Online Casino Tournaments

One of the most popular activities offered in online casinos is the opportunity to take part in tournaments. Here, players do not pit their skills against the house, but against each other, encouraging both camaraderie and competition.

Often these tournaments are free rolls, so there is no buy – in. This enables players to start a bankroll without having to use their own money. However, payouts on free roll tournaments are usually quite low because of this. Other, promotional, tournaments frequently offer a variety of bumper prizes including exotic cruises on occasion.

While in individual games the player’s objective is to gain more credits than he started with, in tournaments his objective is to achieve more credits than other players, even if he ends up with fewer credits than to begin with. Every player has the same amount of credits at the start and at the end of the designated period of play their finishing credits are compared. As a rule, a pre – determined number of players holding the highest credits share the prize money (method of payment and share amounts will have been announced at the beginning of the tournament).

There are two main groups of tournaments – the sit and go variety, where players continually register and play begins once a required minimum number of players is reached and the scheduled tournament. Scheduled tournaments will be announced well in advance and players are able to register from the announcement up to the determined starting time. Play will then begin with however many players have been registered.

Some casinos also offer an opportunity for privately held tournaments, hosted by players for friends or family. These are not open to other casino members and the promoter determines the tournament parameters.

Microgaming, one of the software providers offering tournaments, only offers slots for these occasions, with Tombraider and Thunderstruck being firm favourites of players. Here, guaranteed prize pools range from $50 to a great $200000, buy – ins are possible from free roll to $100.

Cryptologic, although offering fewer tournaments, offers both downloadable and non downloadable versions and occasionally has Texas Hold’Em, Roulette and Blackjack tournaments.

The best tournaments, ranging from slots, a variety of video poker games and Blackjack to Roulette, are available from Vegas Technology. Having buy ins of $10 or lower and the opportunity of re buys on several of them, guaranteed prize pools, also operated on a pot sharing basis, go up to $10000.