I was just curious about the protocols of filming inside the casinos and if using a video camera is even allowed.

The video game purchased or given to a child is rated for appropriateness for the age range. T for teen must mean that everything is ok. But beware…most online games have the built in ability to chat/text freely and some use free Internet voice chat services. So what is the big deal? Do you remember the recent prime time news stories on adult men meeting children around the United States? Currently there is a game online that is so popular that the total number of players exceeds the populations of Hong Kong, Switzerland, and many other countries.

For the most part these games are relatively safe. Some have “mature language” filters built in to block the most commonly used swear words. However these filters are easy to maneuver around by simply typing in a space, an asterisk or misspelled. These games have long play times, accumulating hours and hours, days and days of playing to reach achievements. What does this do? This allows for anyone to meet, build trust, communicate with, exchange email addresses, phone numbers or meet in person. A patient person will congratulate, accomplish tasks with a child in the game and team up versus the bad guys on the game. Guess what? The child now has a “friend”.

Some of these games have what are commonly called “guilds”. These are communities within the game, sort of like all of the kids in a local school are part of that community versus the other school down the road. These guilds are where people make “friends” and play with the same people over and over again. These guilds even have their own free websites (yes, these sites are provided for free). These websites allow for people within the guild to talk about what is happening inside the game and outside of the game, even allowing pictures and names to be posted for the entire world to see.

Most of the guilds need faster forms of communication to work together in group achievements. Well typing is too slow. With a headset microphone purchased for $20 from a local store, a fellow guild member will post the connection information and within minutes a child is talking online with….a stranger!

One other comment: these chat channels are NOT monitored by the game manufacturer. The voice chats are not monitored either.

There are some video games that are generally free to use online. Some of these games come built into the computer. However these basic games do not allow for typing. There may be a list of drop down sentences that can be used but they do NOT allow for any exchange of information between the players. Let’s take a specific example. Play the backgammon online game that came built into the computer. See if you can type anything. Now go online and download a “free” backgammon game. After creating a login name, play a game and see if you can meet someone and chat away.

Children are vulnerable to knowing who to trust and who not to trust. They are taught very young to be wary of strangers walking around town. But when did you ever discuss talking to strangers online?

Need a solution? Go on the side of safety and your instinct. Let kids be kids. Be the responsible one and don’t let them brow beat you into the latest game that EVERYONE is playing. Let them play football down the street with people you know. Let them play video games on a console game where they can not talk to other people around the world. Or have them read a book. =)



By: Benjamin Floyd

Please do not refer to online casinos, real ones only please!
If the casinos dont pay out in cheques, how do I deposit a large sum of cash at my bank without looking like a criminal?

If you’ve played an MMO at all, you know about “door missions”. If you’re in World of Warcraft or Everquest, a door mission is a dungeon, or a quest – you go to the door, you transition to a confined area, you kill the bad guys and come back out. EVE online complexes are the door missions of this multi-player shared universe game.

Door missions are one type of agent mission; using much the same methodology of a traditional MMO, there are NPC characters that will hire you to do certain things. Among the more lucrative of these tasks is the EVE Online complex raid, where you and a team of others go and fight in the complex. They’re different from most EVE Online missions in that they don’t involve flying spaceships; it’s your personal combat abilities that matter. They’re also different in that it’s not so much about gathering the drops (or waiting for the respawn of the high level boss to get the high level loot) as they are about networking and getting clues to the larger, more economic oriented missions.

EVE Online complexes are an attempt (and not an entirely successful one) to break the mold of “go to contact, get mission, kill the things on the mission, go back to the contact”, completing quest arcs. Because EVE online can support tens of thousands of simultaneous users spread out over thousands of star systems with different law levels, trying to do “fixed respawn” levels (like the classic quests in Word of Warcraft or City of Heroes) doesn’t really work – it becomes a logistical nightmare. While the EVE Online complexes do exist, they are much less fun (and consequently less popular) than player and corporation generated missions and raids.

To its credit, CCP is letting the player community dictate what’s fun in EVE Online, whether that’s slagging pirates or doing EVE Online complex crawls. For the most part, the thing that drives EVE Online is the player run economy; there’s always work to be had, and commodities to be harvested, sold, and turned into finished goods, and there are always blueprints for the neatest, niftiest thing imaginable to be had – when players help generate the universe, dungeon crawls (which is all that an EVE Online complex is, really) lose their appeal.

So, to get the most out of EVE Online, don’t focus on the EVE Online complexes – look to the things that players do together to make this experience more fun for you and everyone you game with! Form a corporation, go after pirates, and carve your own turf in the galaxy.



By: Derek Smithson

i just graduated high school and i want to go to a legit place with some of my buddies and i don’t know of any casinos that i can gamble at the age of 18 and over. please help me find one!

I seen something a little while ago on the web, that allows you to pay another company thru paypal, which in turn you pay another company that casinos accept. But I dont remember the name of the websites.

I’ve never heard of any restrictions on what you can bet in roulette but it seems like casinos would like people betting two dozens because the chance of them winning is too high. Is this bet not aloud? If so, are there any other roulette bets that aren’t aloud in casinos?

Online games are becoming more popular with each passing year. As more people connect to the internet and install Shockwave or Java on their computers, a huge market will open up for free online games. The prices on computers are dropping, and this means that more people with have access to independent games. Many seasoned gamers are annoyed by the politics which often exist in large video game companies.

Many gamers are also looking for games which allow them to interact with other players. Even with the success of online fighting games, many developers have not bothered to create them. MMORPGs are becoming more popular than ever before. Players want to interact with each other and create their own identities in the digital world. This is the direction in which I believe free online games are headed today. As the internet becomes more widely used, people want interaction more than graphics.

Because the video game market of today is so saturated, the cost of these games have dramatically decreased. It doesn’t cost much money to develope a quality game if you know where to look. This will open the door for many independent game companies to design games which are an alternative to the mainstream console games which currently dominate the market. Shockwave and Java are tools that have allowed many people to cost effectively produce free online games.

As the graphics, gameplay, and storylines of these games continue to improve, more people will play them. While the PC game market declined at the end of the 1990s, it is expected that independent online games will fill this void. Multiplayer online games should be free or very cheap to play. Because the cost to produce them is so low, there is no reason why players should have pay $60 to buy one game. The low cost trend for online games can be seen at the Shockwave website, where they charge as littles as $9.95 for a game.

Many online games can be downloaded directly onto your computer. There is no need to go out to the store or order them through the mail. The games are available to play as soon as you download them. In addition to interactivity, people want things quickly. We live in a society in which virtually everything moves fast. When people want to play games, they want them as soon as possible. This is a demand that free online games can meet.



By: Michael Colucci

I am 18 and i want to play cash tables and can’t find any casinos that allow 18 year olds to play. I am residing in erie pa and am looking for a close casino to take everyones money.

Have you ever played a slot machine like say wheel of fortune for example and you notice the digital displayed progressive at the top that is rising. My question is if many casinos combine into this jackpot how is it linked? Via internet? Any casino insiders out there?