Category: gambling

Clash of the Titans over Online Gambling: Social Media Versus Australian Government

18 January 2013

Online gambling is a term used to denote gambling that takes place over the internet. Online gambling, or iGambling, involves traditional casino games, such as poker and blackjack, as well as sports betting and bingo. From the inception of online gambling around 1994, legal controversy has ensued.

Logistics of Gambling in Australia

The official ruling from the Australian Federal Government in 2000 made it impossible for online casinos created after the 2000 ruling to operate. One Australian online casino, Lasseter's Online Casino, effectively became the only legal online casino available to aspiring Australian online gamblers. The only recourse for Australians eager to roll the dice online became novelty gambling (without real money) or riskily gambling online via an offshore website.

Resurrection for Online Gambling?

Currently in Australia, a movement is underway to allow simulated casino games on Smartphones and similar devices. The idea is to change the previous ruling via-a-vis the Australian Federal Government in 2000 to more lax rules that allow online "for fun-only" gambling. The reframing of the 2000 Australian Federal Government's ruling would not regulate bookies and in-person sports betting, but would seek to alter how the Australian government deals with online poker, roulette and blackjack. Over the past 12 years, the 2000 ruling has prohibited casino games like poker from being accessed on cell phones and, most recently, Smartphones.

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Corruption within the sports betting world

21 November 2012

Sadly, corruption within the sports betting world is rife and it appears as though almost every sports has had its own scandal. At the time of writing, the cyclist Lance Armstrong is probably one of the characters that comes to most people’s minds when thinking about corruption within sports.

You might even remember back to the famous Pakistan cricket spot-fixing scandal, which involved several members of Pakistan’s national cricket team. Those involved were caught and convicted of accepting bribes from bookmakers in 2010.

Some of the world’s most popular sports, including Football, Cricket, Cycling, Snooker, Horse Racing, Athletics, Tennis and Boxing have at some point been in the spotlight for some kind of match fixing claims. Baseball was also rife with corruption at one point, plus there is an endless list of other sports that have had their fair share of scandals. It makes you wonder how, at such a top level, this is possible?

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How to tell a good Rival casino from a bad Rival casino

27 October 2012

The first Rival Gaming powered gambling portal appeared in 2006 and today their product is hosted at approximately 50 different online casinos which are owned by roughly 40 individual operators world-wide. Their catalogue of games includes just over 100 titles and players can access them via a download client or in the instant flash mode.

Some of the latest games include their revolutionary i-Slots which are accessible via their Casino Controller platform. Rival is actually wholly owned by a Cyprus-based company called Black Chip Ltd, so when you are installing the download client, the verified publishers name should say Black Chip Ltd. Most of the casinos that use Rival software are in fact licensed in Curaçao (in the Netherlands Antilles).

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To own a horse or not?

20 October 2012

The following discusses whether owning a horse in today’s current economic climate is a good investment or not. Today there are lots of opportunities to own your own racehorse, or be a part-owner of a horse and the main reason why so many people are doing so is because they believe that the horse (or the trainers) can win them money at racing events and competitions.

Of course there is also the excitement of owning your very own race horse and for many, this is purely a hobby. Some people will only invest in a racehorse because of their love of the animal and because of their love for the sport. Today we see a growing trend of horse owners from the celebrity world, in particular professional sports stars, plus there is also a growing number of ‘everyday people’ looking to get in on the action.

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A social network for gamblers and players?

17 October 2012

The idea of combining online gambling with social networking sites could have catastrophic consequences, especially if the operators do little to control which users are actually gambling. However, a social network for gambling is just what users have wanted for a long time and it is basically the leading social networking sites (together with various well-known software companies) that are merely responding to demand.

Currently there are licenced gambling portals such as bingo sites, poker sites, online bookmakers and online casinos where players can go online and place a legal wager, but only after having provided the necessary identification documents and after passing ID verification checks. With regards to social interaction, the only real way for players to communicate with one another is via the occasional instant messaging chat feature.

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Budget Tips for Gambling Online

13 October 2012

There are various tips that you can apply to your gambling strategy which should easily help you stay within your budget and therefore help you to not over-spend. One sensible piece of advice is to set a weekly deposit limit. This is an option which is available at most of today’s reputable online casinos. For example, you can set the maximum that you wish to deposit per week (or month) to $/€/£100.00 and once you have reached this amount, the casino will notify you.

This daily, weekly or monthly deposit limit can usually be adjusted somewhere in the cashier section and it is a great tool for helping you keep within your budget. The only problem is that this spending limit can easily be lifted by you at any time, so if you are the kind of person that has very little control over how much you spend, this is a pretty pointless feature to have. The thing is that online casino’s must be seen to be actively promoting responsible gambling in one way or another so this feature will always be available, no matter how pointless you think it may be.

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Will online gambling grow again now that USA is starting to open it's doors?

17 August 2012

Since December of 2011, the US seems to have been making steps which could lead to some forms of online gambling becoming legal. Congress appears to be easing the laws of internet gambling after passing legislation that could mean the re-emergence of the USA as a secure and regulated online gambling zone.

As soon as the majority of states follow in the footsteps of places such as Nevada (therefore having a relaxed approach towards online gambling in general), it will hopefully pave the way for a completely regulated gambling environment that offers players the services and security that they have long been pursuing.

America is certainly beginning to open her doors to online gambling by making some games legal. If all forms of online gambling are to eventually become legal across the nation, it could see games such as poker becoming available almost overnight at a large number of innovative gambling sites which already offer their services to players from around the world.

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How much was really wagered over Euro 2012?

15 August 2012

The following section takes a look at Euro 2012 and tries to find out how much was actually wagered during one of the most important events on the football calendar. This football tournament was comprised of 16 of the best European footballing nations and it began on 08 June, 2012.

The Euros (as they are otherwise known) is a popular footballing event that is second only to the World Cup. The actual final between Spain and Italy was held more than two weeks later on the first of July, but exactly how much cash was wagered during this period?

According to expert analysts, there was a staggering £508M (approximately USD$800M) taken in bets form British bookmakers up and down the country as well as from online gambling portals.

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The Jackpotjoy Bingo brand

30 July 2012

The worldwide market for what is collectively termed “gambling” is estimated to be worth around $110 billion each year – and it’s growing. Of this total, casinos (both real and online) currently make up the largest percentage, followed by gaming machines, lotteries, then Bingo and other betting (including horse racing, football etc.).

It’s difficult to separate out exactly how much business is done online and these stats are, of course, global, so are hugely swayed by what is included in the term gambling – and the activities of countries like the USA and China.

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What is In-Play Betting and Why is it so Popular

09 June 2012

In-play betting is basically what it says, placing a bet while the action is in-play. Until recently, punters could only place in-play bets if they were either down at the local betting shop or over the phone at certain major high street bookmakers, and providing you had an active account with them. Today, almost every online sportsbetting site offers markets for in-play betting.

It doesn’t matter if you miss the start of a match any more because you can now place bets right through to the last minute of the game while betting in-play. Not all sports have in-play markets, but most of the major ones do, such as football, tennis, darts, snooker, rugby, hockey, American football, baseball, cricket and other sports, plus various other special events such as the recent hit TV talent show, The Voice.

While the actual event is taking place, markets become available that never used to exist. For example in football, punters can predict which minute the next throw-in could occur, when the next corner will be, when the next goal will be scored, who will actually score next, or even when the next bookable offence will be.

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Which Online Gambling Operators can't be Trusted?

06 June 2012

Rogue behaviour carried out by ruthless online operators comes in various different forms and whichever rogue attribute has been identified, it usually ends up with one or more players being let down in one way or another. Players must always be wary when signing up to an online casino because rogues keep surfacing on various radars.

News of a rogue casino doesn’t take long to circulate in chat rooms, reviews sites and online gambling information portals in general such as Casinoman.net, but before they are found out to be running scam operations, countless players are being ripped off. Before we talk about the actual operators, players must always ensure thatthe casino they intend to sign up to is fully licensed.

If it holds a license from one of the Channel Island licensing jurisdictions such as Alderney (the Alderney Gambling Control Commission), or from the Isle of Man Gambling Supervision Commission, the UK Gambling Commission , or by the Gibraltar Regulatory Authority, you can pretty much guarantee that you won’t encounter a rogue casino.

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Top 5 gambling apps for the iPad

30 April 2012

Just a few months ago, there were very few gambling apps for the iPad and although various casino apps are currently under construction, the options are still quite limited. It seems as though it’s mainly sportsbetting fans that have more choice when it comes to gambling on the iPad. There are currently more sportsbetting apps available than any other gambling app.

Other apps from companies such as Mecca bingo are now available and several poker apps are starting to appear such as the bet24 poker app, which is awesome. There were apps from other leading brands that could also have made it into our top five, but these ones that feature here marginally beat the other contenders for a top 5 spot in our list of best iPad gambling apps. These applications appear in no particular order of importance because there was no clear winner.

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How to help your friend who is a problem gambler

20 April 2012

There are many ways that you can help a friend who you believe has a gambling problem and the main way is to seek professional help. If you know for sure that your friend has a gambling problem, perhaps you should approach them and try talking to them about it.

If you think that they are just going to bite your head off then you may have to take a different approach. There are major organisations that offer their support and advice and one main organisation that you can turn to for help is gambleaware.co.uk. They promote and educate people about sensible gambling and you will often see their logo at the bottom of an online gambling portal such as an online casino, poker site, sportsbetting site, bingo site or other similar website.

You can simply hover over their logo and click on it to be redirected to their main website.  This organisation is actually administered by a charity known as The GREat Foundation. Their mission is to support initiatives to help reduce the risk of gambling from becoming a major problem in people’s lives.

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