When we asked Bojana Djordjevic to join us for a 30-minute Zoom call, we didn’t expect to see her sitting in a hotel in front of the famous Caesars Palace Casino, in Las Vegas.
‘I’d like it on the record that this isn’t a Zoom background. This is the real deal.’
We’re not quite sure if we believe her, but we would like to because it seems so apt that our conversation with an iGaming expert Bojana Djordjevic from AskGamblers takes place in front of the most recognisable casino in the world.
‘We all live here,’ Bojana jests. ‘They put all the AskGamblers writers up around Las Vegas, I think it’s a way to keep up appearances.’
We joke that there are worse places to be relocated, and Bojana tells us that she used to write for a sanitary magazine. We’ll avoid going into detail about how that discussion went and cut straight ahead to something a bit more glamorous. Casinos!
Bojana And Her Experience With Casinos
‘I love writing about casinos,’ Bojana tells us. ‘Mostly because they’re constantly changing. The iGaming market is just going from strength to strength, with every casino offering something a little different for players. I’m so excited to be writing for AskGamblers in five, ten or so years when new technology will have made the experience even better!’
We ask Bojana what first ignited her passion for iGaming.
‘Funnily enough, that first spark had nothing to do with the online world. I was twenty-three. Myself and my family were on vacation in China. My father was a real gamer, and he asked me one evening if I wanted to play a game of Blackjack in the second-largest casino in the world. Not knowing what Blackjack was or how to play, I declined, but I gladly went with him to watch him play. And… wow. That casino was amazing. It’s called the Venetian Macao – you might know its sister resort if you’ve ever been to Las Vegas. But this one is simply stunning. It looks like it sprung straight out of Venice from the outside, and on the inside, it’s just a world of luxury. After experiencing the buzz there, I decided to get to grips with Blackjack online, so I could go the following night and actually try my hand. I never did go twice – as is always the case during vacations, we got busy with other things – but I kept trying at Blackjack online. And I grew a passion for the game.’
The rest is history. Bojana has been a writer for AskGamblers for a few years now, and to do her research on the landscape, and become the expert that she is today, she has travelled to a fair few different casinos.
‘Yes, the Venetian Macao was my first, but it certainly wasn’t the last. I don’t tend to go to traditional casinos, you can get everything they offer online, and with more variety and convenience too. But if I’m ever in a place where there’s a particularly opulent casino, I’ll go inside to take a look. You know, as research.’
We ask her to talk us through some of the best she’s seen. Here, she runs through three of the most opulent:
- The Venetian Macao
‘Obviously, I’ve just talked about this one. My first casino and that first one. As I said, it’s just a world within a world. Luxurious, expansive, and just so… golden. That’s the only way I can describe it really. It’s a golden experience in a golden place.’
- Wynn Las Vegas
‘I know, scandalous. I sat in front of Caesar’s Palace, and I chose Wynn Las Vegas instead. But, hey, I couldn’t find any good Wynn backgrounds. Not that this is a background, of course. But anyway, this is really the best of the best in Las Vegas, as far as I’m concerned. It opened in 2005, but it feels like it’s been a staple of Las Vegas forever. Again, the luxury of this place is just beautiful, but it also has a real communal feel. It reminded me, in a way, of online casinos. The ones where you can talk to other players, discuss tips, moves, strategies.’
- Casino De Monte Carlo
‘My number 3, but by no means last, is the Casino De Monte Carlo. Sometimes, all you want from a traditional casino is luxury. You want to dress up and feel like you’re being treated to something special, and that’s exactly what I got with this casino. In a way, it reminded me of playing live poker online, where the dealer is all smart and dapper looking, in slick shirts and ties, or beautiful glitzy dresses. This is the atmosphere online casinos try to replicate, and it’s really not hard to see why. Just stunning.’
At this moment, we ask whether she’s hoping to travel to any other casinos in the near future.
‘I travel to a casino everyday. Online casinos are really where we’re at right now, but that doesn’t mean there’s no place for traditional casinos. Who knows, I might even visit Caesar’s Palace one day.’
Here’s hoping…
