USA Casinos: Online Salvation?

So we’ve just gone through the 3 year milestone since the much maligned Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act (”UIGEA“) was underhandedly snuck in as an amendment to a tenuously related anti-terrorism bill called the Safe Port Act. I’m not going to cover old ground, but if you want to read up on just what happened and the implications to US gamblers and resultingly, USA casinos, then check out the Wiki page for some informative, if not slightly disturbing, reading. So it’s Fall 2009 and what’s changed? Where is the USA heading on online gambling?

Well, if you look on the surface and at what the UIGEA has actually effected, then the answer would be “nowhere”. It’s still an ineffective law that the banks - the designated enforcers - are not only reluctant to carry out but are actually looking at overturning via the House Financial Committee. But if you look a bit deeper, there have been quite a few knock on effects to both the US and non-US online gambling industry since it was passed.

The first move was a somewhat jumpy one from the major casino software providers, with three of the biggest stopping their licencees from operating casinos aimed at the USA market. This culminated with Microgaming’s pullout in late 2007 leaving the number of (legitimate) USA online casinos in virtually single figures and pretty much restricted to those operating on the RTG gaming platform. Since then of course, we have seen one or two new software providers looking to take advantage of the gap left in the market, most notably Rival, but the gap left by the big boys invariably left the way open for a number rogue casinos to grab a valuable foothold in the lucrative USA casino market.

And with the UIGEA stopping short of banning online gambling outright, today we are effectively in a state of limbo. Senator Barney Frank is working hard to try and get the double-edged sword of the UIGEA overturned while US gamblers have theoretically had temptation removed. In actual fact, what this means is that most of the good US focused casinos were forced out of the market and replaced with a mish-mash of good and evil, leaving US online gamblers in a far riskier position and needing to research USA casinos to find those safe for playing.

Aside from Barney Franks’ Bill and Internet player’s attempts to fight for online gambling, one interesting development is afoot, no doubt helped on my the world’s somewhat dire economic situation and the fact that online gambling in the USA is a potentially multi-billion dollar tax stream. And that development is happening over in the East where California politicians are proposing that online poker be legalised, a good start it must be said. And just over the border in the State of Nevada, Harrahs have anounced a strategy with Dragonfish, a sub-division of 888, to bring both the WSOP and their Caesar’s Palace brands online, outside the USA initially, but it’s seen as a significant step forward.

2010 may be a slow grow year, but there is no doubt that the tide appears to be starting to turn with regulation becoming, at the very least, considered in pockets of the US. The online future of USA casinos is still in the balance, but the undercurrent is one of cautious optimism.

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