As it stands today, individual states are free to prohibit or practice gambling of their borders while significant restrictions and limits are placed on interstate which activity. Recently, online gaming has seen harsher rules. With the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 (UIEGA), it was 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 led to numerous offshore gambling operators excluding US consumers from their services.
Existing in this legitimate grey area, it is no more a question of if online gambling will key in the united states market but when as well as perhaps how. As lately as this month, three says contain legalized online gambling and plan to begin offering bets by the end of the year. Naturally, a gaming organization in Las Vegas known as Ultimate Gaming was the first to offer online poker but also for now restricting it to just players in Nevada. New Jersey and Delaware have also legalized online gambling and so 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 spela utan svensk licens federal bill passed, we will have the greatest expansion of legalized gambling in america. I don’t think that’s what anyone intended, but it is what we’re finding.” This poses plenty of questions not to mention concerns for most existing commercial casinos along with American policy makers. Will legitimate online gambling mean fewer people in brick and mortar casinos? Will this develop a new way to obtain revenue at the state and national level? What about taxes and regulations? A rise in gamblers?
Lots of people including Arnie Wexler, previous chairman of New Jersey’s Council On Compulsive Gambling has voiced concern that with the good this could do to create income and revenue for unique states there could be problems with a rise in compulsive gambling. There’s particular concern regarding social media in the US as some places like Zynga have previously begun taking real-money bets.
Taking in mind all the questions and concerns, many hotel casinos are already making strategies to expand into online gambling to complement their physical casinos. Geoffrey Stewart, general office manager of Caesars Online Poker has said “Like any other business, you’re always looking for what is the next distribution channel.”