Thursday, 24 May 2012
All internet casinos and other online gambling sites are legally required to obtain licenses before they may offer gambling services over the internet. These licenses are only available from a handful of specific governmental jurisdictions around the world – places where internet gambling is fully legal. These jurisdictions are often entire countries, but sometimes they are smaller self-governed regions that have the ability to create their own laws.
Every different online gambling jurisdiction operates a little differently. Variables include differences in gambling tax rates, player protection policies, license costs, and technical standards that online gambling sites must follow.
This information is important to players for several reasons. First, it is absolutely vital for players to only deal with sites that are fully and legally licensed. Online gambling sites are required by the entity that issued their license to follow certain rules, and these rules ensure fair dealing and trustworthy gameplay. Furthermore, the governmental entities that give out licenses often offer a certain level of player protection, so players have something to fall back upon when their dealings with an online gambling site take a turn for the worst.
Second, not all licensees are created equal – all are reliable, some are definitely better than others. The information provided below will help players understand the differences between different online gambling licensing jurisdictions, and help players decide where they want to gamble. On each page, links are provided to recommended sites licensed in each area (all gambling sites we link to at Jackpot Finder are fully and legally licensed).
Alderney is a self-governing British Crown Dependency, and is the third largest of the British Channel Islands. The island is entirely independent, belong to neither the UK nor the EU.
This two-island Caribbean nation was one of the first jurisdictions to offer licenses for remote gambling operations, and have been doing so since 1994. The nation's history in the online gambling industry has been a rough one, riddled with battles against the US.
Costa Rica, a small Spanish speaking country in Central America, is an extremely popular jurisdiction for companies to run their online gambling sites from. This is because the licensing procedures in Costa Rica work somewhat differently than in other places.
A few years ago, the only spot in the Netherland Antilles that was allowed to regulate and license online gambling was the island of Curacao. In 2002, this power was decentralized, and today, the Governor of the Netherlands Antilles holds the power to award internet gambling licenses.
Gibraltar is a small self-governing British territory located on the southern-most tip of Europe. The territory has been dealing with offshore and remote gambling since the late 1980s, and issued its first online gambling license in 1998.
Located in north-eastern Canada just outside of Montreal, the Kahnawake Mohawk Territory, or simply Kahnawake, is a self-governing entity, sometimes referred to as a "First Nations (Indian) Reserve". The Kahnawake Gaming Commission has been licensing online gambling sites since 1999.
The Republic of Malta is an island nation in the Mediterranian Sea. A former colony of the United Kingdom, Malta became part of the European Union in 2004. Malta's Public Lotto Ordinance has been issuing online gambling licenses since 2000.
The Northern Territory is a federal territory of Australia, making up the entire north-central portion of the continent. All licenses are managed by the Northern Territory Government Department of Justice.
Internet gaming operators may run most types of remote gambling services out of the United Kingdom. Online gambling is regulated by the UK Gambling Commission, pursuant to the Gambling Act of 2005, but it was not until 2007 that they started issuing licenses for online gambling activities.
