As it stands right now, individual states are absolve to prohibit or practice gambling of their borders while significant regulations and limits are placed on interstate and this activity. Recently, online video games has seen harsher rules. With the Unlawful World wide web Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 (UIEGA), it had been not explicitly banned but instead it had been online financial transactions that were outlawed. This meant that online financial dealings from gambling providers were now illegal which led to numerous offshore gambling operators excluding US buyers from their services.
Existing in this legal grey area, it is no more a question of if online gambling will go into the US market but when and perhaps how. As lately as this month, three states have legalized online gambling and plan to begin offering bets by the end of the year. Naturally, a gaming firm in Las Vegas known 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 Gaming Association has explained that “Unless there is a federal bill passed, we will have the best expansion of legalized gambling in the United States. I don’t think that’s what anyone intended, but it is what we’re witnessing.” This poses a lot of questions and of course concerns for many existing commercial casinos as well as American policy makers. Will legitimate online gambling mean fewer folks in brick and mortar casinos? Will this develop a new source of revenue at the state and national level? Think about Online Casino and regulations? An increase in gamblers?
Many people including Arnie Wexler, former chairman of New Jersey’s Council On Compulsive Gambling features voiced concern that with all the current good this could do to generate income and revenue for individual states there could be problems with an increase in compulsive gambling. There is particular concern regarding social media 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 programs to broaden into online gambling to check their actual physical casinos. Geoffrey Stewart, general office manager of Caesars Online Poker has said “Like any business, you’re always searching for what is the next distribution channel.”