Not long ago, we posted here about sports betting and the fact that some odd things can be wagered on beyond sports. I don’t normally talk about current events or news on this blog but this is perhaps the oddest bet I’ve heard from an online bookmaker. In fact, the site is bookmaker should you want to place a wager.

I supposed it’s sports bet related, though, since the bet does involved LA Lakers forward, Lamar Odom and his new bride, Khloe Kardashian. The betting site is offering odds on how long the marriage will last. As they say on their site, "with the usual fleeting trend of Hollywood marriages, one can assume it won’t be long before we heard divorce bells".

They continue the cynicism with the odds being offered, the favorite odds being that the joyful union will last no more than one to five months. Should you wager that and win, you’ll net $120 for every $100 wagered. They’re also offering $165 for $100 if you bet one to three weeks; you’ll double your money for 6-11 months; triple your money for one to two years. The real payoff comes with what they obviously consider the longshot bet, with payout of $400 for each $100 wagered that the marriage makes it past two years.

I spotted this tidbit of betting related trivia on a sports blog and it cracked me up but the comment was even funnier. One person has said that should Odom or his new bride want to bet, all they have to do is put up with each other for the two years before divorcing to collect. I’m pretty sure the site wouldn’t allow that but I can picture a movie plot with the couple wanting to divorce but the best man bet on the longshot and does everything to keep them together. Would be a lot better story than most of what’s come out of Hollywood lately!

To continue on with the topic we began yesterday, there are other factors to consider when finding a new place to gamble online. Yesterday’s tips are just the beginning – once you have a shortlist of online casinos that fit the criteria from that post, the next thing to do is to review these other areas to decide the best casino site for you to try next.

#1 – How’s the support system? When I first review an online casino, I make sure to ask a couple of questions of the support team. I want to see how fast they respond, how relevant the response is and how professional they are when they respond. Believe it or not, I’ve had sites take a week to answer a support question! That tells me customer support is low priority and I won’t risk my money on such a site.

#2 – Is there a loyalty scheme of some kind? There are too many sites that do offer a loyalty scheme of some kind to not take advantage of it. Most of the systems out there at the very least get me more games for the money but some even can be more rewarding, with exclusive games and other perks. I want value for my money and one of the best ways to get extra value is to go with a site that offers a great loyalty scheme for faithful customers.

#3 – Do I like the software the casino uses? This is another reason that I really like sign up bonuses. I like to be able to play the games and test the usability of the software platform before committing myself. While the systems are similar from site to site, there are platforms that are easier and more enjoyable to play. It’s a lot better to find a platform that works for you so you aren’t searching for a button in the middle of a game because the company has it in an odd location.

#4 – Do they offer great prizes or progressive jackpots? I enjoy gambling and do consider it entertainment but my ultimate goal is to make money or snag a great prize. I am not going to bother with a site that only offers penny ante jackpots as that doesn’t fit with my goal. I look for high jackpots, especially progressive jackpot games as they are usually the highest ones around.

I don’t know about you but I’m always scoping out new online casinos to join. For one, I love the bonuses that most sites give you to sign up. Even when they make it so that you can’t withdraw the winnings, it still gives me tons of practice on their dime so I can hone my skills at my personal favorites, blackjack and poker. But I have found that most sites will let me withdraw if I meet whatever wagering requirements that they have set so most of the time, I do end up getting real cash out of it in the end. Even if you are not that skilled at any of the games, though, it is certainly better to gain experience using the site’s money rather than your own. This enables you to save the real gambling for when you are good enough at the games to win more often than you lose. When you look for a new online casino to play at, particularly for real cash, pay attention to these three things so you can pick out the best sites.

#1 – How long has the site been online or at least the company behind the site? I like trying new sites but I don’t want to risk lots of my own money on an unproven casino that could disappear as quickly as it launched. For any real amounts of cash, it is a good idea to stick to the tried and true sites that have been around for a while.

#2 – How does their payout system work? Do they accept funds and payout from the processors or credit cards that I use? There is nothing worse than winning a few hundred dollars playing poker and then finding out the casino only pays out winnings to cards you don’t own or wouldn’t use. You should closely review their procedures and payment methods before committing any of your own funds to the site.

#3 – How do the other players feel about the site? There are plenty of forums and blogs online to be able to check out how the other players feel about a site. If you see a lot of complaints about waiting too long for payments or poor customer service, you should probably pass on that particular online casino.

You may have never played the game of craps but if you’ve been inside a land casino, you would know that the craps table is usually surrounding by excited players and onlookers. The higher the stakes are and the longer a player keeps a roll going, the louder the crowd often cheers. That sort of excitement can be infectious and get everyone in the casino just as thrilled and hopeful as the lucky shooter.

You use a regular set of dice for craps but it is played on a unique table. The sides of the table are a few inches high, to contain the dice as well as to have a back wall for the dice to bounce off of. The person playing is called the shooter and the first roll results in the point number. Once that is determined, each successive roll is to attempt to roll that number again without hitting craps. Craps would be rolling a 7. The only numbers allowed as the point number are 4 through 6 or 8 through 10.

There are several types of bets that can be placed when playing craps. The pass line bet is the most common one and simply means wagering with the shooter. No matter which player is the shooter, the rest of the players can still bet on their rolls, not just their own.

Other types of bets include the come line bet, the don’t come bet, taking full odds, place bet, bet on the field, proposition bets and place bets. With that many different bets available, no wonder so many people remain intimidated by the game of craps!

This can all be hard to take in but you shouldn’t let that stop you from giving craps a try. Stick to the basic pass line bets in the beginning and then slowly venture into new wagers one at a time until they become more familiar. Watch the other players and what they bet and observe their results – you will soon pick up the terminology and begin to know how and when to place the various bets.

Roulette looks like it would be complicated to learn but it really isn’t. With this game, you are always betting against the house by betting on where the little ball will end up when you spin the wheel. Rather than a dealer, like with casino card games, the one who is in charge of the roulette table is called the croupier, another nod to the French heritage of this game.

The familiar black and white roulette wheel will always have either 37 or 38 slots on it. The American style wheel has 38 because it has the addition of the double zero slot where the European style wheel does not so it has only 37 slots. The zero and double zero spots are the only ones that are not black or white – instead they are green to stand out. All of the even numbers are red slots and the odd numbered slots are black.

The difference between American and European roulette may sound insignificant at first glance but that one slot addition makes a big difference in house edge. The addition of the double zero almost doubles the edge, from 2.7% to 5.26%. That’s why the European roulette wheel is usually the most popular version of the game.

The complications in roulette come when you go to bet. There are multiple types of bets you can make in roulette and can even do more than one type at the same time. You can bet on just which color the ball will land in, which is really the most basic type of bet. The payouts on such as simple bet are not very high, though.

Other bets could be betting on a particular number, which will have a higher payoff if you win, or even on whole groups of numbers. Inside bets refer to the first type while outside bets refer to the second type.

Most tables will have a minimum bet requirement so you should inquire what that might be before playing. You wouldn’t want to find out you’re at a high roller game when you are on a budget!

Blackjack is one of the simplest casino games that you can learn but being easy to learn doesn’t make it necessarily easy to win. The most important key to winning more often at blackjack is to know the odds of any given hand and pay attention to what the dealer has showing.

The goal of the game is to get 21 points, or as close as possible without going over. The dealer is the only person you are playing against, no matter how many others may be at the table or in the room at the online casino. Each player need only worry about the dealer’s hand.

Most of the time, the dealer’s cards will be one card down and one card up, while all of your cards are dealt faceup. That is because most online casino’s blackjack software is played using at least six decks of cards. When fewer decks are used, then some software will deal your cards face down. Your concentration should be on the value of your two cards as well as the value of the one card the dealer has showing.

The strategy in blackjack school is knowing when the odds are in your favor or the dealer’s. When it is likely that the dealer will win the hand, then you would be better off folding rather than trying to raise the bet. When the odds are in your favor, then raising is the best idea. If you play the odds right and are fairly conservative in your play, by following this basic strategy, you should win more often than you lose.

Probably the oldest gambling device known to man is the lowly dice. Thousands of years ago, men were gambling with shaped and marked pieces of bone and in fact, was often described as "rolling the bones". This may have derived from shamans who would attempt to foretell the future by looking at thrown bones but no one knows for sure.

A gamed called "Hazard" was played in England back in the 1100s that is often thought to be the ancestor of the modern craps game. This game of dice was played by throwing the dice over the wagers placed in the middle of the play area. It became a very popular form of gambling game, that spread throughout Europe by the 18th century, eventually making it to the New World with the settlers.

An American named John Winn set forth the proper rules for the game now called craps as well as designed the modern craps table in the 19th century. His rules are still followed today and the craps table in today’s modern casinos looks just as the earlier craps tables did.

Earlier this year, a New Jersey woman went to Atlantic City for the weekend and ended up setting the world’s record for the longest craps roll. Patricia Demauro rolled 154 times, taking four hours and 18 minutes! The previous record had been set in Las Vegas twenty years before.

What is more unusual is that this was only Patricia’s second time playing the game of craps. When she went in to the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa, she was just looking to have an evening of fun. Instead, she broke a record and ending up winning right around $180,000.

The common theory of the origins of roulette is that it was devised by Blaise Pascal, the famous early scientist, after gambling during his vacation in France. The story is that when he returned to England, he used his mathematics genius concerning the laws of probablity and added in ways to gamble on the outcome, and came up with the first roulette wheel.

Through the next couple of hundred years, roulette had several transformations and several names. Each time it would grow popular, Great Britain would pass another law that outlawed it. By the late 1700s, roulette has made it back to France and acquired it’s distinctive black and red color scheme.

Roulette is one of the most popular table games throughout the world but some variations have arisen through the years. One of the biggest variations in live roulette is the two main wheel designs that are used. The American style roulette wheel and the European style roulette wheels are identical in almost every way – the only difference is that the American roulette wheel has a double zero slot while the European roulette wheel has only the single zero slot.

If you are not a math genius, the difference may seem negligible to you on the face of it. However, this difference actually makes a huge contrast when it comes to what is known as the house edge. With the American wheel, the house edge is 5.25% while with the European roulette wheel the edge drops significantly, down to 2.70%. What this means is that you have a better chance of winning when you play the European roulette rather than American.

The very popular game of blackjack traces back to a card game played in France during the 18th century. Called Vingt et Un, or 21, our modern blackjack really hasn’t changed all that much. The top hand then, as in now, was a natural 21 – vingt et un. Two things were different in the original game compared to the modern version that we play. Players would bet after each round in the original and were not able to double – only the dealers had that privilege.

The game came to be called blackjack eventually, most likely from the early days of Las Vegas casinos where they offered special payouts and odds for a hand that won with the Ace and Jack of Spades. After a while, the special payouts and odds were dropped but the name remains with us to this day. Some have said that the same thing happened in the original French game but there isn’t much historical support for that theory.

Blackjack is one of the most popular games in casinos over the world, perhaps because it is one of the easiest gambling card games that there is. There are no complicated rules or figuring out hand rankings like there can be with other poker games. Your aim is to get 21 in your hand without going over – or at least a higher value than the dealer. You always are hoping that the dealer will "bust" – go over 21 and thus automatically lose the hand.

These days, blackjack strategy is not only played in live games at the casinos. The game has maintained its popularity, if not more so, in making the transition to the internet casinos. With the worldwide reach of online casinos, you can play and converse with people from seven different countries at once in the chat rooms. There are also exciting variations of blackjack at the different online casinos so be sure to see what each has to offer. Most variations will have the same basic gameplay and rules but they each could offer a unique twist to add to the fun.

If you have ever done sportsbetting or have ever thought about trying it, this is the time of year when football fans go all out. If you have yet to give it a go, here is an explanation of some of the most common bets.

Point spread bets are the most popular type of bet when it comes to football. This is when you bet one team will win over the other by more than a certain number of points. So if you were to bet the Raiders to win over the Steelers by more than 4 points, you would only win if they won by 5 points or more. If they win by less than 4, you would lose your bet. If they win by exactly four it’s called a "no action" bet and you get your wager back.

Over or under bets are when you bet on the total score of bother teams added together. For example, you would bet that the total score is over 25 or under 25. If you are correct and it’s over or under, you would win. If you were wrong, you would lose. If it turned out to be exactly 25, it becomes another "no action" bet and you would get your wager back.

Money line bets are another common wager you will see. With this type of bet, you are simply betting on which team will win. Payouts will depend on the odds given for that team.

Then there is the halftime bet where you are only betting on the score for one half of the game. The halftime bet could still be a point spread bet, over/under bet or a money line bet – it’s just applicable to only whichever half of the game you chose to bet on.

One type of bet that is a lot of fun because it can be unique is the proposition bet. With this you can bet on just about anything except the final score. You can bet on which team will win the toin coss, how many field goals will be kicked or even how many passes a player will make during the game.