No Go for Hawaii Online Casino Gambling

March 03, 2010 | News Category: Gaming Law

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At the moment, in the United States, there are a number of states that are undergoing discussions as to whether they wish to legalize online gambling or not. Most of these states already have some form of legalized gambling that is available to their residents, however, there are two US states that have no form of legalized gambling at all.

The two states that have no legalized gambling at all are Alaska and Hawaii. Lawmakers in the Hawaiian Islands have recently been debating whether gambling; either in its land based form or in its online form, would be acceptable for their state.

The main consideration that lawmakers were looking at is the amount of funds that legalized gambling would bring into the states coffers. The state desperately needs to recover lost revenue, and legalizing gambling would be one of the easiest ways to do this.

However, after much debate on the topic, Hawaiian lawmakers have reached the decision that the Hawaiian Islands will not have legalized gambling in any form. This means that neither land based gambling, nor online casino gambling, nor any other forms of online gambling will be available to those residing in Hawaii.

The decision came after a number of religious groups, various social organizations, anti-gambling organizations, and law enforcement groups spoke out strongly against legalizing gambling in Hawaii. The politicians that were trying to make the decision as to whether to allow gambling in Hawaii or not, were most certainly swayed and influenced by what these anti-gambling groups had to say.

Hawaii has always been known as not only a holiday spot, but a place where families can take a vacation. There are those who feel that should gambling be legalized for the Hawaiian Islands, then it would detract from the family friendly aspect of the place, as well as detract from the natural beauty of the location as a popular vacation spot.

Financially, the lawmakers did not come up with another solution that would help to pad out Hawaii’s bank accounts. The potential amount of revenue, from land based gambling alone, could have meant an income of more than $500 million for the Hawaiian state, around $90 million of which would have been revenue from taxation. The amount of possible revenue would have jumped had online gambling’s income been added to this equation too. There would have been many potential jobs added to the job market had the state legalized gambling. However, this was not to be at this time.