The biggest change in the gaming industry over the past decade has been the introduction of internet wagering. While it started out as a grey area in all regions, it soon became legal in most European and Caribbean countries.
Illegal online casinos targeted the docile U.S. market until the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act codified crimes and penalties in 2006. But when a Department of Justice memo in late 2011 defined the limits of the Wire Act of 1962, which had been the bedrock of online gaming prohibition, it opened the door to many opportunities in the U.S. market. The memo said only online sports betting is completely prohibited, but legal online gaming within individual state borders isn’t considered a crime.
So, starting with Nevada, states began to opt into a legal online gaming industry. Delaware soon followed, but it wasn’t until New Jersey signed up earlier this year that a state with any “critical mass” became involved in online gaming.
Like all gaming expansion, online gaming will proceed in a domino effect. We’ve already seen interest from states such as Iowa, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and the granddaddy of all states, California. It’s only a matter of time before they see the advantages of offering a type of wagering that is already being enjoyed by their citizens.
At Global Gaming Business, we’ve been covering the development of online gaming for many years now. In 2010, we established our “iGames” section dedicated to the news of online gaming. We covered the success of online gaming in Europe and the Caribbean, the regulatory and political issues, and the legal morass that surrounded the industry in the U.S. during those years, as well as the American response to illegal wagering happening within its borders.
But with the prospects for full legalization, either on a federal level or state-by-state, we are expanding our coverage to examine the “nuts and bolts” of how online gaming will work in the U.S. in either scenario. Every month, we’ll present a major feature about online gaming and one of the issues that you must understand if you are to be successful. Payment processing, security features, identification verification, online marketing, affiliate marketing and more.
In addition, we’ll include columns about online gaming. Each month, the partners who operate the leading online gaming conference in the U.S., iGaming North America, will write a column, and of course, the extensive “iGames” news roundup will keep everyone up to date on the subject. We’ll talk about how the lotteries are the land-based gaming industry’s biggest challenge in the online gaming world. We’ll discuss the legal trends, interstate compacts, and the technology that will solve many of the problems that have faced the online gaming industry over the past decade.
And we’ve increased the frequency of our online gaming newsletter, GGB iGames, so if you haven’t signed up for that, please do at GGBiGames.com.
While this may have been the biggest change in the industry over the past 10 years, there are still many casino executives who haven’t grappled with the issue yet because of the fact that it has been illegal. They haven’t given it one moment of thought, because they have enough legal and operational issues on their plates to consider.
But that is going to change rapidly. Every state in the next few years will at least have to consider online gaming and what it would mean for the state. While land-based gaming executives still won’t consider it a priority—and they certainly won’t even open a magazine whose only theme is online gaming—they now understand that it’s a part of the industry that they’ll have to learn about and understand. We’ll show them in GGB what is important to know and present it to them in easy-to-understand language, as we do with all our subjects in the magazine.
So once again, GGB will be the only trade magazine that gaming executives need to read to learn the news, trends and latest developments of any segment of the gaming world. GGB is dedicated to educating executives on these new trends, and we are also committed to providing companies with online gaming solutions the access to these executives that they won’t find in any other gaming trade magazine. So why consider any other source in the industry?
GGB provides the answers.
