The idea of online casinos might seem odd, especially when much of the excitement and mystique of a casino is tied up in atmosphere. There’s the never ending buzz of activity around the slot machines, and the brightness of the gaming tables within dimly lit surroundings, as the people play the games. And for many, a casino is somewhere you make a special point of going. It provides a sense of occasion. How could casino games played on your computer while you sit in your sweat pants compare with the experiences you would have at an actual casino?
But people have many reasons for visiting casinos, and that includes those who frequent online casinos just as much as those who make a planned trip to Vegas. The ones looking for atmosphere and the sense of occasion are unlikely to stop taking their annual trips to Atlantic City. But for people who can’t make it there, or who look for excitement from the games more than the surrounding atmosphere, an online gambling casino provides that for them. And such sites do try to create atmosphere, in the dark background of their pages and the increasingly realistic images they use. But it’s the games themselves that are most important.
But can you really transfer games from real life casinos to online casinos and have them be the same? Many transfer quite well, albeit with clear differences. For example, if you’re playing poker online, you will miss those moments of trying to read your opponent’s body language or facial expressions. And you won’t be able to croon to the dice before you throw them in a craps game, and the way the dice come up will depend on a random number generator rather than your throw. Playing games online does involve losing certain tactile and visual sensations.
Some may question whether online casinos can really be trusted, though, and wonder whether the games might be programmed in advance to be fraudulent. But of course, even casino games in the bricks-and-mortar version of casinos are programmed in various ways to favor the house over the players. And any casino website that runs fraudulent games or balks at payouts would lose their paying customers pretty quickly. People looking for the excitement of the games, with a touch of the graphic atmosphere of a genuine casino, can find reliable websites with enjoyable games just by shopping around for a while.
Beth Kaminski is the co-author of Curing Your Anxiety And Panic Attacks which detailed panic attacks help as well as tips on the various medications for panic disorder available at www.anxietydisordercure.com.
There’s been much talk about banning gambling online, and people fear they could be prosecuted for making online bets. A 2006 law prohibited banks from exchanging funds with betting and offshore casino gaming sites, and several states have passed laws banning online gambling altogether. Yet the 2006 law doesn’t actually go after individuals, and people don’t always know if this pastime is banned by their own state. So even though they can often still visit the websites, people aren’t sure what will happen if they try to place a bet.
What will happen if someone places an online bet? According to the www.vegasclick.com site, nothing will happen. No individual has ever been prosecuted for doing so. Even the 2006 law was aimed at banks, not individual bettors. So if a person finds a way to get their funds to their favorite offshore betting site, they can carry on. Michael Bluejay, writing at the site in 2007 following passage of the law, said Americans are going to continue online gambling and nobody is likely to stop them, law or not.
Of course, most major offshore gambling sites didn’t quite see it that way. Several resisted at first, scoffing that a law made in the United States shouldn’t have jurisdiction over websites fully registered and legal in their own country. But eventually they decided that the hassle was just too great, especially when a couple of executives from those sites were arrested on American soil and prosecuted. So one by one, most of them announced they would no longer be accepting online bets from Americans.
Will things stay this way? For many gamblers, placing online bets merely got more complicated, but is by no means impossible. It’s not hard to set up workarounds, and according to some sources, Americans accomplished almost eight billion dollars worth of workarounds in 2009 alone. For this and many other reasons, a total ban against participating in casino games at offshore sites may end up being as effective as a ban against drugs. In other words, not very. This is why some American legislators are now attempting to revamp the law, not to ban online gambling, but to regulate and tax it instead.
Beth Kaminski is the co-author of Curing Your Anxiety And Panic Attacks which detailed panic attacks help as well as tips on the various medications for panic disorder available at www.anxietydisordercure.com.
American legislators are becoming increasingly concerned about websites for gambling and betting online. For decades, casinos and other gambling establishments were safely contained in brick-and-mortar locations, where a close eye could theoretically be kept on them. They might have extended their reach beyond those locations by phone, fax or other means, but they could be regulated and monitored. With the swift, massive growth of the internet, however, that all changed. Moreover, taking the existing gambling laws and applying them effectively to this new situation is proving to be difficult.
In 2006, Congress passed a law that was meant to ban the means people used for placing online bets. The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act effectively forbids American banks to transfer funds to or from any online gambling site. This meant Americans theoretically couldn’t place bets, even on websites registered in other countries and entirely legal there. American government protectionism has even gone so far as to prompt the arrest of executives of any company taking American money, if they set foot on American soil. Once this law passed, all gambling sites publicly listed on stock exchanges stopped taking bets from American customers. However, most privately-owned sites still allowed Americans to place bets.
And more than a few people noticed a bit of selectivity in how Congress wrote this law that supposedly blocked all betting online. For some reason, the ban wasn’t universal, with certain types of online gaming and gambling still allowed. And those exemptions, such as horse racing, fantasy sports sites, Indian gaming and state lotteries, just happened to be types of gambling the government received revenue from already. It wasn’t surprising that a few eyebrows were raised.
Eventually, a reprieve on the implementation of this law against betting online was granted, and its enforcement is currently set to go into effect in December. But Congressman Barney Frank is spearheading the introduction of online casino laws designed not to ban online betting, but regulate it instead. Many speculate that part of the impetus for this delay and potential revamping is that Americans spent at least eight billion dollars on online gambling in 2009. Given that the government already receives a great deal of revenue from existing gambling, it’s not surprising that legislators, when it comes right down to it, couldn’t possibly ban a new and colossal source of revenue.
Beth Kaminski is the co-author of Curing Your Anxiety And Panic Attacks which detailed panic attacks help as well as tips on the various medications for panic disorder available at www.anxietydisordercure.com.
Casino Gambling | admin | 
June 7, 2010 6:44 am | 
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