As the largest provider of online gambling software in the world – Microgaming award-winning technology offers innovation and reliability to more than 160 market-leading, online gambling businesses in the form of casinos, poker rooms, bingo rooms and live gambling websites. Online gambling is a mainstream industry that is now regularly seeing IPO’s, venture capital investment and stock exchange flotation taking place. It is a multi-billion dollar industry and a force to be reckoned with.

Being a leader in this industry, Microgaming offers 600 different online games and up 2000 variations of these games. In the majority the games are online slots, as these are the most in demand. The company has a reputation for offering great games, and aims to keep ahead of the industry with cutting-edge research and development as well as aggressive rollouts. We take a look at a couple of their exciting flagship game releases to date, and we will do this over a series of articles:

The Lord of the Rings™

This is probably one of the most famous of their flagship branded slots, and what a big win this licensing deal was for Microgaming. In a partnership with © 2010 New Line Productions, Inc, and with all rights reserved, Microgaming landed the rights to develop; The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, and use the names of the characters, items, events and places to develop a series of three video slots games. To date The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring has been adapted as an online and land-based casino video slot, and we wait breathlessly in anticipation for the other two games to be released.

The Lord of the Rings online slot faithfully represents the literary and cinematic classic tales. Just as the book and the films – the slot game tells the story of Frodo Baggins’ epic quest. It features the many friends and foes he encountered on the journey through Middle Earth and is brilliantly realized by the use of a rich array of original footage from the blockbuster film. This captures the player in an even more immersive gambling experience, and uses Cinematic Spins™ to achieve remarkable feats in gaming technology. Behind the spinning reels during play we find a landscape of cinematography as seen in the film.

This is not the only exciting feature however, we want to know what can be won – so this 243- Way game (ways to win) is filled to the brim with new features and bonuses. It also includes a chance to win one of four PJP’s while in the randomly triggered bonus-wheel feature. Apart from being a pest who keeps ‘sneaking’ onto the screen – keep a close lookout for Gollum – he awards additional prizes at any time during play, even in the middle of Free Spins. Just like the book and the films, this game is not to be missed. It is not just playing an online slot, it is an online gaming ‘experience’!

Bonus whoring at online poker sites is not as bad as it sounds – this is a well know term for taking advantage of poker bonuses to augment your bankroll. If a site is giving free poker money away, why not take advantage of this? Many avid online players do this and it basically means signing up at more than one site, making sure you understand what rake back means and how to take advantage of this. No other player will look down on you. For many, taking advantage of these bonuses is as much a part of the game as playing online poker itself. It is certainly not illegal, although this may be difficult for US players right now as the Department of Justice has shut down Poker Stars, Full Tilt and Absolute bet; but UK players have many choices.

By definition the player will be taking advantage of no deposit bonuses if there are any on offer, the first deposit bonus, re-load bonuses and of course rake-back as well as any other bonus offers. The real bonus whores, chase these bonuses from site to site and take advantage of as many as they can, this does not mean that they cash out this money, it just means they can play longer, more games and at more tables.

Any online poker site worth their salt who is worth giving your business to, offers various incentives. This is a competitive industry and if they want you to play they must also pay. Bonuses can bolster a bankroll very effectively and it did not take online poker player very long to find this out. However, all the good things in life don’t come easy and it will take time and hard work to get the system to work for you – spend too much time bonus whoring, and you won’t be left with any time to play poker.

One of the vital aspects of this form of incentive hunting is understanding what the rake-back means. Basically a raked hand is a poker hand where the site takes a portion of the prize pot for offering players the opportunity to play at their table. It is a percentage of the prize and as a bonus for being loyal; a percentage of that percentage is paid back to the players who play enough games – “enough” being the operative word. Some young poker-guns have mastered the technique so well they can play upwards of 12, 24 or even more table simultaneously. Obviously play too many tables and your game will suffer – no matter how many tables you play, and how much rake-back you earn, it will not off-set what you are losing if you manage to lose more than you win.

Therefore the first question to ask yourself is “how many tables can I play successfully and continue to win?” You have to be a winning player to win from bonus whoring or at least a break even player; so, really good players make really good bonus whores and that is the gist of it!