Live casinos that use UK Pounds Sterling

UK pound£/Great Britain Pound

Currency official usage is found in England, Scotland Wales and North Ireland. Other regions having this currency as legal tenders are British isles, Isles of man and channel islands as well as some British governed states like Georgia and South sandwich islands. The ISO 4217 code is GBP which stands for great Britain Pound and numeric code is 826. One pound's division is 100 pence. one value of pence is called penny.

History

Pound sterling is the official name given to this currency and is also useful in being distinctive from other currencies having pound as currency name. Quid is the slang for pound which is used in informal context. this name is derived from famous Latin phrase quid pro quo. According to Oxford English dictionary states that sterling refers to silver coin used during 1300 years. This was used by Norman in early England. Since the metal used to make this coins was primarily silver and had great value it's also referred to as sterling silver.

The sign looks like L curved with a horizontal small bar in middle of it this. thus £ this sign is also seen on all sterling bank notes. The pound sign is also derived from letter L, which comes from’ librae’ a roman term, and thus is used for pounds. The term ‘Librae’ comes from the word which was used for basic units of weight and also refers to zodiac Libra sign, which means to balance and weighing scales. Pound‘s subunit is pence (p) which is used by locals and they also pronounce this p as "pee".

New halfpenny which was earlier subunit of pence was withdrawn from circulation and usage in 1994.Some of the old English literature and English book have mention of shillings and pence which was mode of currency system at that time. Old era had special names for various coins like farthings, shillings, sovereign, crown and guinea. Popular money banks in form of pink colored pigs replicas were also called guinea banks and term guinea pigs came into being.

The pound sterling currency is one of the oldest currencies of the world still in active usage. King of Mercia has been the birth giver of this unique currency which was minted in silver as early as 750 century. "Teal by penny" was a new coinage system introduced by King Henry II. This is today well known as sterling silver pound. This silver is harder than silver used to make crafts and jewelry. During Tudor times pound was further renamed ‘Troy Pound’ in which silver quantity was decreased. This was during times of monarchy of King Henry VIII &Edward VI.

In 1663 a new coin was introduced made from 22 carat gold called gold coin. Till 1717 this coin saw lot of changes modifications in its value, sizes and also in material used to mint it, but later it was fixed to 21 shillings. Bank of England was formed in 1694 and Bank of Scotland soon after that. Both the banks printed paper currency.

In 1707, When kingdom of England and Kingdom of Scotland joined together to form Great Britain the currency of UK became "sterling pound". Before World war I England was the most powerful economy of the world. By the end of the war the country was in heavy debt to other countries, primarily to United States of America and this affected value of its own currency’s standings negatively. Most of the European colonies adopted the British currency and many parts of world have used pounds with their own local currencies for e.g. Barbados, Africa, Australia, Cyprus, Fiji, Jamaica and New Zealand were some of the countries which practiced this dual currency system.

Sterling pound is pegged with following currencies ,value at par ,this are Falkland Islands£, Gibraltar£ and saint Helena£ also Jersey gooneys£ and Marx £.some bank notes are also pegged at par with Scotland and Northern Ireland’s notes. Coins Frequently used are 1p.2p,5p,10p,20p.50 p,1£,2£ Bank notes usage is high 5£,10£,20£and 50 £the bank notes which are not much in circulation and usage are 1£and 100 £which are notes of Scotland and Ireland respectively . Coins which are not seen much in circulation is 25p and 5£.New Designs were introduced in the coins in April 2008,which carried part of royal shield’s picture on reverse side of coin. And the front side always has an image of a ruler or past monarchs of England.

Bank notes

Bank of England in year 1964 issued its first paper currency which is bank notes. Denominations were mentioned and written on all bank notes and were printed in local languages. Bank of Scotland began to issue notes in 1965 onwards. Royal bank of Scotland also issued notes in sterling as well as pounds. £5 is the only polymer note in circulation today. Also northern banks has also produced £10, £20and£ 50 notes this are not legal tender.