Online Gaming vs. Online Gambling

If you have read another article of mine concerning online video games, you already know that I am a home video game turned online junkie. While doing some research on that first article, it occurred to me that you could actually make some money playing games, at least in theory. Unfortunately, there are very few online gaming sites that are not only free to play but make it possible to win actual coinage if you don’t want to spend “real” money.

Some of these sites require a download. Many of them ask you to refer others to them or link to your home page. All of them are businesses and therefore exist to make money, so it is up to you to do a bit of homework before you invest your time and/or cash.

One of my favorite sites is PlayandWin.co.uk. Based in Denmark, there is something kind of distinctive about winning �¯�¿�½100 as opposed to a new Ipod.
When you play a game, you accumulate tokens/points, turn them into tickets (1000 tokens = 1 ticket) and enter them into a weekly drawing for 10, 20 or �¯�¿�½100. There are 9 winners each week and you even have the option of automatically turning your tokens into entries 2 hours before the drawing.

There are 8 multiplayer games, 10 card games, 8 puzzle games, click and win (click on a site, instant tokens even if you do not sign up for membership on that site) and scratch and win. Although you need tokens to play some of the games, not to worry; I have never come out at a loss.

The chatters here are quite friendly on this online game site and there is even an ego-boosting competition for daily high scores. In some of the games you can receive bonus spins for up to 1000 additional points or several thousand from the bank (greedy, greedy, greedy).

If you are into solitaire, the Egyptian Pyramid game is rather addictive, as is Spider Solitaire. These two card games seem to amass the most bonus points quickly without having to use your own tokens for wagering.

So how do you win, you ask? Mostly luck, no matter how many tickets you purchase towards that week’s lottery. I chatted with one player who had won the Ã?¯Ã?¿Ã?½100 and he said he had been on Playandwin for just a couple of months and had only spent 300 tickets (3000 tokens/points). I also chatted with a woman who had been playing there for 3 years and had never won.

FreeBingo.net was one of the first online game sites I found. Free to play, you win points by claiming any of nine patterns on 20 cards that are pre-selected for you. You must check them every day, for the patterns get eliminated after a certain time limit. There are 4 different games starting on different days of the week

Since 1997 this site has been awarding monthly prizes to the top five point earners. They recently changed their policy to make it a yearly tournament. Why is this better? This online game site boasts over 2500 members. That’s a lot of competition, but you can stockpile your points instead of starting from scratch each month. The top 100 players receive a mouse pad, t-shirt, and/or “bingo-bucks (aka BBz)”, credits that you can use on their play-for-real-$ sister site Bingodrome.

Another choice is to use those points to partake in an “auction” for prizes such as microwave ovens or more BBzs’. There are also monthly giveaways, for the “most improved” score each month. These awards range from $50 Bingo site accounts to digital cameras to boxes of chocolates.

Finally, you can earn even more points on FreeBingo by actually depositing monies in Bingodrome (that’s a variety of 2-fer). But as I have mentioned before, this is a business and it is easy to get carried away by some of the “match bonus” deposit programs.

BingoBugle.net is another online gaming site where you can play more than bingo. There are five featured games, including Texas Hold’em, which you play with others, a Mahjong Solitaire that I have yet to defeat, and Pyramid Panic, my old standby solitaire.

There are 9 bingo rooms. You are allowed to play simultaneously in as many of them as you like since you have the option of auto-daub (they cover your cards for you). Three of these contain up to 30 card selections. That’s a lot of daubing!

There are also 2 keno rooms, slots, and video poker, however you must invest tokens to earn points to buy ballots for prize drawings. Confused? Hold on, this gets more complicated.

As is usually the case, 1000 points = 1 ticket. When I first started playing here I earned enough to purchase about 300 tickets which I then entered into a drawing for a $10.00 Best Buy Gift Card (I passed on the Wal-mart card). My thinking was that there were a total of 1500 tickets, so I would have a pretty good shot. Wrong. That is actually how many tickets were bought by BingoBugle members at that time. I recently checked back to confirm my dwindling chances. The total is now upwards of 10,000. I call this a slim-to-none chance.

Lastly, I must tell you about the trailer trash (no personal offense intended here) of online gaming sites, BingoBlowout.com. What promises to be a fairly outright system of straight coinage if you win is in fact a somewhat tedious exercise in futility.

First off, you must download their program to play, so if your computer is short on memory, do a Dionne Warwick and walk on by.

There are 4 rooms to choose from: Mega (the largest and therefore the most profitable) the Ritz (full card only, yaaawwwn), the Gala Room (straight bingo) and the Glamour Room (varying patterns). Each of their backgrounds look as though the Easter bunny ate too much. There is some dreadful music (only 2 songs “Red, Red Wine” and something that sounds like a variation of “Take My Breath Away”) which overpowers a rather dull male caller. I suggest mute.

Each member is able to select 5 cards only, that helps odds-wise, and the purse is determined by how many members are participating in each game (although the minimum prize is $10.00). This award is actually in cash, but it takes $3000 to be awarded $10 to play at a gambling site, 7000 to get $10.00 cash and 10,000 to get $20.00. If you play in a small room, you will win a couple of times an hour with luck. Let’s see, that’s $10.00 X 2 = $20.00/hr. I will let you do the math to figure how long it takes to get $10,000.

There are also pop-ups of affiliated gambling sites, unless you keep one of those sites open. I must admit I sometimes unwind on BingoBlowout during insomniatic nights and chat with some of the other members because it also has auto-daub.

This is a good place to mention that any gaming site, just like any chat room, includes proper etiquette and language. Writing in capital letters is considered shouting, mentioning other sites is frowned upon, and learn to use these shortcuts:
lol= laugh out loud
wtg = way to go
gg = good game
glng = good luck next game
tu4s = thank you for sharing (bingo with another person)

There you have it. There are literally thousands of such gaming sites on the net and while they are pleasant diversions, they will undoubtedly never make you rich. Stay tuned; my quest for the perfect site will continue. Let me know if you find it first.