Free Casino On Line

Gambling911.com last month told its readers about a pair of online poker rooms that are operating legally from the U.S.

The rooms, Pure Play (www.pureplay.com), in San Francisco, and Triple Jack (www.triplejack.com), in Florida, operate within the law because technically, they don’t offer gambling.

They charge a monthly membership fee to join the rooms, then offer free poker tournaments that have cash prizes for winners.

It’s a loophole in the law that could easily collapse if it were ever challenged in court, but so far the U.S. government hasn’t bothered these and similar U.S.-based Internet poker rooms.

After profiling Pure Play and Triple Jack, Gambling911.com heard about a bunch of similar operations that are U.S.-based.

In order to give Gambling911.com readers the most information possible about this controversial subject, here are brief profiles of other U.S.-based online poker rooms operating legally:

Club Bluff (www.clubbluff.com) operates from Las Vegas. It charges $20 a month to become a member of the site. In addition to poker tournaments, this site also offer "legal" blackjack.

Club WPT (www.clubwpt.com) also operates from the world’s gambling capital, Las Vegas. The membership fee is $20 a month, or if you want to sign up for a year, it’s $180, saving you three months’ fee or $60. The site is run by the World Poker Tour (WPT), a professional poker tour, and also offers blackjack.

Spade Club (www.spadeclub.com) also operates from Las Vegas. The membership fee to join the site is $20 a month. The site is run by Card Player magazine, a poker mag published in Las Vegas.

Non-rigged Poker (www.nonriggedpoker.com) operates from Framingham, Massachusetts, a ritzy suburb of Boston. The site is run by something called the National League of Poker (NLOP). Information about membership fees could not be found on the room’s website, so e-mail them for that and any other info required.

Thwart Poker (www.thwartpoker.com) operates from San Francisco and is owned and run by a father-and-son software engineering team that specializes in U.S.-legal online gambling. Information about membership could not be found on the room’s website, so e-mail them for that and any other info required.

Two other U.S.-based online poker rooms have recently gone out of business.

Zosoz (www.zosoz.com) operated from a small town in Minnesota and Duplicate Poker (www.duplicatepoker.com) operated from Los Angeles.

Duplicate Poker used a slightly different business model–its way around gambling was to offer a form of poker similar to the concept of duplicate bridge.

By Tom Somach

Gambling911.com Staff Writer

tomsomach@yahoo.com

Berlin police confirmed Tuesday they were looking for a 5th suspect in a daytime robbery that occurred at the Grand Hyatt Hotel during filming of the European Poker Tour.  Police believe the accomplice knew exactly when money had been briefly unsecured and tipped off four other members of the gang.

Police told the German website, The Local:

[B]ecause the well-timed heist bore the signs of an amateur job, police told Berlin daily Berliner Zeitung that they now believe there was at least one other accomplice already inside the hotel who gave a signal to begin the raid. "The suspects struck at the exact moment when the money was being prepared for transport at the main safe," a police spokesperson told the paper. "A few minutes before or after and they would have had no chance."

Police called the robbers "amateurs" after reviewing tape of the incident.

Police union chief Rainer Wendt told NTV television: "As for the perpetrators, one has to say: this was clearly not the work of professionals.

"The way they were armed and behaved, as well as the mountain of evidence they left behind already indicates that the police will quickly identify them," he added.

He said the gang had plumbed "new depths of stupidity to carry out such a raid in front of running surveillance cameras".

Nonetheless, the thieves ran off with over 200,000 euros.

Patrick Flanagan, Gambling911.com

€5 billion, now that’s a lot of money.  These are the projections for the online gambling industry.  But when one considers that figure is just limited to one tiny island in the Mediterranean Sea, it is indeed difficult to get a grasp on how much the entire sector will take it. 

Cyprus is just a small part of the equation after all.  The island of Malta, also in the Mediterranean, represents a much larger contingency of online gaming ventures.  Costa Rica in Central America takes in untold amounts of money, most of which comes from the US. 

In 2008, the turnover from online gambling in Cyprus reached €2.5 billion according to the Cyprus Mail.  Interestingly enough, Cyprus is no longer licensing brick and mortar casinos on the island.

"Ninety-five per cent of electronic gambling services in our country operate legally because they are provided over the Internet and there is no authority (here) where one can apply for a permit," said Ionas Nicolaou, chairman of the House Legal Affairs Committee.

The DISY deputy revealed that one of the three biggest providers of online gambling services on the island, with a 30 per cent market share, turned over around €680 million in 2007.

In 2008, credit card spending on online gambling had reached €100 million, Nicolaou said.

Fifteen computers made a profit of €93,000 in just two weeks, he added.

While currently legal, lawmakers have proposed to re-amend a law that would exclude online gambling.

"The social impact is terrible," AKEL deputy Aristofanis Georgiou said. "The main aim is to protect Cypriot society."

Prosecution for gambling on the Web is still possible under the current law, but only if the perpetrators are caught in the act.  And individuals who play online games from the privacy of their home are not breaking the law.

Online casino establishments are cropping up all over the island.

Jagajeet Chiba, Gambling911.com

In an opinion on two cases currently before the European Court of Justice, Advocate General Paulo Mengozzi has outlined some of the legal difficulties which Internet technology has introduced into the international debate in Europe and the question of harmonisation of regulations.

AG Mengozzi was commenting on the German cases involving Markus Stoss (C-316/07) and the Gibraltar-based Carmen Media Group (C-46/08).

In the absence of harmonised legislation, EU member states are developing very different legislation which makes it “hugely challenging” for the community judge to ensure the respect of the Freedoms provided by the Treaty, the AG observed.

He went on to opine in the Stoss case:

• Monopoly holders can only promote participation in games of chance in a moderate manner and the intention cannot be to increase the revenue of the public purse.
• It is for the (German) national court to examine in particular whether Oddset, the German sports betting monopoly, meets these criteria. The German Federal Constitutional Court concluded in March 2006 that the advertising displayed by Oddset “was not intended to limit opportunities for gaming and to prevent addiction to gaming, but was intended to obtain tax revenue for the public purse”.

Turning to the Carmen Media case, AG Mengozzi noted: “Consistency must always be examined from a national view point, with the result that regional differences within a Member State might render the system inconsistent”.

Sigrid Ligné, Secretary General of the online gambling trade association EGBA commented: “This is the second opinion in a short period involving a German gaming case. AG Bot in January confirmed the primacy of EU law over German law by clarifying that non EU compliant law has to be immediately dis-applied, without any transitional period.

“Beyond the legal considerations, you have to look at the reality of the market. There is a consumer demand for online gaming in Germany. The sports community is losing out as it is not allowed to cooperate with the European gaming industry. Other EU member states are embracing the reality that online gaming is a popular leisure activity and have started regulating the sector. EGBA urges the German authorities to do likewise.”

A date for the ruling of the ECJ has not yet been set.