> For players who haven’t heard of BeatWebCasinos.com, could you perhaps outline what the book offers?

It explains how to get a valid, mathematical edge on ecasinos by exploiting their cash bonuses, which are often genuinely lucrative.  They commonly add a percentage bonus on top of your deposit.  Basically, you withdraw before the bonus is gambled away.  But they do not like to see that, so the trick is to give the appearance of the degenerate gamblers they salivate for.

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> You mention at the beginning of BeatWebCasinos.com that is was a set of coincidences which drew you into online gambling. Have you continued to “bonus hunt” at online casinos?  Not really

No.  The new U.S. laws make depositing into casinos very time consuming and burdensome, and the method depends on playing at as many places as possible.  But even before the US banks stopped processing payments, I'd gotten worn out by the sleaze.  I made tens of thousands of dollars, but you spend quite a bit of time per day chasing after the places that are pokey about paying.  I play poker now.  I still go after the poker bonuses, but mainly rely on playing well.

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> As casinos now feature a range of stricter wagering requirements, do you think it’s harder for players to take advantage of bonuses?

Absolutely.  But there are still people doing it.  It's not like 1998 when the industry was a money tree, but there is still cash to be made.  You just have to evaluate the amount of a bonus and how much time it will take to earn it and see if it is worthwhile to you.  And you really have to be careful to disguise what you are doing by giving lots of play over weeks or months. Don't cash out right away, go play some other sites, and rotate back.  Plan on spending a decent chunk of the bonus, on average, on camoflage.

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> You mention in one of the final chapters of the book that “revealing to the public that online bonuses can be money-making opportunities for savvy players is akin to the situation land based casinos faced when it was revealed that blackjack could be beaten by keeping track of the cards.” Would you say that bonus hunters are still in the minority when compared with the masses of poor players?

Yes, otherwise there would be no bonuses at all.  I'm sure they collect a fair amount from people who plan to hustle the bonuses, but end up gambling. Some places went under in large part because of the high marketing expenses, i.e. bonuses.  I'm actually proud of that -- that savvy players turned the predators into the prey, because it's a very sleazy industry.

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> In your book, you refer to casinos as fitting into one of the following categories; beef or dairy. There are now hundreds of online casinos now available and forums such as CasinoMeister.com are dedicated to discussing the merits and faults of certain brands. Would you say there are more “dairy” casinos nowadays? Or is there still an equal mix of œdairy and œbeef sites?

I have no sense of that, since I no longer bonus hunt.  But the few times I've checked the discussion forums, there were still plenty of people complaining about getting burned.

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> Are there any particular casinos which you’d recommend to players which aren’t featured in your book?

No idea. 

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> Your website, HoldemTight.com, predominantly offers poker advice. Do you think players who have mastered “bonus hunting” at online casinos can experience the same success with online poker bonuses?

Absolutely.  The poker sites have been more reliable, as a rule, than the old strictly casinos.  There's been much less problem with poker places reneging on bonuses.  They just set the play requirements high enough to make it back and don't worry about it.  But there's a big difference between the poker bonuses and the blackjack I used to play.  With BJ you always know the house edge is .5% (give or take, depending on rules), and can precisely calculate how many hands until the mathematical edge is used up. With poker, it is hard to gauge your skill.  I'd think you'd want to be close to a break even player, at the least, to hustle the bonuses, but with the vagueries of day-to-day luck, it's very hard to know in the short term if you are actually playing with an edge.  Better to put in the hours and learn to play well before starting to hop from site to site, gobbling the bonuses.  Defintely, working the bonuses can be used by new players to offset the "tuition" costs of learning the game.  And by developed players to add to their edge.  Personally, I just get rakeback and play at only a couple places, because moving money from the US requires a trip to Western Union or some such place.  But as a rule, the bonuses do pay better than rakeback, so if US players have the time to monkey with the payment process, they should take full advantage.  But as far as hustling the poker bonuses without knowing enough to play well, I really have no sense if that is practical or not.  I certainly  welcome to the table people with low skill trying to grind out a bonus!

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> In your book you mention the previous legality issues surrounding online casinos. How do you feel about the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) and would you like to see it repealed/altered?

I'd love to see the UIGEA repealed and be able to move money again with just a credit card.  I remind US players that the UIGEA does not make it illegal for them to gamble -- only for banks to participate in processing the money.  Some state laws, however, do prohibit gambling online.

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> If you could offer just one piece advice to a new casino player, what would it be?

You have to look like a gambler without becoming a gambler.  Always keep in mind how many hands you can play before the bonus is eaten up.  Accept the fact that you'll lose the deposit in some places, even as you double it in others.  Give lots of wild action -- that's the way to ensure smooth withdrawals, because if they figure out they have no edge on you, they WILL mess with you. Usually the problem is slow pay -- they delay your withdrawal until either you give up, or go back and gamble it off.  You have to keep after them.  But since the technique requires going to place after place, you'll eventually meet one that simply refuses to pay.  It's a business expense, like packaging for widgets.

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> Do you think online casinos will ever replicate the success and customer satisfaction rate of certain land-based casinos?

They are such different beasts, I can't imagine they could provide anything like the live casino experience.  Success wise, maybe online will catch up, but not if bonus hustlers have anything to say about it ;-)

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Published version by Online Casinos UK.

Review of BeatWebCasinos, by the same.