A Gambling Year in Review - Part I and II

This year has continued the fine gambling industry tradition of being an extremely eventful one. From indictments and staff boycotts to European law and London's first large casino, 2011 has had it all. In the first of this four part review we take a look at the ever-changing US online gambling scene.

US Online Gambling Law

One major ongoing story in online gambling throughout the year has been the legal situation in the United States. As it currently stands, all forms of online gambling are still illegal in the US but there are hopes that this will change soon.

In April an event now known as Black Friday shook the online gambling industry. Three prominent online poker domains were seized and a number of companies and individuals indicted. Repercussions of this continued for months and are still being felt now.

As US online gambling law is so complex, CasinoOnline.co.uk spoke to two of the most recognised experts with regards to their take on the situation.

First up was Joe Brennan Jr, chairman of iMEGA who have spent the last few years lobbying for the regulation of online gambling in the US. He provided us with an insight into just how complex it is to create online gambling law, especially when you're working at state and federal levels.

Later in the year we caught up with Professor I. Nelson Rose, gambling law expert and leading industry consultant. Rose explained why online casinos have so far avoided legal punishment and gave us some interesting predictions regarding the future for online casinos and online gambling in the US.

The second instalment of our annual review focuses on the land based and online exploits of casinos in the UK.

UK and European Gambling Law

While US online gambling law dominated the industry headlines, there were developments in the UK and European legal situations. John Penrose, the UK minister responsible for gambling policy and regulation, has been central to these developments.

In July Penrose announced plans to change the way in which online gambling operators would be taxed. If they came to fruition, the plans would mean that operators were taxed the same way regardless of where they were based.

The plans were met with a mixed reaction with operators who had moved offshore mulling over the potential options available to them. William Hill's Ralph Topping told The Times of his concerns regarding the plans.

Three months on and John Penrose was in the news again speaking about online gambling. This time he was making his views known about the possibility of Europe-wide legislation plans.

UK Large Casinos

As well as advances in the online casino world, 2011 has been a big year for land based UK casinos. The main story is the approval, planning and opening of the UK's first large casino in Newham.

The original decision to site the casino in its current place was criticised at the time and a judicial review was launched by the two losing bidders. However both reviews were dropped due to financial costs.

In the meantime there were hopes for Britain's first super casino in Tipperary, Ireland. Unfortunately plans were shelved months after emerging and it appears to be unlikely that we'll see the Irish White House we were promised.

Fortunately though London's first large casino did make it as Aspers Casino Westfield City Stratford opened at the beginning of December.

Aspers Casino Stratford proved to be such a resounding success in its first few weeks that we will hopefully be seeing plenty more large casinos appearing in the UK in 2012.