Whenever the words gambling online appear together in a sentence, it usually causes people to raise an eyebrow and think quietly to themselves, “Is that legal?”  It depends upon where you are in the world, but in many instances, gambling online is perfectly legal.

There is not space here (nor do I have the legal expertise to be dispensing with foolproof advice) to give you a completely fulsome account of all situations, so a broad overview shall have to suffice.  Whether you reside in the EU or the US, there can be some quite confusing and generally unclear directives about the legality or otherwise of gambling online.

Largely the European Union has taken a pro-gambling online stance and has sought regulation and legislation, rather than outright banning, which would in fact run counter to EU law.  In the US, attempts to legislate have been a little ad hoc, with legislation working on a state-by-state basis.  Federal law impositions were sought on gambling online, but have proved difficult to come by, although there is now a weak statute that implies that gambling online is indeed illegal.  It has not completely shut down online gambling operations, but it has meant that if you visit online gambling sites, many of them will have an American flag with a no-entry sign plastered over the top of it, designating that gamblers based in the US are prohibited from playing there.

There has been a pretty significant surge of people jumping online wondering how to play backgammon.  Thanks to televised events of the professional world tour a whole new audience has become exposed to backgammon and interested in how to play.  Internet backgammon sites have jumped on this opportunity to attract new players by being the number one places to go in order to learn how to play backgammon.

You can get on just about any internet backgammon site to day and find rules, information, and articles on how to play backgammon along with links to popular casino game blogs offering more insider information.  You can also play one of the many free online casino sites, which are often times run by the real money backgammon sites, in order to put the rules and strategies you’ve read about into practice.  You’ll never learn how to play backgammon by just reading about it.  That’s only the first step.  In order to become a good player you need to play and find what does and doesn’t work for you.  Backgammon is definitely a game learned by experience, not by a book.

Free online backgammon site are definitely in a class of their own for beginners.  You could read book on how to play backgammon and test it out on your friends or at a live casino, but playing one or two friends won’t get you far, unless they’re Gus Hansen, and playing a casino will probably lose you money and be a bit embarrassing.  For beginners, there is no rival to playing online.

If you are becoming interested in gambling as a whole and online gambling in particular, but are unsure of either how to get started or how deeply involved you wish to become, why not try your hand in a free casino.  These have become abundant on the Internet and can be seen as a good starting point, a gentle introduction to what life might be like when and if, you decide to gamble for money at some point.

Some more serious gamblers will argue that without the prospect of winning money, there isn’t really much point to playing in a free casino.  Well, that really depends on what your motivation for playing is, what your expectations are and what results you wish to glean from your ‘gambling’ activities.  If the sole purpose of gambling is just to try and win as much money as you can and lose as little as possible that is perfectly reasonable: In theory.  How, if you have never gambled before do you get to the point where winning becomes more of a habit than losing?  Should you just take the plunge and trust your luck?  A free casino can be a great way of getting used to your new environment, building up your confidence and generally preparing oneself for further play in internet casino sites where money is played for.

Also free casino doesn’t equal; ‘devoid of fun’.  Free casino is a reasonable and sensible introduction to a hopefully successful past-time.