The dominoes may be beginning to fall if news from Poland is anything to go by. A local paper has reported that recent European Union court rulings has prompted the Polish government to relax its grip on online gaming. This is excellent news and I hope it means we see a few Poles enjoying the occasional game of online bingo.

The issue of granting free access to all EU member state’s online gaming industries is hotting up now that the European Court of Justice has decided in favour of private online operators. In line with its policy of reducing trade barriers between member states, the EU has signaled its intention to tackle state gambling monopolies and ensure open access by any online gaming operator issued with a license within the EU.

The UK, along with Austria, runs a well regulated online gaming industry and free online bingo halls have flourished as a result. The freeing up of this fast growing and exciting industry and the de-criminalising of honest businesses involved in its development is a necessary part of the EU’s evolution. Online bingo should be available to all with a range of choices that only the free market can provide.

Written by John Witherspoon – Find online bingo halls and play online bingo at BingoStreet.com 

Tony Blair’s plans to bring a supercasino to Manchester have been setback by a crucial vote in the House of Lords, yet the Prime Minister is intent on pursuing his government’s policy of establishing at least 17 casinos in the country.

Online bingo is part of a fast growing online gaming industry that has enjoyed good regulative controls under the current Labour government. It remains to be seen whether the same success can be realized with the building of real casinos, the Manchester project being the flagship project for the proposed new casinos.

However, the House of Lords vote is inconvenient to say the least and the government has an uphill battle on its hands to keep its gaming policy on track. In the meantime, punters can still visit virtual casinos and online bingo halls and enjoy a gaming experience denied to many European players. I believe it’s only a matter of time before the various peers of the realm who voted against this policy see the light of day and take a gamble on the establishment of a real UK gaming industry.

Written by John Witherspoon – Online bingo news and celebrity gossip available at http://bingostreet.com/

Land-based bingo enthusiasts are finding times a bit tough these days if recent comments by the UK Bingo Association are anything to go by. News from the recent UK budget that VAT would not be lifted from land-based bingo halls has prompted a rare outburst of rancor by the association’s chairman, one Sir Peter Fry.
“The Chancellor is clearly not listening to the industry or people who have already signed a petition calling for the Government to ‘Stop Destroying My Bingo’. Many of these players will lose the only place they feel comfortable going to on their own. The Government needs to act now, before it is too late,� said Sir Peter.
I may be going out on a limb here, but the kind of government action called for by the Bingo Association may not be enough to change what I think is an unstoppable shift in bingo playing habits.
It is estimated that up to 10% of UK women play bingo and that 70% of the bingo playing population are women. It’s my guess that these people are not staying away from land-based bingo halls due to current government policy, but are rather finding alternative bingo outlets. Of course, I’m talking about free online bingo halls and the obviously huge and growing impact these online sites are having.
As more and more people take their lives online, it stands to reason that they will take their affection for bingo there too. After all, online bingo games are one of the fastest growing sectors in the online gaming industry which has found a well regulated environment in the UK in which to flourish.

Written by John Witherspoon – More free bingo games online at BingoStreet.com. Play bingo online now!

It appears it’s not only the Americans who have developed a taste for arresting anyone they can for being involved in online gaming and gambling. News from Greece suggests there is now a concerted attempt by authorities there to crack down on anyone circumventing the strict monopoly the state has on online betting.

The arrest of a Greek man for running an ‘affiliated’ website linked to some British-based online gaming companies is a disturbing development indeed, especially since being part of the European Union supposedly means Greece subscribes to the principle of open trade between member states.

Unfortunately, if a report by Greek e-paper eKathimerni is true, Greek authorities are hiding their actions behind a façade of concern for curbing so-called criminal activity by cracking down on non-state sanctioned betting sites. Taking a jab at the UK’s more progressive approach to this issue, a Greek authority has claimed that England is the only exception in a European-wide desire to keep online gambling within the bounds of state-run monopolies.

This is a patent pretense at making sure the bucks go to the government. It has nothing to do with cracking down on criminal activity and more on maintaining a cushy cash cow for the powers that be. In fact, non other than the European Commission has signaled its opposition to the maintaining of state monopolies in the online gambling sector.
Free online bingo gaming is one of the fastest growing sectors in the online gaming industry and it is a shame that this job-creating, high-demand pastime has been tarred by greedy politicians with the crime brush. One only has to see the success of a properly regulated online bingo industry in the UK to realize that protestations to the contrary are simply bleating excuses by a very unimaginative European cabal of autocrats.

Written by John Witherspoon – Need more tips for playing bingo online?

Wandering around the websites of some of the better known providers of online bingo game technology is an interesting exercise in seeing how some bingo software makers view their market.

By the ‘market’, I mean those of us who actually play bingo online. In the UK alone, the potential size of the market is about 2.5 million people with the vast majority being women between the ages of 25 and 45. There is a growing number of male players, but by and far the female element counts for lions share in online bingo activity.

A curious side statistic found on one well known online bingo software developer’s website is that up to 20% of online bingo players play the game purely for the thrill of it. These players do not play primarily for money, an observation I find encouraging and see as proof that bingo is first and foremost a social activity with a unique ability to bring people together.

For the companies concerned in providing online bingo games to the market, this is an excellent indication as to the social nature of bingo and should keep them well pointed in this direction. There can be no hard and fast statistics concerning people’s enjoyment of the game, but if the various websites of software developers are to be believed, the importance of keeping bingo social appears to be a well understood factor. Long may it continue.

Written by John Witherspoon – Play free online bingo

The effect of the US Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act and the actions of the US Department of Justrice officials in going after internet gambling seems to be taking its toll on Channel Islands online gambling regulator Alderney.

News is, that despite a good showing at the London International Casino Exhibition last January, a spokesman has suggested that they may scale down their participation at the GIGSE scheduled for Montreal in June.

An Alderney spokesman has been quoted as saying: “We have not yet confirmed our level of participation at GIGSE for this year, it has always been a great event but with the recent issues in the US we are not that certain how popular it will be at this time. We are planning a major presence at EIG in Barcelona this autumn which I think has a great chance to become as big as GIGSE once was, building on the opportunities for Europeâ€?.

As we all know here, US online bingo players are feeling the pinch themselves when it comes to the recent US government action against internet gambling. Many have been deprived of being able to participate in their favourite pastime due to restrictions placed on online payment providers.

One only has to look at the actions of furious Neteller customers who formed a coalition to get their money back to see how bad this has got.

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Recently, I’ve been bagging the US government on its decision to restrict online bingo gaming for US citizens under its Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act. However, there are other countries that have taken a different tact to the US in making things difficult for your average online bingo player.

Up to seven EU member states are to come under investigation for practicing monopolistic online gaming policies that restrict foreign and private companies from doing business. This is a blatant disregard for the customers’ freedom of choice and contradicts much of the EU’s drive to unrestricted markets.

My attention was brought to this issue by the work of the European Betting Association. In a press release marking its foundation, the EBA is stated as setting “itself the goal of creating and ensuring fair and uniform market access conditions within the European single market, whilst at the same time adhering to self-imposed, high quality standards�.

The EBA has highlighted a willful tendency on the part of some governments to confuse regulation with restriction. As one of the internet’s fastest growing industries and communities, people playing online bingo games need to support the efforts of organizations like the EBA to ensure we all get a fair play deal.

Written by John Witherspoon – Find out how to play free online bingo. Come and have fun while you play bingo online.

Well it seems the whole Neteller saga may be nearing its conclusion, and a happy one for all those inconvenienced US customers that have had their hard-earned money frozen for the past seven or so weeks.

To recap, Neteller is an e-wallet company that facilitates payments for many e-gaming enterprises including online bingo halls. A decision by the US Department of Justice to arrest two of the company’s former directors on money laundering allegations led to Neteller freezing all US-based accounts.

However, Neteller has singed an agreement with the US government supposedly allowing it to give back money to its US customers within the next 75 days. For those American’s caught up in this spat I’m sure this can’t come soon enough. The question though is, who gets to keep all the interest accumulated during the time Neteller kept those outstanding funds?

This is something that Neteller seems reluctant to comment on. Considering the problems caused by this debacle, I think Neteller should come clean on this issue.

Written by John Witherspoon – Online bingo games and fresh celebrity gossip available from http://bingostreet.com/

Just how lucky we are here in the UK being able to indulge in online bingo games was made clear to me upon reading about the recent anti-internet gambling efforts of a certain US senator.

One Jon Kyl, the Republican Senator for Arizona, has set about ensuring that efforts to relax and even repeal the US Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (UIGEA) are to be resisted in the name of protecting “family values�.

Now, as an online bingo player myself, I’ve been saddened by the loss of many good American bingo buddies who have had to give up their favourite pastime for fear of being criminalized by the UIGEA. But what really must stick in the craw of many American punters is finding out that this same senator supported horse racing, state lotteries and fantasy sports gambling – no doubt plenty of family values being protected there.

I have been encouraged that at least one US senator, Barney Frank, has stated his intention to have the UIGEA repealed. This is a move I whole heartedly approve of and hope it signals the possible return of the Americans to the best game on the net. Like I say, I sometimes don’t think we realize how lucky we are here in the UK to be able to look forward to a night of online bingo after a hard day’s work.

This entry is written by John Witherspoon. A columnist and avid online bingo player on behalf of bingo street.com – the online bingo portal.

One of the more powerful features of the internet is its amazing ability to bring people together who would never have had the chance to meet before there was a World Wide Web. Like a lot of online bingo players I have been following with interest developments in the Neteller wrangle that has seen many of our bingo cousins across the pond left high and dry regards accessing their hard-won earnings. So I’m not surprised when I see that US-based Neteller customers have launched their own online coalition aimed at getting their money back.

Using Yahoo groups as their point of contact, these disgruntled Yanks are quite rightly looking for ways to free up their suspended accounts. No longer allowed to gamble online thanks to draconian legislation on the US government’s part, American Neteller customers have been hit by the double whammy of Neteller suspending all US operations while the company’s founding fathers remain in US custody. Anxious to avoid money laundering charges being leveled against the company itself, Neteller now holds hostage an estimated US$150 million in customers’ funds.

For six weeks now this problem has bee going on and still the US government has not formally charged the former Neteller big boys. It makes you wonder just how string their case is?

The question is: Could it happen here? Let me know your own thoughts on whether UK online bingo halls may be hit by a similar upheaval.

Written by John Witherspoon – For more bingo games online visit BingoStreet.com. Play free bingo online now!