Once again Net Entertainment have outdone themselves with regards to innovation, the game opens up with a movie clip that is worthy of even the best film producers in Hollywood. Then the Free Spins Treasure Collection does faithfully portray the true story of Jack’s quest for treasure in the land of giants. In this version however the giants are really scary, and you will have to contend with two headed purple giants.

The brilliant Walking Wild feature is also something rather new and exciting, it allows players to win free spins, again and again, and again. The first time we played this game, we were shocked by how much we had won. Walking wilds progressively move to the left as the reels re-spin.  This feature does not cost the player any extra, and the Walking Wild disappears when it reaches the left-most furthest reel.

It is a 5-reel, 20-pay line slot which truly is an adventure, and while we are speaking of adventure, some players at Net Entertainment have been having some pretty big adventures in winning. Although Jack and the Beanstalk is not one of the PJP games on this network, Net Entertainment is fast making Microgaming prizes look like peanuts. In fact the last time €6 million was won at a Microgaming site, this was in 2009.

A recent big win on the Mega Fortune™ slot was on the 24^th January for €6,864,858 – higher than the Microgaming record on Mega Moolah. It followed just a short, exact five months after one very lucky 20 year old player in Norway landed a €11,736,375 million win on the same game. This time the winner was 30 years old and hails from Helsinki in Sweden.

We have always been of the opinion that Net Entertainment will outdo Microgaming, but never dreamed it would be in such a big way. The fact that this progressive jackpot prize grew so large in only 5 short months, lays testament to the fact that many people are playing and contributing to the prize pot. Mega Fortune™ pools with the liquidity of many thousands of players from across several of the largest online casinos in Europe. It was only launched in 2008, and has become one of the most popular games ever played in the Net Entertainment portfolio – it is easy to understand why.

If Jack and the Beanstalk is on the cards for you to play, don’t forget to take a look at Mega Fortune™. Although the big prize money has just been won, it also pays to remember just how quickly this prize grows again, and how easily it has been won for very large amounts in the past.

This smart-phone has landed on the shores of the UK, and is now available from Harrods for a mahoosive price tag of £1,275, and no shortage of demand. Take your mobile casino gaming experience to a whole new level, but do it quick, they are selling fast. This one-of-a-kind device is guaranteed to also make you look good; as good as those Jimmy Choos you might also have had your heart set on buying with your gambling winnings.

Online gambling has come a long way in recent years, and of all the changes we have seen take place, perhaps the mobile form of this gaming is the biggest change. It is incredible how popular playing slots, bingo, video poker, blackjack, roulette and sports betting is becoming from mobile phones. This is gambling on the go, right in the palm of your hand, with all of the best online gambling sites offering mobile apps across all operating systems. Play and win real money prizes anywhere, at any time, across a great variety of games.

iPhone and Android phones with touch screen functions offer a technologically advanced gaming experience. If you thought online gambling was über-cool, imagine how über-cool mobile gambling would be with the new Blackberry Porsche? These games are fully interactive, with fully integrated online payment options by simply touching the screen. Find progressive jackpots slots and now even poker. The opportunity to win on the go applies to whatever your online gambling tastes run to, and whatever your mobile phone.

The Top Ten mobile casino games currently are Blackjack, Cleopatra from Spin 3, Major Millions, Mega Moolah, Mermaids Millions, Roulette, Thunderstruck, Tomb Raider, Avalon and mobile bingo.

While the Porsche Berry might be one of the most elite mobile gambling handsets available currently, the Apple iPhone is one of the best mobile devices on the market. Also bear in mind that the Apple iPad ranks high on many player’s wish lists with its large screen multi-touch interface, crisp, clear graphic display, and fabulous connectivity it is also superb for gambling on the go. iPhone and iPad gambling online popularity shows no signs of slowing down.

Hitting the top of the popularity charts in 2010 however, was the Nokia proprietary Symbian OS. In fact this OS powered 38% of all smart-phones in the world. Nokia slots are also madly popular, with Symbian software developers working night and day on a new generation of cutting-edge gambling games titles.

But, right now the smartest smart-phone on the market, may be out of reach of most pockets – the Berry Porsche is without doubt the best.

According to the reports we are reading, the deal they have with the DoJ would also allow FTP to operate in the United States, this obviously would be dependent on online poker being made legal. The fact that the site’s distressed assets are worth $80 million to GBT is certainly telling us something, and Jeff Ifrah (the FTP lawyer) is also extremely optimistic.

This online poker site was once a massively profitable business, though it seems as though news reports regarding their demise have been grossly over-exaggerated. This has not been helped by the fact that the US Attorney’s office has been tarring and feathering the brand in pre-prosecution papers. GBT are specialists in returning distressed companies back to profitability, and it is a well known fact that Full Tilt Poker operated on some of the most innovative software in the online poker industry. If the deal goes through; Group Bernard Tapie may have made a very shrewd investment.

Phil Ivey who has been lying low due to his strong connections with this brand, is obviously feeling better about these developments. He has finally been seen airing his game in the APPT Main Event – Macau. He has not been seen out and about much since Black Friday, after which he made a public statement to show support for fellow players; that he would not be entering the WSOP. He did not enter this event, but then again, he has also been going through a very messy divorce, so, has been extremely low-key for the last 6 months.

Speaking of the APPT – this is the 2011 PokerStars.net sponsored Asia Pacific Poker Tour, and the Macau Main Event was completed on Sunday; won by Randy Lew. Lew is a Team PokerStars professional player with a reputation as a “grinder”. Although he now seems to have raised his game to new levels – topping Jimmy Pan in heads-up action to claim victory and a prize pot of HKD$3,772,000.

This is by far the largest and most important win of his career; prior to this his largest cash in a live poker tournament was at the Aussie Millions Main Event in January, where he took 10^th place for AUD$100,000. What is so remarkable about this young player is that a ‘grinder’ typically does not buy-in bigger than $5/$10 games; Lew made headlines in 2009, for grinding his way to an incredible $1 million in earnings. While he was initially a video game player, the switch to online poker came naturally, and Lew’s fast reaction speed as well as quick decision making skills are perfect for high volume multi-table play online. He is not doing too badly in the live poker tournament circuit either!

The word on Gambling Intelligence was ~ “Hats off to Behnam Dayanim, a partner at Washington DC law firm Axinn Veltrop Harkrider, who not only negotiated the deal on behalf of Tapie but structured it for him too. And hats off to the DoJ and its lawyers in the Southern District of New York.And I guess, hats off to Tapie too. Hell, hats off to everyone who has touched this. Because it really is remarkable!”

Whether or not this will buy FTP a re-entry concession if and when the US market opens to legal online poker; remains to be seen.  It seems that anything is possible, when you consider this deal. Full Tilt Poker was the second largest online poker room in the world, just before it was shut down by the DoJ in April 2011. Not only that, but the Alderney Gambling Control Commission (AGSS) stripped them of their licenses to operate a few months after the DOJ action.

They have been unable to pay back their members and this has caused a whole other world of hurt. The US Attorneys office has accused the brand of being everything from a ‘Global Ponzi Scheme’ to having connections with the Mafia. Members around the world have apparently been short-changed to the tune of $330 million, while apparently shareholders of FTP have been pocketing millions; this is another of the US Attorney’s office accusations. They have been accused of fraud, money laundering, and goodness knows…oh yes…operating an illegal gambling operation – there had to be that too.

What made matters even worse was the fact that FTP was not communicating publicly, and they also managed to get their AGCC hearings made non-public. It was starting to look obvious that they had something big to hide, but while all of this was happening the company was trying to get a European purchaser interested in what was left of the business, there was certainly not much left of their credibility. Shorty after the AGCC announcement that the company’s license had gone from ‘suspended’ to completely cancelled, FTP announced that Group Bernard Tapie was the interested European party, and that a tentative pre-sale agreement had been signed.

It was further announced that any purchase would be dependent on reaching agreement with the DoJ, and members being repaid their funds. Apparently members are one step closer to being paid, as an agreement has been reached with the DoJ. Group Bernard Tapie has a reputation for rescuing the ‘un-rescuable’, they are well-known for their rescue of Nike.

…..to be continued

The ideal scenario is that winners donate 1% of their winnings to this charitable cause and this year it is their official community partner. The Harrah’s press release has already stated that poker players are some of the “most generous and charity-conscious people on the planet,” now all they have to do is live up to the statement. These boys with a “bad” reputation, because they gamble for a living, have actually done a lot more good than many people can imagine.

While some people believe that bingo is the only game to be regularly associated with charitable causes, nothing could be further from the truth. Poker is continually used to raise both funds and awareness for a lot of worthy causes and this is not the only event that will be use to springboard fund raising.

During 2010 the WSOP also plans to “Ante Up For Africa” for the third year running and this annual event has so far been able to raise more than $1.5 million. That is a lot of dollars, and this starts on the 3rd July.

Speaking of Africa, it is not only in the US and Europe that poker tournaments which support charitable causes are held, and it is not only celebrities and big poker winners who support these efforts. Everyday charities all over the world are pulling together to raise money and using poker as a means to an end.

We already know that the biggest celebrities in tinsel town play poker for charity, heck players like Ben Afleck and Matt Damon, don’t need the money! But star studded event or local small tournament alike, everyone loves playing poker and is more than delighted to drop a couple of hundred into the pot in the name of a good cause.

Poker for Purpose is a South African foundation which hosts charity challenges to raise funds. They recently got together with Full House Events and MGG Productions and raised R180 000 ($24 000) for ‘kids helping kids’ – the Kirsty Watts Foundation. This function was hosted in lavish style in a Bently car showroom, in partnership with Breitling watches.

Poker for Purpose was launched in 2009 in South Africa, and what a brilliant idea this is. Just think about it, if you invite big business men to a charity bingo evening, it may not appeal to them. You want to squeeze their wallets in aid of a good cause, so you offer them a lush poker night out – guaranteed they will RSVP, attend and spend!

Check allows the player to neither put any chips into pot nor fold. But this action is not possible in the first round of betting due to the prescribed mandatory spending actions.

Betting is the point when you are ready to put money if you see the chances for wining the hand. The betting amount may vary or can be fixed based on the poker game.

You can Call if you are confident about your hand and are ready to match the previous highest bet. If there are any raises, you must match the amount.

Raise – if you understand that it is in your best interest to force other players to put more money into the pot then you can Raise the previous bet. Though there are chances for bluffing, a player raising the bet presents a positive and confident image.

Folding allows you to get out of the current hand as you put all your chips into the pot. You would be forced to this when you find the bet is too high for the cards you have.

First off, online poker games could be accessed any time, day or night. You can play it at the comfort of your home so gaining a lot of experience to practice and be good at playing it is quite less expensive than going to casinos or card rooms. In card rooms, you must have extra money spared from the poker money you are going to play in addition to other expenses that will be incurred like travel expenses and tipping to the servers which will bring your ordered drink or food. That’s another expense by the way. While with playing online, there is no tipping required if ever you asked someone from your family to bring you food and drink straight from your refrigerator.

Furthermore, you can play for free just for experience and for real money to gain profit and earnings. Some even treat online poker as their essential source of income. They pledge their poker bankroll or winnings to pay off bills and addition to their savings. While others play poker to exclusively build their poker bankroll for future game and tournament. There are hundreds of games at any virtual level and lots of available tournaments of different sizes from small ten entrants game up to thousands with buy-ins that involve either free up to thousands of dollars. Along with this, playing poker online gives you the experience to play with thousands of other players worldwide.

Having official poker sites which you frequent as a player can give you exclusive benefits, discounts and bonuses. Periodically, some sites reload bonuses from the first deposit you made and continuously offer other benefits and privileges to attract players to stay within the site to keep playing. Lastly, you will also learn to play faster and quicker to enhance your decision making skills since in an online poker game, you play more hands per hour since the dealer doesn’t consume more time with shuffling. Online poker games also confer each player a limited time for each player to act so no time is wasted.

Because poker is played with money involve, thousands of players all over the world makes it for living instead of working other job. Yet, it is not that easy for anyone to make it though it sounds like you want it to do. There are some factors that you need to consider how you can earn profit from poker and make it for your living. Foremost, you need to practice a lot to master the game as well as familiarize the strategies especially in placing bet.

Playing poker in one way or another is an addictive game to the extent that you would want to play it full-time. Likewise, you would not be able to play it full-time if you do not have enough patience. This is one thing to consider before you decide make money out of poker because you need to spend long hours every day in order to make money like in normal job. Moreover, because playing poker online is a sort of gamble, there would be times that you will be lucky and win quickly. However, it is always possible that you lose lot of money in just a wink of eye.

Thus, money management is also important to think about. Keep in mind that before you begin to play, you should decide how much money you could afford to lose and you need to keep it. Maintaining your bankroll is one of the biggest factors that you need to learn aside from mastering the game. If you notice that it is not your lucky day, you should stop immediately before you lose much of your money. A good poker player is one who knows how to manage the bankroll to his advantage. Do not be misled of the myth of playing the higher stakes in order to become a professional online poker player. Instead, you should play only within the limits you set in your bankroll. In like manner, it is risky to make a living out of poker if you will play in higher stakes. Possibly, you would risk more money in order to place a bet in higher stakes but it would damage much of your bankroll if you did not make it in the game.

Likewise, you can make profit in playing poker online if you know how to intimidate other players. One of the best ways to intimidate other players is to show them the strength in numbers of the bet. However, this could be in contrary of the above mentioned limitation in making money from poker. On the other hand, intimidating other players could only be advisable if you have good hand that you need to play hard. In addition, the bluffing strategy could work for some time but not all the time. Keep in mind that it is always possible that there would be a smarter poker player than you are.

To understand pot odds you need only basic maths skills and you must be an ice cold person. Sometimes your heart will tell you must call, but you must ignore it and just use the pot odds if you want to make money on the long run. Everybody can make money in a single game and any tournament can be won by a fish because he got lucky, but in the end of the day only good players who understand and apply the odds correctly win money.

First you need to know what an out is. An out is a chance which will favor you in a determined combination. To put it simple let’s imagine to bet money in a coin toss. To win in this game you got 1 out of 2. A coin has heads and tails and your outs are 1 of 2. If you bet $100 against your opponent’s $100 you are getting a 50% of winning money and another 50% of losing, this means even odds and in the long run you will tie. Now, imagine a 6 faced dice and you bet to 1 number. You got 1 out of 6 to win in this game, so to make it profitable for you, you must win more than 6x your bet if your number hits. For example if somebody is such a fool to pay you 7x your bet each time you guess the number right, you will make money. Poker uses the same principle, but a little more complicated.

There are 52 cards in a poker deck and you got 2 in your hands, this means there are 50 unknown cards in the deck (those being held by your opponents count as well because you don’t know which cards they have), so now let’s put a common situation, where you are holding a pocket pair (77). There are 50 cards remaining and you got 2 7’s in your pocket, so only 2 more 7’s in the deck, the odds of another 7 hitting the table are 2 out of 50 for the first card of the flop, 2 out of 49 in the second and 2 out of 48 in the third. This averages 1 out of 24,5 on each card and a total of 1 out of 8 for the whole flop. By this, you will only call a preflop with a low pair if you have expectations of getting 8x your preflop bet… and this will only happen against maniacs, use this as a simple example, much more complicated calculations can be made with pot odds.