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  • The Historic Casinos of London

    With so much history, it is inevitable that London has a long history of gambling. With that has come some of the worlds most interesting casinos.

    London’s vibrant nightlife has many strings to its bow. From theatre shows to great eateries, you are spoilt for choice when visiting or living in the city. If you decide to visit a casino, this rule also applies. Casinos are plentiful and with so many to choose from, it can be hard to know where to go. Below, we discuss the best casinos in London. 

    The Hippodrome

    The casino landscape has changed vastly over the last few years. Players now have two options. They can enjoy the experience of a physical casino or play more casually from home on their mobile devices. If you decide the London traffic is too much and want to play from a hotel or home, then you now have the option to go online.

    For those who do want to venture out, a night at a brick-and-mortar establishment is a great choice. In London, if you are visiting, then few buildings have the rich history of The Hippodrome Casino. Located on Cranbourn Street in the heart of London’s West End, it sits right on the junction of Shaftesbury Avenue and Leicester Square for easy access. The casino features a wide variety of games as well as several bars for casino cocktails and restaurants. 

    When it opened in 1900, the Hippodrome’s original function was to house a circus and theatre. The building has had several renovations over the years and was converted into a casino in 2012. It has also hosted several famous performers and events throughout its history, remaining true to its variety roots. Still hosting events today, attractions can range from jazz and blues ensembles to screenings of live sports events like the Super Bowl. 

    Park Lane Club

    The Park Lane Club is a private members club located in London, England. Sitting in a luxurious location on Park Lane, it also offers fine dining, a fitness centre, a spa, and a rooftop terrace. However, Membership to the Park Lane Club is by invitation only and the club is known for its exclusivity. Expect royalty, celebrity and global investors and billionaires.

    One of the amenities is its own casino. Known for its professionalism and excellent staff, it is one of the more intimate casinos in the city. Due to its clientele, you can find some high-rolling table games on offer. However, don’t let that put you off as there are still options for those who want to have a small flutter. 

    Palm Beach Casino

    Palm Beach is another casino located in Mayfair, but without the tough private member club stipulation attached. The casino offers everything you would expect including roulette, blackjack, baccarat, and poker. 

    Well worth checking out is the onsite bar and restaurant. The menu is curated by Chef Mahmud Zaman, who brings world flavours from Indian and South Asian cuisine. Like most casinos in London, Palm Beach is open around the clock.

  • Richard Kim Arrested After Gambling Investor Funds  

    Famous investor Richard Kim was this year arrested. Ironically, he had been gambling funds earmarked for a new cryptocasino.  

    Famous investor Richard Kim has been arrested. This was because of his misuse of investor funds. We discuss this in the article below.  

    Richard Kim, is a former executive who has worked at JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, and Galaxy. Last year, he admitted that he had gambled away $3.67 million of investor funds. This week he was arrested on charges that he had taken $7 million through misappropriation related to his startup Zero Edge. 

    The Arrest of Richard Kim 

    The arrest was conducted on Tuesday, April 15th. The complaint was made in the Southern District of New York and said that he had fraudulently induced investors to invest in Zero Edge, then misappropriated millions of dollars of those funds. The FBI added that of the $7 million investors have put in, nearly all have been lost. A large amount of this went into gambling websites, particularly online sportsbooks.   

    Reports of this first began to emerge in July last year. Kim admitted in an online interview that he had gambled away over $ 3 million of investor funds through high-leverage crypto trades. It began to go wrong when he was caught out by a phishing site that took $80k of the money. He then believed he had to make it back to preserve his reputation. This then took him to a spiral of “leverage trading, raising more capital and hiding the truth”  

    In his own words, Kim reported himself to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission using their public tip line. He believed that this was a way of admitting his gross negligence, but that he didn’t intend to run away with the funds. However, there have been major discrepancies in Kim’s account of events and where the funds have actually gone. The flow of money, according to the FBI, has gone to sportsbook accounts and his personal crypto accounts. This is despite the fact that he maintains the line he never mixes business and personal money.   

    Modern Investing  

    Richard Kim is most well-known for being an angel investor. This is a person who places their money in startups and growing businesses. As well as their finance, they often provide advice and guidance. All of this is done in exchange for a share in the company. Richard Kim is still currently an investor in the social platform Aisle.   

    Trading has now changed dramatically, and digital platforms and apps have allowed it to be opened up to a whole new audience. These are not just limited to basic stock and share buying either. You can even access contracts for difference brokers through mobile devices. This allows ultra-fast execution on trades with forex, commodities, shares, metals and energies.    

    By using these, it makes trading much easier. You don’t have to go out and find startup companies. Instead, you can watch the global markets and begin trading from your desktop or on the move using a mobile device.   

    Who is Richard Kim? 

    Richard Kim had previously been an attorney at the law firm Cleary Gottlieb. He then moved into the financial world and became a highly respected figure. He led trading desks at JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs.   

    Before founding Zero Edge, he worked at Galaxy Digital, another leading crypto investment company. This former place of work had an immaterial balance sheet investment in Zero Edge and was responsible for reporting him. This is contrary to Kim’s own account. Michael Wursthorn, Head of Communications, said that once he and other investors learned of his actions at Zero Edge, they reported the authorities.   

    Kim has been charged with securities and wire fraud. Court records have shown that he has put up a bond of $250,000. There has been $100,000 placed in cash or property to secure it. He has admitted that he had previously battled with gambling addiction. His motivation behind the use of a crypto casino was to provide the services above, as he had been unsatisfied with the unfair practices and opaque advantages held by more traditional operations. It was this that had led him to pitch it to Galaxy Digital and secure funding.   

    He has not responded to a request for comment from several media outlets. However, it seems that with his own admittance and that of other companies and investors reporting him, the question is not if this happened, but the way in which it unfolded. His version of events seems currently different from the flow of money, and it is this that will determine his sentence.   

  • The Essential Casino Cocktails You Must Serve To Guests

    Having a casino night at home or organising a game of poker? Then if drink is involved, there are a few essential cocktails you can not afford to miss.

    Staying at home is the new going out. As the winter months roll in, many households in the northern hemisphere are trying to replicate the experience of a night on the town from their warm, cozy abodes. While much of this comes down to entertainment, a lot of it is inevitably down to food and of course, a little tipple.

    If you are stocking up on your home bar, you may wish to start by trying some of the classics. Below, we discuss the cocktails you must sample on your home night out.

    Dry Martini

    The first on our list is the Dry Martini. Oddly, for such a famous drink its origin is unknown. Made from vermouth and gin, it is a light, floral beverage rich in aromatic flavors. Confusingly, Martini itself is a brand name of vermouth, which may be where the Martini cocktail derived its name. Usually, the mix includes two measures of gin to one measure of vermouth. The less vermouth included, the drier the drink becomes. It is often served with an olive or a hint of citrus peel.

    The drink was extremely popular in the twenties. However, it has a close association with casinos, which lies firmly at the door of Ian Fleming’s famous book character, and later cinematic icon, James Bond. He drank a variation on the Dry Martini, known as a Vodka Martini. With his famous catchphrase “Shaken not stirred” he popularized the Martini in film culture.

    As a result, anyone who may be thinking of holding a popular home casino night should be ready to stock up on the Dry Martinis. It is easy to make and quick to serve to give the perfect casino ambiance. You can combine this with the use of online slot games to get real sounds and sights. Many of the ones found online are the video slots you find in physical casinos, so you will get the perfect recreation with your drink. If you shop around, you can even find great sign-up offers so that you can save some of your bankroll for the big night in. 

    Old Fashioned

    The Old Fashioned is a truly American cocktail, dating back to 1862. However, at this time it was made from gin along with bitters, sugar, and citrus peel. The addition of its signature bourbon ingredient is accredited to Mr. James E Pepper, who served it at a private social club in Louisville, Kentucky. He then took it to New York at the bar of the Waldorf-Astoria. It is now the most requested cocktail in the world.

    Today the recipe has not changed much at all. It contains two parts of bourbon whisky, which can be substituted for rye based on preference. These then get mixed with three dashes of bitters, a twist of orange, a teaspoon of sugar, and a teaspoon of water. Some mixologists prefer to boil the water and sugar into a syrup, though this is another preference. The beauty of the cocktail is that it allows the tones of the whisky below to breathe while taking off the sharp edge with citric acid.

    Cosmopolitan

    A Cosmopolitan is a fairly new addition to the cocktail world when compared to some of the other entries. It was allegedly created in 1975 by the bartender Neal Murray from Minneapolis. He added a dash of cranberry juice to a Kamikaze cocktail. When a patron remarked that it was so cosmopolitan, the drink was born.

    Today the drink is a fruity affair, containing the orange liqueur Cointreau, vodka, cranberry juice, and sweetened lime. However, some recipes predate this origin in the seventies and include gin, lemon, raspberry syrup, and Cointreau. Its popularity as a drink boomed in the nineties when it was the drink of choice on the sitcom ‘Sex and the City’.

    Espresso Martini

    The Espresso Martini is another cocktail that is fairly new in its origins. Invented in the eighties, it was created by a bartender in London called Dick Bradsel. Working in a Soho bar, a famous supermodel walked in and asked him for a drink that would wake her up. His first thoughts turned to coffee and switching on the machine he combined the punchy caffeine shot with vodka. Along with some sugar syrup and two types of coffee liqueur, it became known as the Vodka Espresso.

    Over time, its name has changed to the Espresso Martini though it does still not contain vermouth. To make it, you just need to add Kahlua to your choice of vodka, along with the coffee and sugar syrup.

  • A Complete Walkthrough of Your First Andar Bahar Game

    Andar Bahar is a unique South East Asian casino game. Now finding its way to online platforms, it is easier to play than ever before.

    Andar Bahar is a casino game from the Indian continent. It is gaining popularity in casinos further afield, including in Europe and the US. In this article, we discuss strategies and rules of the game.

    If today is the day that you want to get experimental with your casino games, then Andar Bahar could be the title for you. Believed to have originated in India, it is a game of chance that uses two different decks of cards. As a player, you must predict where the joker card will appear from. Read on as we take you through your first exciting foray into Andar Bahar!

    The Rules of Andar Bahar

    There are two bets that can be made: Andar, the inside bet, or Bahar, the outside bet. At the start of the game, the dealer will randomly take a card from a 52-card deck. As a player, the aim is to bet on the side that will first produce a matching card as they are turned over: Andar or Bahar.

    Playing Andar Bahar: A Procedure

    The game is played in a circle, with the dealer in the middle. As many players can participate as can physically fit around the dealer at the table. They start by dealing a card and showing it to the players. This can be confusing, as it is often named the joker. It is also known as the trump or house card. However, it has nothing to do with the joker or trump card in the traditional sense of card games and can actually be any card from the deck.

    Players then decide if they will bet on Andar or Bahar. They are betting to see which side a card matching the rank of the joker card will first appear from. Maximum and minimum bets must be arranged in advance.

    The dealer will take a card from each deck alternately, placing them in front of Andar and Bahar. The side that is started on depends on the colour of the house card. If the card is black, the first card is dealt from Andar. Red, it goes from Bahar.

    Payouts and Probability in Andar Bahar

    The probability of a given card appearing on various turns differs greatly. The highest probability for cards appearing is between 1 and 4. However, a few of the more common markers are listed below.

    First card probability – 0.058824

    Fifth card probability – 0.049700

    Tenth Card probability – 0.039376

    Twentieth Card probability – 0.022329

    Thirtieth Card probability – 0.010084

    Fortieth Card probability – 0.002641

    As the joker card is dealt from one of the packs, the odds that the card will appear from this first hand are slightly more. The chance that the card will appear on the side of the first card dealt is about 51.5%. Bahar is around 48.4%.

    A bet on Andar will pay out 0.9 to 1 or 0.95 to 1.

    A bet on Bahard will pay out 0.95 to 1 or 1 to 1.

    Variations

    Andar Bahar is often a regional game, so variations exist. If you are playing at an online casino, check the documentation so you know of any inconsistencies.

    One of these variations is to place side bets before the first card is dealt. This is usually on the suit or value of the first card. The dealer pays these out as the first card is dealt, before the main game begins. A second side bet is to bet on how many cards are dealt in the game, a popular number being 20+. This is made after the joker card is dealt. It is paid after the Andar Bahar main bet is paid out.

    The game is often confused with a similar game known as Katti; however, they are quite different. Find a casino that provides it then try it with a low wagering game. Manage your bankroll, and enjoy Andar Bahar!