As it stands right now, individual states are free to prohibit or practice gambling of their borders while significant regulations and limits are placed on interstate and this activity. Recently, online gambling has seen harsher restrictions. With the Unlawful World wide web Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 (UIEGA), it was not explicitly banned but rather it had been online financial transactions that were outlawed. This meant that all online financial transactions from gambling providers were now illegal which resulted in many offshore gambling operators excluding US consumers from their services.
Existing in this legitimate grey area, it is no more a concern of if online gambling will enter in the united states 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 this year. Naturally, a gaming company in Las Vegas referred to as Ultimate Gaming was the first ever to offer online poker but for now restricting it to just players in Nevada. NJ and Delaware have also 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 Video gaming Association has explained that “Unless you will find a federal bill passed, we are going to have the greatest expansion of legalized gambling in the United States. I don’t think that’s what anyone intended, nonetheless it is what we’re experiencing.” This poses lots of questions and of course concerns for many existing commercial casinos as well as American policy makers. Will legal online gambling mean fewer persons in offline casinos? Will this develop a new source of revenue at the state and national level? What about taxes and regulations? A rise in gamblers?
colowin of people including Arnie Wexler, former chairman of New Jersey’s Council On Compulsive Gambling offers voiced concern that with the good this could do to create income and revenue for specific states there could be problems with an increase in compulsive gambling. There is particular concern regarding social media marketing in america 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 programs to expand into online gambling to check their physical casinos. Geoffrey Stewart, general office manager of Caesars INTERNET POKER has said “Like any other business, you’re always looking for what is the next distribution channel.”g