An increasing number of internet gambling sites that are popular in Spain have started to add lotteries to their games options. Are things like the Lottery and Euromillions gambling, though? Well, yes, obviously they are. This is a no brainer, as money is being staked in the hope of winning a financially rewarding return.
Lotteries may be televised on Spanish national TV (and throughout Europe), and tickets for the national Lottos might be sold in everyday outlets, but the publicity only serves to highlight the hypocrisy around gambling, where lotteries like Euromillions or Lotto are seen as an exception to, say, casino betting, even though they are all games of chance. The websites Spanish betting fans enjoy are at least bringing different countries’ lotteries to their PCs. They also offer bonuses for playing, just as they do for games like bingo.
Some might argue that lotteries can be manipulated, but if it were that simple to become a millionaire, they would have done so by now instead of announcing how easy it is to achieve such success. After all, it’s a machine operated game that randomly selects balls that are usually bouncing around the inside of a barrel. All players have to do to win is hope and pray that their six or seven or other designated amount of numbers all come out of the well and land them the jackpot.
Bingo is another game of chance. Here players, in much the same way as a lottery, are required to wait for the balls to pop out and give them a full house, as the game calls it. Bingo is another booming sector of Spain’s online gambling industry. Although, like Euromillions, not one you’d expect to find at an online casino.
In terms of more traditional casino games, Slots are undoubtedly the biggest hit with Spanish players. Unlike blackjack or roulette, playing online slots is pretty simple stuff. Players click a button which makes the reels spin. Sometimes they can win by lining up a winning combination, other times they can’t. Classically, three reels spin, and for you to win you need to get three identical symbols lined across the middle. Online slots or video slots generally have five reels and between nine to thirty different winning pay lines. There are hundreds of different titles and variations on Spanish online casino sites.
In more complicated games like roulette, however, a ball is rolled around the rim of a wheel spinning in the reverse direction. Eventually, it rolls on to the spinning wheel before hitting one of a number of deflectors, causing it to ricochet chaotically before landing in a numbered and coloured slot, which hopefully you have placed your bet on. Again, there are plenty of theories and strategies for a player to gain an advantage over the house with but, in all honesty, as Spain’s online casinos are strictly fair and random to use, this game is another game of chance when it comes to winning.
This is unlike betting on the horses or, football, tennis or golf, where you may at least have a prior knowledge of the sport, or the form of the horses to study, which allows you make an informed decision who or what to place your money on.
Poker is another big title in the Spanish online gambling world. Now, with poker there are sound arguments to be made about the game being a mind sport, where, through the use of strategy, players can determine their fate. Take Texas Hold’em. The rules of which work as follows. Using seven cards, five community cards on the table for all to use and two personal cards, players attempt to make the best hand possible. The trick of the game is at the various points in the game where there are betting rounds. The blinds before the first three community cards are dealt and in between the flop, turn and, finally, the river cards (3, 4 and 5). Taking a minute to learn but a lifetime to master, poker is much more than simply holding the best hand. Players have developed many techniques for creating a winning strategy in order to bluff or trick their way to winning the pot, thus it is a game where you can control – if you’re skilled enough – the game’s destiny. Think back to the movie Rounders and protagonist Mike’s quote “Why do you think the same five guys make it to the final table of the World Series of Poker every year? What, are they the luckiest guys in Las Vegas?” Makes sense, huh?
With another card game well familiar to Spanish players, Blackjack, it is possible to beat the house through intelligent maths processing. This is a game where both the player and the dealer receive two cards, each attempting to reach 21. A technique known as card counting helps players “effectively” cheat a casino by determining whether the next hand is likely to give a probable advantage to the player or to the dealer. Card counting also allows players to bet more with less risk while providing the ability to alter playing decisions based on the makeup of the remaining cards.
In truth, if lotteries like the Euromillions are included in the world of Spain’s gambling games, and they really ought to be, then your choice to play them boils down to nothing other than personal preference. Everyone likes something different, and if lotteries are your thing, then go for it.
