Online Gambling – and Casino Info

Microgaming, one of the most respected online gambling companies in the history of the industry, has just announced that they will be terminating their contract with the online gambling establishment Gutshot Poker. Gutshot Poker was a gambling club turned into an online gambling website, both of which specialized in various forms of poker. Up until the current moment in time Gutshot Poker had been in a partnership with Microgaming and because of that had been a member of the Microgaming/Prima Poker Network. Now that Microgaming has officially removed Gutshot Poker from its network however, the website has moved from Microgaming to the Cake Poker Network, where it is expected it will remain at least for the near future.

The series of events that led up to this particular bit of news is quite lengthy and the best place to begin would be January 16, 2007. The owner of the offline Gutshot Poker Club, a man named Derek Kelly, was arrested by the authorities of the United Kingdom for alleged transgressions against the Gaming Act. According to Derek Kelly, the transgressions were perfectly applicable to the setting because he contended that since poker was a game of skill and not a game of luck, it was not covered under the provisions of the Gaming Act. In the first go around of the court room, the jury soundly rejected Kelly’s assertion and for that reason he was convicted of violations of the Gaming Act. Kelly did eventually appeal the decision but the appeal failed as well and for this reason the conviction stands.

Little is known about the relationship between Microgaming and Gutshot Poker and for that reason it is impossible to know whether this decision against Kelly was a contributing factor in Microgaming’s decision to suspend the Gutshot Poker account. If so, it would have taken a long time for the wheels at Microgaming to turn since the account was officially suspended on September 26th while the contract was officially terminated just four days later on September 30th. That would represent more than one and a half years since the arrest, although some have speculated that if Microgaming was waiting for the final decision on the appeal to come through, the timeline makes a lot more sense.

In any case, Microgaming appears to be playing their cards close to their chest on this one, saying nothing more than Gutshot Poker had multiple breaches in the operating rules that Microgaming has instituted on all of their network sites. The suspension took place ostensibly because of these multiple breaches. The press release that Microgaming released was not very descriptive however, leading many people to speculate that there is more going on than meets the eye at present.

Whether or not that is true is unknown however. The only thing that is known at this time is that the relationship between Microgaming and Gutshot Poker is over and that at least for the present Gutshot Poker is a member of the Cake Poker Network. Everything else at this stage is nothing but speculation.

There are certain things in the history of the world that are surprising, but in terms of the modern day-to-day operations of online gambling, there are few things that could be as surprising as what the small country of Holland has done in relation to online gambling.

If there was a single country that could be designated a safe haven in the developed world by people involved in online gambling it would be the country of Holland. It is a country that allows marijuana smoking and it is also a country that allows drug addicts to get clean needles at their pharmacies. However, this extremely liberal country apparently can do those things but draw the line when it comes to online gambling.

Exhibit A is the European Union, the supranational entity that controls most of the countries located on the European continent. The European Union has recently made a policy shift and in doing so has attempted to stamp out a lot of the online gambling that has been going on within its borders. There is rampant speculation regarding why the EU governing council would make such a blatantly unpopular move, but many believe that it has to do with influence from the United States.

Exhibit B is the country of Holland, whose legislators have decided to take the advice of the EU and interpret it in a way that has led to massive increases in the amount of taxation that online gambling operators will incur. Many taxes in Holland are designed so that the infrastructure in that particular part of the economy can be built up, but these taxes are designed to be nothing but punitive. Indeed, the Holland-based legislators appear to be interested in breaking up online gambling monopolies as quickly as possible and that indeed does appear to be what is fuelling these particular moves.

Exhibit C is the actions taken by those same legislators in Amsterdam against two specific online gambling operations that are located in Holland. Oranje Casino and Unibet are the names of the two companies and the legislators in Holland appear to be using every play available in the book to get these companies to leave. They have even gone so far as to borrow from the US playbook and severely punish payment processors in Holland that facilitate the operations of Oranje and Unibet.

All three of these exhibits show a shocking change of attitude on the part of the Dutch authorities. This normally friendly and laid-back country has now become one of the leading crusaders against online gambling. However, the ironic part of the whole thing is that the actions they have taken against offshore and online gambling have actually massively helped casinos that are land-based and located inside Holland. In other words, people have not stopped gambling, but have just shifted their focus elsewhere. This seems to indicate that the plan has backfired as neither Holland nor the European Union wanted that particular outcome to take place.