Online and Offshore: Online Casinos Skirt American Laws
Online casinos are popular and becoming more so. It is estimated that 160 million people will be playing in online casinos by the year, 2020. According to Will Gatten of www.sportscrew.com, by 2008, online poker revenues – that’s just poker, not the other games like blackjack, craps, and roulette - will exceed $275 billion dollars, with not a cent of it in taxes coming into the United States. Why is that? Because online casinos are offshore operations, located in about 76 different foreign countries (as of October, 2005) to avoid U. S. gambling and tax laws. Another reason why they are so popular from an industry point of view is that they are cheap. Steve Wynn opened his bricks-and-mortar, Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas in early 2005, at a cost of more than $2 billion dollars. Then he pays an annual fee per slot machine and table, and is taxed on gross revenue. Still another reason is that they can get into business quickly. If someone wanted a new gambling license in Nevada, it may take one to two years of paperwork and investigations, plus a ton of legal fees. An online casino can be opened in Belize in a little over a week with a capitalization of a little over a million for a fee of about $30,000. Oh, and the tax rate in that country? Zip. Steve Wynn, eat your heart out. Gambling PhD.com reports that online gambling casino operator, 888 Holdings Plc, is planning to sell approximately $500 million of its stock in an initial public offering. The casino company has appointed HSBC Holdings Plc to operate the sale. 888 is based in Gibraltar and is estimated to be worth around $1.5 billion when it sells its shares in London on the London Stock Exchange in September of 2005. Online, offshore, and big bucks! Are online casinos good? Bad? Depends who you ask. In the U.S. Congress, efforts continue by Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona and others to enact a law to specifically prohibit internet gaming because it violates federal law. Another concern: for sure, for sure, minors are gambling. Now ask the millions of players from around the world who are online every day, playing their favorite games. A typical poker table may look like a U. N. meeting. Good? Bad? The casinos’ defense is to be located “offshore,” meaning in some foreign country, outside the jurisdiction of U. S. (and other countries which also prohibit gambling) laws. They charter their business in places like Antigua, Costa Rica, Gibraltar, Colombia, and India. The server may be in some other country. Administration may be in a third country, often the United States. See if you can find an online casino that willingly offers this information on its website. Not likely. Since it will be little hard to arrest millions of American bent over their beloved games on a Saturday evening, the efforts to enact new laws are directed at advertisers, credit card companies, and banks. Senator Kyl expresses alarm at the proliferation of casinos and estimates that 2,000 of them are in existence today. His legislation is aimed to curb Internet gambling by requiring credit card companies, and banks refuse payments to online gambling sites. So far, nothing has come of any legislation that would seriously threaten the operation of the offshore casinos. North Dakota State Representative Jim Kasper took a proactive stance when he introduced several bills – the state’s constitution would have to be changed - to allow online casinos in North Dakota. The bill called for regulation, taxation under North Dakota and United States laws, and would create hundreds, maybe thousands of jobs, for North Dakotans. However, in a letter from the United States Department of Justice, North Dakota was warned that the bills could – it didn’t say they would – violate the federal “Wire Act,” which prohibits gambling across state lines. And, of course, if you set up an online casino in Bismarck, North Dakota, how do you keep its activity only within the borders of one state? Representative Jim Kasper intends to push his bills in another session of the legislature. So, stay tuned. It’s unlikely that online and offshore casinos are going to be shut down though some of the ways they receive and return money may be limited if Congress moves on its efforts to limit the activities of U. S. banks and credit card companies. The coast looks clear. “Shuffle up and deal.” © 2005 Murphy James Murphy James is a freelance journalist specializing in the gaming industry. He has been published in men's magazines, gaming publications, business journals, and newspapers. His website is http://www.murphyjames.com His email address is murphyjames@murphyjames.com. His most recent interviews have been with poker pros Barry Greenstein ("Ace on the River") and Jen Harman (one of the players in the richest poker game in history) about their philanthropic activities, and gambler, author, and teacher, Jerry Patterson ("Casino Gambling"), about his blackjack, craps, and roulette systems. |
Other Football Betting Articles
Baseball Betting Odds: Break Even Percentages The probability necessary to win at a given spread is not always something the novice gambler is aware of. This is important because novice gamblers get tempted to bet on the -200 favorite because he/she knows it will likely win the game. What they don't know is that if the given -200 favorite does not have a 66.6% or better chance of winning, i ...NHL Season Predictions Part 1: Northwest As the NHL season begins year two from its lockout, teams and players are eagerly trying to get ready and make a favorable impression to the rest of the league. This season aims to provide conundrums in terms of victors and loser similar to last year’s winners of Carolina, Edmonton, and Buffalo or the losers of Toronto, Boston, and Vancouver. Th ...Deuces Wild Video Poker – How to Win BIG You are playing the game on a machine, your sole objective is to get the best-paying hand.You have no opponents to worry about like in table poker, just the machine and to win all you need is the correct strategy.In deuces wild as in all video poker games You can keep or throw away as many cards as you want when playing the machine ...Las Vegas Sportsbooks Thousands of people are enjoying the convenience of placing their bets on sporting events on a good sportsbook. The best of these are the outstanding Las Vegas sportsbooks. The Las Vegas sportsbooks provide the opportunity to gamble from the comfort of your own home. Your Internet account with the sportsbook is completely secure and your privacy ...Inside the Boxscores Week 8 Part 2 Inside the Boxscores is a weekly feature from Matt Fargo that has been widely recognized as the best summation in college football. He takes an in-depth look at each game and pulls out the most pertinent information that will help you handicap games in the future. College football is filled with quirky plays, misleading scores and surprise endin ...The Dish: Olympic (Hockey) Fever! We interview the best 'cappers and books here at the Dish, so we'd be remiss if we didn't weigh in on this whole Wayne Gretzky thing. So here goes:For an older gal, that Janet Jones is hot.There.See, we're not interested in bashing the Great One just yet, because he's kind of a hero of ours. So instead, we'll expend this wee ...Sports Betting While surfing through sports betting you will see the many sportsbooks that are offering their betting services through the net. They have the best tools for making your betting experience worth and the best promotions for you to make more money on online sports wagering.Many sports betting sites offer you special signup bonuses which you ...Poker Table Tops For Home Enthusiasts Poker table tops like those used for Texas Hold’em are very popular poker accessories right now, along with all manner of Poker chips, Poker clothing and other Poker merchandise. The popularity of Poker table tops is largely because of the increasing popularity of poker these days. Riding on the coat tails of the popularity of the weekly te ...Blackjack : Using Simple Math to Create Value One of the most popular table games in the casino is Blackjack. Perhaps this is because it’s an easy game to learn or maybe people feel in control. Blackjack is a game where the player’s input can aid in determining the final outcome. Very few people bet the same amount every single hand in a playing session. Most people alter their bets whe ...Video Poker - Six Tips to Win the Big Payouts Video poker is a slot machine game combined with the rules of five-card draw poker in a very specific manner.Video poker is a better game to play rather than traditional slot machines because it involves skilful play and is not a game of pure chance.By playing with correct strategy, you can reduce the house edge and earn bigger pay ...Make Money from Gambling Without Gambling - 18 More Ways 31. Be a 3 card monte dealer. This is cheating people but on a small-time, street-level way.All you need is three bent up cards, a dirty towel and a group of people. I once watched one dealer work the crowd waiting for a bus at the Grand Avenue Metro Link station in St Louis.He didn't make much. The young people didn't even underst ...Poker What's Your Game? Over the past year or so, poker has seen an incredible surge in popularity. And who can blame those who are so anxious to try their hand at one of the many variations of this game? After all, poker holds an undeniable attraction - different for different people.No doubt, poker championships are both a result of the sudden popularity of th ...Top 5 Reasons Why People Lose Money With Football Betting Sports Betting on the NFL and college football is a national pastime. Every week millions of dollars are bet on the home town favorites with local bookies. People bet even more money with online sports book agencies. Even the major news services publish all the betting stats. If you're going to bet money on games, you might as well be as informe ...Types of Online Bets People who place bets online enjoy picking their team, reading the stats, and learning about new coaches. There are several types of bets a person can make online. Betting the spread is the most popular type of bet. The spread is the amount of points scored on the actual ending score of the game. Teams are usually between ten or fifteen points f ...How Live Football Streams Are Achieved As a self-confessed football obsessive, I need to be able to access live broadcasts of the top games wherever I am. Sometimes it’s not always possible to find somewhere that shows the particular match I want to watch but thanks to technological advancements I can now watch almost any match I wish through a live football stream.With the he ...What You Should Know about Poker Room Betting If you’ve played poker before, chances are that you have an idea about poker room betting. But do you have any clue about how it works if you play poker online? Some of the basics are similar to playing and betting in a live, in-person game. For instance, in poker room betting online, it is important not to get too carried away. If you do not ...Internet Sports Betting The popularity of internet sports betting continues to rise as more and more people enjoy being able to place their bets quickly and easily. However, not all internet sports betting sites are the same and you want to find the right one for you. First you should always do your betting on a site that can guarantee that your account is 100% secure ...Casinos, Gambling and Sports Betting in New Zealand The New Zealand TAB initiated the world's first Government-run totalisator betting service in 1951. The TAB (totalisation agency board) is run by the New Zealand Racing board and controls all of New Zealand’s horse, greyhound and sports gambling. They have branches set up all over New Zealand as well as at all race meets. In 1996 it added fixed ...Online Poker Table Selection - How to find the most profitable table to play on Knowing where and at what times the loosest poker games are played are the number one secret for those who play online poker successfully. Online poker professionals win most of their money from the weak players (fishes-suckers), so finding a table with two or three fishes on it, is extremely important if you want to succeed at t ...NFL Online Football Betting and Running Backs Sports Betting on the NFL and college football is a national pastime. Every week millions of dollars are bet on the home town favorites with local bookies. People bet even more money with online sports book agencies. Even the major news services publish all the betting stats. If you're going to bet money on games, you might as well be as informe ...A Winning Roulette System Roulette is considered t be one of the most popular casino games in the world. It tends to draw players from all types of backgrounds. Being a relatively simple game to understand while offering a diverse range of betting options and payout outcomes is what makes Roulette such a big hit with the players. Roulette is also considered to be one of ...Championship Betting Review - 26 March 2006 Reading sealed promotion to the Premier League for the first time in their history with a 1-1 draw at Leicester. Value hunters will have backed Reading at 11/10 but the Foxes took the lead through Iain Hume seven minutes before half-time. However, Kevin Doyle’s equaliser five minutes before the end earned the Royals an 11/5 draw and a ticket to ...Why Use an Internet Sports Book to Make Wagers? Although I started using online sportsbooks almost ten years ago, I still maintained contact with a couple of local books for the express purpose of getting better lines with regard to the local or favorite teams of choice in my neck of the woods, the reasoning of course was so that if I saw "Value" in going against the the local or favorite tea ...Manchester United's Wonder Kid: Wayne Rooney Wayne Rooney was born in Liverpool on 24th of October 1985. Wayne, at only 19, is the most expensive teenagers in world football. With the price tag of 27million pound Wayne Rooney is dubbed as the future hope of English football. The skillful striker fulfills his dream to play at Old Trafford on 31st of August 2004, minutes before the transfer ...Wanna Play Some "Footy"? There have been evidence from many ancient societies such as the Chinese, Greek, Maya, and Egyptian, reveals that kicking games were a part of those cultures. The modern game of soccer (for the Americans but football to the international scene) began in the 19th century in England, when a variety of football games developed, all of which involve ...Inside the Boxscores - Week 10 - Part 1 Inside the Boxscores is a weekly feature from Matt Fargo that has been widely recognized as the best summation in college football over the past four years. He takes an in-depth look at each game and pulls out the most pertinent information that will help you handicap games in the future. College football is filled with quirky plays, misleading ...Blackjack Card Counting – Do You Believe These 4 Myths? Card counting does put the odds in the favor of blackjack players however there are common misconceptions about card counting that can and do cause players to lose.If you want to win at blackjack and do card counting then it is important you don’t believe these 4 myths:The More complicated the method the betterA card countin ...Poker Bluffing – Do You know Why It's Not So Effective Online? There are significant differences between poker bluffing in a live game and online.In fact, bluffing is much more effective offline due to the environment the game is played in.A bluff can be defined simply as a bet or raise made with a hand that has no real chance of winning.The purpose of course, is to win a pot when your ...Martingale Betting System - Are You SURE? Very common and popular system among newbies who like roulette, but not a very useful one. Sure, it seems simple and logical - you start with, let's say, 10 bucks and you double it every time you lose in order to win it back.Let's look how the bets increase with every loss - 1) $10, 2) $20, 3) $40, 4) $80... 9) $2960! Okay, it's very rare ...
|
