It's probably a grey area in many places, but it will depend on the country you're in and the ones they're hosted in. I think (though not 100%) PD recently blocked access from one country due to laws and dooglus had to close up shop for a similar reason.
Wasn't it the other way round? I thought Singapore banned PD rather than PD banning Singapore.
As far as "provably fair" most of the "dice" gambling sites do have a way for you to verify after the fact that there's no way the house could have unfairly influenced the results. Most licensed and regulated online casinos don't give you that option, and no brick-and-mortar casino gives you that option although they typically do have government gaming officials come in and audit their random number generators from time to time.
Seems like a step backwards then.
I am sure some of them do have a license. Recently, satoshibet shutdown to US customers, because of the laws .So legal aspects do affect them as well.
In the future, the laws might apply for these casinos . Currently, most of them run without licenses.
If transactions on SatoshiDice are done directly on the blockchain then how do they block players from the US?EDIT: Nevermind, I see they offer an off-chain version of their game as well.
I think that there is no need for license with bit coins.
Actually there is. The way they operate right now is that an anonymous person operates the casinos, and in some of the investment sites they are in possession of over a million dollars. If they were licensed, they would be responsible if they run away with the funds. Would atleast be much better than having an anonymous person being in possession.
Is that the only benefit of having a license? That it insures that the owner is not anonymous and thus can be held accountable if they decide to run off with the funds?
Also, anonymity and trustworthiness aren't mutually exclusive. Stunna and dooglus are anonymous but are considered to be highly trustworthy. Most people would rather trust them with their coins than some non-anonymous people like Karpeles or the Moolah CEO. If people don't like the idea of gambling sites having anonymous owners then they will take their coins elsewhere. If enough people agree with this viewpoint, then their owners will either go out of business or be forced to reveal their identities.
If it's a problem then it's pretty much a self-correcting one.