Somewhere near 3 million people within the United Kingdom are drawn into the magical and fun-filled web of excitement that is online bingo. Now many online bingo operators are trying a new way to get players to come and visit their sites and it is a tactic that has been known to work for many online casinos and online poker rooms and that is television advertisements.

With an average of 3 million people already paying attention to the online bingo industry, the market is expected to grow in big and dramatic ways over the next year or so. Many operators of online casinos are hoping for this same injection of growth and development to bless their business but the world of online bingo looks especially primed for expansion, especially with the new television advertisements.

Several big names in the realm of online bingo and casino sites such as Gala, Wink and Foxy Bingo have all managed to gain some ground against their competition by putting up the funds to buy some spots on television. Wink Bingo goes so far as to sponsor an entertainment program called Family Fortunes. They have cashed in with new people signing up on their site as a result of this particular piece of marketing strategy. Foxy Bingo has managed to put a substantial portion of their budget that they set aside for marketing purposes toward special television advertisements.

The one glitch in all of this, as people within the online casino industry have found out is that with television advertising, it is hard to track how big the audience you are reaching actually is. If you are a new casino or bingo parlor, this can be especially tricky.

Ever since its earliest days last summer, WinADay.com, a fabulous 3D online casino has been bringing their devoted followers some awesome progressive slots action. This past week was no different as an Italian player was able to score an impressive $148,724 while playing Wheeler Dealer. The lucky progressive jackpot winner, Monica68, had only recently begun playing at the site that is becoming more and more popular among fans of quality online casinos. This win for the lucky Italian is the very first win any casino player has managed to score at this relatively new site.

Wheeler Dealer is one of four sensational online casino slot machines at WinADay.com. After this big win, the jackpot has been reset to $30,000 – which is still a pretty good chunk of change to walk away with if you ask me! Since the jackpot was reset, many players who love a good progressive slots game at their favorite online casinos have come onto the site in hopes of being the next big winner. Because of this, the jackpot has been growing steadily once again and it is only a matter of time before some other casino player is able to win big. There’s nothing like a six-figure win to start off the new year with a little spring in your step.

The casino player who struck it rich, Monica68, was charmed by the site immediately because it had a unique design. She was very pleased with her win as she mentioned that previous to this big payout, the most she had ever won was 50 Euro. This site is run by incredibly warm, welcoming and helpful people and the sharp and innovative design will appeal to most types of players.

More than any other group, credit card operators are the ones who have the toughest job since they are going to have to monitor everything all the time for any changes of activity for their merchants who may be using online casinos. The only ones who really escaped the wrath of the UIGEA are the casino players themselves. While the version of the UIGEA that has been brought into effect is quite a hassle for everyone involved, especially credit card companies, it is a somewhat softer, more gentle version than the one that everyone thought would eventually come into play.

Although players at online casinos are not held accountable directly, they have felt the effects of this shift in the industry for months now as more and more casino operators and payment processing firms have removed themselves from the United States. They have gone so far as to refuse to accept any casino player who resides within the United States. All of this has occurred because of the UIGEA.

Many different organizations that have a stake in the online casino industry have made an effort to organize themselves and to rally against the UIGEA. The Poker Players Alliance has been a huge player in this effort. Politicians such as Representative Barney Frank have also done their part to turn this thing around. Their goal is to legalize online gambling and to squash or at least limit the reach of the UIGEA as much as possible. Frank and many others feel that the UIGEA is a threat to our personal liberties and that it needs to be stopped soon before things ca get worse.

While President Barack Obama has been hard at work in reversing a lot of the horrible decisions and actions that George W. Bush made during his last few months in office, he has yet to address the issue of online casino gambling. With the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act no officially in effect, it is more crucial than ever that this law be dealt with in a swift manner because the fate of online casinos and players everywhere rests in this hands of President Obama.

Part of what makes the UIGEA so troubling to so many casino operators and players alike is that is lacks any sort of clear definition as to which activities are supposedly illegal and which are not. What this then results in is that the banking institutions that are held liable under the law are given one set of guidelines while the state laws and regulations for different tribal organizations are a completely different thing.

For online casinos and the entire Internet Gambling industry, this lack of clarity could end up being incredibly damaging. The UIGEA does not go after casino players in particular. Rather, it targets financial institutions and the gambling sites. The systems affected by the implementation of the UIGEA are check collection systems, money transferring companies, credit card systems, wire-transfer systems and automated clearing house systems. What this ends up looking like is that payment systems are required to screen new accounts and turn away any that seem likely to be involved in online gambling of some kind.

If you are a fan of horseracing and an even bigger fan of being a punter, one site you should definitely pay a visit to is Youbet.com. Out of all of the different sites out there that offer these sorts of services, Youbet remains one of everybody’s favorite. As far as websites that tend to focus in specifically on horseracing bets, in the world of online casinos and online bookie sites, this is one of the best in the business. And now it is better than ever. Why? Well, they are now finally able to accept bets from their own members and from a variety of different horseracing venues strewn across the nation.

If you are a big fan of online casinos and sports betting, then you will be pleased to note that customers from Laurel Park in Baltimore, Oaklawn Park in Arkansas, the fairgrounds in New Orleans and the Gulfstream Park down in Florida will all be able to go onto Youbet.com and get in on the action. For casino loves and punter fanatics, this is big and thrilling news. With such a substantial addition of new content from some of the top racetracks in the country, the people who run Youbet.com are extremely excited by the prospects of this latest development. They feel that this will open themselves up to an entirely new group of customers that includes online casino players and horseracing aficionados.

Their product now at Youbet.com is much more broad and inclusive than it was before and for die-hard horseracing and casino betting fans, this is quite appealing. They are confident that with these new additions they will be able to meet the needs of their customers much better.

If you want to feel like you’ve been struck by a lightning bolt of fun while playing at one of your favorite online casinos, you should definitely pay a visit to Thunderstruck Slots. There are nine different pay-lines on Thunderstruck Slots. The wild symbol for this game is kind of funny. It is a picture of Thor and it is pretty awesome. When it comes across the reels you can decide to use it as a magical substitute for any other symbol in the entire casino game except for the scatter symbol, of course. If you are able to use the wild symbol as part of any winning combination whatever prize you have coming your way will be doubled instantaneously. How awesome is that? This feature of the online casino slot game can make for some very exciting monetary prizes.

The scatter symbol on Thunderstruck Slots is pretty sweet also. It is a picture of two purple rams. I don’t know where they got the idea for that particular symbol but that is not the strangest thing I have come across while checking out other online casinos. If you can get two or more of these purple ram symbols to show up while playing this casino game, a prize will be heading your way.

If you have the luck that so many online casino players wish to possess and are able to get an astonishing three scatter symbols to show up on your screen, you will be eligible to score 15 games for free. They will be awarded automatically and the prizes you can obtain from them will be instantly tripled.

If you are a fan of the high-powered online casino slots action, Thunderstruck Slots will deliver a knockout punch of great gaming. The symbols for this remarkable casino game are pretty darn memorable. They are smartly designed and some of them are pretty awesome. The slots site, compared to many others at rival online casinos, is set up in a very straightforward way. The symbols are nice and inventive for a regular casino and they purposely made them so they will be easy to find and hard to confuse with one another. The symbols are the classic playing card symbols – every card from 9 through ace and some symbols that have to do with the fiercest forms of weather including lightning shapes like a lightning bolt, a castle with a bolt of lightning behind it and a horn.

 The graphics at Thunderstruck Slots are well executed as far as online casinos go and the software seems to run pretty smoothly. Problems on the site are few and far between. The screens are quick to load and any sort of glitch or hiccups are very rare. This is unusual for casinos. The sound quality is decent but it doesn’t involve anything that will knock your socks off. The selection for betting options is pretty good. You can get your spin on by spending as little as a penny or as much as $45. So whether you are rolling in dough or digging underneath your couch cushions in your living room for spare change, his is an online slots game that will be able to meet your needs.

With such a big change taking place in the White House with President Barack Obama assuming what many people consider to be the most powerful and important position in the world, a great many pairs of eyes are being focused onto national politics. And more and more we are seeing a trend among politicians in that they are coming out in very straightforward ways with regard to their policy on online casinos and other forms of iternet gambling. Casinos have always seemes to bring about some level of scandal and controversy but the war being waged against online casinos has sort of come to a head as the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act comes into effect.

Politicians seem to be drawing a line in the sand and showing where they stand as far as their gamling beliefs are concerned. More and more the issues involving online casinos are coming to the forefront of the political discourse. Online gambling is becoming a very weighty issue. Many states across the entire nation have made efforts to address their laws that focus on this type of casino gaming. As the country’s economy continues on its downward spiral, more and more people are pointing towards the strength and potential of the online casino as a part of the solution if national regulations could be more reasonable and enforceable.

Some politicians have gone so far as to base a big part of their campaign or political platform on their stance toward casinos and online gambling. Robert Ford, a candidate for governor of South Carolina for the 2010 election has included very specific language in his platform that details how he would use money earned from video gambling and casino tax money to help bolster the state budget.

Unfortunately for fans of online casinos, the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act that the Bush Administration has brought through the system as a “midnight drop” has now officially come into effect. Financial institutions are supposed to implement all of the guidelines for the UIGEA no later than the first of December. The exception to this is dependent upon whether or not the government decides to repeal the Act before that time comes around. And for online casino players, this is what they have their fingers crossed for.

Another group that is not too happy with this development is the American Banking Association. People associated with the financial institutions in the United States are not looking forward to this process especially since many people are doubtful that the guidelines involved in this law will not be enforceable. Through the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, the burden of preventing financial transactions from being processed if they have to do with casinos is placed almost entirely on the financial institutions.

Now the pressure is on the credit card companies and additional assorted financial institutions to gear up and develop systems to ensure that all transactions associated with online casinos are blocked. This has been determined to be the best way to curb the threat of illegal online gambling. But the details as to what that means exactly, have not yet been determined. For now players at casinos are playing the waiting game. There is a glaring lack of specificity or definition for which activities are legal and which are not.

If you happen to be planning on attending the Fire&Ice 2009 event next week in London, you are in for one amazing evening. Organized by Lycuem Media, the yearly gathering is scheduled to inlcude musical guest THePETEBOX. For eight years now this annual event has been bringing together all of the top movers and shakers in the industry including executives from online casinos, operators, affiliates, suppliers and the media for a night of casual mingling and some of the best digital entertainment you can find anywhere. This year’s Fire&Ice event is scheduled for the 28^th of January beginning at 9 in the evening.

Lyceum Media waslucky enough to be able to book the classy and endlessly elegant Gilgamesh Lounge in Camden Town in London for the widely anticipated event. And now with the musical guest signed on this night is shaping up to be the online casino industry event of the season.

This event, especially orgnanized for the people who dedicate themselves to online casinos at every level, is schedule to take place in conjunction with the International Gaming Expo trade show. In the past this event was known as the International Casino Exhibition but it has since undergone a name change to be more inclusive. Fire&Ice will also feature the presence of casino industry search engine extraordinair Bob Rains. He will be working as guest DJ alongside a few other hand-picked top musicians from the London scene. Rain is an industry veteran who has spoken at several big conferences and is sure to please the crowd that will be gathered at this highly anticipated event.