Gambling City Forums

For years, on line casinos have had a great deal. They could set any T&Cs they want, often hide them away in very lengthy sets of rules which few players read (and many cannot understand) and when a player wins, cite these T&Cs as reasons not to pay.

Less reputable casinos would go even further -- and interpret these very broadly worded T&Cs as giving them the right to refuse to pay anyone whose "playing pattern" they did not like. Still others pay but do so very slowly in small installments. The very worst of the casinos simply do not pay at all and ignore any e-mails sent to them.

Why not? They are often far from where their players are and they know that an American or European player is not about to find and pay a lawyer in Costa Rica or Curacao (and for that matter, Malta or Gibraltar) to chase down a win of a few thousand dollars.

Yes, there are definitely some very honest and good casinos on line which do not engage in any of these practices, but each time that one casino pulls one of these tricks it hurts the reputation of the industry in general and even the good casinos suffer.

Now, however, the situation is becoming worse for on line casinos. It used to be that in America you had to go to a handful of states in order to gamble. In Europe, few countries had casinos and those that did only offered them in a small number of cities.

That is changing rapidly. Currently, there are casinos in 36 of the 50 states in the US (with many of these states having a great number of them) and more and more casinos are opening in Europe.

For the overwhelming majority of people in both the US and Europe, going to a casino no longer requires getting into an airplane or facing a very lengthy drive.

In the US you are not required to show any identification to play or to collect your winnings. In Europe, you have to show picture IDs but you certainly are not required to provide utility bills or prove your address in any way. Most importantly, you know that if you win, you will collect -- not after months of arguing, not in stretched out installments, but right away.

The one advantage that on line casinos have -- that you can play in the comfort of your own home -- remains but with the increasing number of local casinos, that advantage is withering away. To get it back, the on line casino industry has to become competitive with brick and mortar casinos in ease and speed of registering and collecting. If it does not, there soon will not be many people willing to bet on line.

It is not reasonable to expect each and every on line casino to recognize this and to start acting responsibly. Those who stand to lose the most if on line gambling disappears are the large software providers, like Microgaming. They have to take it upon themselves to make certain that any casino which uses their software is both as honest and as easy to collect from as brick and mortar casinos. These software providers have the power to do so but if they continue to leave these matters in the hands of the individual casinos, on line gambling will soon become as extinct as 8 track cassettes and dial up networks.