Online Casinos..Where do we really stand???

[4 of a kind]

What percentage of the players that gamble in the online casino market are actually involved with straight up forums such as Casinomeister? There are millions and millions of players out there. We all know it’s a several billion dollar annual industry at present. What percentage of those funds are actually being bet by informed players? I was playing at one of the rogue casinos listed here for nine years, not even having a clue, till I just happened to stumble upon this site looking for a new site after the UIGEA law was passed in the U.S.A. and eventually learning what’s going on.

The casinos that are listed here on the accredited list are such a small percentage when compared to what’s out there. We even have casino reps talking to us at this forum, constantly trying to satisfy our whines. We also saw them put their foot in their mouths more then once also. Don’t get me wrong, this is a great thing to have at our fingertips. But, what percentage of the billion dollar market does all this actually account for.

Now I read thread after thread, post after post, about several different software companies rigging the take for the casino pockets. For example RTG software the present active victim being accused of rigging here. Well RTG supplies not only rogue sites, but also accredited sites as well. If there were any principle in their thinking why would they continue to supply confirmed rogue sites. Because it’s just about the money!!! Rogue sites will screw you out of your big hits, and from what I’m reading here you don’t have a chance of hitting them at accredited sites.

I guess the point I’m trying to make is that, although there are sites trying to build a reputable casino business online, the small percentage of informed gamblers online are not enough to get it done for them when compared to what other sites are taking in the wrong way.

I think the only way things could ever change online, is if and when the USA get involved with this money tree. I know I’m going to feel a lot better when I click into the Bellagio website coming out of Vegas…

Maybe the complaints about RTG software are accurate. Maybe they know the USA is coming...

[jetset]

Not a lot of research has been done on the message board phenomenon, but imo empirical results have shown that the top fora definitely have clout and are used by a surprisingly high percentage of players - particularly as they become more savvy and start using additional sources of information rather than being swayed by grand bonuses or heavy advertising.

The first time I can personally recall a formal assessment of the impact of message boards was the massive eCOGRA global player research study carried out three years back by research teams from Nottingham Trent University supported by the University of Nevada, supplemented by qualitative focus groups in six of the industry’s major markets - US, UK, Japan, Canada, Germany and Sweden.

http://www.ecogra.org/news-details.aspx?OP=&NewsID=100

Here's a small quote from a very wide-ranging and interestng survey, albeit three years ago (I suspect demographics have changed and possibly message board use has increased since then)

QUOTE:

Message boards

Nearly 40% of respondents said they visited message boards or forums, contradicting previous perceptions of online gambling as a rather solitary activity.

Message forums are visited to get information about sites (53% say they visit for this purpose), to have a general read and catch up on news (40% and 37% respectively), as well as find out about promotional offers (the most popular of all, cited by 65% of respondents).

UNQUOTE

If I were an American player I would probably find myself in agreement with your comments regarding a preference for trusted and stringently regulated top land gambling brands if circumstances ever permitted them doing business in the USA online environment.

Unfortunately, many online gambling operators (Virtual group comes to mind, but there are others both individually and as groups who are equally challenged when it comes to treating OPs fairly and with respect) have cast a shadow across the industry.

That said, there are many long-established and fair operations in existance...the savvy gamblers are the ones that know how to differentiate between the two using sites like this and personal research.

[4 of a kind]

Thanks for that link to the survey Jetset. Was an informative read.

Found it odd that I didn't fit within any of the ranges of average type player at either poker or casino sites.

Also found this tidbit interesting:

Approximately half of all respondents had confidence in the integrity of the software, although disturbingly, one in three people thought that the sites had an on/off switch that allowed them to turn the software in their favour – something that an eCOGRA member site would find it impossible to implement thanks to the organisation’s standards for software development and independent testing procedures.

[jetset]

The on/off switch was a very popular perception at the time. Maybe still is?

Regarding your atypical profile - I think in a way I'd be pleased to feel I was in the out-of-the-ordinary category LOL!

[Antonia1953]

I think this recent article best exhibits the current political disposition regarding online gambling being legalized in the US...keeping in mind that at the end of the day, gambling is a state by state issue.

Too Soon For Gambling To Celebrate Democrats’ Senate Majority
14 Jul, 2009 / Gambling Compliance / Chris Krafcik


If Republicans in the United States Senate wanted to filibuster internet gambling bills, theoretically, they could not. But promising as this development sounds, it doesn’t mean much for the sector’s legislative prospects, experts say.
On July 7, Al Franken, the former ‘Saturday Night Live’ funnyman, was sworn in as the junior Democratic senator from Minnesota.

Franken’s appointment, which comes after a protracted legal battle with his Republican opponent, Norm Coleman, gives the Democratic Party a coveted 60-to-40 voting edge in the Senate.

Two of those 60 seats, it should be noted, are held by independents - Bernard Sanders of Vermont and Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut - who both side with the Democrats on most issues.

Significantly, 60 seats constitute a three-fifths majority: the exact voting ratio required to kill filibusters through a procedure called cloture.

Without question, filibustering is a contentious tradition in American politics - one that’s practiced in the Senate, exclusively. And since the mid-19th century, its members have been colourfully obstructing legislative procedure with interminable talk.

Famously, in 1935, Huey P. Long, the populist Senator from Louisiana, spoke for over 15 hours, without interruption, to delay a bill that would have given his political enemies at home gainful New Deal jobs. During the marathon monologue, Long read the United States Constitution, line for line, and recited several Shakespearean plays. He even offered a recipe for fried oysters.

For all those wasted minutes, however, Long does not hold the Senate record.

That honour belongs to Strom Thurmond, the segregationist Republican senator from South Carolina who, in 1957, held up a civil rights bill for 24 hours and 18 minutes.

Although the filibuster has been called “a formula for tyranny by the minority,” by none other than former Senate majority leader Bill Frist, one of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act’s chief architects, it is also embraced as a check against ill-conceived legislation and partisan domination.

Tyrannical or not, Norman J. Ornstein, a resident scholar with the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., told GamblingCompliance that the Republican minority will “try to use the filibuster a lot” during the current session of Congress, as both parties haggle over issues like healthcare and energy reform.

But is internet gambling legislation, like that expected from Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, likely to arouse a Republican filibuster? Probably not.

“This [internet gambling] isn't the kind of issue that is the subject of a Senate cloture vote,” a Washington gambling lobbyist, who declined to be named, told GamblingCompliance. “Party ratios will affect other things, but probably not this.”

During a time when the United States is saddled with two wars and a moribund auto industry, indifference - not partisanship - may become internet gambling’s biggest threat, politically.

“At this point, it’s hard to believe that internet gambling, as an issue, is going to reach a level of significant consideration,” Frank J. Fahrenkopf Jr., president and chief executive of the powerful American Gaming Association, told GamblingCompliance.

“I think internet gambling will continue to occupy a very low and remote place on every politico’s priority list, left or right,” echoed Martin D. Owens Jr., a California attorney specialising in Internet gambling.

“I certainly can’t see the likes of Barney Frank or Rahm Emmanuel shaving points off the national health care bill, the carbon cap-and-trade effort or the Afghan war so they can win the fight to license online gambling nationwide. It just ain’t worth that much to them.”

Despite a recent influx of analyst-driven hype about the Democratic majority – and how that ratio could grease the rails for internet gambling regulation - Ornstein, of the American Enterprise Institute, said it is uncertain whether Senate Democrats, for their part, will regularly vote with one voice.

“While Democrats have 60 votes, they have two members who are facing health issues and are rarely there to vote, and no prospects of perfect unity on a consistent basis,” he said, referring to a small number of Democratic centrists who have refused to toe the party line.

Moreover, in a recent interview with The New York Times, Harry M. Reid, the Senate majority leader from Nevada, acknowledged that holding a mathematical advantage means relatively little in practice.

“We have 60 votes on paper,” Reid told the paper. “But we cannot bulldoze anybody; it doesn’t work that way.”

Looking ahead, Joseph M. Kelly, business law professor at Buffalo College in New York, told GamblingCompliance that, for internet gambling, Franken’s arrival as the 60th Democratic vote in the Senate is “meaningless”.

“Harry Reid is still the key there,” said Kelly, who is also co-editor of the legal journal Gaming Law Review.

Fahrenkopf agrees.

“You just wonder, though, how much energy Democratic leadership is going to put into it,” Fahrenkopf said in reference to Reid and his counterpart in the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi of California.

Reid remains something of an enigma for internet gambling observers.

The senator, who was chair of the Nevada Gaming Commission in the late 1970s, has aired concern about internet gambling’s capacity to be effectively regulated. But a small number of Reid’s influential constituents - notably, the casino giants MGM Mirage and Harrah’s Entertainment Inc. - are actively supporting internet gambling’s legitimacy.

Anthony N. Cabot, an attorney with the Reno firm Lewis and Roca, believes that continued support from the casino industry will likely help alleviate some of Reid’s concern.

Fahrenkopf, a veteran of The Hill who achieved prominence during the 1980s as chairman of the Republican Party, reminded though that Internet gambling’s future in the Senate has still to be written.

“I think it’s too early to tell,” he said, when asked his opinion on how an internet gambling bill would fare there.

“Really, the Senate has never considered internet gambling.”

[4 of a kind]

Yea, this report sounds pretty accurate. Although things seemed optimistic these past couple of months, you know Barney Frank, Vegas, etc...

Maybe another year or two before we know for sure one way or the other. If by this time the US still remains banned, I'll probably just stick to online poker.

[love2winalot]

Hiya: What surprises me is how little effort the Casino Owners/Cust serv reps, put into promoting their Casino on Message boards, and e mail links. I mean, if everyone was saying you are great, "Casinomeister, wizard of odds, gamblers glen, gambling dot com, and so on" Would you not, as an On Line Casino, want as many people as possible to know this?

How many of us have decided to play at a certain Casino, because some message board said to do so? I Did.................This being the case, would you not WANT players who are not on a gaming message board to be informed of their existance, and how great they say you are?
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ps: Until the USA figures out a way to get Taxes, or Fee's for allowing people to gamble on-line, it won't be coming anytime soon.

Note: Win $1200+ on a slot machine in Vegas, and you have to fill out a w2g to pay taxes on it. Even if you had put in $2000 prior to the win, you pay taxes on a net loss of -$800. hehe

Win $1200+ on the Roulette table, or any table game and you pay 0 Taxes on it. It is left up to the player, to be honest, "hehe, ah hahahaha", sorry, hehe, i fell out of my chair, lol, hmmmm, To be honest, and claim the winnings on their tax return, and pay taxes on it, on their own. I would do this, but i have never won a single penny in any Casino, anywhere....

[Rusty]

Thanks for that link to the survey Jetset. Was an informative read.

Found it odd that I didn't fit within any of the ranges of average type player at either poker or casino sites.

Also found this tidbit interesting:

Approximately half of all respondents had confidence in the integrity of the software, although disturbingly, one in three people thought that the sites had an on/off switch that allowed them to turn the software in their favour – something that an eCOGRA member site would find it impossible to implement thanks to the organisation’s standards for software development and independent testing procedures.

[Antonia1953]

Yea, this report sounds pretty accurate. Although things seemed optimistic these past couple of months, you know Barney Frank, Vegas, etc...

Maybe another year or two before we know for sure one way or the other. If by this time the US still remains banned, I'll probably just stick to online poker.

I consider myself and any US citizen, that is participating in online gambling to be in a state of civil disobedience. Whether the US lifts the ban or not I will probably continue to participate until, or if, it becomes a prosecuting crime. The only other condition that would drive me away from the activity would be the continued unethical and roguish behavior of the casinos. It concerns me that the community has become increasingly more accepting of the battles for fair treatment of players and affiliates. It is setting a dangerous precedent and is a red flag for anti-legalization groups. There needs to be more unity in the guidelines and standards throughout the community.

I haven't had the opportunity to take a look at all online gambling forums and doubt I will attempt to. Frankly, many are a waste of time. So far, this site has provided me with any information and assistance I require. I consider it to be an absolute necessity in keeping abreast of current trends, cautious playing and advocate assistance for unethical behavior. So far, it seems to be the best all around community I have found. I think Casinomeister and other similar sites are imperative to the players, especially to US citizens.