There’s no doubt that you can get rich cheating at casino games. Many have done so in the past. Gonzalo Garcia-Pelayo and his family made $1.5M cheating at roulette, and card sharps like Ken Uston and Ida Summers made fortunes counting cards and shuffle tracking on the blackjack tables.

It takes a lot of ingenuity to come up with a system that can beat modern security in today’s casinos. Even if the house can’t figure out how you’re winning, they will still stop you from playing if you win too much. You won’t get roughed up like in the old days, but you’ll get blacklisted and will have to disguise yourself to find action.

And if you get caught, you can bet that the casino will charge you to the limits of the law. Card counting may not be illegal, but cheating is. And law officials frown on it in Nevada.

Paris Hilton has made a lot of money just for being famous. The heir to the Hilton fortune has played a big role in the recent development of the City of Las Vegas. Just about any new nightclub or resort that’s planning a grand opening wants to have recognizable celebrities in attendance. Paris leads the field in desirable celebrities; more than Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan combined.

Bars will pay her ridiculous sums of money to make an appearance. Paris has the run of the city when she’s in town, with every casino trying to cater to her and her friends. It’s been rumoured that she gets as much as $500,000 to appear, a claim she has denied and called inaccurate. I doubt it’s far off that number, though. Her latest was an appearance at TAO Las Vegas to film scenes for new MTV reality show “Paris Hilton’s My New BFF.”

The first games to undergo a dramatic change online were video poker and reel slot games. The new games introduced multipliers, bonus rounds and scatter wins. Now bingo is undergoing a similar evolution.

The new Bonus Bingo provides the player a more exciting version of the age-old game. Your cards are marked automatically, and you can speed up the process if you want to play faster. You can play as many as four cards at once, and the value of the bet can be set at $0.05, $0.10, $0.25, $0.50, and $1.00 per Card.

The bonus round occurs after a player has accumulated five Joker Balls, so you have to play enough to get there. The multiplier works by selecting one of the activated cards, if it’s awarded. The card selected will multiply its winning values by two times (X2 Multiplier) or three times (X3 Multiplier) the original winnings.

Online betting is taking over the sports gambling scene. That doesn’t necessarily rub the sportsbooks on the Las Vegas Strip the right way. However, these are really two distinct services, each with its own merits.

Going to Las Vegas is an experience in and of itself. If you haven’t had the chance to spend a night at the MGM Grand betting on March Madness basketball, you’ve been missing out. Or perhaps you’d prefer something a little cozier like Bally’s, for the more value-conscious bettor. It’s worth the extra walk to and from the Strip.

My personal vote goes to Mandalay Bay’s sportsbook, just because the resort also features a House of Blues. The book itself has the upscale feel of Bellagio’s without the whiff of exclusivity. Only bet at Bellagio’s if you can stride comfortably into a room like George Clooney. Besides, you can see the fountains from Bally’s if you get the right room.

1. Play outside bets when playing roulette. They’re the best odds in the game.
2. Use your frequent player points card for freebies and extra comps to get some money back.
3. Play a tight aggressive style on the poker tables, and get out when you’re up.
4. Learn basic strategy blackjack to optimize your chances of winning.
5. Stick to the banker bet on the baccarat tables. It holds an advantage over the player bet.
6. Search for slot machines with higher payout percentages. They’re posted on it.
7. Learn optimal video poker strategy to increase your chances of hitting a big hand.
8. Ask the pit boss for freebies in the nicest manner you can; you may get something.
9. Play progressive slot games when the jackpots grow large - the bigger the better.
10. Stick to the come/don’t come and pass/don’t pass bets on the craps table.

It takes a sharp mind to play and win in the casinos.

What makes a winner? In the world of casino gambling, getting to the pay window is the easy answer. Once again, the easy answer isn’t the right one.

This is a craft where there is no finished product - just your bankroll, and yourself. Which is more important to you? There are plenty of rich people out there acting like idiots. Some of them will win bets today despite themselves. Meanwhile, the more work you do on yourself by becoming a sharper casino player, the more money of theirs you will take.

The sharpest minds are those who can balance the desire to win with the cold realization that winning and losing don’t change who we are. We change who we are. Getting the order of things wrong and looking just at the bottom line is a great way to ensure that you’ll lose your money in as miserable a fashion as possible.

Just jumping onto a casino and “giving it a try” is not the recommended way to gamble. Even the casino would rather that you learned the games and had a fun and exciting experience. If you don’t learn to optimize your gaming experience, you’re likely to just lose your money quickly and you won’t be interested in gaming anymore.

Most casinos, both online and traditional, have tutorials that will teach you how to play properly. There are so many free casino games available online these days; there’s no excuse not to play them for a while before you put up your cash. You can download casinos and play their free games, or find a flash game somewhere that requires no download to play.

Only once you get things down pat – and have read up on any strategy secrets that the game may have – should you try your luck in a real casino environment.

Handicapping is all about brainpower. The sharpest betting minds build the biggest bankrolls by outsmarting everyone else – starting with other bettors, the media, and the front office people who make the call on which athletes to hire.

It’s relatively easy to catch us in the media when we make a mistake – it’s right there in black and white. Square bettors also get pretty quick feedback on their errors when their bankrolls dry up. But a franchise can go through years of frustration without ever owning up to its blunders. The New York Knicks lurch into this category; let’s pull up those ATS numbers under Isiah Thomas:

2003-04: 44-37-1 (Thomas was hired midseason)
2004-05: 42-40
2005-06: 38-44
2006-07: 39-43
2007-08: 37-44-1

Handicappers who shook their heads with every questionable roster move Thomas made were able to profit from his mistakes by fading the Knicks. He will be missed, but we suspect Thomas will be back.

If you’re thinking about getting rich from playing online roulette, you might want to re-think your position. Roulette is a game where you can win some money, but unless you’ve got a huge bankroll and a lot of nerve, roulette is not a get-rich-quick game. It’s more of a social game where you win some and lose some. The highest payout on the table is only 35 to 1. Even if you hit those odds numerous times in a row, you won’t become rich.

Roulette doesn’t carry a jackpot for you to hit, so winnings come in smaller denominations. It’s possible to win some money on a roulette table, but your luck won’t be consistent enough to make you rich. If you’re already rich you can make some big money on the roulette table with some big bets, but then again you can’t get rich if you already are.

Many professional gamblers put a lot of effort into winning at video poker. If the games are played at optimum strategy you can be in a positive expectation situation. You have to win a big jackpot to achieve that, but if you have a big enough bankroll you will eventually hit one. Hitting a royal flush on the right video poker game will make you rich in a hurry.

You need to have a good-sized bankroll and some optimum strategy knowledge to play these games at the best rates possible. You can sustain yourself for a long time on the right games because the house edge is so low. When you throw in a progressive jackpot, the edge can actually be in your favour.  That’s why the professionals guard the best machines whenever they can, and work in groups to hit the royal flush and the big payoff.