Online Casinos offer better than Vegas odds, deposit matches, convenience and a wider variety of games. There is a high level of competition between online casinos because of the ease of moving between casinos. They are competing not only with each other, but with land based casinos. Online casinos do not have the large overhead of land based casinos and this savings is passed on to the player.
Online casinos do not have the expenses of traditional casinos. Lavish Vegas casinos with neon lights, multimillion dollar lobbies and dancing fountains are nice, but someone has to pay for them. Online casinos look like small office buildings with 10 or 12 employees. Their largest expenses are licensing the casino software and monitoring for fraudulent activities.
In 2002, the United States Court of Appeals decided that the Federal Wire Act applies only to online sports betting and not to games of chance. This legalized online casino gambling for US players. However, it did not make it legal to open an online casino inside the United States. It is very difficult to collect taxes on winnings from online casinos, because they are based outside of the United States. They do not report winnings to the IRS and this has become a point of contention with both opponents and proponents of allowing US casinos to open online casinos.
In response to the inability to collect taxes the US Government has put many restrictions on the banking industry. These restrictions include coding online casino deposits and not allowing them from 13 states. The states that do not allow credit card deposits to online casinos are Michigan, Illinois, Louisiana, Oregon, Washington, Wisconsin, Indiana, Nevada, South Dakota, New Jersey and New York. Banks and players quickly discovered that anonymous prepaid debit cards were the way around this.
Online casinos offer deposit match bonuses. These bonuses are largest on initial deposits. Many online casinos will double your initial deposit up to around $1,000. Some will continue to double, or at least match a percentage of, your first few deposits. This is done in hopes that once the player has set up their account it will be easier just to continue playing at the same casino. Since there are only a few proven software packages, most online casinos are very similar. The ones that have set up their own software are generally not as secure. The match bonuses increase your odds and extend the amount of time you will spend playing with the same amount of money. Overall the higher payout percentages, match bonuses and convenience of not having to travel make online gambling a better bet than spending extra money to visit a casino.
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