In recent years, we have been witness to significant changes in the US gambling landscape. For years, online gamblers needed to battle with the consequences of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006, which virtually dried up the market of any top quality operators and cast a pall on the once thriving industry. Throughout those years, many efforts were made to change online gambling laws at a federal level by noted lawmakers such as Barney Frank, who believed that the only way to go for the industry was through legislation and regulation. Unfortunately, due to the lack of bipartisan approval, these federal bills never become a reality.
A few years ago, individual states started examining the option of legalizing online gambling on an intra-state basis, essentially regulating their own markets, licensing their own operators and reaping the rewards through licensing fees and taxation.
A 2011 Court of Appeals ruling that the Federal Wire Act only applies to sports betting fueled states such as Nevada to take matters into their own hands and in the same year Nevada began to create a framework that would allow the legalization of internet gambling. Soon afterwards, a bill was passed, giving the state’s gambling authorities the right to start a licensing process and over the last few months, scores of licenses have been provided. In February 2013, Bill AB114 was passed by the Assembly and Senate of Nevada and signed into law by governor Brian Sandoval on the same day, allowing residents to play across borders at other states approved by Nevada.
While Nevada still needs to sign cross border contracts with other states, the framework is in place to see this become a reality if the governor wants to take action without the need for federal permission.
At the end of April, 2013, the first legal online poker site, offering play for money, went live at Station Casinos with UltimatePoker.com.
While Nevada is the first state to go live with an authorized online gambling site, it still faces competition from two other states – Delaware and New Jersey.
New Jersey’s Governor Chris Christie finally signed a bill into law earlier this year (after vetoing a similar one last year), allowing casinos in the struggling Atlantic City region to offer online gambling. In this case, New Jersey has one up on Nevada in that it has not limited its online gambling offering to just poker. In addition, New Jersey has a much bigger player pool than Nevada with its larger number of residents.
Delaware, quite wisely believing that it would lose its gambling public to the online gambling platforms in New Jersey, has also moved forward since May 2012, when it passed House Bill 333, allowing online betting, including sports betting and other types of wagering. At present, only racetrack casino operators are allowed to hold licenses as internet gambling operators.
There is no doubt that as competition heats up on a state level, more and more states, especially California and Illinois, will seek to enter the race and pass their own online gambling laws.