As it stands today, individual states are absolve to prohibit or practice gambling within their borders while significant rules and limits are put on interstate and this activity. Recently, online gaming has seen harsher restrictions. With the Unlawful Net Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 (UIEGA), it had been not explicitly banned but rather it was online financial transactions that were outlawed. This meant that online financial transactions from gambling providers were now illegal which resulted in numerous offshore gambling operators excluding US consumers from their services.
Existing in this lawful grey area, it is no more a issue of if online gambling will go into the US market but when and perhaps how. As recently as this month, three claims have legalized online gambling and plan to begin offering bets by the end of this year. Naturally, a gaming company in Las Vegas referred to as Ultimate Gaming was the first to offer online poker but also for now restricting it to only players in Nevada. NJ and Delaware also have legalized online gambling and so far ten other states are thinking about legalizing it in some form or another.
Frank Fahrenkopf, president of the American Gambling Association has mentioned that “Unless there is a federal bill passed, we will have the greatest expansion of legalized gambling in the United States. infini88 don’t believe that’s what anyone intended, but it is what we’re seeing.” This poses a great deal of questions and of course concerns for many existing commercial casinos in addition to American policy makers. Will legal online gambling mean fewer people in offline casinos? Will this develop a new way to obtain revenue at hawaii and national level? Think about taxes and regulations? An increase in gamblers?
Many people including Arnie Wexler, former chairman of New Jersey’s Council On Compulsive Gambling offers voiced concern that with all the good this could do to generate income and revenue for particular states there may be problems with an increase in compulsive gambling. There’s particular concern regarding social media marketing in the US 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 plans to develop into online gambling to check their actual physical casinos. Geoffrey Stewart, general manager of Caesars Online Poker has said “Like any business, you’re always looking for what is the next distribution channel.”