Born in 1837 in little town in Illinois, you would probably recognize this famous gambler from his nickname – Wild Bill. Hickok was a famous gunfighter with phenomenal skill with a gun. He learned his skill when he was just a boy, helping his father when their farm was a stop on the Underground Railroad, aiding slaves in running away to freedom.

At 18, Hickok went off to what was then the Kansas Territory. He continued his fight against the injustice of slavery by joining the "Red Legs", a vigilante group led by General Jim Lane. When the Civil War broke out, Hickok joined the Union army serving as a scout. He even served for a short time in Custer’s ill-fated 7th Calvary.

After the war, Hickok went west and was a buffalo hunter for a time. He was a wandering man, never settling down to one spot for a long time. At various times he served as a lawman in different places. Although his reputation had him killing hundreds in gunfights, most of these are not substantiated. His first confirmed fatal gunfight that history records is the shooting in 1865 over a gambling dispute. Yup, apparently Hickok dealt swift justice to gambling cheats as did most in those rough and tumble times.

Hickok was well-known as a poker player and could be seen at the gambling tables down at the local saloon in any town he was in. One of these games resulted in his most famous poker hand – the one he held when a coward walked up and shot him in the back of the head. Hickok was holding a pair of Aces and a pair of eights, a hand that has been forever memorialized as the "Dead Man’s Hand".

I thought it would be fun to go back through time and try to find out about some of the most famous gamblers in history. I decided to begin this series with John Montagu from the 18th century. What, you don’t recognize the name? Perhaps it will sound more familiar if you hear his title, the Earl of Sandwich. Yes, he really did come up with the sandwich that we all know and love today and we can thank gambling for that innovation.

You see, the Earl was a gambling man with a gaming table at his home. He once played for more than 24 straight hours and his servants became concerned when he wouldn’t even stop to eat. One of them offered him a hunk of salted beef in the hopes he would eat. The Earl didn’t want to stop playing but didn’t want to dirty the cards so he asked for the meat to be placed between two slices of bread to keep his hands clean. The sandwich was born on that date back in 1762.

Montagu was a big supporter of exploration during his life with a special interest in the Navy even after his time as the First Lord of the Admiralty. Despite heavy criticism over his handling of naval affairs and accusations of nepotism, bribery and other charges of corruption, he did remain a friend to explorers and supported Captain Cook’s voyages. When the good captain discovered a new set of islands, he named them the Sandwich Islands (later became Hawaii) after his benefactor’s penchant for eating them so often.

When you hear about Montagu being referred to as one of the most immoral men of that time, people weren’t referring to his gambling habits. He was called "lecherous as a goat" and was accused of bribery and corruption in every post he had. While he had the ear and friendship of the King, the majority of the rest of England would spit on the ground at hearing his name. His mishandling of the fleet has been attributed to England’s losing of the Revolutionary War and thus it’s colony on the new continent.

Remember that old Kenny Roger’s song? The chorus went "you got to know when to hold’em, know when to fold’em, know when to walk away and know when to run". Kenny must have been a poker player because those are smart strategies for playing poker without losing your shirt. If you don’t believe me, ask any professional poker player – they will tell you that it all boils down to that simple chorus.

What makes a good poker player? To most people, that would be a player who wins more than he that usually indicates someone who doesn’t bet until he has a strong starting hand. You have to be patient to be a winning poker player and be willing to sit out hands you’re most likely to lose. Watch the pros and you’ll see the ones who win consistently will play out maybe a third of the hands they get dealt.

While good poker players may play fewer hands, when they do play a hand they do so aggressively. Instead, they will deliberately build that pot by raising and forcing other players to have to pay to stay in the game. If you follow these strategies consistently, you will build a table image of a player who only plays good hands. This opens the way further along to be able to pull off a bluff or two as your opponents will not be expecting it.

Make sure to hold off trying any bluffs until you have built up a good table image. If you start bluffing early or too often, it will ruin the image and you’ll find your bluff getting called most of the time because your opponents aren’t going to believe you. You will end up losing more than you win so be sure to have the patience mentioned earlier and hold off on bluffing until later in the game.

I thought we’d have a bit of fun in tonight’s post. I was searching the web for ideas for interesting topics to write about here and came across various bits of trivia. I hope you enjoy learning these odd facts about our favorite form of entertainment.

Did you know that the term "Dead Man’s Hand" had its basis in the American West? Wild Bill Hickok was playing poker at the time of his murder in 1876. His hand had the two black aces and the two black eights (his fifth card was a diamond face card but which one is a matter of argument). Ever since then, the aces and eights combination has been called the "Dead Man’s Hand", especially when the cards are all black.

You know the "Dogs Playing Poker" prints that you can still find today – those tacky ones that your wife really doesn’t appreciate? These were painted by an American artist named C.M. Coolidge around the turn of the century – the last century.

Did you know that slot machines (fruit machines for the Brits) were invented over a hundred years ago? The originals had cards instead of the fruit that came to be associated with later versions. The first three-reel slot was created in 1899 by Charles Fey and he called it the Liberty Bell. The new style machine caught on like wildfire and for many years these types of games were called bell machines.

Playing card decks have a lot of symbolism hiding in them. The one that our modern card decks are based on was created in France in the 15th century. The kings represented real leaders from history: spades was for King David of the Bible, clubs was for Alexander the great, diamonds represented Julius Caesar and hearts stood for Charlemagne. The suits were also symbolic of the great past civilizations.

Monte Carlo has been one of the most famous casinos in the world for over a century and has the added distinction of hosting the man that many call the luckiest casino gambler in history, Charles Wells. A con artist, Wells had weaselled 4,000 pounds from his investors through a scam invention, the musical jump rope. With this money, he decided that he would have a night on the town in the magical Monte Carlo.

He went to gamble in Feb 1891 and ended up being immemorialized in history for his exploits that day. Wells decided to play roulette and he played for eleven hours straight when he broke the bank over and over. In this case, it doesn’t mean that he actually cleaned out the casino but they did have to break out more chips for him – twelve times! He had won a million francs in that roulette streak but he didn’t stop there. He took a break and then went back at it, soon winning another million francs. His most famous win was on the five spot…five times in a row!

A year later, a song writer named Fred Gilbert wrote a song to commemorate Wells’ feat, called appropriately enough, "The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo". While many have theorized or suspected Wells of some sort of cheating, given his criminal past, to this day there has been no evidence to ever turn up of his using any kind of system or trickery.

Baccarat is actually one of the easiest games to learn but as with many other deceptively simple games, it can take a lot of practice to master. The basic action of the game is betting on which hand will win, the banker or the player. You also have the option of betting it will be a tie. Once betting is done, each hand is dealt two or three cards.

All tens and face cards have a value of zero in baccarat while aces are counted as ones. All other cards will have the same value as the number on them. The unique thing about adding up a baccarat hand is that only the single digit counts so even if the total is 16, it is counted as being 6.

You are betting on which hand will be closest to the value of 9. For a bet on the player or the banker, you will win twice the bet if you’re correct (minus any house commission). If you bet on a tie, however, you can win eight times the amount of your bet. Obviously, this doesn’t happen nearly as often as a clearly winning hand. When there is a tie that you didn’t bet on, you break even because your bet comes back to you.

Many online casinos also offer a sportsbook these days where you can place a bet on the results of just about any sporting event, from horse racing to football. If you have ever participated in the office football pool, or a similar activity, then you have done simple sports betting already. Of course, to be truly successful with sports betting, you need to have a little more knowledge.

You don’t have to like sports to do sports betting although it can help you in the first-hand knowledge department. The online sportsbooks will tell you the odds of your bet and you can guarantee that they’ve done their research. If the odds of a particular bet are 100 to 1, you may want to go with a different bet unless you can afford to lose.

These days sportsbook betting opportunities are not just limited to actual sporting events, either. Did you know that back in the fall, there was a lot of wagers placed on the outcome of the American presidential election? You can bet on the outcome of just about any type of competition these days.

Texas Hold’em is one of the most popular poker games around the world right now and it is also the most complex. These tips will help novice players but also some who’ve been playing the game a while. In today’s post, the advice will concentrate on minimizing your losses so your gambling dollars go further without breaking the bank.

You hear people say that they might as well play a hand out since they already have money in the pot – don’t be one of those people. That money is already gone, guys. Don’t chase a pot that you don’t have a prayer to win as that’s a sure way to throw good money after bad.

If you’re thinking about how much money you might lose whenever you decide what to bet, then the game is too rich for your blood. Don’t play with the high rollers if you don’t have the budget for it. That’s just asking for trouble. Know your spending amount for the evening and play to stretch that money out until you’re ready to stop playing.

Don’t play so long that you become blind to what’s going on around you. It’s easy to lose track of time when you’re having fun but if you aren’t alert enough to know what’s going on, that’s a sure way to end up losing more than you win. Better to call it a night and play again another time when you’re fresh.

Finally, if a hand is bad from the get go, just fold it. Don’t stay in hoping to bluff your way to a pot when you have a loser. 9 times out of 10 you will lose and that’s really not good odds when you’re playing for money.

To finish off this week’s series on the various software platforms and mobile applications available for online casino gaming, it is appropriate to also discuss the use of proprietary software by some of the online casinos. Proprietary software means that the site has developed their own unique platform for their games rather than use an outside company’s software. There are both advantages and disadvantages to online casinos using proprietary software.

The main advantage of online casinos that develop their own platform is that their sites and games will be unique to them, unlike others found across the web. When a platform has hundreds of sites connected and using the same software, the feeling and atmosphere of all of those sites will be similar and can get rather dull. Casinos utilizing proprietary software will usually have games that cannot be found elsewhere.

This uniqueness also can pose a disadvantage in one way. Because the other software platforms have huge networks of sites, games with progressive jackpots can exist and grow huge. Even if a proprietary site has a progressive jackpot game, it won’t be able to grow into the fantastic amounts often seen by the bigger networks lately. As a consequence, the proprietary sites may have fewer members playing at any given time which also keeps pots low, especially with games such as poker.

Proprietary software also poses greater security risks, mainly from insiders gaming the system. That happened to one site not long ago and while the players affected were compensated, it hurt the company’s reputation severely. There is a much higher level of accountability within the large software makers as there are more levels within the company. Cheating would be discovered much more quickly, if it got started at all.

If you play at an online casino using proprietary software, look for a large company that has been around for a while and has a large, established member base. Some large online casinos developed their proprietary platforms before the makers were available and so have built up great reputations. One such site that operates on proprietary software would be 888 Casino.

One of the latest innovations to hit the online casino industry is the advent of mobile gambling applications. Many of the top online casinos now offer a version of their most popular gaming software in applications made just for your mobile phone. You can download the applications to your phone and then you can play your favorite games no matter where you are.

It’s easy to get started with your on the go gaming. Simply go to your favorite online casinos to see if they have a mobile application available. Download it to your mobile, following the directions given and you’ll be playing in just a few minutes. You will want to have a newer phone model to be sure that it will be compatible and the phone should support the Java platform. Most of the newer models do so that is not likely to be a problem.

While the applications are quite good, you probably should not expect the same level of functionality as you would while playing from your computer, however many games translate quite well. Obviously, there is no mouse with a mobile phone so you will be using the buttons on your phone instead of clicking a mouse.

All transmissions of information and transfers of deposits are just as secure as on your computer, with the details being encrypted just the same. You can even access the practice modes as well as the real money games from your mobile phone. Since the display is so much smaller, it will seem like a miniaturized version of what you’re used to seeing but now you’ll be able to play a game whenever you like.