As it stands nowadays, individual states are free to prohibit or practice gambling within their borders while significant rules and limits are put on interstate and this activity. Recently, online gambling has seen harsher regulations. With the Unlawful 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 online financial transactions from gambling service providers were now illegal which resulted in various offshore gambling operators excluding US buyers from their services.
Existing in this legal grey area, it is no longer a concern of if online gambling will go into the united states 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 organization in Las Vegas referred to as Ultimate Gaming was the first 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 a few form or another.
Frank Fahrenkopf, president of the American Gaming Association has said that “Unless you will find a federal bill passed, we are going to have the best expansion of legalized gambling in america. I don’t believe that’s what anyone intended, but it is what we’re viewing.” This poses lots of questions and of course concerns for many existing commercial casinos and American policy makers. Will lawful online gambling mean fewer folks in offline casinos? Will situs slot develop a new source of revenue at the state and national level? Think about taxes and regulations? An increase in gamblers?
Lots of people including Arnie Wexler, previous chairman of New Jersey’s Council On Compulsive Gambling features voiced concern that with all the good this could do to generate income and revenue for individual states there may be problems with an increase in compulsive gambling. There’s particular concern regarding social media in the US as some spots like Zynga have previously 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 supervisor of Caesars INTERNET POKER has said “Like any other business, you’re always searching for what is another distribution channel.”