News & Guides

Betting and casino news from the US, UK, Canada and Australia, plus plain-English guides on how the games and the rules work.
How do sweepstakes casinos work? Gold Coins and Sweeps Coins explained
Sweepstakes casinos run on two virtual currencies instead of cash. Gold Coins are for play only, and Sweeps Coins are the ones that can be redeemed for prizes, including cash, once the site's conditions are met. I've read through the published redemption terms across top sweepstakes casinos, and this is the plain-English version. The short version Gold Coins (GC): no cash value, can be bought or earned, never redeemable. Sweeps Coins (SC): can't be bought directly, come free with purchases and promotions, and can be redeemed for prizes after playthrough. Redemption: requires playthrough, a minimum balance and ID verification. Legality: set state by state, so your location decides whether you can play at all. Why two currencies...
RTP in slots explained: what 96% means for your bankroll
The info screen says 96%. You load $100, and forty spins later you're down to $38, wondering why you're nowhere near $96. The number wasn't lying to you. It was just answering a different question from the one you were asking, so I figured it was worth a proper thread. What RTP actually measures RTP stands for Return to Player. It's the percentage of all money wagered on a slot that the game is designed to pay back over time. It gets set when the game is built, worked out by modelling the maths over millions of simulated spins. In regulated markets the figure is normally checked by independent testers rather than just taken on the developer's word. A 96% slot is built to return $96 for every $100 staked, across every player and...
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