As I mentioned a while back, we released three new games in January: Polar Pioneers, Liquid Gold, and Mega Moolah Five-Reel Drive. They’re all cool games, but it’s the Mega Moolah Five-Reel Drive progressive slot game that I really want to talk about. After all, it’s been a couple of years since we released a new progressive slot machine at All Slots and the other Jackpot Factory casinos, so this release is really a big deal.Mega Moolah Five-Reel Drive is actually a hybrid that combines the best features of two of our existing slot machines to create a new one that’s even better. Five-Reel Drive is a 5-reel (naturally) slot machine with a theme of driving on the open highway. Mega Moolah is the progressive slot machine that paid out a 5-million dollar jackpot to a guy in Finland last year. Put them together and you have Mega Moolah Five-Reel Drive: a beautifully designed 5-reel slot machine with open-highway themes, images, and sound effects, together with a huge progressive jackpot that currently stands at more than 5.2 million credits and is growing wildly by the second.

I urge everybody to get in on the Mega Moolah Five-Reel Drive action as quickly as possible. Someone could win the progressive jackpot any minute now, and then it will go down to a more reasonable level. I just hope that by the time I post this on the blog it won’t be too late…

Today we had a slate of pre conference meetings with all sort so people in the industry ranging from standard advertisers to no so standard mobile marketing agencies. All the potential developments are very exciting but to me the most exciting part was the fact that it wasn’t raining! We managed to walk around most for the day from meeting to meeting, taking in the wonderful sites and crowds along the way.

Tomorrow the show kicks off and it will be a busy day for everyone. It will be interesting to see which way the wind is blowing in the industry. Everyone is asking the same questions. How does the economic situation effect the business? When will the mobile gaming world really swing into gear? Is the US closed for good, or might we see a resurgence? I will try to get the answers to these questions and more in the coming days and see how other operators deal with the most important aspect of this industry – our players!

Today is a travel day for me as I head off to one of the biggest conferences of the year in the gaming industry. It’s called IGE and is a wonderful event where both land based, online and mobile casino operators/vendors come together under one roof. I’ll have a chance to meet a lot of our partners and even have a drink with some members of one of the most popular forums in the online casino area – Casinomeister.I will keep everyone posted with regular updates!

          
So says the Casinomeister, who just named the Jackpot Factory as the Best Casino Group of 2008.

For those of you who are not familiar with the Casinomeister, let me tell you that he is the most respected voice in the whole online casino business.  Honest, fearless, impartial, and pulling no punches.  When the Meister speaks, people listen.  If a casino screws up, the Casinomeister will really let them have it.  And when a casino does something right, he’ll let you know about that too.  That’s what makes the Casinomeister’s annual Best and Worst awards so eagerly anticipated, and that’s what makes all of us here at the Jackpot Factory so proud to have won the Casinomeister award for Best Casino Group for the second straight year.

In the words of the Meister:  “The Jackpot Factory has proven that it has what it takes to be an outstanding casino group for the second year in a row….They are responsive and receptive to player ideas, issues and complaints. Always on the ball, and dedicated to providing everyone with great service.”

You are welcome to read the PR that went out today. I hope you will all join me in saying Congratulations! to the entire staff of the Jackpot Factory for this richly deserved recognition of their hard work and dedication to serving our players.

In case you haven’t heard, the $70,000 Winter Lotto promotion is now running at All Jackpots and the other Jackpot Factory casinos.  The promotion works like this: for every 50 credits you deposit and play, you get a free lotto card.  You pick 5 lucky numbers on each lotto card, and every Sunday night there is a draw of that week’s winning numbers.  If you match 3 or more of the winning numbers, you win a share of the $10,000 weekly prize pool.  If a nice cash prize like that doesn’t help chase the winter blues away then nothing will!If I was eligible for this promotion (I am not because I work at the online casino) my system for playing lucky-number games like Winter Lotto is to use the birthdays of myself and the members of my family.  If anybody out there has some cool or interesting systems for choosing numbers please let us know!

Of course that’s just my humble opinion but I thought I would share it with everyone!In case you didn’t know, Perfect Pairs European Blackjack is the newest blackjack game at Wild Jack Casino and people seem to be enjoying it a lot.  It actually launched back in October, but I figured I would wait a while and see what kind of feedback I got before I wrote anything.  Well, the feedback is in, and it’s overwhelmingly positive.

Perfect Pairs is played like a regular game of European Blackjack, except that there is also a Perfect Pairs side bet.  If your first two cards are a Mixed Pair (like a red 7 and a black 7), you win a bonus.  If they are a Colored Pair (like a 7 of clubs and a 7 of spades) you win a bigger bonus.  And if they’re a Perfect Pair (like two 7s of spades) you win the biggest bonus.  The game is played with two decks, by the way, which is what makes a Perfect Pair possible.

Most people said that what they like most about Perfect Pairs is that the bonuses are actually winnable.  It’s not like getting a pair is some kind of impossible dream.  I played it for a while and, while I wasn’t lucky enough to hit a Perfect Pair, I did get a decent number of Mixed Pair and Colored Pair bonuses, and I definitely came out ahead for the day.  Now I’d like to hear what the rest of you think.

So I managed to catch a glimpse of the promotions schedule for 2009. I am not supposed to have seen it but when people leave stuff sitting around the printer that’s their problem!  To be honest, I told our promotions manager I “kidnapped” her document and would find it extremely difficult to not publish some of the upcoming attractions.So what’s on tap in 2009 at All Slots Casino? Well for starters we’re going to be launching a BlackBerry version for our mobile gaming application. This is yet another big step for us into the mobile gaming market. On the online casino side, as usual we’ve got tons of online slots tournaments. Plus during the next three months we’re going to ramp up our Blackjack tournament schedule as well.

From a promotions perspective we’re cooking up a few things ranging from scratch cards, free tournament entries, and as always the 10% ongoing cash-back deposit bonus!

Looking forward to another wonderful year of gaming at All Slots Casino during 2009!