Casinos for US players

Prior to the UIGEA adopted in 2006, the online casino industry had been one of the fastest growing online businesses in the United States. Obviously, the new legislation hit online gambling companies extremely hard, and made it damn near impossible for US gamblers to play online. As you probably know, the UIGEA wasn’t directed against players or gaming companies, rather it tried to make it impossible for payment processing companies to transmit wagers coming from within the USA. While these measures prompted most of the biggest and most popular online payment processing companies to quit on the industry, payment solutions for US players still exist and online gambling is indeed still possible for US citizens. Whether or not this is a legal activity is extremely difficult to nail down in clear terms. You see, the UIGEA being one of the sloppiest laws ever written on the face of the earth, utterly fails to delimit what counts as illegal when it comes to online gambling. While prior legislation does exist in the matter, and while the UIGEA does seem to refer to such prior legislation in its language, online gambling is considered illegal for most US citizens. If taken literally though, and considering the fact that the Wire Act the UIGEA refers to only covers sports betting and wagering practices through the phone (and thus through online means too), one may consider that online gambling is not illegal per se in many US jurisdictions. Now then, what do you need to keep an eye out for if you want to play in an online casino and you’re living in the US? First of all, the online casino selection criteria that all players should use remain valid in your case. Look for a trustworthy operation, backed by a solid and well-known licensing entity. The license the operation has is your guarantee that the games are fair indeed and that you are indeed going to tangle with the advertised house edge, nothing more. You need to make sure you get a nice sign-up bonus, one with reasonable play-through requirements, and that you are indeed going to find the games inside satisfactory.

Loyalty programs like comp points and rakeback are also important. You have to do all this looking through casinos which still accept US players (no use wasting your time looking in all the wrong places). Many online casino review sites now dedicate special pages to the casinos which accept US players. Before you sign up, make sure the casino does indeed support a deposit and withdrawal method you can gain access to. In this respect, don’t be shy to check out the community message boards and forums where other American casino players detail their experiences with the online casino in question. These forums are the life-line of the US online gambling community because they offer a direct insight into some of the problems that you yourself are likely to be confronted with. Besides giving you advice on what payment processor to use for your deposits and withdrawals, these forums will also discuss some common withdrawal issues like withdrawal speed, reliability and support staff efficiency. Make sure you know what support system you’re going to end up with by signing up, because as a US online casino player, you’re far more likely to need their assistance in the future than players located elsewhere.