As it stands today, individual states are free to prohibit or practice gambling within their borders while significant rules and limits are placed on interstate which activity. Recently, online video gaming has seen harsher rules. With the Unlawful Net Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 (UIEGA), it was not explicitly banned but rather it was online financial transactions which were outlawed. This meant that online financial transactions from gambling service providers were now illegal which led to numerous offshore gambling operators excluding US clients from their services.
Existing in this legal grey area, it is no more a problem of if online gambling will enter into the united states market but when and perhaps how. As lately as this month, three states own legalized online gambling and plan to begin offering bets by the finish of this year. Naturally, a gaming organization in Las Vegas known as Ultimate Gaming was the first to offer online poker but for now restricting it to only players in Nevada. NJ and Delaware also have legalized online gambling therefore far ten other states are considering legalizing it in some form or another.
Frank Fahrenkopf, president of the American Video games Association has explained that “Unless there exists a federal bill passed, we will have the best expansion of legalized gambling in america. I don’t believe that’s what anyone intended, but it is what we’re finding.” This poses many questions and of course concerns for most existing commercial casinos as well as American policy makers. Will legitimate online gambling mean fewer folks in offline casinos? Will this develop a new way to obtain revenue at the state and national level? Think about taxes and regulations? A rise in gamblers?
Many people including Arnie Wexler, previous chairman of New Jersey’s Council On Compulsive Gambling possesses voiced concern that with the good this could do to create income and revenue for individual states there may be problems with an increase in compulsive gambling. There’s particular concern regarding social media in america as some locations like Zynga have already begun taking real-money bets.
Taking in mind all the questions and concerns, many hotel casinos are already making strategies to extend into online gambling to check their physical casinos. Geoffrey Stewart, general supervisor of Caesars INTERNET POKER has said “Like any business, you’re always searching for what is the next distribution channel.”
