What is perhaps most notable about playing online casino games, is the fact that players who love a gamble, can indulge in their favourite games. They can play these games any time of the day or night, 365, and they can play them for free, for as little as a penny a pop, or even for high rolling wagers. Just about everyone likes taking a gamble …it is a universal pastime, with no one culture, not having a list of games they indulge with a flutter. Advanced technology has brought any and every gambling game known to man, into the convenience and comfort of our living rooms. Now we may even play casino online games wherever we go with the advancement of mobile gambling.

The British online gambling industry has fast advanced into massive demand, for a product which appears to be recession-proof, and now hosts a sophisticated audience. This is the epitome of the online gambling industry, where the world is sitting up, taking notice and emulating industry leading concepts. It is paradoxical in fact that the UK is leading the way, while the USA falls further behind by the day. This is not for want of trying, millions of US gamers across the board, from poker players to Pachinko, want these games online. The government however is at loss of how to control it sufficiently well to allow online gambling inside their borders. The scary thing is that in the land of the ‘free’, these are a series of games which residents are simply not free to play.

While it is fine for a US resident to purchase prescription drugs (without prescription) online and pay with their credits cards, they are not allowed to swipe their card in an attempt to bag a prize playing bingo. One of the softest gambling games known to man! This ‘banning’ of online gambling is in an attempt to ‘protect the public’ I ask you with tears in my eyes – does it not matter where the Viagra and even worse comes from? But a game of online poker for money is a criminal offence – something Joe Public cannot be trusted to spend his ‘own’ hard earned money on.

UK players who gamble at casino online games, do so under the protection of a regulated market; this also offers them the option to continue to pursue their faith in their favourite brands. While US players who are tempted (and many are) have to play with illegal brands; many which may not be above board. So, in the UK we have super choices and the country with one of the most massive choices in consumerism, has very little choice at all. There is no coin toss needed to see who has it better – the US or the UK? This massive ‘Superpower’ is going to find itself, hanging onto Britain’s red-coat-tails, if and when they ever legalize casino online games.

It has been touch and go for years for some of the best online casinos in the world; what with the American market looking so exciting to operators, and yet it not really being legal to offer these games. Operators argued that UIGEA contained too many grey areas and this is how they justified continuing to accept US players. Bodog is just such a site, but how they escaped US Department of Justice notice, since this authority closed down PokerStars, FullTilt and other gambling sites in the US; I really don’t?!

These sites were closed for business after their domains were seized by the DoJ on the 15th April. Gambling operators and fans alike, have dubbed this day ‘Black Friday’. So far it does not seem as though the best online casinos were affect, but the best poker sites certainly were and now one of the last men standing is getting out of the game. Bodog Europe is a very well-known online brand, and a modicum of their notoriety is garnered by the fact that they still accept US players. Up until now these real money gamblers have not been considered persona non grata. From the end of 2011 however this will change and no longer will any players from this country be allowed to use their accounts. At least they have been given time to close accounts and withdraw funds, unlike member of Full Tilt, Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet. Bodog has also taken out a brand new license and been granted this by the UK Gambling Commission, and this is unusual in itself, as most operators choose to license offshore to escape the massive tax implications of running a gambling operation in the UK. But that is another story entirely.

Another implication for US players is – they will have to be extremely careful where they play, if they do. It could give rise to a spate of new charlatans coming online, in an attempt to part hard working Americans from their gambling money. Americans want to be able to gamble online, but the Government can’t see the woods for the trees and believe that they know better what residents should be allowed to partake of in the ‘land of the free’. Aaron Burr once said that freedom of speech in the USA was only as free as the politician they are allowed to repeat?!

Anyway – that all said and done, Bodog is on their way to concentrate completely on the UK and European market and US players are losing one of the last best online casinos – at least until these operations go legal, if this ever takes place.

In 2006, the United States Government passed a law we now call UIGEA. This is the Unlawful Internet Gambling Act, and short of actually making online gambling in this country clearly illegal, it totally confuses matters. The Act is tagged onto an obscure Wire Act – dated 1961? – which is relevant to the transfer of funds over the airwaves or something. It essentially makes things really difficult regarding credit card payments and also e-wallet transactions.

Financial institutions are penalized severely for allowing online gambling transactions to take place. Then a swoop on the four major US online poker sites took place on the 15th April 2011, this was the ultimate death knell for most online gambling in the US. There are very few site who wish to go to the trouble to offer games to US players any longer, and even BODOG has pulled out of the US industry as of the end of this year.

Any US online casinos still left operating are taking a very big chance – who knows when they might not also have their domains seized. It is drastically unfair, against World free trade principles, and completely paradoxical that the United States of America considers itself to be a government whose people are living in “the land of the free”. To all intents and purposes online gambling laws in this country are to protect people from themselves, or to be completely brutal – from their own stupidity. Honestly it is all just about money, and about this government wanting ‘total’ control.

Back in the 1930′s Ayn Rand said “We are fast approaching the stage of the ultimate inversion: the stage where the government is free to do anything it pleases, while the citizens may act only by permission; which is the stage of the darkest periods of human history, the stage of rule by brute force”, and UIGEA is only one example of this type of control.

While the rest of the civilized world has realized online gambling is here to stay, the US Government is being manipulated by money, or should I say – their lack of ability to manipulate this industry’s money. But let me get off my soap box.

Suffice it to say that US online casinos don’t have it good as far as free trade is concerned. Online payment processing companies are struggling to find more loop-holes and the DoJ is closing in on all big operators. Any US player wanting to gamble online is then also now taking a risk. When a mainstream industry is made illegal in this way, there are always bootleggers out there trying to make a fast buck. This means no regulation, and no recourse for any US online gamer who is willing to take even more of a risk. Sadly even online casino listings which promote US sites, are – in good conscience – dropping long-time clients as fast as hot-cakes. Essentially folks, if you gamble online in the US, you are taking a really big chance.

Top online casinos in the UK have had an incredibly easy life up till now, and although the free ride is not over yet, things could be changing soon. These ‘things’ could be a taxing problem! It is not easy to understand online gambling licensing jurisdictions for the UK, but I am going to try and simplify it. Online, real money gaming in this country is legal, but the rate of tax for gambling operations is prohibitively high. So, years ago in 1994 when the UK National Lottery was established; this paved the way for all kinds of legal gambling activities, but also for the British Government to get their hands on their share of the loot, through the vehicle of tax, which is quite normal .

Then, came online gambling, and operators in this industry fast learned that the UK Gambling Commission, although a fantastic licensing jurisdiction – was also prohibitively expensive in terms of tax – 15% prohibitive in fact! The UK being a member of the EU, meant that top online casinos could license their wares offshore, in tax shelters such as Gibraltar, Malta, Alderney, Isle of Man, and others. But, still advertise to sell their wares in the UK, while paying offshore tax rates of something stupid like 1%.

EU offshore licensing jurisdictions enjoyed the freedom of almost instant White Listing, which also allows the freedoms of free trade principles. Any operators licensed in non-European licensing jurisdictions such as Kahnawake, Antigua, Curacao and so on, do not enjoy White Listing status. Many top casinos companies have even moved their UK business to Gibraltar; for example, William Hill, Betfair, Littlewoods and so on. None of this big UK business is licensed in their own country for online gambling operations!

Realizing that they should get their share of this massive potential for excise, the British Government is waking up to the fact that top online casinos, even if they are licensed offshore, should have a secondary license to ply their wares to a UK facing audience – which is only fair as far as I am concerned. You want to do business in a country; you should have to pay the price, especially if that business is generating billions of pounds in revenue! There are 36 million adults in the UK, who have had some sort of flutter this year!

After years of getting away with paying no tax, and pretty much no dues at all for tapping into the gold-mine of UK gambling business, non-domiciled operators are going to find things changing for them, and not before time. If land casinos and other gambling businesses in the UK, have to pay 15% tax; the principle is that if offshore ops also have to pay licensing fees and tax, then, all operators can get away with paying less.

How would the UK govern this? Well…this is another taxing problem, but Italy and France are doing it, and we have the technology. It’s a simple matter of making it illegal for those offshore operators to take wagers, the US DoJ has just done this with the biggest online poker sites in the US!

Needless to say the UK is not painting this as another tax grab – although I think they should be honest. They are supposedly changing regulations as a way in which to improve customer protection…but let’s call a Spade a Spade!

On recently reading the Gore Vidal fictionalization of the life, duel with Hamilton and trial for treason of the controversial 19th century VP of the USA, Aaron Burr; there is one comment the writer claims Burr makes about freedom of speech. He says something like – I can’t remember verbatim – “US citizens have the freedom to speak as long as they are saying what politicians say they may say”! It brings to mind the issues of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act and the fact that this law purportedly prevents US players from enjoying online casino games.

The law is ambiguous, convoluted and confusing to say the least; with tons of “grey” areas, and a Department of Justice which maintains that all online gambling activities, anywhere in the US are illegal. However, online poker has just been inadvertently legalised in Washington D.C. under the guise of one of the lottery operators of that city, while Washing State goes to war against payment processors.

Some online casino games are still available for US players’, in particular those operating from the Real Time Gaming software platform, and the big private online poker operators have grown to immense proportions post-promulgation of UIGEA. The belief is that these online casino games operators have not been indicted by the Department of Justice, simply because of the fact that this law will not hold much water in court.

Obviously there are many US citizens who would like to have the choice to play online casinos games legally and without restriction of freedom; they don’t play because of a natural fear of the law. On the flip side of the coin it would not be practical for the Dept. of Justice to indict every single US player who indulges in illegal online gambling. The trend seems to be that the Dept of Justice indicts companies who have admitted they have traded in online casino games after UIGEA was enacted; however, unless a firm or individual completely rolls-over, the only legal argument which seems to hold weight is when prosecutors target online payment processors. Apparently UIGEA was also passed into statue with no Senate debate and this also raises questions. This in a nutshell paints a quick portrait of how odd the law actually is.

One of the brilliant things about playing at casinos online is the fact that the handicapped, the elderly and other house-bound people, the ill and the isolated; have access to some light entertainment. Online bingo players for example, love these games and the social interaction they receive at their favorite sites.

Despite the fact that many organizations and lawmakers have kicked up a fuss regarding UIGEA and want it booted out; this call goes on being ignored. In the meantime – are people who are in the minority, who want to play legal online casino games; having their rights or freedoms to speak, to associate and do what they like with their own time and money, restricted?

Much like the concept of you get what you pay for, the same applies to the world of the online casino, so to get the top online casinos, you might as well stick to the big brand names. Unfortunately US players don’t have much choice, but there are a number of Real Time Gaming sites which will cater for them, but for UK and many other international players, the world of the online casino, is quite literally, your oyster.

Over the many years I have been writing about top online casinos, it is natural to have formed a few favorites. This used to be most Microgaming sites, but like all tastes change, I have really come to enjoy Net Entertainment software. It’s is all a matter of taste really, but there are some fabulous sites for UK players and to be honest, although my personal preference is Victor Chandler, if you are looking for all the top games and the widest game variety, you can’t go wrong with Virgin Games.

They are Big Brand, they are above-board, completely fair; promotions are good, if not the best, but when you weigh up what is lacking in promotions against benefits; they are one of THE top online casinos offering the best benefits on the net; this is because of V*Points. In any case, if you are an online casino virgin – this suite of sites could not be more apt?!

Firstly in terms of the games – Virgin partners with developers and designers: Virtue Fusion, Endemol, WagerWorks, Microgaming, PartyGaming, Cryptologic, Freemantle, NextGen, DynamiteIdea, AshGaming and there could be even more. This means they get to cherry pick the games they offer and you can cherry pick yours too. New games are on offer once a week, sometimes more regularly, and the suite of sites consists of Virgin Bingo, Virgin Casino and Virgin Poker. Play on one or all three sites and your V*Points are pooled from all play.

As just one example of what your V*Points can buy! Say you have saved 1250 V*Points and you want to spend the weekend in Paris. So, you decide to cash your points earnings in with your winnings withdrawal, which will give you another £12.50 in spending money. Don’t do this… with V*Points, you can trade this amount of points for flights on the weekend to many major European Cities.

So, you don’t want to go to Paris, you want to go to Barcelona or Venice, consider it done! What about New York? Yes, you can get there too; trade your V*Points for Virgin Atlantic Flying miles; they will trade you one for one, and you can save up to fly to New York. This will cost 45 000 miles, so its 45 000 V*Points too. Virgin as a company has every finger in a lot of hot pies, and V*Points will earn discounts on some very saucy specials and hot deals. It is absolutely the best!

The year of 2010 has come to a rather abrupt end as the years generally do, and there have been some interesting developments for the casino online and the US online poker industry – you have to love a bit of scandal to wind up the old year!

In 2006 the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act UIGEA, effectively put paid to the ability of players to financially transact when playing at a casino online – relevant of course, only to the US! This did not necessarily make gambling illegal, but it made these financial transactions prohibitive for both tradition banking and ewallet financial institutions, and was related to some strangely obscure “Wire Act of 1961″.

PartyGaming alone paid over $100 million to the US Department of Justice for a non-prosecution deal, after having continued to accept bets from US players’, post-UIGEA promulgation. This is only one example of how prohibitive this law has made accepting financial transactions. One of the former founders of Party Gaming, which includes Party Casino, Party Bingo and the extremely popular Party Poker, personally paid $300 million to grease the wheels of justice; this was ex head honcho Anurag Dikshit!

Online Poker and casino online operators alike quite rightly labeled him a turncoat for cow-towing to this obscure law. All he had to do was sit tight, get his lawyers to do the work and wait for this industry to be legalized once again. He is not a US citizen, he lives in Europe, has sold all his shares in Party Gaming, and is in fact a 39 year old citizen of India. The chances of the US Government processing extradition to indict him, were about as likely as Michael Mizrachi landing the Chip Reese Memorial Trophy with 2-7 off-suit hole cards!

Anurag Dikshit has made a huge amount of money from the casino online business – but it appears he wants a clear conscience. When he pled guilty to accepting post-UIGEA bets, he also created a precedent for further prosecutions – and he is cooperating with Government Attorneys. He was sentenced to 1 year probation and lets not forget the $300 million! Plus his trial judge wants to know why his ex-partners have not been indicted?! Ruth Parasol Deleon and husband Russell Deleon, also live in Europe and are understandably furious!

During 2010, UIGEA came full into force, and the irony of this is that during 2010 the US live gambling industry woke up to the fact that they have been burying their heads ostrich-like, beneath the sands of the Nevada dessert. Las Vegas and New Jersey both have gambling-driven economies; they now realize that the casino online does not cannibalize existing business and want to laws changed again. UIGEA was never a law with concern for US citizens’ welfare in mind; it was politically driven by big gambling industry and while we are speaking of turncoats, the one of the same protagonists of UIGEA – Sen. Harry Reid, has also changed his mind!

There is only one kind of casino and that is a gambling casino, there is no other reason why any person would pay a visit to a casino if it did not offer gambling. Imagine walking into your local bingo hall or gambling casino and them telling you, you can play the games of chance on offer for fun, but there is no way you can win. This is why it is rare to see adults, unless they are geeks, playing games in amusement arcades. Although, even amusement arcades offer incentives to play!

I remember playing in arcades with the kiddies but since my kids have grown up, I don’t know if things have may have changed. We used to take them there for treats – birthdays and such; find all the games which offered the most tickets and were the easiest to win, then take reams of tickets up to the cashier so the kids could choose prizes. If we found a game that was messed up and paying out more ticket than it should, we played it again and again, no matter how bored the poor child was. Our gambling spirit was telling us – win more, no matter what the child thought!
“But mummy I want to play another game, I am tired of this one”
“Look it is giving us so many tickets, let’s play it some more and you can choose bigger prizes”
“I don’t care about prizes!”
“What?”
It is this avarice which compels us to play games at gambling casinos, and why we find them to be so much fun. But there is something a little more insidious than just fun and do you know why gambling casinos may be so addictive for certain people? Also why we adults love it so much? – Dopamine!

In biological research, and I’m not into vivisection – I hate the bitch; but when a monkey is given a task and rewarded for it, the release of dopamine to the brain is stronger during the anticipatory time between completing the task and receiving the reward. This may be why problem gamblers sometimes lose all their money, as the strongest release of dopamine to the brain comes from the anticipation of winning – not from actually winning, the greater the uncertainty, the larger the dose of dopamine is delivered to the brain and the higher the gambler gets.

Poker players sometime bluff far more often than they should to feel this high and this is bad for their game. Crystal Meth, stimulates dopamine production in the brain and this is why it is so addictive. Ok, so we have gone from kiddies arcade games to crystal meth with barely taking a breath; the point being made here is, the gambling casino is fun, but should also be treated with respect and self discipline.

The debate still rages in the US over the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA). While some senate officials see it as a good thing, the more forward thinking senators realize that this act is ridiculous and should either be scrapped or amended to provide a more regulatory law rather than this outright ban. But what does this mean to the internet gambling fan in the US?

The basic tenets of the law make it appear that online gambling is illegal, and while gambling of any kind is banned in some states, online gambling in these states would also be illegal. For the rest of the states however, online gambling per se is not illegal, it is the financial transacting between the gambler, the bank and the site which this law interferes with.

UIGEA effectively caused 2 003 US sites to look to other shores for their income, rather than wade through the maze of financial intricacies it caused. Major banks’ were forced to stop processing payments and this us why credit cards issued in the US, won’t transact at internet gambling sites.

Neteller was one of the safest and most efficient ways for US players online to make and receive payments from these sites, and UIGEA messed with them also. The Caribbean lodged a complaint with the World Trade Organization to the effect that this law violated trade accords, as did the European Union, and yet, no satisfactory response from the US is or has been forthcoming.

There are many internet gambling sites which won’t deal with US players because of the red tape involved, however, there a number of sites which won’t back down and they continue to ply their trade with US players. Companies such as 888.com completely pulled out of the US and have become incredibly successful in the UK and European markets, whereas European company Bodog, still offers services to US players.

Various new and more sophisticated ewallets are available and these also help for US players to make real money transactions online. How this works, I am not really clear, but work it does.

Internet gambling is one of the biggest cash cows in terms of online business. It generally falls into four distinct categories; online poker, online bingo, sports betting and online casinos. However in recent times, more arcade games have become monetized and sites are specializing games such as monetized backgammon too.

Every single one of these real money internet gambling options has a way of offering games to the US market. It really is as simple as conducting a search for “Internet gambling US players”. To find a site which will suit you; gambling is and always has been one of those industries which has been strictly regulated, because the big profits it generates. So in the years since the US has had UIGEA in place; the amount of tax revenue they have been unable to tap into has been quite substantial. Perhaps this has been the reason for them suffering such a poor economy in recent times?

Online gambling sites are facing innumerable challenges from the law makers of certain countries to curtail their activities striking at the very root of them. The main contention of those who oppose to online gambling is that the sites are not following fair and ethical trade practices in accepting wagers in monies whether it is U.S. dollars or in Euros. 

The same argument goes for collection of revenues due to the tax collection authorities of these governments, unlike in the case of offline gambling casinos and clubs where the very physical presence of the outlets enables checking evasion of any tax liabilities.  This is countered by the supporters of online gambling sites, their associations and legal representatives that adequate checks and balances are already there, adopted by the websites to ensure fair-play in these matters and online gambling should be allowed to carry on business unobtrusively.

There is another dimension emerging on the legal wrangles between online gambling sites and authorities of law-making.  This is completely concerned with online betting on sports events. There are quite a large number of online gambling sites engaged purely on betting of monies on an array of sports like soccer, tennis, cricket, baseball and the like.  The monetary transactions on these betting on sports run into trillions of dollars and Euros annually.

For decades earlier in the western countries, betting on sports events has been going on even before the introduction of the Internet.  Like Inter-venue betting on horse racing, the gambling outfits were accepting wagers from the punters of their neighborhood on major sports events across the world, wherever they were held.  The size and measure of betting were enlarged to proportions of unimaginable magnitude when the cyber-world came into being.  Sitting at home any one had the facility of betting on the favorite side of any sports easily and all the wagering monies when pooled together offered an attractive dividend to each punter’s bet on winning.  This gradually grew into giving room for complaints from many quarters that pre-fixing the results of the events by manipulation of vested interests and unfair and unethical practices of gambling had started in the business.

In this background the latest complaint has come up against online betting of Grand Slam Tennis Tournaments such as French Open.  The organizers of French Open have opened up a landmark case in the Liege court of Eastern Belgium and Parris claiming that the online betting sites have stained the reputation of the championship tournament on the clay-court of Roland Garros.
The French Tennis Federation has claimed that the very integrity of the Tennis match is at stake because of such unethical practices being followed by the organizations of online betting.  They have cited many instances of foul-play in the trade, including a glaring example, which took place in August 2007 in one of the major tennis match held in Poland.  Their claim is backed by declarations of players that they were approached for fixing matches with hefty sums of money offered. The law suit is against three popular betting organizations, and praying for an injunction to stop making betting on French Open and fine of large amount for violation on a daily basis.  The sports lovers and players of online bets eagerly await the outcome of this landmark case which will have a very wide impact on the online betting industry.