USA Casinos

In this section of our site we are going to publish the opinions that various people have formed about the online casino prohibition act. We will give articles covering the industry’s past and future possibilities, as well. Most of the content to this page is granted by Simon Packard and Amy Wilson.

Online Casino Sites Raise Stakes in Europe as U.S. Implements Ban

Oct. 25 (Bloomberg) -- The biggest online poker company in the world, PartyGaming Plc, suffered a 75 percent profit reduction when it was forced to close its sites in the US to meet the terms of a new law restricting Internet gambling. However it hasn’t shaken Chief Executive Officer Mitch Garber’s confidence.

On a conference which was led on Oct. 20 Garber presented the strategy of Gibraltar-based company for international extension and alleged that "the European Union is run in a way that favors our business."

The lawyers of U.K., Italy and Belgium tend to control Internet gambling, rather than ban it, as players’ interest to the Web increases. The EU compels countries to protect national companies starting to run their business. On Oct. 12, regulators told participants like Austria and France to stop attacking worldwide casinos and bookmakers.

The changes may open U.S. gamblers more opportunities to escape the ban on Internet wagers at home, declares a professor at the Institute for the Study of Gambling and Commercial Gaming at the University of Nevada at Reno , William Eadington.

He asserts: "A sub-industry in circumventing the rules will evolve", reminding us the fail of Prohibition, which has forbidden the sale of alcoholic beverages in the beginning of the XX-th century. American casino players may be pushed into a market that’s in the hands of Europeans."

Next year Italy will permit companies perform online bingo, lotteries and betting on sports or games of skill. The U.K. will start the process of legalization of online casino sites in September. Belgium is planning changes in its legislation too, and private companies are already permitted to provide sports gambling in Austria .

U.S. Revenue

The largest gambling companies of the Internet experienced a $7 billion drop of market value in a day after Congress approved legislation on Sept. 30 to prohibit credit-card firms gaining taxes from online bettors. The law was signed on Oct. 13 by U.S. President George W. Bush.

PartyGaming stock has drop 75% to 27 pence since the law was adopted.

One of the biggest online casinos in the world, 888 Holdings Plc, receives about half of its profit from abroad and was more successful than many of its competitors. Shares of 888 Holdings Plc, which is also placed in Gibraltar , have fallen 35% to 93.5 pence.

The share of the U.S. in the $12 billion Internet casino market was roughly a half in the last year. The global market is expected to double to $24 billion by 2010.

"Regulation, Not Prohibition"

A market forecaster at UBS AG in London, Julian Easthope, asserts it’s too early to predict which companies will be able to benefit from online casino business opportunities in Europe because the policy in still developing. The EU’s online casino market is roughly evaluated at $70 billion.

Experts say that those European countries that prefer regulate rather than prohibit are going to benefit in the current situation.

Still there remain pockets of resistance. In Germany all private online betting companies are going to be banned and the government’s betting domination in nearly all forms of gambling is to extend and flourish.