The River Belle Responds to our review of July 23, 1999.

Thanks very much for passing along the review -- we really do appreciate the opportunity to comment. Although I'm not operationally involved at the River Belle, we do provide several services to the casino, most notably marketing (on an outsourced basis), and responding to reviews of this nature falls very much within the ambit of what we do for the River Belle.

Firstly, we're glad to see that the review is very positive overall, and that by and large the specific points made were fair and reasonable.

Hopefully it's nonetheless not too late for you to consider the following general items for inclusion in the review:

- The River Belle's percentage payouts are certified on a monthly basis by PricewaterhouseCoopers, one of the world's largest auditing firms (PwC have offices in just about every country worldwide, and audit many of the Fortune 500 companies). The monthly certificates can be found at http://www.riverbelle.com/certificates/index.asp, and give players the peace of mind of knowing that the casino's odds are amongst the best in world, on and off the web.

- The River Belle was possibly the first online casino to offer true 24/7/365 email *and* telephone support, with toll-free numbers on offer in a variety of major countries.

- The River Belle is proud to accept Proc-Cyber Services e-cash as payment for gaming credits. Proc-Cyber Services e-cash is an accepted form of payment at a wide variety of internet web sites and is another indication of the River Belle's integrity and reliability.

- A wide variety of ongoing promotions and competitions ensures that the River Belle's client base is amongst the most loyal on the Internet, with a large number of players still playing at the casino since the day it first opened. New and interesting promotions are offered each week via the weekly newsletter, The First Mate's Report.

- The River Belle has received numerous positive reviews from a wide variety of sources, including a very favorable review from the GameMaster when the casino first came online. In particular, the River Belle was voted #1 casino on the Internet for several months running by the members of gambling.com

Finally, in response to a few of the points raised in the review:

- Maximum and minimum bet sizes can be found in the casino software help files. They used to be kept on the web site as well, but the web site logs showed that no one ever visited those pages!

(GameMaster note: But they are listed as 'credits', not $$$. A new visitor may not understand that 1 credit = $1.)

- The minimum buy in is $20.00, as shown in the e-cash section of the casino software. This should indeed be referenced on the web site, so I'll pass that feedback along.

- In Blackjack, it's worth noting that players are allowed to take further cards after they split Aces (most American casinos usually restrict the player in this regard). This feature of the rules helps keep the house edge down.

- All River Bell slots offer payouts of 95%+ at all times and for all coins. This is in fact better than virtually all land-based US casinos, as listed in Casino Journal each month, where the payouts are rarely much better and nearly always significantly worse for low denomination games.

- It's also worth noting that the river belle paid out the Internet's largest ever progressive slots jackpot, $82,789 to a lucky woman in Texas. you can hear her screams of joy at http://www.riverbelle.com/$82789jackpot.wav :)

- With regard to keno, 92% is in fact the *minimum* (not the average) expected return for 2 picks or more. For most picks, the expected return is in fact in excess of 94% (if the GameMaster wants, we can send him our spreadsheet calculations and save him having to do the calculations himself .) While the top jackpot at the River Belle is indeed lower than for most Las Vegas keno games, most of the Las Vegas keno payout tables we've seen have very poor returns for the more common outcomes (i.e., a small number of correct picks), which more often than not outweighs the effect of the high jackpot (which has a *very* low probability of being hit -- around 1 in 4.28 billion for 15 hits out of 15 picks), resulting in overall expected returns often less than 90%.

Once again, thanks for passing the review along, and please also thank the GameMaster for his generous coverage. Being the first casino to be reviewed by the GameMaster is indeed an honour and a privilege for the River Belle!