But if you love slots, once you determine that a developer makes fair and safe games, your next question is – how good are their slot games.  Can I just say that Real Time Gaming sometimes leaves me feeling disappointed? Their slots are okay, but they seem to still be a bit old fashioned. I think they’re stuck in the last century where simple graphics and reliance on just filling the reels with different colors of the J, Q, K, A symbols were fine for a slot game.

BetSoft isn’t back in a previous century. They’ve jump into the 21^st century with both feet creating slot games that have a 3D look and feel with fantastic graphics, captivating bonus games and even characters who interact with the player. The result is that I’m searching everywhere on the web, including techcrunch, to find these 3D slot games. They aren’t available on many online casinos yet, but if casinos want to keep moving ahead, they’ll either find a way to get them or start pressuring their software developer to create better slot games. And when slot games get better, slot players win.

But, it does make me wonder – why are so many gamblers I know attracted to high risk activities. Now, I’m not doing a formal survey here.  I’m just musing about it. I know one gambler who day trades, sky dives and will take you down at the poker table. Or how about the 77-year-old speed demon grandfather who racks up more speeding tickets (usually on his way to or from the casino) than his grandsons get.  So there seems to be an urge to go fast and pump the adrenalin that goes with gambling.  In fact, if you’re worried you might be too addicted to that gambling high, you want to check out gamblersanonymous.org

I’m going to have to rule myself out of the running. Or, well, maybe not. I tend to play free slot games and seldom actually bet real money. But then I also tend to avoid most high risk activities, and I actually go the speed limit. So, I’m not a high risk person, but I still enjoy playing the slot machines. I think I’ll skip the zip lines.

So, now Mr. Big Gambler is finding out that women like to gamble online. It’s not surprising. First off, if we play table games, we’re not stuck sitting at a table in a male oriented environment. We can play comfortably and at our own speed. Also, online casinos actually may be safe for us, provided we do the research first to find a reputable online casino. And that’s easy enough with the help of sites like http://onlinecasinorealmoney.net/best-online-casinos.php. When we play online, we don’t have to watch our purse, worry about pickpockets or even worry about walking back and forth from the parking garage alone.  For women, live casinos are more of a social event where we’d go with friends. Online casinos offer a more flexible daily play environment.

And online casinos also offer the games we love, particularly slots. Although in the UK, online bingo is probably a bigger draw for women. But regardless of the game, we have found that the online gambling environment suits us, and we’re not leaving.

Viking Age Slots is a 30 line, five reel slot game and most online casinos include a jackpot win for the game. Okay, that doesn’t count when we’re playing slots for free, but if you decide to play for real money, look for the jackpot.

The graphics on this game are a real winner. In addition to the Vikings, you’ll find a rune stone, treasure, an axe and a shield.  There are three bonus games to check out.  First, if Amma appears on the reels three times, you’ll get free spins with a bonus multiplier.  The scattered helmets will trigger the Runestone Doors where Amma, the shield maiden, will pick a prize for you. It could be free spins, a bonus round or just an instant prize. Let Amma decide.  More amusing is the Arm Wrestling bonus. Land three arm wrestling Viking symbols and choose your Viking for a good old fashioned arm wrestling contest.

If you’re looking for a free slot game (or even a real money slot game) with plenty of action and lots of humor, check out Viking Age!

Sometimes all this makes me wonder about play for money. After all, sometimes I do hit a big win when playing for free.  A friend suggested I check out the resources at ipl.org.  So I hopped over to the site and I am impressed. It’s a great site put together by the folks at Florida State University. So I did a search for Gambling and they gave me a result on responsible gambling.  Oh, and another on US gambling laws.  Do you think they’re trying to tell me something?

They do bring up a good point though.  Free slots are fun and really I’m not going to lose anything more than time when I play them.  But once I move into gambling for money, I have to take into account my gambling budget and make sure that I’m not spending more than I should.  Now, despite the overabundance of warnings out there, most gamblers actually do manage to stay within their budget. And studies have shown that once the novelty of online gambling as worn off, the time players spend in the activity drops off.  But perhaps for now, I’ll stick with my slot freebies.

But sometimes I find a solution out there that lets me play casino slot games without even visiting an online casino. These are usually sites devoted to slots, but also sites that make arrangements with casino software providers to put actual slot games on their pages.  Not just reviews but playable games. Do you have an idea how happy that makes me?  My discovery of the week is Lucky free slots because they have some of the 3D slots from NetEnt that I haven’t been finding elsewhere. I love the 3D slots since they always include great graphics and fun bonus games.  Right now I think Enchanted Slots is hovering on my list of favorite slot games to play.  If you haven’t tried it out yet, you really should give it a look.

Here’s what’s happening. When we spin the slot reels, your mind enters a trance like state and produces dopamine, which essentially makes us feel good. And lowers blood pressure. And does all sorts of good things for us.  This happens even when the player is losing money, though there may be a point where losing too much money overrides the dopamine.

But, guess what, you’ll also get the effect when you play slots for free.  Yes, I have found a valid medical reason to spend time spinning the slot reels.  It induces a state of calmness and helps me deal with stress. Which actually does explain something.  See, before I started doing this gambling writing gig, I had a high stress corporate job.  Before I had the high stress corporate job, I didn’t play slots. Then one day I discovered free online slot games.  When my stress level during the day went too high, I sneak online and play some slots. Or while stuck on the phone on a conference call, I’d catch some slot action. Now, I wasn’t playing for money, so I wasn’t gambling on company time. Not that the company left me any time that wasn’t their time. Other people played solitaire on their computers. I played slots.

And now a study has shown that while I was doing so, my brain was feeding me some dopamine which made me feel better.  I think it was a pretty fair trade off.  So, if you find yourself facing a lot of stress, sit down for some lucky free slots.

ITG (Incredible Technologies Games) is exploring this is a couple of ways. One new game that you’ll see in casinos is “The Twilight Zone” which allows players to choose high, low or medium volatility, basically if the machine plays loose or tight. Okay, knowing that the players might not grasp the phrase “choose your volatility” the game actually labels the choices “win big” “win steady and “win often.”  Pick “win often” and you’ll see more smaller wins. Pick “win big” and the wins will be further apart but pay out more.

The slot game “Goldify” takes a different twist on this. There isn’t a choice to change the frequency of the wins but players can change the value of the wins.  Basically, players can choose one symbol and increase that value times five. Choose a lower value symbol and you’ll boost those more frequent wins by a bit. Choose a high paying symbol and you can win even bigger.

I suspect we’ll be seeing more choice coming to slot games under development because once one slot developer raises the bar, the others have to jump in to keep up.

So Bovada Casino launched last week, taking some players by surprise.  The news had been that Bodog was pulling on out December 31^st and I suspect many of us were waiting around until then to decide whether to switch to the new MMGG brand casino or not. Well, last week, we discovered that we’d been switched to Bovada which launched a couple of weeks early.  Even my free (no money) Bodog account was moved to Bovada.

All this meant that last week I suddenly found myself exploring the slot games over at Bovada Casino only to find out that they offer the exact same games as Bodog casino. And the same web play version of the casino. So, really, as a slots player, we haven’t lost a thing in the switch from Bodog to Bovada. And since Bovada is the brand that used to license Bodog, I think I can count on them to have the same reputable payouts as Bodog. Oh, and they still let me play slots for free.

So, why am I thinking about Pachinko? Because I’ve seen on the big news sites like MSNBC that Japan is considering legalizing gambling. And that made me think – but doesn’t Japan already have gambling? Pachinko parlors are everywhere. Ah, there’s a trick. In Japan the Pachinko parlor doesn’t pay out real money. Instead players can take a slip showing their winnings to a special shop and redeem it for a prize. Which they can then take down to the road to another shop and turn in for money.  See, it’s not gambling at all. Japan doesn’t have gambling because it might attract organized crime. Japan apparently doesn’t have organized crime because the Yakuza keeps them out. The Yakuza? Oh, it’s just VERY organized crime.

But Japan is looking at what’s going on in Macau and they’ve come down with a new syndrome – a syndrome in where a country says “wow, it would be great if we could make a boatload of money like Macau.  So Japan is now considering a bill that would allow slot games and table games in resorts.  This is designed to draw in more tourists who might like Pachinko too but don’t understand the process of redeeming the winnings for prizes then cash.

Now, I can’t find an online casino with a Pachinko game, but just search Pachinko on Facebook and some days you’ll find me there.