Nevada Pushes Forward With Online Gambling Bill

New Jersey has failed but Iowa, California and Florida are continuing to propose bills that would legalise online gambling in those states. Nevada has become the latest state to produce a bill which would see it join the online gaming club. There are subtle differences between the ways each state would like to implement the system but all agree that this is going to happen eventually so why not be ready now.

Before Chris Christie’s veto of the New Jersey bill it had been suggested that the network infrastructure could be implemented in such as way as to facilitate betting between states that implemented the legalisation bills. For the moment single states can only legalise within their own boundaries, referred to as intrastate betting.

Nevada is the first state in which the bill expressly implies that there could be a possibility of linking to other states with similar progressive gambling laws. Once again this raises the spectre of bypassing federal gaming laws completely. The Nevada bill also raises the interesting possibility of a battle between the land-based casinos (who don’t want online gambling) and the legislators in their home state.

Online Gambling Revenues Continue To Rise

If Nevada and the other states needed any encouragement that regulation and legalisation of online gambling was the right thing to do, they need look no further than a recent report by Global Betting and Gaming Consultants that suggest global revenue has increased 12% in the past year and that the increases will continue for at least the next decade.

In money terms the industry is now worth almost $30 billion per year and this of course is without U.S. revenues. America was the largest market until the UIGEA poked its unwanted head around the corner in 2006 and banned online betting. Sports betting makes up the biggest contribution but poker and bingo are also major revenue makers.



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