Online Casinos and Gambling as Part of UK Culture
Gambling is very much a part of British culture, Brits have been making wagers on the sport of King, since the crusaders brought back Arab horses from the crusades and spent centuries breeding the thoroughbred. Well established names such as Ladbrokes dates back to 1886 and William Hill was founded in 1934. Every city, town and some villages have a betting shop on the High Street and all cities are home to casinos and bingo halls, even some towns play host to casino, while bingo halls can be found virtually anywhere – probably even on the Hebrides!
Bearing this in mind and that gambling games such as bingo, sports betting and in particular slot machines play a huge role in the British culture it is no surprise that gambling laws are quite liberal compared to many other countries. Just like cigarettes and alcohol may be bad for you, many institutions believe this of gambling; but like any country which allows its people to be free, they are completely unable to ban these substances or activities, because this would be tantamount to taking away people’s freedom to choose, and be regarded as adults.
Because of this liberal aspect and the fact that US online gambling has in effect been all but completely halted by the enactment of UIGEA. The UK has also become the online gambling Mecca of the world. In fact benchmarks for online gambling in the UK, set the standard for all other countries, in particular those European countries who have been ordered by European Supreme Courts to deregulate their gambling activities. In the most part gambling is allowed, but because of its ability to generate large sums of money, it has been firmly and selfishly government monopolized in Europe, pretty much in general. The European courts have basically said, if you want to be a part of the European Union, de-regulate gambling activities, and be part of the full spectrum of free and fair trade. It has to work both ways, some countries cant cherry pick what they participate in.
Obviously UK operators have the upper hand, as they have been running online casinos, poker rooms, sports betting and bingo for the longest time. They have set their sights on expansion into Europe and this is going to happen, so, the UK is a leader in this field once again, while their US counterparts, shuffle their feet and split hairs about getting into this massive money making market.
One of the emphasis’ on UK online gambling over the past few years has been firmly placed with online bingo; it is an increasingly popular pastime with players and has accordingly grown exponentially in popularity. All the big bingo sites have the big guns out in terms of advertising and they sponsor TV programmes and get their advertising indents shown. Some sites only make adverts, while other go the whole hog sponsoring shows such as Ennerdale, Britain’s Got Talent and All Star Family Fortunes. The competition is enormous and this means there is more free bingo money being flung around online than any other kind of money, except perhaps in the Royal Bank of England Treasury.