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Slots in New Hampshire are becoming a battleground

One of the more exciting features of the latest recession has been the collapse of tax revenue flowing into the coffers of the individual US states. Sales are down so there's less tax take there. Property values have crashed through the floor so, where tax is a percentage of valuation, the tax take has fallen - with so many properties foreclosed and families unemployed, payment of the tax has been difficult to enforce. People have been earning less and businesses have made less profit so, again, less income tax. Put everything together and many states are effectively bankrupt, their bonds reduced to junk status by the credit rating agencies. Yet there is no political will to really grasp the nettle of tax increases. If the electorate want the same level of services from the state, they have to pay for them. If they genuinely will not pay, they must be prepared to accept real cuts in the quality of the services. Perhaps this recession will finally break through the stubborn refusal to pay a larger percentage of income as tax. While we wait for this revolution, individual states are playing around the margins to save a few dollars here, and raise a few dollars there. Their theory is that federal government will not allow them to fail. Like AIG, many of the states are "too big". So bail-out money will save them from having to make the hard decisions.

This has not prevented some states from getting creative. In New Hampshire, Governor John Lynch has a new policy. To help bridge the gap between solvency and insolvency, he's proposing to legalize online gambling. The detail of the plan is to be announced soon, but it's already controversial. Ignoring the problems created by the federal law clamp-down on the transfer of funds for gambling purposes, the Governor has been caught in a classic flip-flop. Not so long ago, the lawmakers who represent the real-world casino interests proposed a bill to licence some 17,000 slots and table games. The recession was not yet in its full glory and the hole in the budget was not today's gaping chasm. The Governor decided to veto the bill.

He gave two reasons. The first a simple calculation that there were already a significant number of machines in the state and licensing more was unlikely to produce a real increase in revenue. It would only share out the same money among more machines. But it's the second reason that has landed him in trouble. He said the bill would lead to an increase in gambling. Whether he was concerned at the rising level of addiction, the risk of more young people being tempted into gambling or he had some moral objections is not clear. The bill died. The new proposal to legalize online gambling is likely to make gambling more accessible. If people have to travel to specific locations, their behavior can be more closely monitored and controlled. The age of players can be verified. Operators can stop someone when they have obviously lost too much. Allowing gambling from PCs, lap and palm top machines, and Blackberrys is opening the flood gates. Playing online slots, people can burn through a lot of money very quickly without anyone to stop them. The Governor can't have it both ways. If proliferating gambling is a bad thing, legalizing online gambling is a bad thing. While he decides how to answer, we can all have fun playing slots wherever we find them.

Casino online games lose out to the real world

In many ways, the US has the best and the worst system of federal and state governments in the world. Arguably it has the qualities of being the best because, even though it's a two-horse race, there's enough of a difference between the political intentions of the successful candidates to make life interesting. But it's one of the worst because of the level of corruption in the lawmaking following elections. Money speaks loud behind the scenes with different lobbying groups pressuring the elected representatives to deliver on the promises they made to get the campaign funds. For these purposes, it makes no difference which party you look at. All the individuals at every level in the political system depend on "donations" to get elected. When it comes to the world of gambling, the politics get particularly complicated. For individual states, the revenue derived from the different forms of licensed gambling helps avoid complete financial meltdown. Yes, there's a recession, but this has only slowed the flow of money into gambling. Unlike other sources of tax revenue, the gamblers of America are helping balance budgets. But there are different interested parties. In one corner stand the real world casino operators who want the least possible regulation on their activities. Their group is not united because the casinos on Indian land have advantages and, some say, represent unfair competition. We should not forget the other sites who can get licences to run slots. In another corner stand the racing interests. They are long-standing political players and also want the maximum freedom to run their own betting operations with the least interference from states. This blurs into another group that runs betting operations on other sporting events. While a more distant group runs online casinos.

As an example of the conflict of interests, let's go to Massachusetts where there's a new bill in the state House to establish two new real world casinos. As always, the declared intention is to generate more revenue for the state. To maintain a monopoly for the land-based casino operations, the bill proposes to criminalize all online gambling. It will be an offense for any resident of Massachusetts to place or accept a wager placed by a telecommunication device, no matter where they may be located. You will realize, of course, this includes all telephone betting and would hit the racing and sports betting operations. Not surprisingly, this has stirred up an intense lobbying exercise.

Real world operations are preferred because they are easier to police and monitor when it comes to collecting the tax or levy. Once operations disappear down telephone lines or into the internet, they can be based anywhere. This seriously complicates the collection of any tax. States like to keep their worlds simple. They want the maximum revenue from licensed gambling with the lowest possible cost for collection. Just crossing state lines makes collection more difficult. If casino games are offered from outside US territory, tax cannot be collected. That's one of the reasons why the federal government clamped down on the use of credit cards and other easy payment methods. It forced more operations onshore where they could be taxed. Whether you agree with this approach to balancing the budgets is irrelevant. Casino games are seen as the easy way to raise money without upsetting the electorate. Imagine a world without gambling and hear the roar of anger if states announced an increase in sales tax.

Casino games offered on Chatroulette

One of the fascinating things about the internet is the speed with which some new sites take off. One minute, you have this tiresome start-up calling itself Facebook, the next everyone has an account. In this context, the rise (and rise) of Chatroulette is all the more exciting. We've all been chatting and skyping for so long we can't remember. Webcams have been standard pieces of kit, turning up to allow machine-to-machine video conferencing and to show all kinds of interesting activities when they are planted in unexpected places. So adding in the gambling element completes the picture (as it were). At one level, you could describe the site as your chance to meet new people, except these people could be doing absolutely anything when random chance connects you. In a conventional world, everyone participating would sit calmly in front of their PCs, wearing all their clothes and a welcoming smile. Unfortunately, the randomness and anonymity of the system encourages people to slide towards pornography or voyeurism depending on your inclinations. A remarkable number of people seem prepared to get naked and show off their genitals, or dress up as animals or apparently conduct weird social experiments by giving viewers curious instructions. It's the more sane people who hit the news. Ben Folds has been singing us songs, and a new celebrity is running a primitive gambling scam.

Chance can now connect you to a live dealer offering roulette and blackjack. If you are inclined to play, our mystery croupier gives you his PayPal address and, with a deposit made, the game of your choice begins. You can play for as long as you like. If luck is not with you, topping up the PayPal account is quick and easy. But something that should be not unexpected happens if you tire of this amateurish show and ask for your winnings. The croupier reaches for the "Next" button and disappears from your screen. OK, so let's take two steps back. You were prepared to part with your money to a complete stranger. Well, now's your chance to learn all about the PayPal contract. You have a record of the payment(s) made so, in theory, you can get your money back. Although you will look a fool, you could also report this sad episode to your local law enforcement agencies. They would be delighted to spend time tracking down this guy. But there's a much more interesting question to ask.

The majority of jurisdictions around the world regulate gambling. Online casinos must have a licence. So, Chatroulette is allowing someone to run casino games without a licence. In many jurisdictions, this could make Andrey Ternovskiy, Chatroulette's owner, liable to one or more criminal offenses. If our mystery croupier's activities are small scale and PayPal is able to recover most of the money paid into his various accounts, it's unlikely any country will take action against Chatroulette or its owner. But if the volume of pornography rises, the police might get increasingly interested in trying to shut the site down (or block it) which would also take down these unofficial casino games and the scammer behind them. There does come a point when, for better or worse, governments step in and take down some of the fun sites. Politicians and moral guardians never seem to have a sense of humor about anything.

Should lawmakers ban smoking in casinos?

This site is not Libertarian but we know what we like about gambling and the experience of going into casinos. While we can all approve of regulations to keep gambling reasonably honest and fair, there comes a point when enough is enough with the lawmaking. Let's take the issue of smoking as an example. Most of us probably believe the science linking tobacco with fatal diseases. Whether you smoke or draw in the smoke second-hand, the risks of cancer and heart disease are even admitted by the tobacco industry. So, on New Year, we all repeat our resolution not to start or to quit. It's all down to us - a personal decision. If we do decide to smoke, this is a "victimless crime". No-one is forcing us to do this and it should not be for the law to get involved in making any part of smoking a crime. There are no laws criminalising overeating even though the obese die younger, or threatening to put alcoholics in jail because they are damaging their livers. People own their own bodies and should be allowed to do what they want with it.

So what do we make of all these laws banning or restricting smoking in public places? There are no federal laws. It all comes down to the lawmakers in each state. Some have fairly comprehensive laws restricting smoking in the workplace. Others go on to include some bars and restaurants. But, so far, most states have avoided any kind of restrictions on the operation of casinos. The consensus view has been to avoid anything that might reduce the revenue from gambling operations. As the recession has taken hold and the tax-take from conventional businesses has fallen, maintaining the flow on money into the state coffers has become even more important. So far, the need for money has outweighed the health concerns. After all, no-one forces people to go to a casino. If you are not a smoker and want to avoid passive smoking, do not go to a casino.

Based on the experience in Atlantic City which went through a two-week ban on smoking, casino operators estimate their gross revenues would drop by more than one-third. Where would these gamblers go to play their favorite casino games? There are two obvious alternatives. The Tribal casinos stand outside state laws on smoking, and people can always stay home to gamble online. There are no laws to restrict what people do in the privacy of their own homes. We could also get into a kind of bidding war where some states with high costs on the healthcare front may clamp down on smoking only to find their own citizens drive into neighboring states to play there. That's a double whammy because the lawmaking states lose tax revenue and still have the health costs of treating their citizens who fall ill because of their smoking. There should be federal legislation to replace this current patchwork of different laws. Health is a national priority. Washington should decide the limits on what people should do in public places. As it is, drinking and smoking goes with casino games just like turkey goes with Thanksgiving. Breaking the link is going to make one set of lawmakers really unpopular. Shall we bet on whether federal laws are introduced?

Play online blackjack easily

No game guarantees you the first place. No online game will guarantee you the winner title. Even if you spend years practicing have a chance to lose. If we talk about online blackjack - well, probably it is the best combination of skill and luck. But you should not think that there is nothing you can do to give yourself a possibility to win if you don't consider yourself too lucky. Here we will share our visitors' top 5 advices with you. Those five will help you gain more money playing blackjack.

1: One of the most important aspects is the game choice. Don't get into wrong notion that blackjack is a standard game. There are lots of variations of it. Players usually stick to their favorite game, the one that brings them more money. However we don't recommend you to play one and same game all the time. Sometimes it makes perfect sense to try your luck with another type.

2: If you are the type of player that needs a real casino instead an online one - you better secure yourself with a club card. Player's club cards give you lots of privilege. These privileges could decrease your expenses in the casino, which is always favorable. What will a player's club card do for you? It will grant you free meals and maybe a free room on some occasions.

3: If the game doesn't look too bright or if the game requires you to come back another time - you should really stop at 17. But you should remember that this will only work in the case of no low cards appearing on the table yet. Which also means the next low card could be yours which you do not want. You should try various combinations where you can re-split or double down your cards.

4: Always stay in your mind with bets. I know sometimes it seems like the one that bets more wins more but this theory could be false. People make big bets in order to impress others around; they want to make others bet much as well. If you plan to use some kind of Blackjack system, don't make it your Bible. There is no one irresistible method for winning in Blackjack. If such method excisted, then the person that created it would definitely not be selling it to you for a few dollars. Why would they do it? Sounds a good question.

5: The fifth advice would be not to believe those silly stories about counting cards in blackjack as it is never the case. If you are some kind of a math genius, you may try that one for a change but trust me; most of us won't be able to count it up.

Another important note to remember would be not let anybody rush you or tell you how to play. As long as you know exactly what you are doing - you are safe. If you don't trust yourself with cards and you know you can put too much at steak - don't enter the casino.

Know your budget when you play. Don't ever let the casino control your life, you should control it. We wish you good luck with it and hope our advices helped you to know more about the blackjack game.

Helpful tips to online gambling newbies

When playing games that have to do with luck or chance (like poker or blackjack) there is a certain set of rules that will make your playing experience a lot more effective and exciting. These rules are not something to follow strictly, however you will see that they really help if taken into account and will save you a lot of time and stress if applied during your gaming process. The games you play, your experience or bankroll do not affect the way you should interpret these tips as they are of universal effectiveness and can be applied in most gaming situations. So here we go:

Learn the rules before actually playing a game. That is a must when thinking of playing just any game at the casino. First, you have to clearly understand the rules behind the game and make sure you understand all the terminology. You can't play blackjack if you can't count to 21. Just imagine going to a business meeting where everyone's speaking Japanese (and you don't understand any single word out of it). The same thing hare. And there's really no excuse in not knowing the rules with some many free online casinos out there today, where you can practice as much as you want.
Keep a slow pace of your gaming process. Don't net everything you have in the first 15 minutes, because gambling is about the fun of playing, not spending all you got as fast as you can. Make sure you follow your own rhythm and have something to gamble with after and hour or two into the game.
Define your playing budget. You will have to set the maximum amount of money you can afford losing during the nigh. And don't spend even a penny over this amount. Forget about your credit card and leave it at home, because the temptation of withdrawing more money will be very strong, and if you will actually do it you will have to deal with even a larger sum of money lost and all the hassle behind it.
Don't try to outplay your losses. Of course the temptation of winning over your losses with larger bets will be high, but it's definitely not the smartest thing to do. In fact, it will make the things even worse. In this case it is better to switch the table or the game altogether and start all over if you are still within your budget.
Avoid distractions. It is important to keep the focus on your gaming process. Because a simple and stupid mistake can result in a big loss. And that's really disappointing.
Don't push yourself too hard. Taking breaks is very important because it helps you stay in focus. Try refreshing yourself during the breaks and stay alert on what's happening at the table when getting back.
Keep track of your emotions. Gambling is not the best thing to do when you're angry, furious or depressed. Keep in mind that focus is the key to winning at any casino games and any emotions that will interfere with your alertness are a one way ticket to losing.
Try to have as much fun as possible. This is what gambling is all about. As long as you're having fun when playing you'll be less prone to losing money. Try to remember this and be positive about anything that happens at the table.