US Regulated Online Gambling May be Dealt with by States

February 13, 2010 | News Category: Gaming Law

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The United States has moved very slowly with recent discussions regarding important legislation. Financial reform, and the issues surrounding health care have not yet been resolved. Many are waiting, not so patiently, for Barney Frank’s online gambling bills to be debated by Congress, yet it is quite unclear how long this wait will be. With gridlocks over essential issues, such as health and finances, it does not seem that likely that the online gambling bill will be dealt with in the very near future.

However, all is not lost, as far as Internet gambling is concerned. It looks like individual states may not wait for Congress to make a nationwide decision, and will move forward towards legalizing online gambling within their own states. States can do so by intrastate laws, without waiting for reform on a national level.

One such state is New Jersey. The state of New Jersey’s lawmakers are in the process of considering a bill regarding statewide online gambling. The bill that they are examining is one that would let Atlantic City land based casinos operate online casinos. Should the state law allow this, then these online casinos will allow only players from within the state’s borders to play.

California has considered a similar idea, which has already been seen by the Californian state legislature, however, the bills have not progressed because of the great influence of the tribal casinos in that area.

Delaware and Pennsylvania have both shown that they would be interested in considering the expansion of gambling in their states which would benefit their states financially. Florida, too, has shown much interest, and has checked out the potential revenue that could be found if online gambling is regulated in their state. Florida went as far a commissioning a study to obtain this information.

The Chairman of iMEGA, Joe Brennan, Jr., said: "If New Jersey is successful [with online gaming] you will see Pennsylvania, Delaware, Connecticut, New York and some other states introduce some level of gaming." He continued to note, "It’s very likely that you will see New Jersey legalize it within a year."

There are a large number or foreign online casino operators that are hoping to get in on the action if the United States legalizes online gambling on a national level. However, they see that this may not happen as soon as they had hoped, and will work with whatever is available to them in order to get a foot in the door of this excellent online gambling market. Many of these companies are preparing for possible entry into the US by creating software that can easily be adapted to changing, or different, regulations and laws, such as are likely to be found in the United States, as each state is likely to retain a fair amount of power over their own online gambling.