New Hampshire Online Casinos
New Hampshire may be the first state to launch its own lottery game, but that doesn’t really change the fact that the local gambling laws are rather strict. Nevertheless, New Hampshire does have its own regulated casinos and poker rooms and allows pari-mutuel betting on state-licensed race tracks. Nevertheless, New Hampshire doesn’t have a regulated online gambling market, which means that online casino enthusiasts are pretty much stuck with offshore casinos until new gambling laws are passed.
New Hampshire Gambling Laws
New Hampshire gambling laws are somewhat complicated. General regulations can be found in New Hampshire Revised Statutes Section 647, while Gambling Contracts and Licensed Games are covered in Chapters 338 and 284 through 287 respectively. Participating in illegal gambling activities is considered to be a misdemeanor, but the local law enforcement isn’t very enthusiastic about catching individual players.
I. A person is guilty of a misdemeanor if such person knowingly and unlawfully:
(a) Permits gambling in any place under the person’s control.
(b) Gambles, or loans money or any thing of value for the purpose of aiding another to gamble.
(c) Possesses a gambling machine.
New Hampshire doesn’t have any regulations pertaining specifically to online gambling, which means that playing on offshore casino sites isn’t listed as a punishable offense. While it is still possible for the authorities to argue that playing on such sites is against the current regulations, there’s simply no denying the fact that no online players have been prosecuted for pursuing their hobby in the past.
Online Casinos
New Hampshire residents don’t have the option to join any regulated USA casino sites, which means that most of the local casino aficionados simply register at offshore sites, which are based in countries like Antigua or Canada. The vast majority of those sites are perfectly reliable and 100% safe to play on – and if that wasn’t enough, they receive more traffic than their local counterparts, which enables them to offer generous bonuses that simply aren’t available with the traffic-starved businesses that operate on fenced intrastate markets.
Offshore Casino Sites That Accept New Hampshire Players
New Hampshire residents are free to play on most US-facing casino sites, which means that they are free to go for some of the best Real Time Gaming-powered casinos in the entire industry. Unfortunately, the casinos that use software developed by other high-profile companies like Playtech or Microgaming refuse to accept American players, but in the end the quality of the available games is high enough to compensate for being unable to play on most Europe-facing sites.
The most reliable way of making a deposit to an offshore casino site if you live in New Hampshire is to use a Western Union/MoneyGram money order. Unfortunately, using this method tends to get rather expensive over time, which is why most New Hampshire players prefer to go for credit card deposits instead. Please note that credit cards aren’t as reliable as money orders due to the fact that some of the transaction get blocked. In such a case, you won’t lose any money, but you’ll be forced to try another card until you find the one that actually works.
Visa cards tend to have the higher acceptance rates, but MasterCard is also a fairly popular brand among New Hampshire casino enthusiasts. For most casinos, the default withdrawal method when dealing with American customers is to use a traditional bank wire transfer, but some sites allow New Hampshire resident to request a cash out via a check by courier.
Developing Legal Scenarios
While Governor John Lynch declared that his office is working on online-gambling friendly regulations back in 2010, no bill has been proposed so far. Furthermore, it is worth pointing out that the legislation which was supposed to legalize online lottery games failed to gain the necessary support, which means that the current regulations aren’t very likely to change in the foreseeable future.