As it stands nowadays, individual states are absolve to prohibit or practice gambling of their borders while significant regulations and limits are placed on interstate which activity. In recent years, online gambling has seen harsher regulations. With the Unlawful Web Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 (UIEGA), it had been not explicitly banned but instead it was online financial transactions which were outlawed . This meant that all online financial dealings from gambling service providers were now illegal which resulted in many offshore gambling operators excluding US clients from their services.
Existing in this legitimate 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 states have got legalized online gambling and plan to begin offering bets by the finish of the year. Naturally, a gaming company in Las Vegas known as Ultimate Gaming was the first to offer online poker but for now restricting it to only players in Nevada. New Jersey and Delaware also have legalized online gambling therefore far ten other states are thinking about legalizing it in a few form or another.
Frank Fahrenkopf, president of the American 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 think that’s what anyone intended, but it is what we’re experiencing.” This poses a great deal of questions and of course concerns for most existing commercial casinos and also American policy makers. Will lawful online gambling mean fewer persons in brick and mortar casinos? Will this develop a new source of revenue at the state and national level? Think about taxes and regulations? A rise in gamblers?
Lots of people including Arnie Wexler, ex – chairman of New Jersey’s Council On Compulsive Gambling provides voiced concern that with the good this could do to generate income and revenue for personal states there may be problems with an increase in compulsive gambling. There is particular concern regarding social media marketing in america as some places like Zynga have already begun taking real-money bets.
Taking in mind the questions and concerns, many hotel casinos are already making strategies to expand into online gambling to complement their physical casinos. Geoffrey Stewart, general manager of Caesars Online Poker has said “Like any other business, you’re always looking for what is the next distribution channel.”
