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Holland Casino Ready for Internet Gaming - Onshore

The casino, at www.hollandcasino.nl, began operations Thursday on a play-for-free basis. Players can become familiar with the site's games - including roulette, blackjack, bingo and three slot machines - while the company awaits government approval for taking real-money bets.

That approval is expected in a few weeks. Until that happens, anyone can play at the site. Once the real betting begins, only residents of The Netherlands will be allowed to play.

The only language on the site is Dutch, although there is a link to a German-language site that promotes Holland Casino's land-based facilities and a link to an English-language section with news about a recent poker tournament run by the Holland Casino in Amsterdam.

Holland Casino will be joining a small group of land-based gaming firms worldwide that have established online real-money casinos. But with the major exception of four companies in Australia, the servers for most of these Internet casinos are located offshore.

Ladbrokes, for example, is the second-largest operator of land-based casinos in the United Kingdom. But its online casino is based in Gibraltar. Another big player in the UK, Stanley Leisure, bought a virtual casino earlier this year that's licensed in Dominica.

The server for hollandcasino.nl is in Amsterdam.

"Neighboring countries will be looking at the Holland site," Paul Barnes, vice president of worldwide sales and marketing for Access Gaming Systems, told RGT Online. "Holland Casino is one of the most ambitious gaming companies and is certainly extremely entrepreneurial in its attitude."

Access developed the software for the online Holland Casino. The company also did the software for the four Australian companies that are operating licensed Internet casinos: Lasseters, Federal, Tattersall's and GoCorp.

Barnes said software for the new Holland Casino has strong security features, and is designed to prevent play by minors and people who don't live in Holland. The government will require that bettors set loss limits for themselves.

Holland Casino has a monopoly on land-based casinos in The Netherlands, with 11 locations. Barnes said that most of them are fairly large by European standards.

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