The British Columbia Information and Privacy Commissioner has announced the conclusion of the investigation the British Columbia Lottery Corporations online gambling site PlayNow. British Columbia took a different approach to licensing and regulating online casinos in their area. They granted permission to their government run lottery corporation to run their own online casino. The people of British Columbia seemed pleased about it because they felt that they could trust a government run site more than a site run by the average gambling corporation.

That trust may have been misplaced. The investigation into the BCLC and the PlayNow site discovered “inadequate user access controls and maliciouscode controls, unencrypted data transmission and gaps in BCLC’s privacy management framework.” In other words, the trustworthy, government run PlayNow site didn’t provide adequate protection for the personal information of their customers. The result was that on the first day the online casino launched, 134 “data crossovers” took place and exposed the personal data of players to others on the site. This is considered to be of extra concern for an online gambling site because these are the sorts of site that attract the attention of organized crime and other who may have malicious intent. People scream when Facebook exposes their info to advertising sites and others who want to gather information about them. But gambling sites aren’t social media sites. They are sites were people risk their money. And as such, need to be able to provide players with the strongest security possible. After the BCLC report, players might wonder if the PlayNow site is able to accomplish that.

I’m over at Go Casino trying to check out the tournament schedule. But this post is turning into more of a usability review than a post about the upcoming Valentine’s Day slot tournament. Why? Because when I visit the Gocasino.com website and check the tournament page, I can see that there is a tournament on Cupid’s Arrow coming up on February 14^th and running through February 18^th. It’s called the Valentine’s Day Week Long $25,000 Bonus Buck Freeroll. A rather long name for a tournament but I’m interested because this is a FREE tournament with a $25,000 prize pool. The starting stake is apparently only 75 credits which means the challenge is going to be to build that fast so I don’t have to rebuy. Because I won’t rebuy.

So I pop over to my GoCasino software, log on, then beat on it for a bit to get the sound to turn off … again. Then I find the tournament tab. And now I am utterly confused. The long tournament names are a big challenge in the small lines presented on the tournament list. Many of the names are similar and there is no date show until you click into a tournament. So there’s no quick way to find a tournament you want by date and time. But I know that the Valentine’s Day Week Long $25,000 Bonus Buck Freeroll is going to be listed under the Free Rolls tab. Nope, no tournaments scheduled at this time. I have to check back later. There’s also nothing on the Featured tab, though there are featured tournaments on the site. Apparently they don’t make it to the casino until the day they start.

Now, why is this important? Well, the full info on the rebuys, balances and how the prize pool breaks down, isn’t on the web site. You have to go to the casino and be registered to find it. But even then, the info is either hard to find or not yet available.

Look, Go Casino is a great place to play and a $25,000 free roll slot game is worth signing up for. But they need to make it easier for us to get there.

Over at Silver Oak Casino they want to remind you to “Always Look on the Bright Side.” (This promotion does have me wondering if the folks over at Silver Oak Casino has ever watch Monty Python’s “Life of Brian.” Cue the final song.)

But since I am a Monty Python fan, I figured an “Always look on the bright side” promotion is worth a look. Now the great part of this promotion is that Silver Oak casino is offering you a chance to decide which bonus works for you. For example, if you start with the Happy100 bonus, you can get a 100% deposit bonus with no minimum deposit requirement. So, deposit as little or as much as you like and get 100% back on your money. The Bright150 bonus will get you 150% back on your deposit for just a minimum $35 deposit. And come on, you’re going to deposit at least that much. But if you go up to a $50 minimum deposit, you can get a 175% deposit bonus using the code SUNNY175. Or drop $75 into your Silver Oak account and claim a 200% deposit bonus using the code SUPER200. So whether you want to add a lot of money to your account or a little, Silver Oak has a deposit bonus for you.

Now if you’re a big Silver Oak fan, you can join the Silver Oak VIP club and qualify for a 250% deposit bonus. To do that you’ll need to contact the casino and ask to be added to the VIP club and then deposit at least $125 to your account.

So I come back after a nice long weekend to find the news focused on Canada and the British Columbia Gambling Corporation – Again.

So, a quick recap for those who haven’t been keeping up with the gambling scene in Canada (that’s my job, not yours. Unless you live in Canada). Last year, British Columbia decided to raise money from gambling not by the usual lottery or by licensing and taxing casinos that operated within their boundaries. Well, actually, they were already doing that. Instead the British Columbia Lottery Corporation asked to raise the bar by running their own online casino. Now some of us saw a potential problem with this since the BCLC is part of the government that oversees casinos operation in Canada.

And there were problems from the beginning. The new BCLC casino launched with software that somehow exposed personal player information to other players and was shut down the first day. It finally relaunched and eventually seemed to be providing the gambling experience that people expected.

But now we’re hearing that there may be ongoing problems within the BCLC that the government would have known about before it even approved the online casino operation. Back in 2007, they knew that the BCLC was having trouble monitoring and reporting suspicious transactions in existing British Columbia casinos to the police so that those transactions could be investigated. But the BCLC was still allowed to open its own casino.

Now, the BCLC has been fined $670,000 for failure to report large cash transactions as large as 1.2 million dollars. The casinos are responsible for reporting these transactions to the BCLC and the BCLC is supposed to report them to the police. It seems that the casinos have been following through on their part but the BCLC has dropped the ball. And some are saying that there needs to be an independent investigation into the BCLC to find out just what’s going on in there.

Looking for an online casino to play on this weekend? Well, Club World Casino is offering a Loose Caboose promotion to get the action chugging along. Okay, I don’t know why it’s called the Loose Caboose bonus, but then I don’t think they do either. But it’s still worth taking advantage of if you want to play this weekend. The bonus is already underway and runs through Sunday, January 16^th. So, what’s up with the Loose Caboose?

First you can double your money by depositing at least $50 into your account for a 100% match bonus that’s good up to $1000. So, deposit $50 and get $100 to play on. Or deposit $1000 and have $2000 to play with. You can use the CASHIER coupon three times to give you more to play with. But keep in mind that this bonus is only good on slots, keno, and scratch cards.

If you use up the CASHIER code and still want to play more slots, keno or scratch cards, you can use the unlimited coupon code SLOT65 to get a 65% match bonus on you deposits up to $1000. So, Club World Casino is going to help you keep the reels spinning.

But what if you don’t play slots? Well, if you’re a fan of blackjack, video poker and table games, you’ll want to use the code OTHERGAMES55 for a 55% match bonus up to $1000 on those games.

Keep in mind that Club World casino offers ongoing promotions and a wide range of daily promotions. So if you can’t take advantage of the weekend promotion, be sure to check the casino for future offers.

Have you ever signed up at an online casino to play for free with no plans to open a real account? Don’t worry, they know that you do this. And while they’d rather have you as a real money customer, they don’t mind the fun play accounts. Perhaps you signed up to check out a new slot game you heard about. Or to see if their video poker games had more options (or easier to see cards, but we won’t talk about that) than your current favorite online casino. And maybe you just haven’t decided to make a deposit there yet. Well, that’s what online casinos hope for because it gives them a chance to make offers that may convince you to become a real money player. Even if you’ve never been a real money player before. And of course these types of offers are why they want your email when you sign up. If you give them that, you may be surprised by the offers that come in.

This weekend (January 7^th through January 9^th) VIP Slots is sending emails out to all their “Play for Fun” clients offering them a 200% New Year sign up special if they make a deposit. This offer is only good for the weekend and is only being sent to current fun money players but it promises players a 200% bonus up to $500 on their first real money deposit with the site. All they have to do to claim the bonus is use the coupon code 200S-011 at the cashier when they make the deposit. So, see, if you were getting emails from VIP Slots, you’d know you could use the coupon code 200S-011 for 200 percent back on up to $500 this weekend. But don’t tell anyone!

If you play at real world casinos instead of online casinos, you might not be familiar with the beauty of the practice play or fun play mode. After all, real world, brick and mortar, casinos seldom invite you in to play without risking any money. Oh, there is an exception in that some do offer “learn the game” sessions to get you started, but it’s not exactly the same thing. In the casinos, you’re limited to the games they’ve decided to instruct you in and generally the time period that the dealer is freed up to offer instruction. Online, the free play or practice play mode is available 24 hours a day and you can play as long as you want.

So, why would you want to play in a practice play mode where you won’t really win any money? After all, it seems to be a bit disappointing to win a jackpot — but not for real. Well, have you ever sat down to play a casino game and thought “craps, when did I last play craps?” Or perhaps you’ve seen a game that you’d like to play but of course you don’t want to risk money until you know what you’re doing. What if the real world casino isn’t offering classes in it? Well, that’s where the practice play mode comes into play at your favorite online casino. Just log in to your account but choose to play for fun instead of for real money. Now you’ll be able to practice until you’ve become familiar with the game again.

Of course the same goes for learning new games. Many casino games require a little gambling strategy and knowledge of the rules in order to play them well. It can be expensive to learn a new game while playing with real money — mistakes will cost you. Literally. But check out your favorite online casino free play mode and you can learn the game while playing for free. Better yet, since you’re playing on a computer, you can actually pull up a series of instructions or a strategy chart to refer to while you practice. What could be better than that? (Well, winning real money, but that comes later.)

Villento Las Vegas is one of the top online casinos out there and I always make sure to stop by and check out their promotions because they have some of the best on the market. Right now (meaning through Wednesday, December 29^th) you can win free spins just for being spotted playing your favorite slots games on the site.

Yep, all you have to do is spend some time spinning the reels of your favorite game because the folks at Villento will be out looking for fifty lucky players who will win 40 free spins on the Cashanova slot game. And those free spins could bring you some reel money (or real money, I’m in a punny mood).

But if you’re going to play some slots at Villento Las Vegas to take part in the Get Spotted promotion, why not play the same slots that will earn you loyalty points in the Triple Play - Triple Pay promotion. You’ll need to be a member of the Villento Las Vegas loyalty program at the Silver, Gold or Platinum level to participate in this program. But I recommend joining the loyalty program because well, it’s free and it has rewards. Just join and then play any of the following slots for triple rewards through Wednesday, December 29^th — Life’s a Beach, Lucky Shot, Mark of Medusa, No Worries, Rainbows End, Reel Baron, or Scoop the Cash.

And remember to follow Villento Las Vegas on Facebook so you can keep up on all the bonus offers. Because they want to keep you playing with them.

Are you Looking for an online payment service to help you make deposits to your favorite online casino? Well, there are a variety of online services out there to help you. One is Neteller so I want to take a look at the NETELLER Payment Network. The nice thing about a Neteller account is that they offer a variety of services beyond just making deposits to online casino, but online casino deposits are one of their popular services.

If you open a neteller account, you’ll be able to deposit money into your new NETELLER account using a local bank account or credit card. The fee for the transaction varies based on the type of service used to make the deposit. For example, credit and debit card deposits will make the money available to your account instantly, but will cost you a 1.75% fee. Bank deposits are free but take 2 to 5 business days to process. So planning ahead will save you money.

But online casinos want you to use NETELLER’s services to play with them, so transfers from NETELLER to your favorite online gambling site are not only usually free, but may include additional bonuses. I recommend checking with your favorite casino to see if they offer matching deposits or other bonuses for using Neteller.

NETELLER also offers a pre-paid MasterCard that can work for you two different ways. You can get a physical card, just like the bank debit card, you already have. And you can use that to pay for items or to withdraw money from ATMs. But NETELLER has another advantage. What to pay for something online and not risk your regular credit card? You can use a Net + Virtual Prepaid MasterCard which generates a one-time use card number that you use online without giving the seller access to any other credit card numbers. The person you pay can’t reuse the number for anything else. A great bonus in today’s online world.

Silver Oak has decided to celebrate the holidays with two fantastic slot tournaments and they are inviting all of us to join in the fun. So, have you been naughty or nice this year? Because that’s one of the slot games you could be playing. Let’s take a look at the tournaments. Or perhaps the level of information Silver Oak is giving out on the tournaments, because they’ve been naughty about providing full details.

One of the games you can play in the Crazy December slot tournaments is Naughty or Nice slots. This is a vaguely holiday themed slot and the buy in is just $5. The prize is $2512. I’m assuming that is a total prize pool and not a single prize. The tournament runs — umm, sometime during December. I’m on Silver Oaks full details page but it seems to be a bit scanty on details (much like the outfit Miss Naughty is wearing on that slot game).

The other slot tournament Silver Oak is running during the December time frame (as a general reference point) is Texan Tycoon. This one has a $9 buy in and a prize of $9,999. That may be a grand prize. That may be the total prize. And I’m not sure how long you have to play Texan Tycoon if you sign up for the tournament.

Silver Oak is offering up to $10,000 in bonus money on your first ten deposits if you sign up for an account. And they offer both a download version of their software and a limit practice play web option. But they are open to US players. That, like Silver Oaks tournament details, is becoming harder and harder to find.