Legality/popularity of online gambling in various countries?

[jacquelinepassey]

I am planning to put more work into my onling gambling affiliate marketing efforts, including setting up some new web pages. However, given the worsening legal situation for online gambling in the US (including the state of Washington claiming that it is illegal to even *link* to online gambling sites) I don't want to set up these sites in the US.

I was initially going to set them up in Canada, since it seemed like online gambling was legal there, but after doing a little more research it seems that it's actually illegal (or the legality is very questionable) but that the laws are just not being enforced (yet?). I also vaguely recall reading something about how some of the sites that are now banning US players out of the fear of legal troubles are banning Canadian players too, and I worry that they might apply similar restrictions on affiliates.

My understanding of how search engines work is that where, geographically, your website is hosted relative to where people are searching from matters somewhat in search engine results placement. So I want to host my sites in a developed, well-populated, English-speaking country where online gambling is both legal and popular. After crossing the US and Canada off the list for the legality issues it seems that Britain is the next best choice in terms of population and how many people gamble online.

So now I'm thinking about getting web hosting in Britain... my understanding is that online gambling is expressly legal there and many of the companies are even based there. I've also read articles about lots of Britains are gambling online.

Does all of the above sound right to you guys? I am not nearly as knowledgeable about the status and popularity of online gambling in various countries as many of the people in this forum. I realize that most of you aren't lawyers and I'm not expecting you to give me legal advice, but if you can share what you know that will give me leads to research further on my own.

Thanks!

[Bryan]

Not sure on all the legalities, but I do know that the U.K. recently passed a law on what types of gambling advertising you can do.

I know 888.com has certain banners that are U.K. specific and those banners can't have any wording that refers to deposit bonuses or maybe even money in general. The banners are pretty boring and just say things like "Online Poker Games" and that's it. No promotional info is allowed apparently.

Here is what 888 says in the banner section...
In light of the recent publication of the Joint Guidance of the UK Government we have prepared new advertising creative. These can be found in the libraries called "UK".
For any promotions in relation .co.uk Internet sites you are obligated to use these creative only.

So again, not sure if the U.K. is the best choice either. Then again I'm just a dumb Yankee.

Bryan

[Bryan]

After reading through it again... it does say that these banners only have to be used on .co.uk sites, but it doesn't say anything about .com's etc... if you are based in the U.K., but promoting on .com's to say U.S. customers.

Not sure how to interpret this.

Hell, Calvin Ayre doesn't seem to have a problem with promotions. Now I'm just more confused on where you can be, who you can promote to, etc...

I think I need a bottle of Jack and a cold shower and then I'm going to start selling trash bags online. That's legal right? Mark Cuban did it door to door, so the net's gotta be an untapped haven for the trash bag industry.

Bryan

[Zilla]

Well I live in the UK and my site is hosted in the UK and is a .co.uk

I'm no expert on the laws, but its nothing like the laws in the US over here. Online Poker is talked about openly over here and there are advertisements on TV etc, so I think it would be a good choice to host over here.

[Kellermann]

I know of a Danish casino site that moved it's operations to Malta for legal reasons. Don't remember if it was casino.dk or casinopenge.dk. Malta is very liberal when it comes to gaming afaik.

[jacquelinepassey]

Zilla, who is your hosting company and are you happy with them? Do they host .com sites as well? Thanks.

[Zilla]

Xwww.easyspace.com

I'm on their Diamond package - because I needed a MS SQL database but I have a couple of other non-poker sites hosted on the Gold package.

Happy so far - not had any downtime and always get good support.

I believe they will host .com domains as well