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Reason #5 why the Wizard likes Bovada:
Intelligent Bonuses
Many online casinos offer huge signup bonuses, but there’s a catch. Buried in the fine print is that play on the most popular games doesn’t count towards earning the bonus. It’s common for play on blackjack, baccarat, roulette, craps, and video poker to be excluded. In many cases, only slots count.
And that’s if you can even find the terms and conditions. Many casinos put their 100% bonus in big flaming letters but make you hunt all over their site to find the rules.
Bovada allows play on all games to count towards the wagering requirement. It’s that simple. Just no opposite betting. All casinos ought to be as easy as Bovada about this. The bonus offer itself is simple too: on your first deposit, they’ll give you an extra 10%. If you deposit $100, you’ll wind up with $110 in chips or tokens. Finally, in the unlikely event that Bovada feels you’ve been abusing their bonuses they won’t seize your winnings like most other casinos will. In the worst case scenario they will politely tell you that they will not be offering you any future bonuses, but you are welcome to keep playing and keep everything you have made already.
More about Bovada
Visit Bovada 
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Wizard of Odds Newsletter | September 29, 2005
Last Update: now()
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Excellent customer support
The thing that separates Bodog from the rest is its customer support. Many other online gaming companies outsource their support. It can be difficult getting a response from them, and if you do it is often slow and handled by somebody with little understanding of gambling or even of English. But Bodog's support is handled by Bodog, and their support staff is actually knowledgeable and helpful.
I'm so confident that you'll have a good experience with Bodog that if you have a problem getting paid and you can't resolve it with them on your own, I'll talk to them myself. I personally have known the Bodog management for about three years and always found them to be professional, friendly, and knowledgeable. I have also personally visited one of their call centers so I could see first-hand how they handle customer issues. (More on my mediation service.)
If you have a problem with any other casino besides Bodog, I can't help you. I get complaints from players of other online casinos every day who have difficulty getting paid. However that isn't my job nor my problem. If you play at Bodog after clicking through my site I'll stand behind you 100%. Any place else and you're on your own. (Visit Bodog)
Try blackjack at Bodog.
One click and you're in:
No popups, no download, no registration, no B.S., just the game.
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 I'm
handicapping the NFL
Now that football season is in full swing I
have barely been playing video poker at all. Instead
I am focusing almost all my gambling energy on the NFL.
Unlike the last three seasons where I bet props almost
exclusively, this year I am making my maiden voyage into
the waters of handicapping.
During the summer I wrote to Don Schlesinger saying
that my angle to sports betting was to assume the point
spread and total were correct and use that information to
predict the outcome of props according to how those props
have done in historically similar games. Don's reply was
that was the lazy man's way of sports betting. At first I
was put off by his remark. However I have a great deal of
respect for Don's opinion and after his comment knocked
around my head for a few months I decided to give
handicapping a try myself.
To be honest with you I would have a hard time naming
ten current players in the NFL. Women often shame me in
their knowledge of game compared to mine. So in my
endeavor to handicap the NFL I had to treat it like a
card game and look at it purely mathematically. I don't
want to give away too much so all I will say is the only
thing going into my picks are historical scores and home
field advantage. From there I use a mathematical formula,
which shall remain secret, to determine the probability
of each team winning any given game, and then a
corresponding fair point spread for that probability.
At first I thought this project would be a total
failure and my predicted lines would be nowhere near
actual lines. However I was surprised to find using my
simple model that my predicted line were within two
points of the actual lines about 60% of the time. In the
cases where I feel the going line is too far off from my
own I make it an official pick.
I created a new page to document and share
my NFL
picks. After the first three weeks my
record is 13 wins and 7 losses against the spread, for a
65% average. Although my official picks are against the
spread I'll give you newsletter readers a free tip:
Instead of betting an underdog with the points (and most
of my picks are underdogs) you generally get a better
value betting underdogs on the money line.
I'm running the
Las Vegas Marathon
In other news, both my webmaster, Michael
Bluejay, and I are planning to run the
Las Vegas marathon on December 4. Unlike past years,
the course this year takes a scenic trip down the Strip
and through downtown. So if you're in town that Sunday I
welcome you to root us on, or better yet run the marathon
yourself! The race starts and ends at the Mandalay Bay.
Given a starting time of 6:00AM I figure to finish
between 11AM and noon, just in time to catch the ending
of the 10:00 games.
 Ask
the Wizard!
After a four-month break I've brought back the
popular Ask the Wizard column. Here's an excerpt from a
recent column:
Why do table games have a maximum limit,
(i.e. Roulette)? A friend told me that this is to
prevent a player from continuing to double his losing
bet when betting red or black. I disagree as the odds
obviously stay the same and the strategy does not pay
well risk to reward. Why are there max limits at
tables? - Mark from New York
Every casino has some kind of limits to protect
itself from losing more than they are comfortable
with. However on most tables the maximum is much less
than it is in the high-limit area. The reason for this
has nothing to do with protecting the casino against
Martingale system players. Any casino manager worth
his weight in salt knows betting systems always lose
in the long run. I asked an executive with a major Las
Vegas casino, who wishes to remain anonymous, why a
casino would refuse a $10,000 in the main casino when
they would accept it in the high-limit room. He said a
casino manager has only so many employees he truly
trusts. He prefers the big action to be under the
watch of those people.
(Read more Ask
the Wizard.)
What's new on the
site
I have been adding a lot of new information to
the website. Besides my NFL picks you can also see:
- Ask
the Wizard -- I've brought back this
popular column to answer your questions.
- Wan
Doy -- an analysis of this new card game found
at WagerWorks online casinos
- Two
Up -- an Australian coin-flipping game
- Casino
Holdem -- I've updated my analysis based on a
special one-month computer simulation
- Draw 6
Poker -- a video poker variation in which the
player sometimes gets six cards on the draw
- Tequila
Poker -- an innovative new game found at the
Hard Rock Casino
- What's
new -- The "What's new" menu in the sidebar is
now being updated regularly.
 Until
next time, set your expectations high.
From Michael
Bluejay....
You're getting the
whole newsletter again, not just an
announcement
Lots of mail servers block our newsletters
because they think it's spam. So for the last issue we
tried sending out a plain-text message announcing that
the newsletter was available for reading on the website,
and providing a direct link to the newsletter. More of
you received that message successfully, but most didn't
click over to the website to read the newsletter. So
we're going back to sending out the newsletter to you
directly, because more of you ultimately read it that
way, even if many of you don't receive it at all.
Free book by the
Wizard
In each newsletter for a while one lucky
subscriber will win a free copy of the Wizard's new book
Gambling
102. The winner last time was Tom Mags. This
issue's winner is subscriber #3684 (of 8426),
JJLBT. Wish I had a name to go along with that.
So as usual, this month 1 person won and 8,425 lost.
That means that most of you are a bunch of losers. But
fear not, you have another chance to win next month. And
not only is your entry free, but you're also entered
automatically.
Your expected value for winning the $14.95 book + $3
shipping is $17.95 / 8426 = $0.00213. But you get a free
entry every month, so your odds of winning over a year
are 1-(8425 ÷ 8246)12 = 0.0042, or 1 in
703. So your expected value for the whole year is $17.95
/ 703 = two and a half cents. Now, I ask you, who else
besides the Wizard would just offer you 2.5 cents of
value out of the blue? And someone else did offer it,
would you take it? Of course you would! It's free value,
and you're no fool. At least that's what your neighbors
say.
Bluejay's Internet
tip o' the month: The Internet Archive
Ever wonder what a website looked like back
in the day? Well, wonder no more, thanks to the
Internet Archive.
The nice folks at the archive take periodic snapshots of
millions of sites on the web and store them for public
access. What a remarkable service, and it's completely
free.
Here you can see old
versions of WizardOfOdds.com. In the
oldest versions the graphics are missing, since the
archive didn't always store graphics, especially in the
older years.
You'll notice that the archive for Wizard of Odds only
goes back to early 2003. That's because before that we
were at THEWizardOfOdds.com. You can see the archive for
THEWizardOfOdds.com
too, and notice that it goes back to 1999. The Wizard has
actually been online since 1997, at yet another earlier
address, although the archive only picked that site up in
early 1999. Here's the
very earliest incarnation of Wizard of Odds that's
archived, from January 1999.
The archive runs 6 to 12 months behind on new entries,
which is why you don't see 2005 listed for most
websites.
Previous Internet tips:
 Advertiser
Spotlight: Reputable Online Casinos
Reputable
Online Casinos isn't currently an advertiser but we
neglected to mention them in the newsletter when they were.
They were actually the very first site to win an auction for
adspace once we started selling adspace that way. They're
also the very first non-casino site to place a banner ad
with us.
Reputable Online's mission is to recommend only quality
online casinos to players. They do a good job of explaining
what they're all about on their site, so we'll let them
describe themselves in their own words:
Reputable Online Casinos
has been on-line since 2002. Since then, we have served
thousands of on-line players by pointing them to the
finest on line casinos.
We have never received any
complaint regarding our Featured On Line Casinos. We
pride ourselves in honesty integrity and reliability.
Many times rogue on line casinos have offered us tempting
deals and gifts - we never even considered it.
How we select our Recommended
On Line Casinos
First of all, we try the online
casinos for real. We download the software and play for
real money, we talk with the casinos' customer support to
test their service and we request a withdrawal in order
to see how fast they pay.
After that, we search the
Internet for any information about them. We go through
gambling forums, newsgroups and other websites to ensure
they have a clean record.
The last step in our screening
process is to see whether they're properly licensed and
if their payout percentage are audited by a reliable
third party company.
We are certain that you will be
safe playing at the casinos we've recommended. BUT - If
you do have a problem with any of the casinos featured
here please contact us... We have strong connections with
our featured casinos and we will be glad to help you
solve any matter.
Please note that the Wizard's own arbitration
guarantee applies only to casinos we advertise directly
on our own site, not to casinos advertised on an
advertiser's site.
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