A-grade betting

May 14, 2012 By

 

Students all over the US are giving themselves even more reason to get good grades – money! There is now a website providing a platform for students to bet on the outcomes of their grades. The better their grades, the more they win.

The site has students from about 36 schools across the US betting on their own grades. The maximum they can bet is $25 per class but the more they play the higher the limit can grow to. The site then looks at the student’s academic history, the grade history of their school and their class and even the reputation of their tutor or professor to decide on the odds.

The students don’t just have to bet on doing exceptionally well either, they can bet on failing too – this is known as ‘grade insurance’.

Is this legal though? The CEO says it is because the power is in the hands of the students – they can choose whether they do well or fail.

How does the site make money then? Students are by nature fairly unpredictable – there are always variable like hangovers, illness, bad lecturers etc.

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History of gambling in Britain: 1830 to 1900 – betting is everywhere

April 25, 2012 By

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By the 1830′s there were gambling establishments all over London and they weren’t all as civilised as the gentleman’s clubs of the 1700′s. In 1833, The Times published this account:

“The generality of minor gambling houses are kept by prize-fighters and other desperate characters, who bully and hector the more timid out of their money by deciding that bets have been lost, when, in fact, they have been won. To these places thieves resort and such other loose characters as are lost to every feeling of honesty and shame.”

This article went on to talk of men losing their clothes and being sent home almost naked. This ‘bad’ behaviour resulted in The Gaming Act of 1845 which stipulated that wagers could no longer be legally binding contracts.

In the 1700’s, horseracing became a professional sport that people could bet on and by the mid-1800’s, there were more than 400 betting shops in London. The Attorney General recommended a bill to the House of Commons that would prohibit betting as “mischief arising from the existence of these betting shops is perfectly notorious”.

These betting houses were closed down but this didn’t seem to stop Britain from gambling. Street betting continued until it was banned in the Street Betting Act in 1906 – the only place where it was legal to bet was at the race course.

In September 1890, the Tranby Scandal, otherwise known as the Royal Baccarat Scandal, happened at the shipping magnate Arthur Wilson’s home. His guests, who included the Prince of Wales and Sir William Gordon-Cumming, were playing illegal baccarat when Gordon-Cumming was accused of cheating. The case went to court as slander and the future British king, King Edward VII had to testify. Gordon-Cumming lost the court battle and had to retire from the army in disgrace.

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Samsung Galaxy S3 is almost here

February 15, 2012 By

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Galaxy S2 was the highest selling handset of all time managing to convert thousands of iPhone users to Google Android and now the release of the S3 is getting closer.

The release date of the S3 has been confirmed to be within the first quarter of 2012, in other words sometime before the end of March, which is soon!

Galaxy S3 features:

  • The S3 will boast a Dual core 1.8ghz cpu making it faster
  • It will come with Android 4.1, Ice Cream Sandwich, already installed
  • There will be 2gb of internal memory
  • An AMOLED 720p screen with a 4.6 display to make browsing a breeze
  • A 12MP camera with Full HD 1080p video recording
  • It is said to be even thinner than the S2
  • A longer battery life than the S2

Impressed? We are.

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Encyclopedia Britannica jam packed into an app

September 30, 2011 By

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Encyclopedia Britannica, the most prestigious and famous English encyclopedia collection, used to be the staple when it came to knowledge and information and was hugely popular despite it being an expensive and rather bulky option.

Once the web came into being, people found an easier, cheaper (and lighter) way of accessing information. Simply doing a web search or consulting the free and community driven Wikipedia became the norm.

Britannica has had a presence online but at a price, and this price is 100% more expensive than the thousands of free options online. This is all about to change; Britannica is about to launch an iPad app that will contain all of its content. There will still be a price but it is significantly cheaper than before at $2 a month or $24 a year (the web version is $70 a year and the printed version is $1,400).

The new iPad app is said to have a cleaner less-cluttered look with some dynamic features like the ‘link map’ that shows the relationship between two topics visually. There are no adverts like on the web version which is another perk.

Here’s how Britannica holds up against Wikipedia:

  • Britannica has 140,000 articles while Wikipedia has 3,7 million.
  • Wikipedia has more contemporary and popular culture topics e.g. ‘Modern Family’ gets generous coverage in Wikipedia while not a mention in Britannica.
  • Britannica has information on some niche information that Wikipedia doesn’t e.g. there is an article on Suzanne Douvillier in which she is deemed ‘probably the first woman choreographer in America’ in Britannica while she does not get a mention in Wikipedia.
  • Many of the articles written in Britannica are by credentialed academics, experts and journalists while you can’t really discern who wrote the articles in Wikipedia.

The Britannica iPad app will probably eventually appear in iPhone and Android versions too. Download is free and there are small pockets of free content but most of it is only available to subscribers.

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Filed Under: Casino news, Mobile casino, Uncategorized Tagged With: ,

New Facebook messenger app for Android and iPhone. Soon for Blackberry too

August 23, 2011 By

 

 

 

 

 

Messenger for Mobile on Facebook will soon be available for Android and iPhones. There is already one official app in both the Adroid Market and the Apple App Store but Messenger is apparently something completely different.

Messenger is set to be a standalone app that will instantly deliver messages. This has been seen by many to be in response to the very efficient Google+ app.

The Facebook Messenger app will allow for group messaging and also allow for the possibility to see where Facebook friends are.

With Messenger you’ll be able to:

•    Get and send messages quickly
•    Send messages to friends, groups or mobile contacts – not just Facebook contacts
•    Attach photographs and pin your location
•    Message friends from where you are to where they are going
•    Create a personalized experience by naming and adding pictures to your group messages

This Android app will be available in the Android Market fairly soon. iPhone users can keep an eye out for it in the Apple App Store.

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Watch out for those Angry Birds

August 16, 2011 By

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Angry Birds” are taking over; from touch screens to big screens, books to toys, they’ve shown the world that a mobile app can become an entertainment franchise just as easily as Mickey Mouse or Iron Man did.

The game was developed at Rovio Entertainment in Finland and is doing so well that it’s getting ready to publish its first collection of books this month. “Bad Piggies Egg Recipes” is a book that will give you the recipes for all things egg, from egg-salad sandwiches to egg sushi. The title of the book takes reference from the game’s egg thieves who are the target of the angry birds’ revenge.

Rovio plans on going on to publish a book about Angry Birds in the classroom. In fact, Rovio is planning on publishing a whole series of educational books for children from age four to adolescents. One of the books will have geometry lessons with a bird character launching into flight at different angles.

To improve their arsenal, Rovio recently hired Wibe Wageman, who used to work at Microsoft Corp’s Bing search engine, and David Maisel, a former chairman of Marvel Studios.

Mr Maisel says Rovio are in talks with writers, directors and finance partners who might assist in getting an “Angry Birds” film launched.

There are 120 million “Angry Birds” players every month. To put this into perspective, the best-selling console game over the past year was “Call of Duty: Black Ops” which has sold 25 million copies. “Angry Birds” seems to have won fans over because it was tailor made for touch screens.

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Rewards Programme

August 10, 2011 By

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Las Vegas has long since realized that people like to feel special, and be rewarded for being loyal to a certain hotel or casino.

The online casinos have embraced the idea of rewards programmes, but the difference there is that any points you earn can mean leveling up and transferring those points to playable cash. That’s the way it works here at Platinum Play, and just signing up gets you an instant 2500 points, as long as you make a cash deposit. From there you receive 1 loyalty point per credit wager on slots and 1 point for every 5 wagers on table games; you can then convert those points to cash with each 1000 points equaling 1 cash credit.

If you choose to hold onto your loyalty points, then you can level up to Gold or Platinum and receive extra benefits, but just remember, any points not redeemed after 60 days will be lost.

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Greatest Casino Movies Of All Time

July 25, 2011 By

 

 

 

 

 

 

Las Vegas, with its glittering façade and neon glamour, has a face made for the movies, but hidden inside the glitz lies a black heart, or at least that’s how Hollywood likes to portray her. There may be no better insight into the duality of Vegas than Martin Scorsese’s Casino. The movie does a perfect job of capturing the sexiness of the strip whilst also shining a light on the corruption and violence of the mob run casinos of the 70’s.

We all dream of breaking the bank whenever we set foot inside a casino, and I’m sure most of us want to do it legally, but, let’s be honest, it’s also fun to watch someone else do it illegally. That’s the premise behind Oceans 11, and the great news is that there is a version for both modern film buffs, as well as fans of the golden oldies. The original starred the Rat Pack; Sinatra, Davis, Martin et al, and the re-make is a visual feast for the ladies with George Clooney and Brad Pitt. Both are fun in their own ways, you decide which one you think is best.

A lesser known movie, but one that ranks as one of the best casino films ever, is The Cooler; it’s a strange little tale, with William H. Macy playing a sorry loser, hired by the casinos as a “cooler”. His job is to stand beside casino goers who are getting a little too lucky at the tables; the owners believing his bad vibes will rub off on the players. That all changes when he meets Maria Bello and falls head over heels in love; The beauty of this tale is that it’s a true love story set amidst the high stakes Vegas world. Like Casino, there is violence wrapped around the beauty, mostly from a casino owner, played by Alec Baldwin, who doesn’t like to lose.

Other notable mentions are Rounders, a poker movie starring Matt Damon and Edward Norton, as well as The Sting with Robert Redford and Paul Newman.

All the films mentioned do a great job of capturing the casino scene, but none are as exciting as playing yourself.

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