The United Kingdom was one of the earliest countries to legalise online gambling. This comes as no surprise, if you take a look into the history of gambling in the country as a whole. The blood in many Britain’s veins is ‘Gambling Green’; these genes passed down to them by their forefathers.

UK finds its earliest History of organised gambling in lotteries, which were state orchestrated from 1569 onwards. The funds made from lottery tickets were used to finance the building of many of the countries biggest and most famous landmarks.

Early betting history involved various other forms of ‘beating the odds’. In 17th and 18th centuries, gaming houses became quite prominent as social hangouts for townspeople. And of course, Horse racing found huge popularity in the ‘Industrial Revolution’ and opened the door to sports betting of all forms.

It is no wonder that today, the UK boasts one of the highest number of online casinos in the world, and also bosses the stats for the country with the highest number of gamblers in Europe.

“Punching above its weight class”: Based on statistics, the UK has more than double the number of online gamblers than the rest of Europe combined. It ‘boasts’ over 200 million active registered online casino accounts. This is an impressive fact when you consider that the UK only makes up 8.85% of the population of Europe and only 2.4% of the land mass of the entire continent.”

JUDGE AND JURY

The UK government is open to online gambling in the country, but with a few provisos:

• All UK based online casino operators must be licensed by the UK Gambling Commission. This license will only be awarded after rigorous approval measures (more about this later).
• Casinos from outside the country may offer their services to UK residents, but they will be subjected to consumption taxes of 15% of their profits made through the UK people. If they refuse to pay up, they will be refused entry into the country. This is one of many strategies in place to ensure that UK based casinos receive the monopoly of the customers. Not many outside casinos are put off by this though, as there is a massive market for casinos within the country and a reputable casino is sure to makes its fair share of profits while servicing the nation.

MUSCLE BOUND REGULATION

Online casinos that want to open and trade in the country, will have no choice but to license themselves through the ‘UK Gambling Commission’, which is notorious for its stringent approval process and strict policing of the regulations set by the commission.

licenses

Gambling providers cannot merely buy a ‘one size fits all’ remote gambling license, as each sub-category activity must be applied for. Each comes with its own license. Here are the 6 gambling licenses available:

• Betting (Like Sports Betting)
• Bingo
• Casino Games
• Gaming Machines
• Gaming Software
• Lotteries

Aside from the fundamental license, each senior official at a casino must be cleared and licensed with a ‘Personal Management License’ (PML). The commission will do background financial and criminal checks to clear such management.

In addition, the following stringent information must be handed to the commission for thorough scrutiny:

• Provision of a complete company structure, including all shareholders owning more than a 3% equity.
• Details of all people involved in application for credit, criminal checks and ‘PML’.
• Evidence of how business will be funded (Cannot trade if you cannot honour payouts).
• Three-year projections with supporting assumptions.
• If you are an existing business, then 3 years of audited financial statements.
• A Business Plan
• List of policies and procedures to service your clientele efficiently and fairly.
• Technical compliance: All software and mechanisms must meet the industry standards.

“UKGC for president! Despite the rigorous controls of the UKGC, it has approximately 1000+ reputable casinos on its books. That is a decent number by any standing, especially when you consider how well gambling and its advertising is governed in the UK.”

POUND FOR POUND THE BEST REWARDS!

Of course, in order to service the UK, you need to service them in their Great British Pound Sterling Currency. Trading in your own currency is a must for any gambler for 2 vital reasons:

1. You will not be subject to foreign exchange levies when playing in your own money.
2. Bank roll management becomes far simpler. No more sitting with a calculator, tallying up your wins, wagers and losses. If a casino does not offer your currency, especially if it is GBP, move on to the next operator.

GAMES AND SOFTWARE

Games and software are available in 3 platforms in the online arena:

• Downloadable Programs: You are able to download a casinos full software package to your PC. This gives you access to the largest array of games on offer, with super smooth gameplay, if your device specs can handle it. The only drawback of this is that the software takes up valuable hard drive space. Should you want to play at various casinos in this way, you will need a super computer.
• Instant Play: This is where you play direct from the web browser. Nowadays this platform can be used by both PC and mobile platforms alike. If you like switching between casinos regularly, this is the way to go. There is also no need to take up much need hard disk space, either.

“Browser Buddies: Modern HTML5 browser technology allows mobile devices the luxury of playing games straight from an internet browser without flash extensions. The technology ‘dumbs down’ the data so that it is compatible with the hardware on most modern mobile phones and tablets.”

• Mobile Platform: Many casinos offer downloadable mobile software applications, so that you can maximise the performance of your mobile device for ‘on the go gambling’.

Now, while you can opt which form of platform you will want to adopt at a UK casino, you must pay attention to which software providers are servicing the platform. In the UK, there are 4 main software leaders:

• IGT
• Microgaming
• NetEnt
• Playtech Gaming

With these providers you can be assured of smooth gameplay, crystal clear graphics, and brilliant sound.

“Microgaming’s Macro-reputation: Microgaming were the global founders of online gambling in 1998. Their Quickfire software program has allowed other smaller providers to ‘piggy back’ on their success as a gaming provider, increasing their games diversity tremendously. Their games gallery could be unravelled like an ancient scroll, for the sheer number of titles that can be found.”

Any one of the above tried and tested suppliers will add just about any title you can dream of to your personal portfolio of games played:

Slots: The number of types of slot games available on the market right now are astounding. The general sub-categories include: 3D slots, VR slots, classic slots, Progressive slots, fruit slots, Vegas slots, and more.

“Playtech Play: Popular games from this provider include all of the progressive jackpot slots licensed by Marvel, which is a super popular and iconic brand today.”

Table Games: These include great game varieties, such as roulette, Baccarat, blackjack, poker, casino hold’em, and craps.

“Blow the house down! Table games have the lowest house edge of all casino games, with Blackjack as the player edge leader of 98% - 99% RTP.”

VR Gaming: Virtual reality is a relatively new form of gaming, and as such the graphics are still a bit primitive. But, VR allows you to enter the 3-dimensional world of the game itself, by wearing VR goggles and earphones. This escape from reality allows you the walk of the virtual casino floor to interact with other player avatars in real time.

“VR King! Net Entertainment are the un-official VR game software leaders, having released a number of highly interactive virtual experiences for your senses.”

Moving away from the software of the top 4, we venture into ‘Live Dealer’ Casino platforms, where we will need to look no further than ‘Evolution Gaming’.

The live dealer experience lends itself to the best of the land-based and online gambling worlds. You can experience a real dealer via livestream yet interact with the gaming platform from the comfort of your own home. Currently ‘Live Dealer’ gambling embraces most of your popular table games.

NO BALONY

Online casinos make use of various bonus promotions in order to attract players to their site. Any good online operator will have great welcome bonuses to entice first time players at the casino, and good loyalty and cashback bonuses to keep long standing players happy.

UK Casinos will offer always exclusive bonuses to residents betting in Pound Sterling, which is always a plus.

The best things about bonus promotions based at UK casinos, is the strict regulations laid down by the UKGC on how adverts must be run. Any advert on TV, radio, or any other form of digital or print media must explain all of the fine print. There can be no hidden terms and conditions. Bait and switch tactics are completely forbidden. If an offer says, ‘free money’, you can guarantee that you will receive free money.

TOOLS TO TRANSACT

UK Casinos make it very easy for you to load and withdraw money. All you will have to do is register a real money account and select you preferred method of payment or withdrawal.

There will be no shortage of transaction methods to choose from when at UK casinos, as they uphold many of the most popular forms.

Credit and Debit Cards

This form of payment is most popular amongst European online gamblers. Your information will be kept safe and the deposit time is super quick. Unfortunately, the withdrawal times are not as quick and can take up to 3 – 5 days to reflect.

Prepaid Cards/Vouchers

Prepaid cards, such as ‘paysafecard’ or ‘uKash’ can be purchased at your local retailer store and reloaded with funds there too. To load your casino wallet, merely select the brand of card bought and input the card number to load your bankroll.

Bank Transfers

There are two primary versions of bank transfers:

• Wire Transfer: This is organised at the bank, physically, and entails a direct transfer from your account to the casinos account or vice versa.
• Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT): This is a direct payment made from your account via your online banking profile.

Both types of bank transfers can take a few fays to clear in both directions.

Instant Transfers

Instant transfer like ‘Trustly’ and ‘SOFORT’ will endeavour to clear bank transfers immediately without the normal bank delays. They then recoup their payment directly from your account when the funds are made available.

E-Wallet

E-Wallets are third party virtual wallets that transact payments between you and various payers/ payees. They can be used to make or receive payments. They come with their own forms of security and offer the speediest service for real currency transactions.

The three most used E-Wallets online, include PayPal, NETELLER, and Skrill. Neteller was specifically designed with online gambling in mind, which means it is super-casino friendly, unlike its PayPal counterpart.

Cryptocurrency

With advancements in the usage of virtual currencies such as Bitcoin and other, certain UK Casinos will offer you their services in trade for cryptocurrency. Not only will they accept it for deposits, but they will pay-out in the currency, too.

“Crypto Super Highway: Trading in Bitcoin is one of the most secure methods of transacting. Not only this, but transactions are virtually instant, which means that it can ‘wipe the floor’ with E-Wallets, which have the un-official award for being the fastest real currency payment method.”

DON’T DELAY – PLAY UK!

It is evident from the above article that casinos based out of the UK will offer you the best services available online. Paying your deposits can be done at ease, knowing that your options for recourse, should things go awry, is great. Not only is the standard of service ‘jacked-up’ due to stringent regulatory measures, but the sheer positioning of the country allows for ‘oodles’ of bonus fun and games entertainment.

Visit out ‘GamblersPick’ community reviews to read up on what your gambling peers have to say about our preselected UK Casinos. Any review with a ‘GamblersPick Select’ badge on it is a premium selected review written by one of our gambling community review veterans.