At most online casinos you will find encryption mechanisms in place to protect your private information as it travels the internet. This allows you to process banking and data transfers without a problem. The issue is that scammers can be very sneaky and they will try to trick you in other ways.

All online gamblers should know that they should never answer emails requesting for their passwords or any type of risky information. Sometimes these emails look legit and you may think they come from the casino, but actually the casino would close to never need information of the sort, especially if you have already shared your information with them for transactions.

Do not answer phone calls asking for any sort of private information either. They are usually scams and even if they are not, you should not risk is because a reputable casino will always contact you properly and they can use other means to get in touch with you and resolve issues.

Protect your computer with antivirus and anti phishing software so that no viruses or programs can be installed without your consent. This is highly important because sometimes scammers try to extract information from your computer directly.

It is not hard to gamble online and stay safe. Our main concern is that you feel secure and enjoy our games all of the time. Please let us know if you have any concerns, I will be more than happy to answer your questions on this or any other topic.

Prepaid cards are one of the most innovative payment methods that players can use to fund their accounts. I believe that the main reason is that prepaid cards work exactly like a credit card minus all the inconveniences. The way in which they work is that you pay for them in advance and they give you a unique combination of numbers that you need to provide at the Cashier section of Silver Oak Casino. All you need to do is buy it, go to cashier and select the prepaid card option.

Not only is it easy to use prepaid cards, but the benefits include that your transaction will never be rejected due to insufficient funds as you have already selected and paid for the amount you wish to deposit. No online casino will have a reason to block the transaction as there is no limit you can exceed with a prepaid card.

Another advantage that players value is that prepaid cards are one of the safest options to deposit at online casino. This is because your cash is out of reach for unscrupulous hackers as your private information is not displayed and is never traveling the web to complete transactions. hhen you enter the card number at the casino, it is a uniue combination and it ensures that the money will be in your account immediately, leaving nothing to steal. This is perhaps the safest way to deposit money into an online casino.

Earlier this week eWalletXpress finally issued a statement communicating their customers that the company will no longer provide services to US citizens. The statement read “We regret to inform you that we are no longer able to continue service at this time due to a Federal warrant issued to seize our funds.” The company also said that customers who had pending funds in their accounts will be able to claim their money back and that this will be effective once all “technical issues” are solved. There were no specifications on what the technical issues where or on how long it will take to resolve them.

Players should not worry about whether they will get their money back, going off eWalletXpress’ reputation we can infer that the money will be returned eventually. The main issue is how long it will take the company and the US Federal Government to work out an agreement and get the money back. eWalletXpress has already backed out of the US market and that is probably a good step towards negotiation on the issue.

It is frustrating to see one more efficient electronic payment serice provider leave the US arena due to unclear regulation. eWalletXpress has joined other payment service providers like PayPal, Moneybookers and NETeller in leaving the US market.We hope that the situation will be resolved promptly and that a relevant legislation will come to the US soon enough.

The word around the forums is that a lot of customers have had problems with their funds on eWalletXpress and some believe that they have disappeared. The situation is not that simple and eWalletXpress did not run away with anyone’s funds, furthermore the US Federal Government has seized all funds from eWalletXpress by law enforcement.

Currently, all players are unable to deposit or cashout funds. Most online gambling rooms that accepted eWalletXpress have stopped doing so and all pending cashouts have been reversed. “We regret to inform you that we are no longer able to continue service at this time due to a federal warrant issued to seize our funds [...],” read the email the eWalletXpress team sent out.

The same thing happened to Neteller in 2007, all players’ funds were seized by the US Federal Government and two of the owners were arrested. After about a year of negotiations Neteller agreed to pay a fine and do other arrangements to release player funds. Those were stressful times for US players as some of them had up to $100,000 in Neteller accounts at the time of seizure.

The online gaming industry fully understands the players’ concern over the funds that were seized and hopes that eWalletXpress will pull the right strings and negotiate well in the process of getting players’ funds so that they manage to do so as soon as possible. We are more than sorry for this huge inconvenience and ask you to please keep us up to date with any developments.

The first of our new additions is ‘Lucky Tiger’. This refers to the Year of the Tiger and it is a new 5-reel slot with Golden Tigers appearing grouped on reels 1 and 5 and functioning as wild symbols for everything but scattered gongs. If you spin 3 or more gong symbols in a normal game you can trigger three different “free game” features. The Lucky Tiger will triple your winnings and will add extra free game. If you like online slots, we definitely think this is one worth checking out.

Our second addition is for a different type of player as this is a very particular bingo game. ‘Roaring Twenties Bingo’ is an advanced bingo game that will take you back to the 1920s and bet on up to 100 cards per draw. This game features a “Wild Ball” that will hit the middle spot on each card in play if it is drawn, therefore increasing your odds of hitting the winning patterns. The other great feature is the ‘Extra Balls’ which enables any player to draw 5 extra balls!

If you manage to complete a full card then you will get the Maxi Progressive Jackpot, and the Major and Minor Progressive Jackpot can be won at any random time. There are great prizes, lots of jackpots and variable draw speeds so that everyone can enjoy this great bingo game.

Remeber, at Silver Oak Casino we are always doing things to make our players happy. If you have any suggestions please share them with us by posting a comment below!

If the Republicans have a win in the elections, there are slim possibilities that online gambling regulation and legislation will move forward and the bills will be frozen in time. However, if the Democrats win there is hope that the online gambling legislation that has been undergoing a debate process will be pushed forward and enacted.

The Poker Players Alliance (PPA) has been at the front of pushing online gambling legislation ahead in the past years. They have released a list of the Congressional candidates participating in the elections that they think would have support for online gambling. We suggest that you take a look at the list and check the candidates’ campaigns and decide if you like them overall.

“This year’s election is critical to ensuring that candidates are elected who support the rights of poker players and who choose to take action to protect American consumers. PokerPAC is proud to endorse these candidates who have been advocates for poker players and this great game we all love.” said the PPA Chair and former Senator Alfonse D’amato and Congressman Toby Moffett in a joint statement.

The PPA list of Congressional Endorsement can be seen through this link: http://theppa.org/press-releases/2010/10/21/press-release-pokerpac-announces-2010-congressional-endorsements-102110/

Please check them out and vote for the one that fulfills your expectations. Do not forget to vote, it is your future and the country’s that you are helping determine!

Anyway, earlier this week NETeller released a new blog entry in which it was announced that their services have been improved, particularly or VIP players who need to exchange currency in their online financial transactions. As most casinos accept payments in USD or Euros, this is great news for players in Asia and Latin America.

NETeller usually charges a transaction fee of $2.95 in these cases and VIP players get a better rate of 1.5%. The way in which this worked was that the VIP members would be charged the full fee on their first transaction and would be given a rebate of 1.45% the next month. VIP members are also exempt from withdrawal fees, but in the same way they were charged the full fee in the first transaction and received a rebate one month later.

The change that NETeller has implemented is on the system of rebates, the VIP members are now guaranteed to be charged the correct amount upfront. This will be applied to both deposits and withdrawals transactions, so VIP members will not be paying any fees at the time of withdrawal. The one clarification that is made is that for foreign exchange and withdrawal transactions from NET + point of sale and ATM transactions will still have the rebate system enforced.

So for all the players who are not VIP members, it would be incredibly beneficial if you decided to join. In order to become a NETeller VIP member you would need to transfer $6,000 to online merchants on a monthly basis for a consecutive 90-day period. After that, to maintain the VIP status you would have to transfer $3,000 to online merchants on a monthly basis for a consecutive 90-day period.

The online gambler hit a progressive jackpot back in 2008 and won EUR167,500. However, he has been waiting for two years to receive such winnings because the LGA has been taking all that time to make a decision about his winning from Casino Club.

The LGA controls all activities related to gambling in Malta and makes profits from licensing and regulating 392 online casino, poker and gambling sites. It is in their responsibility to ensure that the sites they license stick to their agreements and terms and conditions.

The Malta Business Weekly got a statement from a spokesperson for the LGA in which it was said that “without going into the specific merits of the case in question, the authority has not yet concluded its investigations and neither has it decided in favour of the licensee as is being alleged”.

According to the report, the LGA told the player that the casino is not bound to pay his full winnings as the law in the Maltese legislation is unclear in forcing license holders to pay gambling debts.

The LGA spokesperson also stated that “the LGA’s interpretation is that the Civil Code articles regarding online gambling are applicable to gaming debts arising out of unauthorised/unlicensed games, which in any case are considered as illegal and tantamount to a criminal offence,” and added “Furthermore, remote gaming regulations do not stipulate any limits with respect to player winnings, and if the licensee chooses to cap or place limits on the maximum prices that can be won by players, as already reiterated, these conditions would have to be stated in the rules of the game and in the terms and conditions.”

I mean, isn’t this outrageous? Having to wait two years to be paid the winnings you won under the casino terms of hitting a progressive jackpot? I just want to tell everyone that this should not be happening and that Silver Oak Casino does not sympathize with these type of practices at all. And again, things like this remind us of being really careful of the online casino that we choose to play at.

Washington State attorney Lee Rousso recently got the Washington Supreme Court to rule on the recently imposed ban against online poker. Rousso presented a law suit in which he argued that the 2006 ban imposed on online gambling (the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act – UIGEA) was unconstitutional as it violated the Commerce Clause stated in it.

Washington Supreme Court Judge, Justice Richard B. Sanders expressed his disagreement, claiming that the legislation did not overreach puclib policy nor violates he Commerce Clause in the US Constitution. It was a hard hit and a lot of online gamblers have expressed their disappointment with the ruling, including John Pappas, the Executive Director of the Poker Players Alliance (PPA).

Rousso is a very avid online poker player and a lawyer, he has been chasing this case for three years and it is inspiring to see how he refuses to give up. As for future plans Rousso has stated that he will now appeal the decision with the US Supreme Court, taking the case to a federal level. He has asked the online gambling community to support him in the fight against the ban.

“Poker players in this state need to make their voices heard. Now more than ever we need to rally together to fight this outrageous law. I hope the poker community will stand with me as I appeal this decision to the U.S. Supreme Court,” Rousso said in a statement.

There are a lot of pros and cons in both banning the activity and regulating it. Personally, I believe the United States as a whole would benefit greatly from the revenue raised from taxing online gambling and that players would be happy to enjoy their freedom and doing activities they choose to do. I express my full support to Mr. Rousso and the PPA in the fight against the ban imposed on online gambling, I feel that it is because of people like them that we are getting extremely close to being successful.

Most online casino websites have a “Privacy and Security” or “About Us” section in which they describe the security measures that the casino implements in order to protect the players’ data. However, online casinos know that players are not willing to just take their word for it and they will try to get certified.

If an online casino is certified they will display the logo of the company and mention it on the website. The most popular and reputable companies that certify online casinos for being safe environments are eCOGRA, Technical Systems Testings and VeriSign. In this article we will discuss the main device that these companies require casinos to have in order to award them with a certification. Usually, Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certification is at the core of online gaming security because it is the mechanisms that encrypts the information that travels the internet on financial transactions.

The way it works is that when you log into your favorite online casino your browser request the casino’s web server to identify itself. This is when the server sends the browser a copy of its security certificate and the browser confirms this in order to proceed. Once this is done an encryption channel is set up and it has a public key and a private key; the public key is used to encrypt information and the private key is used to decipher it. Through this channel the player and the online casino can exchange information such as credit card details and payment instructions without third parties accessing it.

So make sure you check that your favorite online casino is certified by a reliable independent expert company and you will not have any problems in your gaming.

In Finney County, Kansas, giving the men in blue an employment choice in these dangerous and financially troubling times could spell trouble for the staffing of the local sheriffs office.

It seems that a local casino is opening, and some of the local deputy’s are trading in their badges and beats for the easier, safer and apparently better paying jobs of Casino security.

A Patrol Deputy and 2 deputies from the street gang unit are swapping the badge for the baton according to the Garden City Telegram (www.gctelegram.com).

The defections are a reflection on the current economic state of the country, but also alludes to the ongoing success of the gaming industry, even in these troubling times, where working security at a casino, is more lucrative than being a peace officer.

The lesson to be learned?

Next time you get pulled over for a driving infraction, whip out a deck of cards and play blackjack for the fine.