Bingo has long been played in community centers and churches across the world but the internet has changed the world of bingo just as it has changed so many other activities. Now anyone can play bingo on the internet. To find online bingo sites you simply have to do an internet search. There are many to choose from and most will have instructions on how to play online.
The number of people playing bingo on the internet has surged over the past few years. You can opt to play on free sites or low cost sites, however if you want a premium service you can also pay to play. Most people choose free sites to enjoy their game of online bingo. These sites are especially beneficial if you wish to play bingo online but are new to the game and need to learn how to play. Once you have become a confident player you can try out other sites and look for the best online environment to play bingo.
Most people who play bingo on the internet are women. Surprisingly, the demographic of bingo players has changed with this new way of playing. In the past, bingo was largely an activity of the elderly, however a number of surveys of online bingo sites indicate that most online bingo players are younger, internet savvy players. These people were found to most often play from home and most play daily. This is not surprising since you can relax with online bingo at your own convenience. Given the busyness of modern life and the often long working hours people are committed to, the internet has become a haven for relaxation which might otherwise not exist.
Bingo is easy to play from home because you can choose an auto play option which allows the cards to play for you. However, you can still interact with other people on many bingo sites because they offer an online chat option. This is designed to create some of the same atmosphere as the original bingo halls. In fact, a lot of online bingo sites have discovered to their detriment that not having online chats is a serious disadvantage and as a result a number of them have failed. Players have clearly expressed a desire for a sense of community when they play bingo on the internet. Given that loneliness is a growing social problem with people increasingly feeling disconnected from one another, online bingo sites with chat facilities can provide an effective and enjoyable way for people to connect with one another.
Many traditional bingo halls are also offering bingo on the internet as well as at their normal venues. As demand for online bingo increases there are increasing opportunities to generate profit from bingo. There is a growing market of bingo players and alongside that market is a growing number of businesses seeking to appeal to the various needs of that niche.
So, whether or not you are an experienced bingo player, why not jump into the world of online bingo and get your feet wet? You may well find the experience wonderfully refreshing.
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At the end of September 2006 the U.S. Senate introduced “The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act 2006″. It wasn’t so much introduced as pushed through at the back end of the “Safe Port Act”, to which some commentators have taken exception. This has caused a flurry of anxiety and (some would say) hysteria among players, website owners and online gambling affiliates alike. But what does the new law actually mean? This article has a look at the facts behind the new legislation.
The first clue is in the wording of the Act itself; it is an enforcement Act. In other words it enforces previous and existing law where legality of gaming has already been established as a matter of precedent, and also the legality and illegality of different types of gaming already existing.
I could do much worse than directly quoting the wise words from Cardplayers legal counsel. He writes that the new bill
“attempts to make it more difficult to get money into a site by forbidding US financial Institutions from funding the type of online gambling that the law has previously made illegal. The new bill does not make online gaming illegal where it was not illegal before …The bill merely speaks to the mechanism by which an online account is funded.”
In other words the Act attempts to hinder Internet gambling sites by starving them of funds, by ordering the banks not to allow players to use their credit cards to play at those sites.
There is nothing about the activity itself being illegal (where it was not illegal before). And clearly, if the gambling sites in question are offshore, then by definition they are not subject to US legislation anyway. So the only way to get at these offshore sites is through the banks and the credit card companies.
The article I quote from goes on to cite the significance of the 1961 Wire Act, which was construed to have made sports betting illegal, but not games such as poker, on the grounds that the law was never enforced with regards to poker in the ten years that Internet gambling has existed. Instead, the 33 cases which were brought under the Wire Act were pursued by “deadbeat gamblers” who simply did not want to pay their gambling debts. The judge on that particular occasion, Stanwood R. Duvall Jr, threw out all 33 suits, so ruling that online poker was not within the reach of the Wire Act’s prohibition.
Now while the lawyers are busying themselves on working out the construction of what the new law actually means, it seems that players can make a few simple choices in order to protect themselves from what might be construed:
1. Open an account at an offshore Internet casino website;
2. Ensure the site is registered with a non-US company;
3. Ensure the site is hosted by a non-US company.
The vast majority of offshore Internet gambling sites still operate in US dollars, and they increasingly offer multiple currency choices. You can select which currency you wish to use before you play. Even so, it may be worthwhile remembering that, at the time of writing, there are approximately $1.87 to the Pound Sterling, and $1.26 to the Euro.
If the law goes further it may well be necessary to apply for a credit card issued by a non-US bank. But this is still something that is subject to speculation. We will have to see how the new law pans out in practice. In particular we will have to await the matter of how the law is construed and how precedent impacts upon it.
Edmund Deacon is webmaster of Offshore Casino which is a portal featuring several multi-currency non-US casinos. Look out for the special offer giveaway of
People who play at online casinos will notice how they are more abundant than they were and they are competing much more aggressively than before over players by tempting us with better and better free casino bonuses. I’d like to have a look at the background of this and looks at the various offers that can be had.
We must ask ourselves why there are so many online casinos. It is largely due to changes in legislation that online casinos have flourished. For online gamblers this means greater bonuses and rewards, because the overheads of an online business will be tiny compared to a physical business. The online casinos can then use the surplus money to pay for greater lures for us, the gamblers and players, by way of free casino bonuses.
Lets have a look at the different types of free casino bonuses which are offered to attract us to their virtual tables. They fall into five broad categories: the no deposit bonus, the first deposit reward, first deposit bonuses associated only with poker rooms, first deposit casino bonuses and all the different and varying different reload rewards.
The No Deposit Bonus is a free gift of money without any strings attached. These are essentially free gifts and they are totally legitimate. You are able to play with these free casino bonuses, but such bonuses will generally only be found at the better virtual gambling houses. The only requirement is that you must make one deposit before the bonus can be released to you along with any winnings. Well, this is fair enough, thinking about it: you can’t win anything without playing!
First Deposit incentives are more or less the same in that they will offer you large sums of money at the beginning of a game. The free casino bonuses may be a specific amount of money, or perhaps a percentage figure. Be sure in your own mind that the one refers to a hard cash sum and the other is a percentage of the deposit. Casinos may offer one or the other. Usually where one is high the other has to be low. For instance, a web site which specifies a meagre 20 per cent bounty will normally have a cash bonus at around $200 or something of that nature (so the deposit would be $1000). Alternately, the casino which specifies a more attractive 200 per cent reward will ordinarily have a maximum bonus of $100, the deposit being $50. So where the one is large, the other is small.
The deal with poker rooms is that you will have to play a minimum number of hands to get the free casino bonuses and there might also be a time limit as well. Sometimes the larger bonuses can be paid out by the casinos in instalments. The number of raked hands is easily achievable although it may look daunting at first, as a mainstream online poker table can manage sometimes more than 100 games per hour.
The casino first deposit bonus requires that you need to wager an appropriate amount in order to qualify for the bonus. Generally the casino will put this sum into your player account as soon as it’s deposited. Sometimes the bonus will not be deposited into your account till after a day or two. In that case you can still use the bonus to play, but you cannot withdraw it as part of your winnings. As before, that is probably quite fair because you’re receiving money for free.
Therefore there are quite a few options to consider. You need to always check the small print, easier to do on some sites than others. To ensure that you always play at a reputable online casino go to a well known and trusted one, preferably one which is a member of eCOGRA. Ensure you are familiar with the terms of the free casino bonuses in each case. Only trust reputable casinos and go for that jackpot!
Edmund Deacon is an Internet technologist in the online gaming field. Discover the secrets of how to successfully gamble on the Internet, and we’ll give you over $17,000 free casino chips while you practice. See our special offer.
An understanding of the relevance of free casino chips must be put into its proper context: are the offers of the free chips coming from honest online casinos?
The first online casinos opened 10 years ago, and now there are hundreds that can be found online. Estimates vary as to the number of people who gamble online, but recent estimates suggest that a figure of around seven million worldwide would not be too far out. Taking that into account, and with a further estimate of more than $12 billion spent in online casinos alone (not including physical land-based casinos), offers of free casino chips may understandably be seen as something of a drop in the ocean.
Add to that the question of whether or not these free chips are being offered by honest online casinos, and we enter an area worth some study or serious research.
Firstly, let us consider what these free casino chips are really worth to the individual online casino player. Free casino chips are of four main types:
No Deposit Bonus. This is simply free money. Honest online casinos will offer free casino chips with no strings attached, simply to attract people to play at their virtual tables. There will sometimes be minor strings attached. For example, the casino may ask for credit card details up front. Always read the terms.
Matching Deposit Bonus. This is where the house will match your deposit. Often this is done in multiples. For example, a 200% bonus will mean that if you were to deposit $100 then the casino would add $200 in free casino chips to your account. Very nice! Especially useful for new players starting out.
Uncashable Bonus. This is the so-called ’sticky’ bonus. This can never be cashed, but its usefulness lies in that fact that it stays in your account and enables you to use the bonus account to ‘leverage’ higher wagers. These free casino chips stay latent in your account simply to allow you to do things which you otherwise could not.
Loyalty Bonus. This is exactly as it sounds. All honest online casinos, and offline ones too, want to keep hold of their good returning customers, and will offer loyalty bonuses, including free casino chips, as a result.
Remember that online casinos can afford to do this because they simply do not have the overhead that their brick and mortar land-based counterparts have. Equally, there is no excuse for an online casino NOT to be honest for exactly the same reason. They can offer free casino chips AND be an honest online casino in circumstances where their physical equivalents would find the financial burden impossible.
So how do we go about identifying which are the honest online casinos and which are not? Well, a lot has changed since the earliest online casinos set up shop in their offshore locations in 1996. Self-regulation (at best dubious) led to accreditation of bodies like ECOGRA (E-Commerce Online Gaming Regulation and Assurance). Look out also for evidence of good customer care, positive feedback from online casino forum members and decent helpline facilities. The more honest online casinos will offer (will actively boast) 24 hour live chat and live email support as well as toll-free telephone help. Does it have a mailing list you can join to keep in contact with the latest tournaments and special offers? Trust lies at the heart of any subscription process (or people would not subscribe) so that in itself is a good indicator of an honest online casino.
Transparency of accounting systems is another good indicator of honest online casinos. When testimonials are published make sure that it is from more than a set of initials, and make sure they have a state or country. Free casino chips may be ‘virtual’ in concept, but they are used by real people!
But the best indicator of an honest online casino is by personal recommendation. This also includes affiliation of such casinos into trusted casino websites and portals. If an offer of free casino chips is made by an online casino on such a site then it can probably be trusted.
Edmund Deacon is an Internet technologist and has compiled an ebook of reputable online casinos where you can gamble on the Internet in relative safety. To get $17,000 of free casino chips, go to http://www.gamble-on-the-internet.com