General casino industry related articles that may well be of interest. These articles vary from general casino news, to regulation and well, just pretty much anything I want to write about to be honest. If you want information specific to individual casinos, then the Online Casinos section is where you should probably be heading.
There is so much going on in the US in regards to online gambling that it is almost impossible to write and all-encompassing article. I won’t try to cover all of it, but here is an overview of relevant developments.
Previously passed laws:
The Wire Act was enacted in 1961. It was intended to prohibit sportsbetting by telephone to bookmakers. Then U.S. Attorney General, Robert F. Kennedy, thought it woild discourage organized crime and bookmaking.
The Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 (Pub.L. 102-559) set out to define the legalization of sports betting throughout the United States. This act effectively outlawed sports betting nationwide, excluding a few states.
The sports lotteries conducted in Oregon and Delaware were exempt, as well as the licensed sports pools in Nevada. Also excluded from the reach of PASPA are jai alai and parimutuel horse and dog racing.
And of course we all know about the UIGEA. The Security and Accountability For Every Port Act of 2006 (SAFE Port Act, Pub.L. 109-347) was an Act of Congress in the United States addressing port security. An online gambling measure was added at the last moment. The House and Senate passed it on September 30, 2006. President Bush signed the Act into law on October 13, 2006. Title VIII of the Act is the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 (or UIGEA). It (31 U.S.C. § 5361–5367) prohibits the transfer of funds from a financial institution to an “illegal Internet gambling site” and excludes fantasy sports, online lotteries, and horse/harness racing but does include online casinos, poker rooms and sportsbooks accepting real money bets.
Lobbying:
The BolaVerde Media Group (BVMG) recently released a new Internet Gambling Federal Lobbying report which estimates that $3.65 million was spent lobbying the U.S. government over online gambling during the third quarter of 2009. This includes both supporters and opponents. This money is a 50% increase from the previous year.
For years, business owners and entrepreneurs have come to rely on Google as it has slowly but surely consigned other search engines to the Internet Scrapheap. Those that have stepped aside as the juggernaut passes by are struggling to keep pace and being forced into forming alliances, but even then it’s hard to see an end to Google’s dominance. Until recently we haven’t really minded, but recent activity at Google suggests that it might not be smooth sailing from hereon in.
It looks like Microgaming are set to pullout of the USA altogether on the 1st June 2010. Playshare Partners who look after Casinoshare and Grand Mondial online casinos announced this week that they are migrating US casino players to “new” software ahead of the 1st June. This ties in with rumours circulating at the London and Amsterdam industry conferences earlier in 2010 that Microgaming will be pulling out of the USA when the UIGEA enforcement date kicks in. Which is also (un)coincidentally now set to happen on the 1st June, 2010.
Those of you who participate in online casino forums, be it as a player or an affiliate, will know that the once respectable Grand Prive (GP) group have hardly covered themselves in glory in recent times. Affiliates in particular were up in arms when the GP group ditched their affiliate program, sacked the staff, terminated all contracts and then kept all the players they had been sent.
A very interesting turn of events around the various gambling forums over the past couple of weeks, which would be amusing if were not so serious. An “online casino” called Jackpots Heaven has reared it’s head out of the notorious Costa Rica jurisdiction. On the face of it, it’s just another online casino, but dig deeper and as many forum posters are pointing out, all is not quite what it seems.
It started with a player on a forum questioning the results of a baccarat session he played there. Now being honest, it’s not uncommon to get unusual runs of luck that look out of place, but one or two other posters decided to take a look at the software to form their own opinions. What they uncovered was interesting to say the least. The first warning sign became apparent when they spotted that the casino website said it was “licenced” by the Lotteries and Gaming Commission in Costa Rica. Aside from the fact that this organisation doesn’t exist, Costa Rica itself doesn’t issue casino licences, which is why it is regarded as a very dodgy jurisdiction for online gambling.
I’ve noticed one or two threads on popular gambling forums recently concerning the promotion of purpotedly “rogue” gambling operations by affiliates in the sector. One of two posters have been singling out affiliate sites as being ethically challenged so I thought some analysis of their decisions to promote known dodgy outfits would be in order.
The first questions that need to be answered are where does the buck stop with an operator who knowingly defrauds players out of cash and just how common is it? In my experience, the number of good operators outweighs the rogues, but there is no doubt the bad ones exist. The 2006 UIGEA legislation in the USA has had the side-effect of removing most of the good operators from the market putting US players at far greater risk and the key is, as ever, research. Outside the US, the problem is less er, problematic, because the good operators have developed strong brands and 9 times out of 10 outperform their rogue counterparts in search engines. When - if - the USA finally regulate online gambling, there is no doubt that US gamblers will feel a lot safer.
So we’ve just gone through the 3 year milestone since the much maligned Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (”UIGEA“) was underhandedly snuck in as an amendment to a tenuously related anti-terrorism bill called the Safe Port Act. I’m not going to cover old ground, but if you want to read up on just what happened and the implications to US gamblers and resultingly, USA casinos, then check out the Wiki page for some informative, if not slightly disturbing, reading. So it’s Fall 2009 and what’s changed? Where is the USA heading on online gambling?
Many players who play at online casinos will be familiar with the concept of “reversing” a cashout. This is where you get lucky, cash some money out and a little later decide to reverse it into your account to play with it. The timeframe in which you have this option following a cashout varies from casino to casino and is often referred to as the “Reverse Withdrawal” or “Reverse Pending“.
Not all online casinos implement this feature - it largely depends on the software platform they have licenced as to the policy they adopt. It is not generally a popular feature with players as this poll proves, but there are two sides to every coin and this article examines the psychology behind it, both from the player and the casino’s perspectives.
Quite a story. A somewhat wealthy chap from Vegas has dumped over $112 million at the casinos, most notably Rio and Caesars, but has an outstanding debt to the casinos of some $14 million. So the casinos want their money, and the guy is suing them on the basis they plied him with alcohol and prescription drugs!
Ah wait, yeah. It’s America. Do something stupid and you can always get your money back by suing someone who should have stopped you. D’oh! Full story here.
I know it’s been over 2 years now, but the UIGEA is still a hot topic, not least because it hasn’t been fully implemented, but also because of the new legislation being proposed to not only reverse it, but to implement a framework for regulating Internet Gambling within the USA.
He also alludes to the fact that the US gambling laws have been somewhat misinterpreted from within the industry and some decisions to pull out of the USA were too hasty. Effectively the article places some of the blame on the industry for the way it reacted. He’s right of course, although the clever strategy employed by the DoJ was the driving force behind this.
Anyway, doing some research I came across a brilliant article on the UIGEA from US First Amendment attorney, Lawrence G Walters. He analyses the UIGEA, the effect on the industry and offers analysis of the longer term. It’s a long read, but it’s so on the money.