Summary:
Have you ever invested your time and money into an Internet gambling site only to end up losing plenty of both? I sure have.
Have you ever invested your time and money into an Internet gambling site only to end up losing plenty of both? I sure have. I have personally played on sites where I have spent hours playing the free gaming software that they provide. I was hoping that I could practice on their site, using their gaming program, before placing any real money on the table. I figured that it would give me the edge when the money was on the line. Plus, it was fun to play.
So after I finished putting hours into the gaming program of my choice, usually Blackjack, I would sign up for the real gaming action and put some money on the line. Not exorbitant amounts of cash or anything, but cold hard cash. What would soon befall me was a harsh wake up call. Not all gaming programs are built equally and not all gaming sites are honest. There are a very substantial percentage of online casinos that are just vacuums waiting to suck up every single dime that you and I are willing to toss into its hungry maw.
In a way those lost dollars were simply payment for the education that I got from my misfortune. I wouldn't have necessarily minded losing the money, because unfortunately that is bound to happen from time to time when gambling, it was how I lost it. I was troubled by the speed and cold mechanical efficiency of how quickly I was fleeced. I would play the free version for literally an hour or so with the balance either increasing, or very slowly decreasing. After I switched to the money version of the game I was cleaned out in a matter of minutes. In fact minutes would be a bit of an overstatement. It literally left my eyes spinning as I watched hand after hand be won by the "dealer" without so much as a small bone thrown to me to make me think that there was even the most remote chance of actually winning any money.
Of course, after this happened the first time I chocked it up to bad luck or lack of skill. So I practiced some more and laid down some more money. The following events were an exact duplicate of the previous hands and I was left with even less money and a severe distrust of online gambling sites. I figured that all online gambling casinos were the same and that there was no realistic chance of winning anything. I assumed that it would be fine to play free games but to not ever disillusion myself into thinking that I could make any money at it.
Thankfully after my bad start I did find that there are very solid, reputable, and fair online gambling sites. It is now easier than ever to find a good site and by finding one that has a solid random number generator and third party testing we really can't go wrong.