The kind of online casino players who enjoy placing bets on sporting events without having to leave their house, and those players who live in the state of Nevada have received good news about a special little something that’s currently in the making. The Nevada Gaming Commission has approved a smartphone application that will allow players to engage in sports betting using their mobile phones. In the future, other smartphone applications will cater to the needs of those players who enjoy free online casino games such as slots and blackjack.
This new phone application was designed by the Leroy Group and will let Nevada residents place sports bets on their Blackberry phone. This is the only phone application that has been approved thus far since the key roadblock for this types of approvals was a strong need to convince the Gaming Commission that the application’s technology was more than enough to verify that the player using the phone was actually physically located within the state of Nevada when placing the bet.
One of the most important key facts when dealing with these new technological advances is the fact that online gambling has been banned in most US states. The Interstate Wire Act of 1961 makes it illegal for players to use a phone or any other form of “wire communication facility” to place an interstate or international bet on any sporting event or other contest. This means that online sports betting is illegal if it crosses state lines, because that would make it subject to the federal “interstate” law. However, with the phone application activity confined to Nevada’s borders the federal Wire Act lacks jurisdiction in Nevada. However, online casino fans are hopeful that these new applications will pave the way for Nevada to allow all forms of online betting including casino games and sports events.
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In 2009, Russia decided to ban all types of casino gambling and moved the businesses to three specific areas where casino gambling was to be in fact legal. This specific ban on casino gambling excluded sports betting; however, casinos in the banned areas could not leave due to a lack of infrastructure and decided to move the ventures into illegal forms. Now, the government is after online casinos and online gambling and is seeking to shut down all online gambling casinos and poker rooms with orders to imprison all illegal gambling operators. These Russian lawmakers will not stop until they are sure they’ve closed the loopholes that make online casinos possible, even if they offer free online slots and table games.
Russian legislator Ivan Savvidi has proposed a bill that calls for fines between 500 and 2000 rubles for those who gamble outside the established casino gambling area’s through mobile networks, computers or other electronic devices with access to the internet. Savvidi has stated that: “Before, the Law concentrated on suppliers of gambling, and now the gamblers themselves are responsible.” Another lawmaker in the country, Irina Rulubyeva, has said that: “If gamblers know they have to pay a fine, there will be less who are willing to play.” However, other important personalities in the country, such as Samuil Bender, vice president of the Russian Gaming Business Development Association (RGBDA), are in disagreement: “We have to judge what causes damage to someone, and a man who comes and spends his own money is not a criminal.”
It’s important to note that Russia does allow for residents to play on online casino gambling sites that run under the permitted jurisdiction and are regulated by the specific laws, however it’s those illegal online casino sites that have gone underground to avoid taxation and that these imprisonment laws are meant for.
Curacao, one of the leading gaming license providers, will be undergoing major political changes in the near future which could mean some changes for online casino sites using their e-gaming licenses. These sites provide players with popular casino games such as free slots and card games. Online casino operators all across the gaming community are wondering what these changes will really mean to their business, but right now it is too soon to tell how these events will affect their business.
The island of Curacao was until now a part of the Netherlands Antilles, which was a Dutch dependency. The remaining islands in the Netherlands Antilles including St Maarten, Bonaire, St Eustatius and Saba are all located in a cluster in the Caribbean. In the newest constitutional changes all islands have become autonomous special municipalities of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. In other words, what this means is that all islands will be self governing in all matters, including online gaming sites licensee issues, excluding matters of defense and foreign policy which are to be overlooked entirely by the Dutch government. The exact same thing happened in Aruba, which gained autonomy in 1986.
The island of Curacao is different from the other islands and this is where it concerns the online casino community. For Curacao, the Dutch government will have rights to initially regulate the islands finances under a debt-relief arrangement. According to a BBC report, five other islands have collectively amassed a debt of around €2 billion euros, most of it owed to the Netherlands and some of the smaller islands are blaming Curacao, which was the de facto capital of the former Netherlands Antilles and the centre for online gambling licensing. Curacao has defended itself by stating that they feel as though they have been carried too much of the financial burden for the federation, especially for the islands of Saba, St Eustatius and Bonaire. Some other sources of income for Curacao aside from online gambling licensing include tourism, petroleum refining and offshore finance.
The UK Gambling Commission has released their latest quarterly Gambling Participation survey and the results are in. It appears as though the national lottery is by far the most popular form of internet gambling in the UK, followed by sports betting and scratch cards. Free online slots, poker and bingo come last. The results suggest that there has been no significant increase in the use of online gambling sites in the United Kingdom since last year. It is clear that the vast majority of online bettors are interested in the national lottery rather than table games or slot machine games.
The survey was conducted over the phone by ICM Research, a member of the British Polling Council, and the sample of people called is said to be the entire UK population in terms of age, gender, social classification and region. Out of the 7000 respondents, 54.3 percent of them had participated in some form of gambling during the past four weeks (2009: 55.2 percent), this figure is up nearly one percent from 2009. Out of that 54.3 percent only 10.5 percent had participated in some sort of remote or internet online gambling. This is the same result that was obtained by a similar survey one year ago and strongly suggests there has been no increase in online gambling over the past year.
The final results of the survey are based on two separate set of questions. The first set of questions measured the actual participation in all the different types of gambling, including remote gambling, and the second set was specific to the participation in forms of remote gambling (by the use of a computer, mobile phone or digital/interactive television). According to the results, the demographic most likely to take part in online casino activities appears to be males in the ages between 25-34, with men and women over 65 being the least likely.
The demand to guard teens and avoid the rise of problem gambling is of high importance for online casino operators. Online casinos are required to follow certain rules and regulations especially since these services are not provided face to face. The issue of age verification for online casinos is a very sensitive one and in keeping with this strict policy that prohibits anyone under the age of 18 from gambling online casino sites, certain age and identity verification services are available for these companies.
One of the newest age verification services in the business is called ImpulsePay. The way it works is by online casinos adding an ImpulsePay ‘Buy Now’ button in their web site. Players will then have to click on this button and enter their personal mobile phone number. Players will then receive a a secure code or PIN by SMS to their mobile number. Next, players need to enter this secure PIN on the casino webpage . Once they’ve entered this information, the online casino is informed whether the mobile phone is registered to an 18+ user or not. If the new player is not registered as an adult, he or she will be directed to a help page. If they are indeed over eighteen years of age then the transaction is accepted and the online casino allows the player to register. Services like ImpulsePay may encounter tough times ahead in the way they’re planning to handle the issue of minors using mobile phones registered under the name of their parents..
The need for age verification for online casinos is critical even in those sites that offer free slot games that seem harmless. More and more minors are trying to access gambling sites by using credit cards that do not belong to them which calls for more innovative solutions to the vexing the problem that underage gambling really represents.
