On January 5 2016, in a press release on the official website of Boston, the mayor of the city Martin Joseph Walsh announced that his administration has filed legal action against the Massachusetts Gaming Commission. The reason for that is that the commission granted Wynn a license which allows them to construct a casino resort near the city, the only legal access to which would be through the already traffic-congested neighbourhood of Charlestown. Due to the same fact, the city of Boston argues that it should have the status of ‘host community’ and not the status of ‘surrounding community’ which has been given to it by the commission.
According to Walsh’s administration, the residents of the neighbourhood should be allowed to vote and decide for themselves whether or not the resort should be built. Also, they argue that if the resort is indeed built, it should obtain permission by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority to create a second point of access through an adjacent property owned by the public operator.
The case is pretty interesting and poses a lot of questions about the U.S. gambling laws and especially the ones of the state of Massachusetts. From one point of view, all forms of gambling, except remote gambling, are allowed and regulated in the state and the city of Boston will definitely benefit from the resort, as it will be entitled to financial compensation by Wynn. Also, in the long term, the city will attract more tourist and the resort will create additional work places. From the other hand, it will have a heavy impact on the daily lives of the over 17,000 residents of the neighbourhood. A complicated situation, indeed.
Interestingly enough, there aren’t similar cases in the UK. Maybe that’s due to the fact that, as opposed to the United States, in the United Kingdom land-based gambling is not more developed than online gambling. After all, in the UK, online gambling is well regulated and, most importantly, allowed, while in the U.S., only a few states have legalised this form of real-money gaming. And, as playing from the comfort of your home or on your mobile device is way more convenient, there are more and more people that are choosing to play at online casinos. On top of that, online casinos contain way more games than land-based ones and offer higher return-to-player percentages which gives better odds to the players. Some would argue that it takes away the excitement of being in a real casino environment, but even that is not completely true, as nowadays there are remote live casinos where you can play at tables hosted by real dealers which you can watch through an HD video stream. Most online live casinos even contain more tables than the biggest last-based ones and allow you to play more games: roulette, blackjack, baccarat, Casino Hold’em, Sic Bo, Three Card Poker and more.
When it comes to games that don’t require a dealer, such as video poker and online slots, the scales are tipped even more heavily towards online casinos. There you can find dozens of video poker variations and hundreds, if not thousands of different video slots. Video slots are, in fact, the hands-down most popular casino games both at land-based and at online casinos. Still, playing them remotely gives you better chances for a win thanks to the higher RTPs and the many bonus opportunities that online casinos offer. You can learn more about the topic on this page: https://www.goodcasino.co.uk/slots/.