered the best hand, but the dealer can choose to have it second to a royal flush; either way the dealer decides and must indicate the choice before the poker hand is dealt.

These are the basic poker hands that you will need to know to play an effective round with any level of player. It is best to memorize this list so that you don’t forget what a winning hand is when you get to the table.

Britain is attempting to catch up with the rest of Europe in terms of providing its employees with the opportunity of working from home. It is one of the least flexible countries in the EU when it comes to allowing its workforce the opportunity to telework. But will this provide the opportunity for staff to play online games like poker or casino.

Only 20% of UK employees are given the opportunity to work from home, compared to countries like Denmark and Germany which have twice the numbers of people working from home.

However, this is likely to change dramatically in the near future, as many large organisations are putting plans together to ensure more and more employees are enticed to work from home. Companies like HSBC, Britain’s largest bank, threw its weight behind a program to remove 4000 of its London based staff from the group’s Canary Wharf building and get them working from home. Its latest challenge is to have around 50% of its headquarters empty in order to sub-let to someone else. It suggests the advances in technology should provide more of an opportunity for its staff in making the choice to come in to the office or work from home.

A report of the Chamber of Commerce last April showed that 38% of businesses offered staff the opportunity to work from home. A survey of its members suggested that 75% were engaged in providing some form of home work. One similar survey conducted by Peninsula, an employment law firm, suggested that 91% of workers polled, said they would love to work from home.

But how does working from home affect people’s work rate, and will it lead to abuse of company time. Will people, who are not being managed during office hours, use company time to go online and spend time looking at poker sites and other online gambling sites? Certainly in the office there are ways to block access to specific websites. However, working from home will provide less of an opportunity to prevent people from visiting online poker sites.

While it is estimated that home workers are 20% more productive and that absenteeism is down 63% for staff who work from home, it cannot be ignored that employees may utilise company laptops and company time to play online poker. Indeed jobs that do not require constant involvement, perhaps business development or customer services, where phone work or computer time may be sporadic, will offer gaps during the day which allow people to view the internet for brief moments, or perhaps keep an online poker game running in the background.

There are dangers in allowing more people to work from home. The social interaction that is gained at work disappears. Some people can become distant and feel isolated from the organisations they work for if they work continuously work at home. Surely this is another reason to believe that workers will search for other forms of communication during home office spells.

Online poker games provide a further level of social interaction which can fill that gap. Chat rooms and interactive gambling games provide players with the opportunity to meet and greet people while having fun attempting to win money online.

So while we would all love to work from home it seems, it cannot be ignored that there is potential for isolation that will only lead to the search for improved social communication and perhaps an increase in the desire to play poker games online.

Poker and in particular playing online poker for fun has become extremely popular. It appears no section of society has been unaffected from students to bored housewives and not just people with time on their hands, busy executives and many who work full time take advantage of the 24-hour nature of the net to play. Although the main aim of a poker game is to win the money in the pot you can still play poker for fun against thousands of players who are scattered all around the world. Many of the internet sites are happy to let you create your own table so you can challenge your friends to a game.

The first poker game that springs to mind when asking most people is of course the tremendously popular Texas Holdem poker, this game has been made popular because its great fun to watch on TV and it is also moderately easy to learn. Holdem is the first game most people learn when playing poker for fun. Omaha poker with its variations such as Omaha hi and Omaha hi/lo is also another fun game to play as the extra cards give the players more of a choice allowing them to create better hands. 5 and 7 card games both stud, draw and hi/lo are also popular games which can be great fun to learn but may seem a bit confusing at first. There are many variations of poker to pick from and each game may have slightly different rules and depending upon the site you are playing at.

Poker is seen as having more of an element of skill than other forms of gambling although this has been debated a lot, some think it is a game of skill while others think it is luck. The game is in fact a mixture of both skill and luck, it is a game of bluff and counter bluff with a complex set of rules, etiquette, and poker today even has its own language and community. Many people enjoy playing poker for fun simply for the social aspect of the game.

Learning how to play is relatively easy learning how to play well takes time and constant practice. If you want to play for real money and not make large losses online, I suggest you spend along time playing for fun first.

Virtually all of the online sites will allow players to register and play for free on the play money tables so there is a wide choice of sites to pick from. This is of course up to the individual. Playing poker for fun is the ideal choice for beginners, this way a new player with no experience and little skill can learn the basics of a game with out any risk.