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A lot of people who gamble online don’t give so much as a single thought to how the how the online gambling industry is regulated. In an ideal world they wouldn’t have to either, as the industry would be uniformly regulated across the global spectrum. We don’t live in an ideal world though, unfortunately, so this is not the case. And regulation is something that you SHOULD be thinking about.

1. New Jersey online casinos started it all, launching the first legal and regulated US casino games in November 2013. There are now more than two dozen licensed online casinos available via computers and mobile devices, online and mobile sports betting,.
2. Across the United States, you will find each state has a unique stance on legalizing online gambling. For example, New Jersey and Pennsylvania passed through legislation that made online sports betting, online casino betting, and online poker legal. On the other hand.

The online gambling industry is still quite young relatively speaking. Its incredible rise in popularity was probably unexpected, and it’s fair to say that most lawmakers were not prepared for it. As a result, it took a while before countries started passing legislation that dealt with online gambling. Prior to that, they relied on outdated laws that were not really relevant and some countries still do.

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As a whole, the legal and regulatory landscape of online gambling has improved in recent years. There’s still a long way to go before it can be considered a well regulated industry on a global basis though. We look forward to the day that happens, but for now we have to accept the way things are.

In this article we explain why it’s important to understand regulation if you enjoy betting or gaming online. We also briefly cover the subject of localized gambling legislation, and provide details on various jurisdictions around the world where gambling sites are licensed to provide their services. Finally, we look at some of the key requirements for obtaining an online gambling license.

Why Online Gambling Regulaion is Important

Online betting and gaming involves entrusting money to what are effectively “faceless” third parties in most cases. Millions of people all over the world deposit funds at gambling sites, but very few of them actually know much about the companies or people behind those sites. This is ultimately the point of regulation in the industry. People should be able to know that they can deposit their money, safe in the knowledge that they are dealing with reputable organizations.

Online gambling regulation effectively serves three main purposes, as follows.

1. To ensure gambling sitesare operated lawfully
2. To ensure gambling sites are operated ethically
3. To ensure online gamblers are safe and treated fairly

All gambling sites should be compliant with any laws that they are subject to, which should go without saying. They should all be engaged in practices that are ethical. There should also be measures against money laundering and underage gambling, for example, and their advertising should be honest and not misleading.

Sites should also be required, among other things, to protect customer deposits and have transparent terms and conditions. Customers should have a fair chance of winning, and should be entitled to receive any winnings they make within a reasonable timeframe.

If every single gambling site met this criteria, then the internet would be a much safer environment for those wishing to bet and play games for real money. Sadly, they don’t. That’s precisely why regulation is so important. Sites should be FORCED to meet this criteria (and many are), and if they don’t then they shouldn’t be allowed to operate.

Unfortunately, it’s hard to stop rogue sites acting as they please. There is no global legal or regulatory body that oversees online gambling in every single country, so sites can base themselves where they are not subject to strict laws or regulation and be able to operate with relative ease.

Thankfully, rogue sites are certainly in the minority. The vast majority of sites are based in regions where they are subject to relevant laws and regulations, and so they are safe to use. The fact that even just a few rogue sites exist is still a concern though, and it makes it necessary for people to be careful about where they sign up.

This is the key point really. Regulation might serve more than one purpose, but the one that really interests us is the one that benefits us most. As customers of gambling sites, we don’t really care about the legal and regulatory aspects that don’t affect us. We only care about those aspects that protect us and enable us to enjoy our online betting and gaming without any concerns.

We can only benefit from regulation in the industry if we use the right sites. It’s therefore absolutely vital, in our opinion at least, that people check what regulation a site is subject to before joining.

Regulation is just one thing to consider when choosing where to do your online betting and gaming.
Please read our article on picking the right gambling site for advice on some of the other factors you
should take into account.

Local Gambling Legislation

We mentioned earlier how there is no global body that governs the online gambling industry. There’s never likely to be either, as there are too many separate interested parties for this to happen. It’s really too bad, but it’s just the way it is. The biggest downside to this fact is that it means the laws relating to online gambling can vary wildly depending on where you live. The activity is strictly prohibited in some parts of the world, and fully legalized in others.

Even worse, there are some parts of the world where the laws are somewhat confusing.

In the United States there is online gambling legislation at two levels; federal and state. The legislation at federal level affects the whole country, and the legislation at state level affects only the relevant state. Certain aspects of the federal legislation are somewhat open to interpretation, which makes it difficult to know exactly what’s legal and what’s not. The legislation at state level is clearer, but only a few states currently have specific online gambling legislation in place.

It’s worth noting that, in most regions at least, local laws tend to be focused on those who operate gambling sites rather than those who use them. It’s very rare for a country to have any laws which explicitly make it illegal for an individual to make a bet on the internet, or play poker for real money. Nonetheless, confusing laws such as those in the US often cause a certain amount of hesitancy. Some people just don’t want to run the risk of doing something they shouldn’t, even when it’s not at all clear that they shouldn’t be doing it.

We’re neither legal experts nor lawyers, so we’re not exactly qualified to speak with too much authority on the subject. However, we have carried out extensive research into a lot of relevant legislation. It’s our belief that most people are free to gamble online without fear of breaking any laws.

This is something you should check out for yourself with the appropriate sources if you’re concerned though. You might also want to take a look at the following section of our website, which provides details of gambling legislation in several different countries.

Online Gambling Jurisdictions

To fully understand how regulation in this industry works, you should understand the concept of online gambling jurisdictions. These are regions where the relevant governments have passed specific laws that make it legal for companies based there to provide online betting and gaming services. These companies can therefore operate gambling sites with full legal backing.

There are several of these online gambling jurisdictions around the world. Some of them are very respected, and a lot of the biggest and best known brands in the industry are based in those places, while others are less so. Here are some of the most prominent.

Within these jurisdictions there is usually an appointed organization which is responsible for regulating the gambling companies based there. These are typically referred to as licensing authorities, as they issue licenses to the companies that they approve for operation. Companies wishing to obtain a license, and then remain licensed, must meet certain requirements.

Licensing Requirements

The exact licensing requirements for a gambling site will depend on which jurisdiction they are based in and what services they offer. The following requirements are typical though.

• Suitability of owners & executives
• Accounting procedures
• Fairness of games
• Dealing with problem gamblers
• Preventing underage gambling
• Handling complaints

Most of these requirements are in place to ensure that regulation serves the three main purposes we highlighted earlier. We explain each one of them below, and in doing so should hopefully make it clear to you just how beneficial it is to only use sites that are properly licensed and regulated.

Suitability of owners & executives

The online gambling industry is worth a lot of money. As with anything where there are large sums of money involved, it attracts plenty of the wrong people. Most licensing authorities are therefore very strict about who they allow to operate gambling sites. They assess the owners, and senior staff in some cases, to ensure that they are “fit and proper” and of good standing.

People that may not be considered suitable can include those with criminal records, particularly if their crimes were finance related. The basic idea here is to ensure that the people running a site are the kind of people that can be trusted to run an honest operation.

Accounting procedures

This is one of the most important aspects of regulation in terms of making it safe to deposit at gambling sites. A licensing authority might impose a wide range of rules relating to account procedures, but an especially common one is that sites must separate customer deposits from all other funds. Those deposits must be protected somehow, so that if a site went out of business for any reason the customers would still be able to get their money back.

Fairness of games

This point relates to sites which offer casino games, poker, or other interactive gambling games. They have to be able to demonstrate that the games they offer are fair, and that customers have the correct chance of winning. This usually means having their software fully tested by an appropriate third party. Such tests will be run on a regular basis.

Dealing with problem gamblers

One of the criticisms made about online gambling is that it makes addiction more likely. There have been studies to show that this is not the case, but problem gambling is nevertheless an issue that the industry should, and does, take seriously. Licensed sites are typically obliged to have certain measures in place to help prevent problem gambling. These measures include providing the option to set deposit or limits or self-exclude.

Preventing underage gambling

Another common criticism is that it’s easy for people underage to gamble online. There is little basis to this either, although again it’s something that needs to be considered. Regulated sites are generally required to carry out identity checks on their customers, and part of the reason for this is to ensure that they are old enough to use their services.

Handling complaints

Most licensing authorities stipulate that their licensees must have a defined complaints procedure in place. This procedure should be made available to any customer who has a complaint of any kind. Some licensing authorities also provide arbitration services where they will investigate complaints that cannot be resolved and offer a suitable solution.

It’s very difficult to predict how the regulation of online gambling will develop in the future.
A perfect solution would be for a new organization to be formed that would be
responsible for governing the industry on a global basis. This would remove a great deal of the
difficulty in determining which sites meet the necessary requirements to be considered
trustworthy. If every site had to adhere to the same set of strict requirements then things
would be a lot easier. This is almost certainly a pipe dream though, and there are simply too
many reasons why this won’t happen.

What we do expect to see is more countries refining their existing legislation, or passing new
legislation, that deals specifically with online gambling and its regulation. There are still
far too many countries relying on outdated and confusing laws that are simply not relevant
to the way we do our betting and gaming these days. We’re all for progression on this front.

Our biggest hope is that all regulation of the industry is primarily focused on protecting those
who wish to gamble online. It obviously needs to be commercially viable for operators to
provide their services, but there’s no harm in stricter regulation to ensure that they behave
with integrity and transparency.

We also hope that regulation in ALL parts of the world allows people to do as they choose with
their money. It’s understandable that there are concerns that online gambling can lead
to addiction and other issues, but simple making it illegal does nothing to address this. If
anything, it makes things worse. People that want to gamble online are always going to find a
way to do so, and if it’s illegal where they live then they’ll potentially be forced to use
unregulated sites. And that has the potential to cause far more problems.

US online casinos may look and feel exactly like those you will find in Canada, Europe, and across the rest of the world, but the way in which they exist is very different. The story of online casinos in the United States is far from simple and straightforward, and is still being written today. Though the industry is currently thriving and growing at what seems like an exponential rate, such was not always the case.

History of US Online Casinos

The history of online casinos in the United States actually begins with the very first online casinos to have ever existed. Back in the mid-1990s, the Caribbean island nation of Antigua and Barbuda legalized and regulated online gambling, namely online casinos. In Antigua, the piece of legislation that legalized online gambling was known as the Free Trade and Processing Act, and it served the purpose of issuing licenses to those who wished to offer real money casino games online. Even though that law was established in 1994, the first online casino (InterCasino) did not go live until 1996. At this point, anyone in the United States with an internet connection could be playing real money casino games online.

Around the same time, the Kahnawake Gaming Commission was created by Kahnawake band of Native Americans, located in Quebec, Canada. Much like in Antigua, the gaming commission created by the Kahnawake was and still is tasked with licensing and regulating online casino operators. Over the next few years, the number of gaming commissions and, by extension, online casinos began to grow at a rapid pace. What started out in 1996 as just a single online casino operator had, by 2000, turned into a global industry consisting of hundreds of different sites licensed by various gaming commissions in the Caribbean, UK, and elsewhere.

US Government Steps In

Lawmakers in the United States became interested in online casinos almost as soon as they existed. Unfortunately, the tone of the government as it related to online casino games was none too pleasant. In the 1990s, pieces if legislation were introduced that would allow only horse racing and state lottery games to be played online. Seeing as none of these pieces of legislation ever gained any traction, Americans continued to freely play at the wide array of offshore online casinos that were available.

2002 was when online casino players got their first signs of trouble. It was during this year that a US Appeals Court ruled that the Federal Wire Act—an Act created well before the internet ever existed—prohibited any sports betting that was transferred across “telecommunications lines” (ie. The internet). This same ruling clearly stated that the Federal Wire Act does not prohibit games of chance, but the US Department of Justice never agreed with this interpretation. From that point forward, the US Department of Justice made it publicly clear that it considered all types of internet gambling to be illegal, despite the courts saying exactly the opposite.

Online Casino Landscape Changes Dramatically

Up until the early 2000s, online casino players in the United States were able to freely play at the plethora of sites that were available to them. By mid-2004 however, both Google and Yahoo decided to remove any and all online casino advertising. This was a move spurred by the Department of Justice issuing an opinion saying that the aforementioned Federal Wire Act does, in fact, cover all forms of internet gambling. Even though no one was arrested and no real action was taken by the DoJ, this opinion alone was enough to cause a stir that altered the US online casino industry permanently. This announcement was widely viewed as explicitly contradicting the US Appellate Court’s 2002 decision that the Federal Wire Act only applied to online sports betting.

The dominoes really began to fall in 2006 when the US House and Senate passed what was known as the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA). Despite what it might sound, this piece of legislation did not explicitly ban any sort of online casino play. Instead, it barred banks and other financial institutions from facilitating transactions related to online gambling. Almost immediately, many online casinos that were based in other countries began disallowing players from the United States; a move that largely served to protect operators from possible future legal action on the part of the US Department of Justice. While this was mostly true, there were still a few operators that chose to continue accepting US players.

DoJ Seizure and New Jersey Taking the Lead

Throughout the majority of the first decade of the 2000s, players who wanted to take the risk could freely play at any of the offshore, unlicensed online casinos that were available to them. After all, even though the US government was stepping in, their sights were set on casino operators, not the individual players themselves. That all changed in 2009 when more than $30 million of players’ funds were seized by the government. Though most of the money was taken from online poker players, online casino players were impacted as well.

Only a short while later, New Jersey became the first US state to approve online casinos. Quite simply, the bill that was passed allowed for online casinos to exist within New Jersey so long as they took bets solely from those (of age) persons who were geographically located within the state.

More States Make Online Casinos Reality

New Jersey wasn’t alone and in 2013 we saw online casinos go live in Nevada and Delaware, in addition to the Garden State. Since then, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Michigan have all moved to legalize online casinos. Generally speaking, the states that have an established brick and mortar casino presence are also the ones moving towards legalizing online casinos as well. Being that legal and regulated online casinos can only exist once legislation has paved the way for them, it should come as no surprise that regulated online casino markets will trickle, rather than flood, in. After all, nothing that involves the government happens overnight. As we saw in New Jersey, it can take years before the idea of online casinos becomes a reality.

New Jersey Online Casinos

The first months of 2011 are when proponents of online casinos in New Jersey—and the United States as a whole—scored their first major victory in quite some time. The state government of New Jersey approved a piece of legislation that made online gambling legal in the state to anyone who was 21 years or older. This bill was passed thanks, in part, to the fact that Atlantic City was designated as the state’s lone legal gambling hub. Because Ray Lesniak’s bill mandated that servers hosting online casino platforms must be physically located in Atlantic City, any online bet being placed in the state of New Jersey would ultimately have to be “accepted” in the only city in which gambling was expressly legal. Unfortunately, the victory lap for this piece of legislation was short-lived as then-governor Chris Christie vetoed it on concerns regarding problem gambling.

Best Online Us Casinos

Though it took almost two full years, the original piece of legislation that was vetoed by Christie was altered and ultimately approved by both the state government and Chris Christie. The difference between the newly-approved law and the one that was vetoed has everything to do with who is able to attain a state-approved license. Under the original bill, there was seemingly no restrictions relating to the type of business/entity that could apply for and receive a state gaming license. Under the approved piece of legislation, licenses issued by the state of New Jersey were given only to Atlantic City casinos. In other words, an online casino that wished to operate within New Jersey would have to be anchored to an AC casino before it could be given a license.

Verified by GPS

The most significant component to New Jersey’s approval and legalization of online casinos is the location tracking. Because this is a law applicable only to New Jersey, the only way to avoid Federal scrutiny is to ensure that bets are only placed by those 21 years and older who are physically located within New Jersey at the time of the bet’s acceptance. The state’s gaming commission is tasked with utilizing GPS to ensure that all bets are placed within New Jersey’s borders.

Understanding that other states may follow New Jersey’s lead and allow for intrastate online casinos to exist, the aforementioned bill allowed for future agreements that would see Atlantic City online casinos offer their services to folks who lived in other states where online gambling was approved.

During the later stages of 2013, when New Jersey’s first online casinos began accepting bets, the online casino options were not quite as robust and expansive as many had hoped. Unsurprisingly, this changed in a hurry as competition in New Jersey (and nearby in Pennsylvania) caused operators to constantly improve their offerings. Nowadays, the number of online casinos available to those in New Jersey is larger than ever and growing all the time. A full listing of New Jersey online casinos can be found below:

–888 Online Casino New Jersey
–Bet365 Online Casino New Jersey
–BetAmerica Online Casino New Jersey
–BetFair Online Casino New Jersey
-Borgata Online Casino New Jersey
-Caesars Online Casino New Jersey
–BetMGM Online Casino New Jersey
–SugarHouse Online Casino New Jersey
–PartyCasino Online Casino New Jersey
-Resorts Online Casino New Jersey
-Mohegan Sun Online Casino New Jersey
-Hard Rock Online Casino New Jersey
-Pala Online Casino New Jersey
–Scores Online Casino New Jersey
-UniBet Online Casino New Jersey
–DraftKings Online Casino New Jersey
-Harrahs Online Casino New Jersey

Regulated Us Online Casinos

Pennsylvania Online Casinos

Pennsylvania did not approve online casinos as quickly as New Jersey, but they did not waste too much time following suit. In order to really understand the manifestation of online casinos in Pennsylvania, one has to go back to the early 2000s, when the attitude towards gambling began to shift across the Keystone State.

Legalized Gambling Finally a Reality

Despite a large number of failed efforts to legalize gambling in a state that was known for conservative attitudes, proponents of gambling were finally successful in 2004. It was in this year that Act 71, as it is known, was approved by the Pennsylvania state government. Though the Act itself focused on horse tracks and the betting that would take place there, it also approved the existence of casinos.

Pennsylvania was like many other states in that it had a longstanding worldview which precluded that gambling was a social evil, one that brought about and lived alongside crime and a host of other amoral activities. Like many other states however, the turn of the 21st century saw a new generation of adults take over; a generation that was not scared of the specter of gambling.

By the end of the first full year of legalized casino gambling in Pennsylvania, taxes accrued to the tune of several hundred million dollars. As the obvious benefits of legalizing casinos became realized in real time, an increasing number of lawmakers pushed for the scope of legalized gambling to be expanded even more.

2017 Expansion

With almost a full decade of legalized gambling under its belt, the state of Pennsylvania relaxed gambling restrictions even further. It was during 2017 when the state legislature, and ultimately Governor Tom Wolf, approved a law that would not only expand the scope of gambling to include establishments other than casinos, but to also include online casinos.

The first three online casinos did not go live until the middle stages of 2019, but after a brief trial period the state’s Gambling Control Board decided to increase the number of available online licenses from three to 10.
The currently available online casinos in Pennsylvania are as follows:

–Unibet Online Casino Pennsylvania
–SugarHouse Online Casino Pennsylvania
–Hollywood Casino Pennsylvania
–FanDuel Online Casino Pennsylvania
–BetAmerica Online Casino Pennsylvania
-PokerStars Online Casino Pennsylvania
–Parx Online Casino Pennsylvania

Delaware Online Casinos

Delaware may be known as the First State, and it certainly lived up to this when it also became the first state to legalize online casinos. Though New Jersey and Pennsylvania were not too far behind, Delaware beat their Mid-Atlantic neighbors to establish an online casino network within the state.

Delaware being the first state to legalize online casinos in 2012 gave them a head-start, but the state’s small size and population mean that there are still only a select few number of online casinos in operation. The currently available Delaware online casinos are as follows:

–Dover Downs Online Casino Delaware
–Harrington Online Casino Delaware
–Delaware Park Online Casino Delaware