Online Casinos Directory

Craps is one of the iconic casino games. It is played in virtually every full casino resort across the world, from Vegas to Macau and elsewhere. It is played online, in James Bond movies, and more. Still, it is a game that few people understand. When people visit a casino for the first time, they always know how to play slots and roulette and often know how to play blackjack, but are usually clueless on the game of craps. Often they play anyway, with the expected result: losing lots of money. Before playing craps, you need to learn how to play the game, which can be done online.

Even looking at the Wikipedia page for craps can give you a good overview, which is better than nothing. Some people think that because craps is a game of chance, there is nothing they can do to influence the outcome, so they can just go with their gut, place bets however they want and do fine. That isn’t true.

It is true that craps is a game of chance, so no skill can change where the dice will land. You can’t control what numbers are rolled, but you can control on what you place your bet. You can control what kind of risk you take. That is the strategy in craps. There are a large number of bets you can place. Some are high risk-high reward, some are low risk-low reward, and many are somewhere in between. Combined with many rules of etiquette that should be observed, and it becomes clear that craps is a game best played by someone with experience. Slots can be played by the ignorant just as well as the experts. For craps, though, experience and knowledge lead to better games.

The online gambling industry is still relatively new, only having been around since the early 1990’s. Compared to most of the industries in which people participate and governments regulate, online gambling is still in a fledgling phase. For that reason, a lot of people aren’t clear on what the laws are regarding gambling over the Internet. That certainly isn’t helped by the fact that the laws can be rather confusing. Take the federal laws in Australia and the United States as just two excellent examples.

If you try to look up the Australian gambling laws on the books using australia.gov.au, you’ll find that gambling online is illegal. That is only partially true, though. Currently the Australian government does not regulate the online gambling industry and it does not allow any online gambling companies to be run in the country. As for the overseas online casinos, they violate Australian law if they accept Australian customers or advertise in the country. However, the gambling ban does not apply to the players – only the businesses. It is not illegal for Australian customers to play on the offshore online casinos. There are currently lawmakers trying to change that, though, by amending the law to make it illegal on the player’s side as well. For now, though, the players are not breaking the law.

And then there is the United States. There is no federal law regulating or banning online gambling. The Wire Act bans electronic (phone or Internet) gambling on sporting events. However, as stated on onlinecasinosinusa.net, neither the Wire Act nor UIGEA bans online casinos or online poker rooms. Players can wager there legally and it is not illegal for the offshore casino operators to accept American customers. This has been confusing because the Department of Justice was confused and until recently was of the opinion that the Wire Act banned all online gambling. In December 2011, they admitted they were wrong. Some U.S. states, such as Washington and Utah, do not allow online gambling. For the rest, online gambling is legal if the company is located offshore. If the company is located in America, though, it would be illegal, because they would require a gambling license to operate and the U.S. does not issue online gambling licenses. Still confused?

If you recently tried to log into Bodog’s website to do some sports betting or online gambling, you may have encountered a problem. The domain has been seized by the United States Department of Justice, along with indictments against the company’s founder, Calvin Ayre, and three of his website operators.

Ayre and the other defendants are charged with running an illegal gambling business and money laundering. If convicted of both charges, they each face up to 25 years in prison. Arrest warrants have been issued for the defendants.

According to the Justice Department, federal investigators opened accounts at Bodog using Maryland addresses. In the state of Maryland, sports betting is illegal. Online sports betting is illegal throughout the entire United States. According to an affidavit, the investigators were able to play at Bodog and had winnings mailed to them in the form of checks. Calvin Ayre denies any wrongdoing and says that his company has not accepted bets from Americans. The prosecutors say that more than $100 million has been paid out to American customers by Bodog from 2005 to 2011.

According to news found on Google, the Bodog domain was seized on Monday and the indictments were released on Tuesday. No arrests have been made of yet. Calvin Ayre and the other three indicted parties are Canadian citizens and Bodog is based in Canada. In December 2011, Bodog.com changed its name to Bodog.eu and at that point, the company said that it would no longer accept customers from America. On his personal website, Ayre said that the indictments are without merit and are done to protect the interests or large U.S. companies that view Bodog as competition.

The European Union told Italy the same thing they have told several other European countries: They are not allowed to discriminate against overseas online gambling operators. The ruling by the European Court of Justice is in keeping with previous rulings on the subject when other nations have drawn the ire of the industry and the EU.

In the ruling, the European Court of Justice stated that it is a violation of EU law for member nations to pass legislation that protects the local market by discriminating against foreign operators. Many countries, most recently Italy, have done so in the name of protecting the players or preventing fraud. The Court recently clarified that it is not an acceptable excuse. All online casinos located in or regulated by other EU member states have to be afforded the same access as those within Italy (or whatever country we’re talking about at the time).

According to Yahoo News, the European Court of Justice said that because of the discrimination, the local operators have been given an unlawful and unfair competitive advantage. Such unfairness in the competition is not beneficial to the industry or to consumers. Italian regulators are disappointed with the ruling and will have to change their policies. With a more level playing field, there should be more competition and more options for players. More options is always a good thing. To find some of the best in the industry, read up on online casino reviews and check into the names that we recommend – casinos that are tightly regulated, licensed, and have respected software.

You may remember the warning that the FTC gave about online gambling back in 2002. If not, here is the FTC warning. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission conducted a study of the online gambling industry and came to the conclusion that it is unsafe because there isn’t adequate protection against underage gambling. So how does this 2002 report stand up today?

In 2002, the FTC said that many online gambling sites didn’t have any warnings about underage gambling and those that did often didn’t feature them prominently. That is still the case. I think many online casinos assume that because their software is designed to prevent minors from gambling, and because everyone seems to know that underage gambling is illegal, it’s not necessary to advertise it. That may not be true, but it seems to be a common belief within the industry.

The truth is that online casinos have software that verifies the age of those who attempt to join and log into the site. Is it perfect? Of course not, but neither is the security barrier to buying cigarettes or alcohol, which is a bored and disinterested worker making minimum wage.

The point is that all security systems can be beaten. Underage gamblers manage to spend money at brick and mortar casinos, but trying to shut them down because of it is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. It’s best to work on solutions and find the best ways to minimize underage gambling. The same goes for those playing online. For a list of the safest online casinos, check out http://internetcasinogamblingonline.net.

If you are going to play at an online casino for real money, you need to be sure you are playing at a casino that is safe. The word safe means many things in this case, each of which will be explained. Safety is the most important issue when you are shopping for online casinos to frequent.

The first type of safety is to make sure that the casino is a legitimate business. The Internet is full of fake businesses that are nothing more than scams. They pretend to be a legitimate site but they only use your personal information to either steal money from you or sell your information to someone else. You can be sure of this by looking at customer feedback.

You also need to make sure that the online casino has adequate security to protect you from outsiders. People like to hack into websites where people share their personal information, especially financial information, which makes casinos a prime target for such hackers. The best online casinos have cyber security that rivals the biggest banks. The casinos use the latest in encryption technology to secure your data and keep your information safe.

Another form of safety that you need is protection from other players, if you are competing against others, such as with online poker. Players can sometimes create bots to allow them to play from more than one location, giving them a better chance of winning. Good casino security can prevent fraud like this.

The other form of safety is assurance that you’re getting fair games. All casino games may favor the house, but there are certain odds that are considered acceptable and odds worse than that are considered rip-offs. The best casinos have competitive odds and payout rates and the games are tested to ensure that they are fair to the players.

Even if they don’t know much else about casinos, a lot of people know that blackjack has the best odds in the casino. That is excluding poker, of course, since the player versus player format makes it impossible to determine your odds. Just because blackjack has good odds doesn’t mean you can jump in, not knowing what you’re doing, and expect to make money.

If you follow blackjack basic strategy, you can reduce the house edge to only 0.5%. That means that out of every $200 you wager on blackjack, you would have $199 returned to you in winnings, with the casino only keeping $1. That is the average, of course, with streaks making short term results higher or lower. That is following basic strategy, though. If you don’t follow any strategy, the odds will be considerably worse and may end up not being any better than your average slot machine.

That is why it is so important to learn blackjack basic strategy. There is no excuse for not learning it, because the strategy isn’t difficult and is easy to find. A quick search on Google.com for “blackjack basic strategy” should turn up a strategy chart that you can use to learn and memorize the right strategy. The strategy is based on the mathematical odds you have in each situation and in the long run each of the decisions it has you make will be the best move for you. If you do not have the strategy memorized and want to play, look at the chart while you play. There is nothing stopping you from doing that online and you can take as much time as you want. In fact, you can use a chart even at most brick and mortar casinos as long as you aren’t too slow because of it.

Online casinos are a great way to spend some time and try to win some money, but there are times when you don’t want to spend anything. Maybe money is tight or maybe you already spent the amount of money that you have budgeted for gambling. That is fine because there are plenty of free slots that you can play.

Most online casinos, and any of the big and respectable ones, will have free versions of the online slots that you can play at their website. Sometimes you are able to play without downloading any software by accessing the streaming versions of the slots. You can then play the game using fake money for as long as you want. Other times a download is necessary and if you are not already a member you would have to create an account.

Perhaps the best way to play free slots online is through a free slot gaming portal such as Slots.co. The website has slot games embedded so you can play them for free without downloading anything or registering for an account. It is the perfect setup for new players who want to try a lot of games before committing to a particular online casino.

All games come with risks, of course. One of those risks is underage gambling. Though minors are not allowed to gamble and the casinos have software in place to keep underage players out, they are not perfect. A 2002 FTC warning said that the online casino industry does not do an adequate job of informing about underage gambling and protecting minors. Whether you think that is true or not, the onus for protecting minors is on the parent.

It is no secret that Atlantic City once was a gambling center for the US. Next to Las Vegas, it was the largest place to wager and take advantage of. Millions of gamers every year did just that– took advantage of the huge bonuses the city offered. Then the recession began. That was the beginning of problems for the market with people stopping their wagering activities immediately. They had problems with their bills and had no discretionary funds to speak of. This posed a huge problem for Atlantic City since its entire revenue stream was built on people’s discretionary funds. The area gaming operators created bonuses and promotions and cut costs, but nothing was effective at reviving the market. They were left with seriously diminished revenue and few options to increase that. They had to just wait out the difficult recessionary times. Now that the recession is over though, there are still few signs of revival. This is cause for major concern with casinos because their markets are so far down in numbers. Last month the city posted another loss. This time it was another considerable one—it was a loss of 13% since one month prior. This is horrible news for a market that already had gone through two mass layoffs. Area residents are concerned about the economy and their own job security.

The string of bad luck has plagued the market for months now. It was September that the first notable decline in numbers was noted and it hasn’t gotten better for Q4 of 2010. Now that casino operators are looking to 2011, they can only hope that things change. The state is toying with various online gambling laws that could turn things around. These laws would open the door for money to be brought in to sustain the state’s budget. The problem though is that though the state may find funding it needs, that doesn’t mean casinos in Atlantic City will. They will be left to struggle and find ways of reviving their own markets. Considering that is what they have been doing for months now with little change, things are not looking good.

In the Planet 7 online casino you are going to find over one-hundred different games to take advantage of. The amount of bonuses available are only going to give you a better shot at testing each one of them out. You can use that bonus money to play any of the sixty slots games the casino offers, the seven different variations of blackjack the casino offers and a wide range of table games. These games are all built by RTG, Real Time Gaming, and that of course means that you are going to love them. RTG is a premiere software company and has a great reputation in the market. the company has built hundreds of games to the market and quite a few of them have become favorites to the world of gamers they serve. You can also take advantage of the wide range of progressive games that are available her. This is a casino that makes no shortcuts when it comes to building a game roster and you are going to love the selection available. Remember with the progressive jackpots you are going to have a great time not only playing, but taking your chances at a big win available if you manage to get the right gaming combination on the game.

Finally, at Planet 7 online casino you are going to love being part of the rewards program…or should we say rewards programs. This casino builds promotions and specials for loyal gamers left and right. You can get in on the VIP club. This is highly lucrative and going to bring you a lot of returns as you join and play. You also can take advantage of the Player Appreciation Free Chip promotion. Here you can get $50 free to play with if you deposit a minimum of $200 throughout one single month. This is another way for you to extend your cash and play all the more at their online gaming casino. With the VIP bonus, you can get a 130% reward program for depositing an amount over $100. Use Planet 7 casino for some of the best games and the best promotions you can find in the world of online gambling today. You won’t be sorry when you see all the advantages the casino offers to its customers.