Quote from: goosoodude on June 17, 2015, 04:59:11 AM

Why is a casino's license significant to you when you want to gamble with bitcoin? I don't think that bitcoin casinos take steps towards being licensed. Provably fair gambling is the way to go. As of the legality, in most regions and countries it isn't illegal to gamble with bitcoin because of the lack of laws about it. Until this changes, we're probably not going to see many bitcoin casinos being blocked.

Most don't, but there is at least one Bitcoin casino which is licensed. BitDice.me recently registered as a legally incorporated and licensed gambling operation in Costa Rica:

http://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1090627

However, the benefits for end users might not be that great because if the site gets hacked or otherwise loses its funds, then the site's liabilities will shift from that of the owner to the corporation:

Quote from: Stunna on June 15, 2015, 10:12:09 PM

Any lawyer worth his salt will probably tell you to have a third party agent incorporate a casino on your behalf. Incorporating does very little for the actual user, it does help the owner establish a banking connection/trust and cash out though.

I think incorporation actually reduces the protection of investors/gamblers as the liaibility is shifted from operator to company. That being said it's a wise decision to incorporate but I can't personally see any reason for it benefiting users. Then again, I'm not a lawyer.

Quote from: Quickseller on June 16, 2015, 12:13:28 AM

This means that when you incorporate a company/business in this way, in most cases, the liabilities will be shifted from the owners onto the corporation itself. So if/when the site gets hacked, or something similar causes the site to lose money then the owners would not be responsible, the corporation itself will need to bear the losses.

The owners would have this protection while still keeping the benefits of getting to keep any profits that are not reinvested into their company.

Assuming their security is strong enough to prevent people with malicious intent from stealing from the site, and assuming the owners are acting in an honest manner, then it will most likely have no visible effect on players/investors.

Quote from: arallmuus on June 17, 2015, 05:33:51 AM

Quote from: Wharf on June 17, 2015, 05:11:31 AM

Out of interest, what would actually happen if you decided to continue to accept UK IPs on offshore servers without a UK gambling license?

Legal actions will be taken no doubt about that and if a legal actions is taken on these unlicensed gambling sites than it will get them much more lost then their decision to stop accepting bets from the UK based players.
Basically unlicensed means illegal and everything that illegal will be seized down also that affiliates that promotes an unlicensed gambling sites are also at risk by this point if they UK gambling comission decided to take legal actions

I found the post below from an earlier thread. The info is a bit old and deals with fiat-denominated online gambling sites but if you agree with the OP's position that it doesn't matter whether a site uses BTC or fiat, then it's probably worth reading (emphasis not mine):

Quote from: ssaCEO on February 09, 2013, 02:31:24 PM

Quote from: gweedo on February 08, 2013, 10:34:23 PM

Any country with legal online gambling should be fine, UK could be one place.

This is completely false.

Seems there's a lot of misinformation and basic misunderstandings here. Whenever I see this topic come up in the non-BTC gambling world, I see the same vague and incorrect suggestions over and over.

Just because online gambling is legal in a country does not mean you can host an unlicensed site there. The UK has a very strict licensing regiment with master licenses costing around £500,000 per year. Hosting unlicensed games on a server there is a quick way to get booted by your hosting company who is required to comply with UK law.

It is, however, legal to serve games from offshore into the UK, if they are legal in the country where they're hosted. The key here under UK law is "where the bet is struck". The bet is considered to be struck where the server is. Since the UK abides by international trade laws (which the US refuses to sign onto), they have to allow their citizens to strike bets in another country so long as those bets are legal under that country's law.

Now here's where it gets interesting. There is no jurisdiction on earth where it's legal to host an online gambling site without a government-issued license, except for Costa Rica. Costa Rica requires something called a "data-processing license" but it is not strictly a license (more a way of incorporating) and is not subject to gambling regulation as such. The reason for this is that, for historical reasons and thanks to a byzantine Napoleonic legal structure, Costa Rica contradicts the rest of the world (except, interestingly, the United States) and considers the bet to be struck on the user's computer, not where the servers are. So they see nothing wrong with hosting a casino there. What you're not allowed to do in Costa Rica, if you host there, is take Costa Rican players. Because then you'd be breaking their law by running an on-shore casino. Funky, right?

It is certainly illegal to host a gaming site in Ireland without an Irish gaming license (this came into force several years ago; before that Ireland had no specific legislation on it and it wasn't prosecuted).

However, the vagaries of where a bet is "struck" leave open a number of interesting loopholes for the clever site operator. For example, some countries which require a license to host gambling have various amnesties in their laws to attract business, which allow back-office operations to be run there, even downloads to be served there, so long as the bet isn't struck there. Some will consider the location of the RNG to be where the bet is struck, and others consider it to be where the player connects to the game server (assuming those are two different machines). Hosting in Costa Rica is enormously expensive, the bandwidth is terrible and the service is nonexistent. So many companies host their primary website there and serve the games elsewhere.

The ONLY way you can be sure that what you're doing in a particular country is legal is to hire a gambling attorney in that country to advise you and, if possible, put an opinion on it in writing. The safest route for a casino not willing to pay for a governmental license is to get incorporated in Costa Rica for $1000 or so and serve the games and RNG from there; and then put your non-gambling stuff like videos, graphics, sounds, etc. on faster servers wherever you want. I like http://nohostsland.com for finding servers in odd parts of the world. But DO NOT consider sticking gambling services on one of these VPS's, or on a server anywhere in the EU without a proper license from the country you're serving from.

If you have the money, some countries which offer packaged license/hosting/banking arrangements are: Malta, Curacao, the Isle of Man, Kahnawake (First Nations, Canada), Belize, Antigua; and on the top shelf, the UK, Australia, France and Italy (primarily for domestic markets).

Also be aware that the UK classifies two types of offshore casinos: Those licensed in the EU or with a country whose gaming regime is recognized by the EU (e.g. Curacao), and those not recognized (e.g. Costa Rica). While it is not illegal for a Costa Rica casino to take UK players, it is illegal in the UK for Costa Rica based casinos to advertise in print, on radio or television. Again, lots of rules, so the best advice? Lawyer up and don't take advice that could land you in jail from anonymous people on the internet.