Gambling Articles: Online Gambling Strategies

You've found an online casino that will give you a $100 bonus for a $100 deposit. Now what? Are you going to play until your deposit and bonus are all gone? NO! Play until the bonus is wiped out, and maybe some of your own cash? WRONG. If you are anything like me, you will want to play to keep your cash, keep the bonus, and win even more money. Let me tell you what has worked for me.

First, let's work on keeping the bonus. The casino will tell you up front that they want you to give them a certain amount of action. I believe in giving them the action they require, and then giving them more action. One of my favorite sayings is "Without action, nothing can happen." We have $200 to play with, let's get too it!

The casino wants us to play the deposit once, and the bonus once. We want to chose the right game to play to get through this action that gives the house the smallest edge, and that game will always be Blackjack. This doesn't mean that I don't play slots, this means I may play slots with my possible winnings. If you are a slot player, then playing an online casino gives you many more chances at winning a very large jackpot than playing at a brick and mortar casino. Slots also provide the casino with the biggest edge.

We start playing $2 hands and watch our account go from $190 to $210 back and forth. When I get to $206 I start playing $4 hands. Once the account gets back to $202, I start betting $2 hands again. Often I will get the account up to $210 betting $4 hands. I then change the point where I go back to betting $2 hands to protect my money to $212. When I get to $216, again I bet $4. In no time I have put in the required $200 of action. Now what? Time to go for blood!

I'm sitting with $220 in the account. I like to play until I lose half the bonus, or double it. I have locked in a win either way, so this allows me to have fun while I play. I will use what I call the "Capped Martingale," and bet $2 - $4 - then $8 after each loss. Most times one of these three bets is a winner and we pick up a $2 win. This doesn't always happen, and this is when I "switch gears" and use Oscar's Grind. I keep betting $8 and hope that things will turn around. I'm down $14 and I bet $8. I may keep losing until I get the $150 then I quit. That's life. What I hope will happen is that I will win $8, be down $6, bet $8 again and be up the $2 and start betting $2 - $4 - $8 again. This does not always happen, and this is where Oscar comes in.

Oscar starts with a one unit bet. This could be any amount, but for us it is $8, and every unit would be the same size. We bet one unit and win. We bet one more unit and end up $2 ahead. That is the end of the first progression. If we bet one unit and lose, we bet one again. We lose again, then bet one. Then we win one. Then we bet two units to end up with a one unit win when we win. If we lose this two-unit bet, we go back down to one unit. We drop a unit after each loss until we get down to one unit. We increase our bet by one unit after each win, unless we get to a bet that will produce more than a single-unit win.

Let's say we are down four units. Bet one and win, bet two and win, and we are down one unit. We want to end the progression up one unit, so we will bet two units instead of three. You could bet three, but that is not a true Oscar's Grind. We then go back to the $2 - $4 - $8 unit until we need Oscar to step back in.

So we get to $300. Now what? Reset your goals. Keep playing until you hit $250 or $400. The sky is the limit now! Keep pressing it up, but leave when you hit your loss limit. You may wish to take some of your win and play it against a giant progressive jackpot. Set your limits, stick to 'em, and you'll always be a winner!

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Weighing 7 pounds and 11 ounces, Rob McGarvey was born to gamble. His Dad, a horse handicapper, bet the Daily Double 7 and 11 and won at the next day's track meet at Woodbine, or so the story goes. Starting out as a Roulette player, Rob quickly learned there was money to be made playing Blackjack. First playing Ontario Canada, then Las Vegas, New York, Atlantic City, and Biloxi, Rob has earned his set of playing wings. Currently printing his first book entitled Aces and Faces Blackjack, Rob is ready to bring this game out of the 60's and into the 21st century. Visit Rob McGarvey at his website, Blackjack Pro.