What Country do you host you sites in If targetting USA Visitors?

[casinogod]

We are currently considering moving hosting companies for one of our sites. The site is currently hosted in Canada, but we are struggling to find a high quality reliable Canadian hosting company that has live support (and ideally guaranteed up time). The company we are currently with for this sites hosting is not performing, in terms of the number of times the site has been down this year.

So its time to vote with our feet and go elsewhere. So far the companies we have found in Canada do not have live support (or if they do it appears to be offline all of the time). Obviously as we are concerned about up time we want to be able to quickly and easily contact the hosting company if there is ever a problem.

In our search we have found some very good hosting companies in USA, however I suspect hosting a site in certain states could be dumb to say the least. So what are you thoughts?

Do you host any of you key USA facing affilaite sites in America? If so are there any states you avoid?

Alternativly can anyone recommend a really good Canadian Hosting company we could try?

[jctroy440]

I don't think hosting an affiliate site in the USSA is against the law (yet) Almost everything else is in the USSA is. Mabey the Obamanation will overlook us lowly purveyors of portal poop and give us a break for a few more years.

[CityGuard]

I'd avoid Washington state. I haven't heard anything about laws there that may apply specifically to hosting, but they have (by far) the most draconian restrictions about linking to online gaming sites. There may be other states to avoid as well.

My knowledge of what Casino City does is from a while ago so I am not positive it is current, but from what I recall we host our content on our own servers in Massachusetts, but host all our advertising materials in Louisiana (where we are incorporated). The reason that we selected Louisiana is because the state law that prohibits operating an online gambling establishment also specifically notes that advertising does not fall under that restriction. Combined with being in the 5th circuit -- which had ruled that the Wire Act does not apply to casino gambling (only to sportsbetting), that made Louisiana a fairly favorable jurisdiction.

I haven't read the legislation from Washington state or Louisiana, so I may be missing important pieces, but this is how I understand things based on my recollection of how our hosting and incorporation decisions were made.

[TravG]

I could be totally off base here, but the UIGEA and the wire act pertains to actually accepting bets and processing money to and from gambling enties. As a portal, we do not directly do either of these things. All we do is provide information and make recommendations.

Its like a website that tells you how to grow pot. Thats not illegal, growing the pot is??

[Nandakishore]

Our site is hosted on a server in the USA, but we have a clause in our contract that guarantees that they will shift our content from US to UK if legai issues crop up in the US.

[Chips]

All of my sites are hosted in Texas through HostGator, I agree with Steven that you should avoid Washington State due to the hyper aggressive nature they have with online gaming/gambling. Other than that I feel safe as the portals do not accept wagers and are an advertising medium.

[casinogod]

Thanks for all the replies, very helpful.

[baldidiot]

Very interesting thread. I've been toying with the idea of creating a US based mini site and hosting it in the USA, but hadn't even considered this factor.