Online Gambling Gets Shut Down

Internet casinos and sportsbooks have grown immensely in popularity over the past several years. From playing cards to betting on the Super Bowl to playing roulette, you can literally have Las Vegas in the comfort of your own home. However, is it legal to gamble online?

The answer is, yes and no. Currently, the law stipulates that online gambling is illegal, but given the fact that most online casinos continue to operate unfettered, it might seem that it is in fact legal to run an online betting or casino business.

What forms of gambling are available online? Well, you can play poker and other card games, you can bet on sports, or you can play games of chance, such as roulette, craps, etc.

Betting on sports seems like a perfectly legitimate form of online betting – the computer does not control who wins a pro football game. Games of chance should probably be prohibited. A computerized roulette wheel can easily be fixed, resulting in a few winning bets, but enough losing spins to insure the house wins.

So, of these activities, which ones are legal? According to the Wire Wager Act, betting on sports is the only form of online wagering that is illegal. The Wire Wager Act reads as follows:

“Whoever being engaged in the business of betting or wagering knowingly uses a wire communication facility for the transmission in interstate or foreign commerce of bets or wagers, or information assisting in the placement of bets or wagers on any sporting event or contest, or for the transmission of a wire communication which entitles the recipient to receive money or credit as a result of bets or wagers, or for information assisting in the placing of bets or wagers, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years or both.”

This means that it is illegal for American based internet companies to accept bets on sports or other “contests.” However, most online gambling enterprises have moved their operations offshore to countries in Central America and other countries around the world. It is common for most of these companies to be incorporated in places like Antigua or the Caribbean islands. PartyPoker, the most popular website for playing poker for money online, is licensed and regulated by the Government of Gibraltar.

Online sportsbooks, often run by Americans offshore, still accept bets from Americans, and this is where the problem arises. Americans are the biggest betters, and most of the income stream for online sports betting comes from American wagers. These companies usually provide wire instructions to the gamblers so that the player can wire money into a pre-funded betting account before they can begin wagering.

So, the question is, is it legal for an offshore company to run their business offshore but still accept bets from the United States, where online sports betting is technically illegal? Yes and no. Theoretically it is illegal, but it is very difficult to compel an online sports betting service to shut itself down if they operate under the laws of a foreign government where it is legal.

It is been very difficult for the Department of Justice to enforce the Wire Wager Act when it comes to offshore companies, and the offshore betting business continues to get bigger and bigger. In 1998, the sum total of all internet wagers was estimated at $600 million, and has grown by 10 or more times that between then and the year 2006.

The Wire Wager Act was upheld when the U.S. Supreme Court, during 2001 and 2002, refused to review the conviction of Jay Cohen, who had been running an internet sportsbook based in Antigua. And, even though the Department of Justice has said in recent years that that the Wire Wager Act also declares online casino games, not just sports betting, to be illegal, the Federal Appeals Court has ruled that that interpretation is not correct.

However, in July of 2006, everything changed. On a vote of 317-93, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to ban financial payments to offshore casinos as part of the The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 H.R. 4411. The legislation also compels banks and credit card companies to cut off payments to the estimated 2,300 gambling sites located outside of U.S. jurisdiction. This legislation bans all forms of internet gambling, including card games and sportsbetting.

Ultimately, the U.S. Government is just trying to protect betters from getting screwed by online casinos that accept bets over the internet but do not pay out when someone wins. However, it does not seem fair to allow major casinos that operate in Las Vegas and Atlantic City to have a monopoly on the betting industry.

Online casinos and sports betting over the internet should be permitted. The United States simply needs to implement a system whereby the online casino industry is regulated, making it mandatory for these companies to disclose the details of their operations and apply for a casino or sportsbook license.

Online Games ? the Best Pastime!

The Internet is filled with hundreds and hundreds of free games, played by people from various corners of the world. Regardless of their age or occupation, they all enjoy the multitude of online games presented and make a genuine passion when it comes to spending their free time in such a way.

Given the increased demand, new games are being introduced online regularly. Internet users enjoy top-quality directories with free games, without any advertisements or annoying pop-ups. Apart from new games, one can also check out the section presenting the most popular choices, funny or fashion-related. The categories of online games are the most diverse, being suitable for different age categories and level of experience. In fact, most of them are quite easy to play and are completely recommended to beginners.

Whether you go for free games that have one or two players, you are guaranteed to have an amazing time. 3D online games are amongst the most interesting choices, sitting at the top of the list with those filled with action and adventure. You can find almost any type of game online. If you like planes and games with aircrafts, then you should know that you have plenty of options to choose from. And maybe you are interested in aliens, outer space and things like that. Find the online games you are passionate about. It’s impossible not to find something that suits your interests and personal preferences.

Kids can also benefit from the avalanche of online games. One can find free games with animals, balls, balloons, sports, bubbles and fruits. Jigsaw puzzles, army-based and board games are there for the pleasures of your little ones. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself attracted to these great games as a parent. You have sports games, including baseball, basketball, snowboarding, kung fu and soccer but the list could continue for a while. Card games, casino free games and many other games are voted as definitely interesting. You cannot get bored while searching for online games. There are simply too many and all of them equally appealing!

Enter online today and locate free games. Some may require you to fight, others will engage you in a game of volleyball and you will probably find several online games with zombies. For each game you will discover the date when it was submitted, how many times it has been played and the categories to which it is actually pertaining to. If you are really keen on finding out more information before playing, then feel free to read the game’s description and get yourself acquainted with the controls. Most users vote the online games they’ve either liked or hated.

Skateboarding games are definitely in style right now, especially when we are talking about the teenagers. They enjoy the simulation offered by these online games and most of the times get their friends involved. Due to the fact that they are based on flash technology, skateboarding games have plenty of interesting features, appealing to users due to their high interaction level. It is true that online games have managed to attract children as well, particularly those around 12 years old, skateboarding being just one of the hundreds provided at absolutely no cost.

Online free games are easy to play, they have few controls and the diversity offered is a major plus. They may include cartoons, role-playing and samurai fighting, not to mention the wide variety of sports games (online soccer especially). The use of flash technology has increased the accessibility to online games and there is not a person out there not to enjoy such an activity!

Online Internet Marketing – 3 Top Tools And Services For An Effective Internet Marketing Solution

Everyone knows the Internet is growing exponentially and continually evolving. The major players in the continual evolution of the Internet are the major search engines and consumer generated media such as blogs. Because of the continual changes, a well rounded Internet marketing strategy must include a variety of proven marketing options to ensure success. I will outline 3 of the most effective Internet marketing solutions available and how they relate to your marketing strategy.

SEO Optimization

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the first because the free advertising afforded by the search engines is partly determined by on-page optimization techniques. With thousands of new Websites being created daily, the competition for a listing on the first search result page is increasingly saturated for the popular keywords. Statistics show better than 75% of people only look at the first search result page, and a similar percentage only click on the top search listing.

In order to compete effectively, a Web page must be designed around a keyword or more effectively, a keyword phrase. The keywords should be included in the page’s title, keyword META tag, page’s description, the first heading (using the H1 HTML tag), throughout the body of the page and within the last 25 words on the page. These are just a few of the basic SEO on-page options that although will not guarantee a first page listing, are definitely required as a starting point in an effective Internet marketing strategy.

In most cases, there is too much competition for certain keywords such as “golf clubs”. A better strategy would be to use “golf clubs Chicago” or “handcrafted golf clubs”. The more specific you make your keyword phrase the better. A number of free tools are available that will show the popularity of keywords and how often they are used in the search engines on a monthly basis. These will allow you to customize your Web page knowing the keyword phrase’s popularity. If you get the first page listing for a keyword with less than 100 searches per month for instance, then it doesn’t matter because your traffic will be very limited.

Link Exchanges

Once the on-page optimizations are complete, the off-page optimization options need to be addressed. Link exchanges are perhaps the best off-page SEO technique available. Google uses an algorithm to determine a page’s rank, which is determined by the number of other sites linking to it; and the QUALITY of the link is a major consideration. Pages are ranked from 1 to 10. The higher the PageRank of the site linking to yours, the better. Sites with a PR7 and above are considered as authority sites and a back link from them will send Google’s spider to your page on a regular basis.

There are a number of ways to get a back link to your site. You can email a request to the Webmaster for a link exchange. If they agree, you would return the favor by placing a link to their site on your page. You can also purchase the link. A number of sites offer this service for a monthly fee. So if you want to quickly get your site listed by Google and the major search engines, then paying for a PR8 back link for a month or two might be well worth the investment in the long run; as new sites are placed in a “sand box” by Google for several months until they prove their longevity.

One back link from a PR8 site is worth hundreds of back links from PR2 or less sites. As a matter of fact, numerous links from low ranking sites will actually be detrimental to your site. Each back link is like a vote for your site. If you have too many low ranking sites voting for yours, Google will be reluctant to reward your site with a higher PR. You have to do your research on the site that offers to link to yours because if they were blacklisted by Google, your site will receive the same fate and you probably will never recover from this.

A PR 4 or 5 is relatively easy to attain. So your best bet is to limit your back links to PR5 and above for the best results. And by all means avoid link farms. Before Google upgraded its algorithm, just the number of back links was considered. But now the actual PageRank of your back link is considered AND the PageRank of the sites linking to THAT page. Links from link farms are now looked upon as basically spam links. You would be better off purchasing a listing in a major link directory like Yahoo or DMOZ. It’s definitely worth the investment as these are authority sites and are a major vote for your site!

Blogs

As previously indicated, consumer generated media is a major factor in the evolution of the Internet. Case in point is the enormous effect blogs had on the last Presidential campaign. A very large percentage of most searches will include blogs on the first page listing. Over 50% of purchases, online and offline are preceded by an online search for more information. And a large percentage of the information is offered by blogs. People are very interested in the opinions of others on their topic of interest.

The major blogs are updated on a daily basis, which is very important to Google’s algorithm, which uses the frequency of updates (daily, hourly and by minute) as a determining factor in the search result ranking. A powerful marketing method used by the major blogs is to submit articles on a particular topic to the major article hubs such as http://EzineArticles.com. The article hub benefits by having continually updated information (which Google likes) where they can place their money making AdSense ads. The blogger benefits by having a back link to their blog in the resource section of the article.

As numerous other bloggers and Webmasters access the article hubs for fresh information, the article can be syndicated virally to a number of sites on the Internet. This creates a number of back links to your blog or your site; generating an enormous amount of pre-qualified free traffic.

In Summary

These are just a few of the more effective online Internet marketing options available. Other options such as auto-responder email, EZine advertising and pay per click advertising should be included in a well rounded Internet marketing strategy. No matter what options you use, you definitely need to start with your on-page SEO techniques. Your listing in the search results will be enhanced by a properly optimized page.

Further optimization must include the off-page SEO techniques such as generating back links with the major site directories, link exchanges and articles submitted to the major article hubs. Using a blog for a reference in your article can be a good thing as people will be more inclined to visit a blog since it’s not a sales page. Once they have received enough information and you have generated their confidence in your opinions, you can end up with a lifetime customer.