Let your mouth speak archive

Portugal’s Council of Ministers have approved the passing of the nation’s Online Gambling Bill, which is set to commence on 28 June. The bill will bring a legislative framework for all forms of online gambling under the monitoring of Portuguese gambling regulator Santa Casa de Misericordia de Lisboa.

Portuguese ministers have assured the public that the gambling bill, is line with European Union regulations on competition laws and fair business practices. The Council of Ministers issued the following statement:

“The bill will proceed with the regulation of online gambling in line with the recommendations issued by the EC on this matter and the international best practices.Licenses will be awarded to all the companies that will ensure the full respect of a set of financial, economic and technical requirements.”

Read more: Portugal approves Online Gambling Bill for 28 June | SBC News

Online gambling in Pennsylvania is already here, an online gambling executive told the state House Gaming Oversight Committee at a hearing at Mount Airy Casino Resort on Tuesday.

Residents who want to gamble online can find numerous unregulated websites, said David Licht, of All-American Poker Network, which has an agreement with Mount Airy to provide online gambling should it become legal in Pennsylvania. Those sites offer no protection to gamblers and generate no revenue for the state.

All-American Poker provides a suite of online gambling in New Jersey and has agreement with Mount Airy to provide online gambling should it become legal in Pennsylvania.

The committee met at the casino to hear from gaming licensees and discuss ways to keep the state’s fledgling gambling industry thriving in an increasingly competitive environment so taxes and fee revenue continues to flow to state coffers.

“Unregulated online gaming is going on in front of us right now,” Mr. Licht told the committee. “The issue is not will we legalize it, it is will we protect customers and derive revenue from it.”

With technological safeguards, All-American Poker has not had a problem with minors playing or with fraud. Losses and bids are capped. Customer service representatives monitor for signs of gaming addiction. Exclusion lists for problem gamblers are used, just as they are in casinos.

Legal, online gambling would not cannibalize existing casinos, Mr. Licht said. In New Jersey, 70 to 80 percent of a casino’s online gamblers are new casino customers and the revenue generated from each customer is “enormous,” he said.

New Jersey’s revenue projections for online gambling have fallen short, Mr. Licht admitted. But he said the targets were lofty and the launch complicated by a divided media market and limits on online advertising. Many people still think online gambling is illegal. He said he thinks it could be more successful in Pennsylvania.

New Jersey’s revenue was about $140 million and Pennsylvania, with a 45 percent greater population, and a regulatory scheme informed by New Jersey’s experience, would be greater, he said. If the state used a full gambling suite and included a “live casino,” sort of a virtual experience with a live dealer playing with real betters, the returns would be greater. Rep. Tina Davis, D-141, introduced an expansive bill that would legalize online gambling, with licenses selling for $5 million.

She asked Mr. Licht about the demise of gambling in Atlantic City. He said Atlantic City’s problems went back years and had nothing to do with online gambling.

“If I were a casino owner, I would want another platform to grow revenue and cross markets,” Mr. Licht said.








Expert: Online gaming coming, whether PA wants it or not - Business - The Times-Tribune

Visa, Mastercard and other card associations facilitate card payments, but the banks that issue the cards decide whether to decline or authorize a purchase.

And when it comes to Internet gambling, legal and otherwise, some of America’s biggest banks continue telling their cardholders: no dice.



More than half of Mastercard transactions and more than one-quarter of Visa transactions are declined for legal online gambling in New Jersey, the state’s chief casino regulator said in January.

A four-digit number — 7995 — is a big reason why.

That’s the Merchant Category Code that the card associations have used for years to identify transactions coming from online casinos.

It’s the same code considered anathema by some of the nation’s biggest banks, who refuse to authorize any 7995 transactions, fearing criminal liability for facilitating illegal gambling.



It’s also the code assigned to legal online gambling transactions coming out of New Jersey.

But the associations launched a new code — 7801 — for transactions made at government-licensed online casinos. No longer will legal online bets be lumped in with illegal ones.

The banks’ hardline approach to online gambling is a holdover from the years when the practice wasn’t legal anywhere in the country. (It’s now sanctioned, to varying degrees, by New Jersey, Nevada and Delaware.)



The move has hamstrung New Jersey’s legal operators, who have been forced to ask customers to fund gambling accounts using alternate methods such as wire transfers and e-wallets.

Those methods let gamblers get money into their accounts relatively quickly. But many Americans prefer to pay for online bets the same way they pay for other Internet purchases: with plastic.

In 2006, after Congress passed the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, the federal government began clamping down on rogue offshore Internet betting outfits.

For card-issuing banks, “the easiest way for them to comply was for them to say, ‘Hey I block all 7995 transactions,’” says T.J. Sharkey, an executive at Vantiv Gaming Solutions, which handles most of the payment processing for New Jersey’s legal online casinos.

“Even after the opening of the Internet gaming landscape in the U.S., most of the issuers said, ‘I’m not going to change my blocking,’” Sharkey says. “Hence, we have these issues.”

Those issues at least partly explain why Paddy Power, the European bookmaker and online casino juggernaut, has so far decided to sit on the sidelines in New Jersey, Nevada and Delaware, says Eamonn Toland, president of the publicly traded company’s North American division.

“We knew the market couldn’t possibly be the right size until the card-issuing banks started accepting payments,” he says.

He calls 7801 “crucial” to bringing banks on board.” The code “may be necessary but not sufficient,” though.

The legal Internet betting industry is still small, generating about $122.9 million in New Jersey last year, which was far less than widely predicted.

An industry of that size is negligible to many banks, says Matthew Katz, CEO of CAMS, whose platform helps New Jersey’s legal online casinos take payments and verify gamblers’ age and location.

And there’s the perceived legal risk of servicing underage gamblers or gamblers betting from outside New Jersey (state law requires gamblers to be within state borders).

All considered, there’s little incentive for banks to re-engineer their internal systems to involve themselves in a business that remains illegal in most the country, says Katz, who expects “a slight increase” in credit-card authorization rates now that 7801 is launched. “I don’t think it’s going to be a silver bullet,” he says.

“The banks are not set up to operate on a state-by-state basis, and the potential liability it creates for them is much greater than the revenue,” he says. “It’s not a priority.”

David Rebuck, director of the state Division of Gaming Enforcement, declined to comment.

Ehren Richardson, an analyst who’s followed Internet gambling for years on behalf of tribal casino clients, agrees that the new code will be modestly helpful but that many banks won’t reconsider their denials until the market grows.

“It’s not big enough for them to pay attention,” he said. “The processors like Vantiv have the challenges of having to go around and educate all these big banks.”

Many of the banks likely already know that Internet gambling is legal. “They may not care,” he said.




New credit card code may help online gambling - pressofAtlanticCity-com: Breaking News

Well that is a great news for all. But online games are not my cup of tea.

Remote or online gambling in SA is finally set to be legalised. For those that aren’t aware, The Remote Gaming Bill; championed by shadow trade minister Geordin Hill-Lewis, is likely to reach and be passed by Parliament in the coming months. Until now, South Africans had only been able to gamble in brick and mortar establishments, or use online sportsbooks. Under the terms of the 2004 National Gambling Act all “interactive” online games like Poker, bingo and casino were completely outlawed. As a result, the local industry struggled to grow, and foreign online gambling jurisdictions boomed.

While a few establishments do offer online gambling to South Africans they exist in a precarious position. South African customers face the constant worry that the sites may be shut down, with their funds, and some banks will not process deposits to those sites. However estimates suggest that tens of thousands of South Africans have active gambling accounts; with the RTG (RealTime Gaming) network attracting the bulk of them .

South Africa’s current gambling market is by no means a poor one; according to PwC the sector generated almost R2 billion of taxes on R16.5 billion of revenues last year. However, the current law allows for only 40 casinos to be licensed within South Africa; and 37 are already operational. The market showed just 0.6% growth last year, which is perhaps why industry lobbyists and legislators are looking to new ways to raise tax revenue from gambling. Creating future growth, the report suggests, is dependent on operators investing in current properties and expanding their facilities.

Under the Remote Gaming Bill, the responsibility for licensing new online casinos will be split between states and the National Gaming Board. Currently bookmaking licences are administered on a provincial level, with state governments handling applications for online licences. Under the new system, the NGB will take a bigger role, with provinces inputting “advice”. Hopefully this will lead to the development of a strong, centralised regulator; which can effectively perform its duties to protect players and prevent crime.

Land based casinos are now being presented with a lucrative opportunity to expand their brand online. Take the example of the UK’s gaming market; where the biggest online operators (William Hill, Paddy Power and Coral) all had thriving chains of high street bookmakers before opening online sites. Although high street operators are at no particular price advantage (software and games tend to be licenced from large development firms); but the trust factor and existing customer base can prove a real competitive advantage in a developing market.

Given that the remote gaming market is incredibly globalised, South African casinos might well seek to profit from building up a customer base overseas. Some countries are experimenting with a Point of Consumption (PoC) tax on gambling products, meaning operators pay tax on revenue in the jurisdiction it comes from. However, most countries tax sites in the jurisdiction they are based, and South Africa’s low gambling taxes might allow home operators to offer more competitive odds.

We may soon witness the birth of a new, huge and fiercely competitive online gaming market in South Africa. Much remains to be discovered as to how the government will licence, tax and oversee online casinos; but with some careful design the new industry should prove a boon to both operators and their customers.





Online gambling finally to be legalised in SA | chrislbecker-com

Nowadays more and more people, both experts and average users, acknowledge that Bitcoin – the most widespread cryptocurrency having the biggest potential – is fully capable of moving the future industry of electronic payments into completely another dimension.

The possibility for BTC to gradually supersede ‘traditional’ currencies we use now for cash settlements must not be ruled out either. Still, if neither of this happens, and the cryptocurrency will retain its current position as a supplementary payment method, the degree of its impact on the existing areas of the world’s financial system is more than just obvious.

Actually, it’s no less obvious than the fact that Bitcoin was able to revolutionize the industry of Internet casino gaming and betting within just a few years. With every passing day, online gamblers abandoning old-school virtual casinos in favor of advanced Bitcoin gambling websites are growing in number.

The case is the same with the new platforms for players – in just two years, the number of BTC gaming portals tripled, putting the very reason of real-money casinos and sports betting websites under threat.

One of the reasons for players and gambling operators to change the trends may lay in the numerous opportunities that the cryptocurrency offers to both stakeholder groups. Yes, Bitcoin definitely takes some time to get used to, but when you finally manage to fully take control of it, you understand its real power.

Perhaps, there are no online gambling website managers left who haven’t thought about upgrading their businesses to Bitcoin casinos and adding the cryptocurrency to the list of possible payment options, or, alternatively, switch to BTC payments completely. It is especially essential for operators still not having a gambling license, as, running a Bitcoin online gambling portal you don’t even need one to operate in most jurisdictions.

Apart from that, there are still millions of (potential) online gamblers all over the world that do have the Internet access and love virtual casino games more than anything else in their lives, but for some reasons related to legal restrictions on Internet gambling in their countries they cannot access these games on real-money gaming portals. In such cases, Bitcoin may be the only solution.

Additionally, BTC transactions are anonymized, non-reversible (chargebacks are the real headache for just any house), and very-very cheap to perform if you compare them to electronic payments and wire transfers in fiat currencies: the commission fees are almost non-existent for players (and BTC casinos usually pay nothing at all for the transactions their gamblers make), which is simply a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for operators to attract thousands of new gambling devotees to their websites every month.

On top of all that, many Bitcoin casinos are provably fair, meaning they want to be completely cheat-free, and enable their players to verify the fairness and randomness of their gameplay outcomes (usually, in online games like blackjack, roulette and dice) using the built-in tools based on cryptographic algorithms. The benefit is mutual for both players and operators themselves, as owing to fairness provability technologies they don’t need to trust each other the way they used to before. Only proofs, nothing more.

At this rate, the cryptocurrency has really great chances to become the universal global currency, just the way it has become the almost “official” currency of the online gambling industry. Bitcoin has everything it takes to become one, including the revolutionary technology behind it, and the only barrier left for it jump is made of fat-cats, mercenary politicians and anti-BTC lobbyists. Is Bitcoin strong enough to leave this barrier behind? Time will tell.


We welcome comments!



Has Bitcoin Overgrown Its Virtual Gambling Clothes? | CoinSpeaker

Until now, online gambling was not subject to regulation or taxation in Portugal. However, a Bill approved by the Portuguese Government, on 26 February 2015, plans to regulate the market, by granting licences to private operators in similar terms to the ones in force in some other European countries. This Bill is now pending approval by the Portuguese President.

This means that, once enacted, the Regulator may order the Internet Service Providers to limit or block the access in Portugal to unlicensed online gambling websites. The Internet Service Providers are required to carry out the Regulator’s orders within 24 hours. If the Internet Service Providers do not carry out the Regulator’s orders within said time limit, they may be subject to criminal prosecution. In light of the above, the access in Portugal to online gambling websites will be blocked unless the companies that are currently operating such websites request and obtain the aforementioned licence as from passing of the Bill.

According to the proposed Bill, the licences will be granted by a public entity and applicants must meet several economic, financial and technical criteria. Furthermore, licences will only be granted to operators compliant with specific good repute requirements.

The Bill provides that the reputation, technical expertise and economic and financial capacity of certain Portuguese companies (namely those currently authorised to operate land-based games in casinos or games of a social nature) is assumed. Bearing in mind the stringent criteria set out in the Bill and, therefore, the expected difficulties in obtaining a licence, this rule may be seen as an encouragement for foreign online gambling companies to operate in Portugal jointly with Portuguese land-based gambling companies rather than alone.

Furthermore, we draw your attention to the fact that the aforementioned Bill lays down a territorial requirement. In fact, licences should only be granted to companies either duly incorporated in Portugal or with a legal seat in the EU or EEA, provided the latter operate through a Portuguese branch office or a subsidiary.

We highlight that, as from enactment of the above rules, unlicensed online gambling operators may be subject to criminal prosecution (with penalties including imprisonment up to five years or a fine up to EUR 5.000.000, plus ancillary penalties).





Online gambling is close to becoming a regulated and taxed activity in Portugal - Lexology

Portugal’s long-awaited online gambling reforms are set to come into force on June 28th, having been signed into law last week by President Aníbal António Cavaco Silva.

The bill will open up the previously monopolized market to international operators, with the cash-strapped government hoping to raise €25 million ($28 million) from the new online gambling licensing regime.

The licensing window for online gambling operators wishing to enter the Portuguese market is now open.

All gambling operations in the country had hitherto been restricted to the government’s gambling monopoly, Santa Casa da Misericordia, while a blanket ban on foreign online gambling sites had been strictly enforced in recent years.

In 2005 Bwin attempted to sponsor the Portuguese football league but its efforts were challenged by the government and defeated in court after appeal.

Bwin’s subsequent continuation to offer a Portuguese language version of its website enraged the government, prompting it to order Portuguese ISP’s to block access to offshore gambling sites.


Read more: Portugal Online Gambling Bill Signed Into Law